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Marie Ekeland launches 2050, a new fund with radically ambitious, long-term goals

Published November 24, 2020

Marie Ekeland has unveiled her next act — and it’s a new fund called 2050. But it’s not your average French VC fund, as it’s going to be an evergreen fund focused on building a better world. It sounds ambitious, but Ekeland isn’t just daydreaming — she has a detailed action plan.

If you’re not familiar with Marie Ekeland, she used to be an investor at French VC firm Elaia. She invested in adtech firm Criteo, which later became a public company in the U.S. She is also one of the founding members of France Digitale, the main startup lobby in France.

More recently, she co-founded Daphni, her own VC firm. While she’s no longer involved with Daphni’s day-to-day activities, she still follows her own investments in Daphni’s first fund. Her investments include Shine, Swile, Holberton School and Lifen.

Société Générale is acquiring freelancer challenger bank Shine

With 2050, Ekeland is going back to the drawing board with a different vision when it comes to investment thesis, fund structure and the firm’s own values.

“Investment is self-fulfilling,” Ekeland told me. “When you invest in this company instead of that one, you’re shaping the future of society.”

During our lengthy discussion, it became quite clear that Ekeland both suffers from tech fatigue and also still believes she can have a positive impact through her investments.

Let’s start with the investment thesis. 2050 wants to focus on five fundamental areas — the future of food, better healthcare, improving education, shaping a sustainable lifestyle and fostering trust in the media and financial institutions.

As the name suggests, 2050 has a lot of time to think about these issues. The firm is willing to invest over the long haul. But if an entrepreneur wants to sell their company, that’s OK too. The idea is that there shouldn’t be any time frame pressure.

With traditional VC firms, limited partners invest in a fund and expect returns 10 years later. That’s why most VC funds have to sell their positions within eight to 10 years. It could lead to some pressure to go public, get acquired or find other investors to buy back previous investors.

So how do you remove short-term financial pressure from investment firms? 2050 is a fonds de pérennité, which works a bit like a trust fund, a mission-driven fund.

As an evergreen fund, investors in 2050 can invest whenever they want. Regularly, 2050 will open up liquidity distribution windows. It means that existing investors will be able to sell their positions in 2050. New investors will purchase those positions.

“What we’re doing is quite innovative, so we’re learning by doing,” Ekeland said. 2050 is still expecting regulatory approvals from France’s financial regulator AMF. In the meantime, 2050 has already participated in Withings’ latest funding round. Along with Ekeland, Anne-Lise Bance, Aicha Ben Dhia, Charly Berthet, Meyha Camara and Aude Duprat have already joined the team.

2050 also plans to dedicate 10% of investments in the fund and 50% of the team’s carried interest for digital commons. Arguably, this is the most interesting part of 2050. It proves that the team is committed to its vision beyond blog posts.

Withings raises $60 million to bridge the gap between consumer tech and healthcare providers

For instance, 2050 will contribute to Université Paris Dauphine’s class on the ecological challenges of the 21st century. The idea is to share that class as broadly as possible under an open license.

Some key concepts will be turned into actionable items for entrepreneurs. If you browse the business book section of your local bookshop, chances are you’ll see a ton of books about building a startup, growing as fast as possible and not paying attention to structural damage.

By investing in (often underfunded) knowledge, 2050 could share a different kind of actionable items with its portfolio companies and the tech ecosystem at large. Other investments in common could include infrastructure investments that help everyone, or mutualized research.

Tech isn’t just about building companies. Public institutions, individuals and nonprofit organizations also have a say in the tech ecosystem. And I’m glad to see that 2050 understands that tech investment isn’t just about financing private companies. It’s such an important shift and I hope other investors will follow suit.

Learn how to access funding for your startup at TC Sessions: Space 2020

Published November 24, 2020

Building tech startups takes cash — and lots of it. But when you’re talking space startups, you’re talking galactic-level money. Costs blast right through Earth’s exosphere and become, literally, astronomical. If space is your jam, you’re going to need financial help, and you’ll learn where and how to access it at TC Sessions Space 2020 (December 16-17).

Set your transporter coordinates for our Fast Money breakout sessions. You’ll hear presentations from leading space accelerators and funding programs. You’ll learn how to access grant money and — wait for it — you can schedule individual appointments with representatives from each program.

PSA: Don’t have a pass yet? We’re offering a BOGO deal. Buy one Late Registration ticket for $175 and get one free. You and a colleague pay just $87.50 each — that’s less than the early-bird price. Buy your passes before this deal ends on Sunday, November 29, at 11:59 p.m. PST.

Attend these Fast Money breakout sessions and then use CrunchMatch to schedule private meetings with program reps:

Fast Money — Space Force Innovation Ecosystem: The USSF wants to partner with innovative non-traditional companies as we look to build out the space architecture of the future. Come learn how to join us. Major Ryan Pennington, Deputy, Space Force Ventures, SMC Space Ventures.
Fast Money — The Space Force Accelerators: Learn how the Hyperspace Challenge, Catalyst Space Accelerator and other government accelerators can connect you to the U.S. Space Force. Gabe Mounce, Director, Space Force Accelerators, Air Force Research Laboratory.
Fast Money — Working with the Army to Operationalize Science for Transformational Overmatch: Learn about DEVCOM Army Research Laboratory and the xTech Program of prize competitions that accelerate innovative solutions that can help solve Army challenges. Peter Khooshabeh, Regional Lead, DEVCOM, ARL West.
Fast Money — Advancing Space Technology with NASA SBIR: Learn about the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and the Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs powered by NASA. Jenn Gustetic, Early Stage Innovations and Partnerships Program Director, NASA HQ Space Technology Mission Directorate.
Fast Money — NAVWAR SBIR/STTR Primer: The SBIR/STTR is a robust program designed to help small businesses address government needs while promoting commercialization. This session is dedicated to providing a primer on the program with tips on getting involved and getting engaged with the Naval Information Warfare Systems Command (NAVWAR). Shadi Azoum, Small Business Innovation Research & Rapid Innovation Fund Program Manager, Naval Information Warfare Systems Command.
Fast Money — Introduction to In-Q-Tel’s investing activities in the commercial space sector: In-Q-Tel is a strategic investment firm that works with the national security community of the United States. For 20 years, In-Q-Tel has served one mission: to deliver the most sophisticated strategic technical knowledge and capabilities to the U.S. government and its allies through its unique investment model. Over the past decade, In-Q-Tel has been one of the most active investors in the commercial space sector, with a broad investment thesis that touches many aspects of the sector. This session will provide an overview of In-Q-Tel as a whole, as well as a discussion of the firm’s activities in the commercial space sector. Tom Gillespie, Managing Partner and Investment lead for In-Q-Tel’s Field Technologies Practice.
Fast Money – Enabling a dual-use business model with Defense Innovation Unit (DIU)

Explore all the TC Sessions: Space presentations in the event agenda and start planning your schedule now. And don’t sweat any conflicts — with VOD, you can catch anything you miss at your convenience.

Learn how to find and access the funding to fuel your space startup. Don’t miss the Fast Money breakouts at TC Sessions: Space 2020. And get your buy-one-get-one-free ticket before our week-long Black Friday sale ends Sunday, November 29, at 11:59 p.m. PST.

Is your company interested in sponsoring TC Sessions: Space 2020? Click here to talk with us about available opportunities.

Decrypted: Apple and Facebook’s privacy feud, Twitter hires Mudge, mysterious zero-days

Published November 24, 2020

Trump’s election denialism saw him retaliate in a way that isn’t just putting the remainder of his presidency in jeopardy, it’s already putting the next administration in harm’s way.

In a stunning display of retaliation, Trump fired CISA director Chris Krebs last week after declaring that there was “no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes or was in any way compromised,” a direct contradiction to the conspiracy-fueled fever dreams of the president who repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that the election had been hijacked by the Democrats. CISA is left distracted by disarray, with multiple senior leaders leaving their posts — some walked, some were pushed — only for the next likely chief to stumble before he even starts because of concerns with his security clearance.

Until yesterday, Biden’s presidential transition team was stuck in cybersecurity purgatory because the incumbent administration refused to trigger the law that grants the incoming team access to government resources, including cybersecurity protections. That’s left the incoming president exposed to ongoing cyber threats, all while being shut out from classified briefings that describe those threats in detail.

As Biden builds his team, Silicon Valley is also gearing up for a change in government — and temperament. But don’t expect too much of the backlash to change. Much of the antitrust allegations, privacy violations and net neutrality remain hot button issues, and the tech titans resorting to cheap “charm offenses” are likely to face the music under the Biden administration — whether they like it or not.

Here’s more from the week.

THE BIG PICTURE

Apple and Facebook spar over privacy — again

Apple and Facebook are back in the ring, fighting over which company is a bigger existential threat to privacy. In a letter to a privacy rights group, Apple said its new anti-tracking feature will launch next year, which will give users the choice of blocking in-app tracking, a move that’s largely expected to cause havoc to the online advertising industry and data brokers.

Given an explicit option between being tracked and not, as the feature will do, most are expected to decline.

Apple’s letter specifically called out Facebook for showing a “disregard for user privacy.” Facebook, which made more than 98% of its global revenue last year from advertising, took its own potshot back at Apple, claiming the iPhone maker was “using their dominant market position to self-preference their own data collection, while making it nearly impossible for their competitors to use the same data.”

Fortnite adds a $12 monthly subscription bundle

Published November 24, 2020

Fortnite’s free to play model has no doubt been a big driver in the battle royale title’s stratospheric success. Epic clearly hasn’t had much issue monetizing the game. While revenue slipped last year, it still managed to pull in a massive windfall of $1.8 billion (down from an even more staggering $2.4 billion).

The company has had no shortage of investments, though it could always use some extra cash for…reasons.

Today, the publisher announced a new model designed to deliver reoccurring payments, in addition to its standard micro transactions — offering up a discount on some of its virtual wares in the process.

The $11.99 monthly Fortnite Crew fee entitles players to a full season battle pass, 1,000 monthly bucks and a Crew Pack featuring an exclusive outfit bundle. The monthly fee adds up — as monthly fees do. It’s certainly significantly pricier than just going in for the standard battle pass, which runs a couple of bucks less and generally lasts a few months or so. Ditto for a 1,000 V-Bucks, which run around $8.

The plan will launch December 2, along Chapter 2, Season 5 of the game. The first pack includes a Galaxia outfit. It’s a space-themed suit that also includes a unicorn-head pickaxe. Content from popular properties like the Star Wars series “The Mandalorian” may also be on the horizon, as well. Certainly exclusive access to well-known IP would go a ways toward sweetening the appeal of yet another monthly subscription.

Epic Games founder Tim Sweeney likens fight against Apple to fight for civil rights

HMBradley raises $18.25 million planting a flag as LA’s entrant into the challenger bank business

Published November 24, 2020

With $90 million in deposits and $18.25 million in new financing, HMBradley is making moves as the Los Angeles-based entrant into the challenger bank competition.

LA is home to a growing community of financial services startups, and HMBradley is quickly taking its place among the leaders with a novel twist on the banking business.

Unlike most banking startups that woo customers with easy credit and savvy online user interfaces, HMBradley is pitching a better savings account.

The company offers up to 3% interest on its savings accounts, much higher than most banks these days, and it’s that pitch that has won over consumers and investors alike, according to the company’s co-founder and chief executive, Zach Bruhnke.

With climbing numbers on the back of limited marketing, Bruhnke said raising the company’s latest round of financing was a breeze.

“They knew after the first call that they wanted to do it,” Brunke said of the negotiations with the venture capital firm Acrew, a venture firm whose previous exposure to fintech companies included backing the challenger bank phenomenon which is Chime . “It was a very different kind of fundraise for us. Our seed round was a terrible, treacherous 16-month fundraise,” Brunke said.

For Acrew’s part, the company actually had to call Chime’s founder to ensure that the company was okay with the venture firm backing another entrant into the banking business. Once the approval was granted, Brunke said the deal was smooth sailing.

Acrew, Chime and HMBradley’s founders see enough daylight between the two business models that investing in one wouldn’t be a conflict of interest with the other. And there’s plenty of space for new entrants in the banking business, Bruhnke said. “It’s a very, very large industry as a whole,” he said.

As the company grows its deposits, Bruhnke said there will be several ways it can leverage its capital. That includes commercial lending on the back end of HMBradley’s deposits and other financial services offerings to grow its base.

For now, it’s been wooing consumers with one-click credit applications and the high interest rates it offers to its various tiers of savers.

“When customers hit that 3% tier they get really excited,” Bruhnke said. “If you’re saving money and you’re not saving to HMBradley then you’re losing money.”

The money that HMBradley raised will be used to continue rolling out its new credit product and hiring staff. It already poached the former director of engineering at Capital One, Ben Coffman, and fintech thought leader Saira Rahman, the company said.

The tale of 2 challenger bank models

In October, the company said, deposits doubled month-over-month and transaction volume has grown to over $110 million since it launched in April.

Since launching the company’s cash back credit card in July, HMBradley has been able to pitch customers on 3% cash back for its highest tier of savers — giving them the option to earn 3.5% on their deposits.

The deposit and lending capabilities the company offers are possible because of its partnership with the California-based Hatch Bank, the company said.

Proxyclick visitor management system adapts to COVID as employee check-in platform

Published November 24, 2020

Proxyclick began life by providing an easy way to manage visitors in your building with an iPad-based check-in system. As the pandemic has taken hold, however, customer requirements have changed, and Proxyclick is changing with them. Today the company announced Proxyclick Flow, a new system designed to check in employees during the time of COVID.

“Basically when COVID hit, our customers told us that actually our employees are the new visitors. So what you used to ask your visitors, you are now asking your employees — the usual probing questions, but also when are you coming and so forth. So we evolved the offering into a wider platform,” Proxyclick co-founder and CEO Gregory Blondeau explained.

That means instead of managing a steady flow of visitors — although it can still do that — the company is focusing on the needs of customers who want to open their offices on a limited basis during the pandemic, based on local regulations. To help adapt the platform for this purpose, the company developed the Proovr smartphone app, which employees can use to check in prior to going to the office, complete a health checklist, see who else will be in the office and make sure the building isn’t over capacity.

Proxyclick raises $15M Series B for its visitor management platform

When the employee arrives at the office, they get a temperature check, and then can use the QR code issued by the Proovr app to enter the building via Proxyclick’s check-in system or whatever system they have in place. Beyond the mobile app, the company has designed the system to work with a number of adjacent building management and security systems so that customers can use it in conjunction with existing tooling.

They also beefed up the workflow engine that companies can adapt based on their own unique entrance and exit requirements. The COVID workflow is simply one of those workflows, but Blondeau recognizes not everyone will want to use the exact one they have provided out of the box, so they designed a flexible system.

“So the challenge was technical on one side to integrate all the systems, and afterwards to group workflows on the employee’s smartphone, so that each organization can define its own workflow and present it on the smartphone,” Blondeau said.

Once in the building, the systems registers your presence and the information remains on the system for two weeks for contact tracing purposes should there be an exposure to COVID. You check out when you leave the building, but if you forget, it automatically checks you out at midnight.

The company was founded in 2010 and has raised $18.5 million. The most recent raise was a $15 million Series B in January.

Can employers mandate COVID-19 testing?

Mobile banking app Current raises $131M Series C, tops 2 million members

Published November 24, 2020

U.S. challenger bank Current, which has doubled its member base in less than six months, announced this morning it raised $131 million in Series C funding, led by Tiger Global Management. The additional financing brings Current to over $180 million in total funding to date, and gives the company a valuation of $750 million.

The round also brought in new investors Sapphire Ventures and Avenir. Existing investors returned for the Series C, as well, including Foundation Capital, Wellington Management Company and QED.

Current began as a teen debit card controlled by parents, but expanded to offer personal checking accounts last year, using the same underlying banking technology. The service today competes with a range of mobile banking apps, offering features like free overdrafts, no minimum balance requirements, faster direct deposits, instant spending notifications, banking insights, check deposits using your phone’s camera and other now-standard baseline features for challenger banks.

In August 2020, Current debuted a points rewards program in an effort to better differentiate its service from the competition, which as of this month now includes Google Pay.

Google Pay gets a major redesign with a new emphasis on personal finance

When Current raised its Series B last fall, it had over 500,000 accounts on its service. Today, it touts over 2 million members. Revenue has also grown, increasing by 500% year-over-year, the company noted today.

“We have seen a demonstrated need for access to affordable banking with a best-in-class mobile solution that Current is uniquely suited to provide,” said Current founder and CEO Stuart Sopp, in a statement about the fundraise. “We are committed to building products specifically to improve the financial outcomes of the millions of hard-working Americans who live paycheck to paycheck, and whose needs are not being properly served by traditional banks. With this new round of funding we will continue to expand on our mission, growth and innovation to find more ways to get members their money faster, help them spend it smarter and help close the financial inequality gap,” he added.

The additional funds will be used to further develop and expand Current’s mobile banking offerings, the company says.

Mobile banking app Current raises $20M Series B, tops half a million users

3 new $100M ARR club members and a call for the next generation of growth-stage startups

Published November 24, 2020

Time flies.

It was nearly a year ago that The Exchange started keeping tabs on startups that managed to reach $100 million in annual recurring revenue, or ARR. Our goal was to determine which unicorns were more than paper horses so we could keep tabs on upcoming IPO targets.

We found that Bill.com, Asana, WalkMe and Druva were impressively large and growing nicely. Since then two of the four companies from that post have gone public.

GitLab, Egnyte, Braze and O’Reilly Media joined the club before 2019 was even closed, with two of those companies taking part in the recent Disrupt conference, talking about how they managed their historical growth.

In early 2020 we added Sisense, Siteminder, Monday.com and Lemonade to the club, wrote about ExtraHop’s path to $100 million ARR, Cloudinary’s epic growth sans external capital, Siteminder’s own records and BounceX reaching $100 million ARR while it rebranded to Wunderkind.

As the year rolled along, MetroMile, Tricentis, Kaltura and Diligent joined the club. As did Recorded Future, ON24 and ActiveCampaign. There were even more names: Movable Ink, Noom, Riskified, Seismic, ThoughtSpot, along with Snow Software, A Cloud Guru, Zeta Global and Upgrade.

Today we have three more names to add to the group: UserTesting, Udemy’s business arm and Expensify. But, more than merely adding those companies to the mix — more after the jump — I wanted to shake up our radar a bit as we head into 2021.

Yes, The Exchange will keep tabs on startups and other private companies that reach $100 million in ARR, or annual run rate, as the case may be. But next year we also want to find the startups around $50 million ARR that are growing like hell. We want to go a year or two earlier in growth histories to better watch how startups scale into nine-figure revenues, instead of hearing about it after the fact.

So, if you are a startup that is expanding aggressively and will reach the $50 million revenue mark inside the next quarter or two, please say hello. I suspect a good cut of the global unicorn market could fit this bill, and therefore might provide a window into which highly valued startups are growing into their valuations.

The Exchange explores startups, markets and money. Read it every morning on Extra Crunch, or get The Exchange newsletter every Saturday.

It’s going to be fun. Now, let’s quickly chat about the latest members of the $100 million ARR club.

UserTesting, Expensify and Udemy’s business arm

You’ve heard of each of our $100 million ARR companies this morning, so there’s less need for prelude and introduction. Here’s the group:

Expensify

Expensify is an expense-tracking company well-known around the technology world, so it’s no real surprise that it has reached the $100 million ARR threshold, a feat it announced yesterday.

But the company did us one better than merely dropping a single data point and racing back into the shadows. Instead, Expensify also disclosed that it has “maintained profitability for years [and] recorded its highest monthly revenue ever in October.”

Altana raises $7M to protect supply chains from disruptions, child labor

Published November 24, 2020

Supply chains used to be one of those magical elements of capitalism that seemed to be designed by Apple: they just worked. Minus the occasional salmonella outbreak in your vegetable aisle, we could go about our daily consumer lives never really questioning how our fast-fashion clothes, tech gadgets and medical supplies actually got to our shelves or homes.

Of course, a lot has changed over the past few years. Anti-globalization sentiment has grown as a political force, driving governments like the United States and the United Kingdom to renegotiate free trade agreements and attempt to onshore manufacturing while disrupting the trade status quo. Meanwhile, the COVID-19 pandemic placed huge stress on supply chains — with some entirely breaking in the process.

In short, supply chain managers suddenly went from one of those key functions that no one wants to think about, to one of those key functions that everyone thinks about all the time.

While these specialists have access to huge platforms from companies like Oracle and SAP, they need additional intelligence to understand where these supply chains could potentially break. Are there links in the supply chain that might be more brittle than at first glance? Are there factories in the supply chain that are on alert lists for child labor or environmental violations? What if government trade policy shifts — are we at risk of watching products sit in a cargo container at a port?

Free tool helps manufacturers map where COVID-19 impacts supply chain

New York-headquartered Altana wants to be that intelligence layer for supply chain management, bringing data and machine learning to bear against the complexity of modern capitalism. Today, the company announced that it has raised $7 million in seed financing led by Anne Glover of London-based Amadeus Capital Partners.

The three founders of the startup, CEO Evan Smith, CTO Peter Swartz and COO Raphael Tehranian, all worked together on Panjiva, a global supply chain platform that was founded in 2006, funded by Battery Ventures a decade ago, and sold to S&P Global in early 2018. Panjiva’s goal was to build a “graph” of supply chains that would offer intelligence to managers.

That direct experience informs Altana’s vision, which in many ways is the same as Panjiva’s but perhaps revamped using newer technology and data science. Again, Altana wants to build a supply chain knowledge graph, provide intelligence to managers and create better resilience.

The difference has to do with data. “What we continually found when we were in the data sales business was that you are kind of stuck in that place in the value chain,” Smith said. “Your customers won’t let you touch their data, because they don’t trust you with it, and other proprietary data companies don’t let you work on and manage and transform their data.”

Instead of trying to be the central repository for all data, Altana is “operating downstream” from all of these data sources, allowing companies to build their own supply chain graphs using their own data and whatever other data sources to which they have access.

The company sells into procurement offices, which are typically managed in the CFO’s office. Today, the majority of customers for Altana are government clients such as border control, where “the task is to pick the needles out of the haystack as the ship arrives and you’ve got to pick the illicit shipments from the safe ones and actually facilitate the lawful trade,” Smith said.

The company’s executive chairman is Alan Bersin, who is a former commissioner of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency currently working as a policy consultant for Covington & Burling, which has been one of the premier law firms on trade issues like CFIUS during the Trump administration.

How tech can build more resilient supply chains

Altana allows one-off investigations and simulations, but its major product goal is to offer real-time alerts that give supply chain managers substantive visibility into changes that affect their business. For instance, rather than waiting for an annual labor or environmental audit to find issues, Altana hopes to provide predictive capabilities that allow companies to solve problems much faster than before.

In addition to Amadeus, Schematic Ventures, AlleyCorp and the Working Capital – The Supply Chain Investment Fund also participated.

5 top investors in Dutch startups discuss trends, hopes and 2020 opportunities

Published November 24, 2020

The Netherlands’ ecosystem has been flourishing; more than $85 million was invested in regional startups in 2019 alone. The nation’s proximity to the U.K., Belgium, France and Germany makes Amsterdam a natural gateway to those markets. Long ago the savvy Dutch realized this, and built up Schiphol to become the world’s twelfth-busiest airport. Indeed, Amsterdam’s logistical and social connectedness is ranked number one in DHL’s Global Connectedness Index.

Plenty of good funding rounds, a highly skilled workforce and a strong entrepreneurial culture have given Amsterdam a booming startup ecosystem. And Brexit is helping: The Dutch are highly proficient in English and Dutch law is similar to English law, which means U.K.-based tech founders are welcomed with open arms.

In 2020, the venture industry continued to invest in startups, despite the COVID-19 crisis. According to a study by KPMG and and NL Times, startups raised $591.2 million in the third quarter, more than double the $252.4 million raised in the quarter before.

For obvious reasons, this year has seen more cash go into companies that were able to adapt to the pandemic. KPMG found that while the total amount of investment increased in the past six months, the number of overall investments decreased. New startups pulled in fewer investments, KPMG sees this trend continuing and likely leading to consolidation amongst startups in similar sectors.

According to a report by Dealroom.co and StartupAmsterdam, there are 1,661 tech companies in Amsterdam, while the city ranked fifteenth in Startup Genome’s 2019 report “Global Startup Ecosystem Report,” moving up four places since 2017. The median seed round is $500,000 (above the global average of $494,000) and a median Series A round for a startup is $2.4 million. The average salary for a software engineer is around €54,000.

Amsterdam has tech industry “schools” such as Growth Tribe, The Talent Institute and THNK for educational courses, as well as accelerators like Rockstart, Startupbootcamp and Fashion for Good. Co-working is well-catered for with TQ, Startup Village and B.Amsterdam, and workers can cycle everywhere in minutes.

While taxes are high, entrepreneurs won’t find the staggering income inequality so often seen in cities like San Francisco and New York. In Amsterdam, rich people take public transport, not private buses.

During COVID-19, the Dutch government has also announced support packages such as tax deferrals, temporary employment bridging schemes and other initiatives. It also launched a national program, TechLeap.NL, to boost the ecosystem with more international investor visibility. StartupDelta, a Dutch startup lobby group, keeps the pressure on the politicians.

The Netherlands’ most famous unicorns include Booking.com, Adyen, Virtuagym, MessageBird, Swapfiets, Backbase, Picnic and Takeaway, among several others.

Adyen launched in 2006, and in June 2018, it was listed as one of Europe’s largest tech IPOs with a value of €7 billion. Booking.com started in 1996 and was later acquired by Priceline Group (now called Booking Holdings) in 2005. Elastic, the provider of subscription-based data search software used by Dell, Netflix, The New York Times and others, was another gangbuster IPO in 2018.

For this survey, we interviewed the following Amsterdam-focused investors:

• Janneke Niessen, partner, CapitalT VC

• Stefan van Duin, partner, Borski Fund

• Nick Kalliagkopoulos, partner, Prime Ventures

• Bas Godska, founder, Acrobator Ventures

• Renaat Berckmoes, partner, Fortino

Janneke Niessen, partner, CapitalT VC

What trends are you most excited about investing in, generally?
Digital health, education, B2B SaaS.

What’s your latest, most exciting investment?
Wizenoze.

Are there startups that you wish you would see in the industry but don’t? What are some overlooked opportunities right now?
More overlooked founders than opportunities.

What are you looking for in your next investment, in general?
A great team.

Which areas are either oversaturated or would be too hard to compete in at this point for a new startup? What other types of products/services are you wary or concerned about?
Delivery, taxis, scooters.

How much are you focused on investing in your local ecosystem versus other startup hubs (or everywhere) in general? More than 50%? Less?
Less.

Which industries in your city and region seem well-positioned to thrive, or not, long term? What are companies you are excited about (your portfolio or not), which founders?
NL seems well-positioned for fintech, deep tech. I am really excited about Tracy Chou and Diane Janknegt, two incredible founders.

How should investors in other cities think about the overall investment climate and opportunities in your city?
Very positive. Lots of innovation, great infrastructure, good talent.
Do you expect to see a surge in more founders coming from geographies outside major cities in the years to come, with startup hubs losing people due to the pandemic and lingering concerns, plus the attraction of remote work?
I think startups have always been there, investors just don’t tend to look at them. I think the opportunity is more that they now will.

Which industry segments that you invest in look weaker or more exposed to potential shifts in consumer and business behavior because of COVID-19? What are the opportunities startups may be able to tap into during these unprecedented times?
None. We look at digital health, education and SaaS and they all thrive in this climate. Of course an economic crisis will have an impact on spending in general.

How has COVID-19 impacted your investment strategy? What are the biggest worries of the founders in your portfolio? What is your advice to startups in your portfolio right now?
It has confirmed our approach. We have a data-driven approach to teams, which is great when people cannot meet.

Are you seeing “green shoots” regarding revenue growth, retention or other momentum in your portfolio as they adapt to the pandemic?
We invest so early that companies are growing regardless.

What is a moment that has given you hope in the last month or so? This can be professional, personal or a mix of the two.
When I explained to my little boy what racism is and he answered: Mummy that is just really weird. That gives me hope that the generations after us might do better.