LocalGlobe

Continuing our dinner series at our home Phoenix Court, last week Jean-Michel Lemieux, the former CTO of Shopify joined us in conversation with George Henry in which he shared a behind-the-scenes look at what went into building the giants Atlassian and Shopify and how these companies became global champions from outside Silicon Valley. 🚀 We brought together over 30 great founders and operators across our portfolio and network, from Product, Tech, Marketing, Ops and beyond, to meet, connect and share reflections on building some of the most exciting companies in Europe. 🤝 It was great to have leaders from 11x.ai, Automata, Avant Arte, Axiom, Blue Light Card, Deliveroo, Eleven Labs, FACEIT Ltd, Faculty, Granola, KareHero, Medusa, Meta, Motorway, Onfido, Picnic Technologies, Pixaera, Puzzle Ventures, REKKI, Sylvera, Threecolts, TravelPerk, Tunic Pay and Wise in the room! 🙌 We regularly bring together ambitious people, building exciting companies (or just thinking about it!), for great conversations - if you’d like to join us for a similar dinner at Phoenix Court soon, let us know via the form in the comments below. 🍽️

Congratulazioni Cubbit, Auguri Ferdinando Sigona! 🇮🇹

UK venture capital has caught up with that of the US, at the early stage.  But we should be even more ambitious, with a powerful cohort of thoroughbred companies emerging here. 🇬🇧 As Saul Klein says: “We have the potential to be the world’s best innovation economy. We need to double-down. If we are just interested in being as good as the US, you are basically saying we don’t want to lead the world.” Thanks to David Wighton for this thoughtful piece on the economic opportunity the UK’s innovation economy now offers to build national, regional and global champions.  https://lnkd.in/eF4QAgqn

The results are in: explosive growth in 2024 means European tech is on track for one of its best years yet and the UK has come out on top according to new Dealroom.co data. European tech's relentless pursuit of innovation means that: 💰VC investment came in at £7.4bn so far this year, up 16% from 2023 📈1,450 startups have raised at least £1.5M or more across Europe already this year 💡Late stage had one of its strongest quarters, thanks to mega rounds for fintech, energy and AI companies 🐎 As our co-COO Catherine Lenson told City AM: “As late stage funding returns to Europe and in particular to New Palo Alto, the supercluster of innovation ecosystems, we’re seeing a surge of thoroughbred companies – boasting strong revenues and incredible potential.” https://lnkd.in/d9KEqYUG 

Great to see our co-COO, Catherine Lenson, quoted in Sifted's newsletter today. "Closing this scaleup gap isn't just about catching up with Silicon Valley; it's about harnessing a massive economic opportunity to accelerate this country’s growth and prosperity,” she said. At Phoenix Court we know the UK has many innovative businesses ready to scale. Our mission across all our funds -  LocalGlobe, Latitude, Solar and Basecamp - is to support exceptional founding teams to help them reach their full potential and drive the nation's economic growth. We’ve been working with founders, policy makers and the country’s biggest asset allocators to do this. The work continues 🚀 https://lnkd.in/eihkjFgX

At Phoenix Court we’re committed to facilitating the UK’s incredible innovation sector. That’s why we’ve signed the Startup Manifesto, published today by Startup Coalition. There’s never been a more important time to get behind the founders and startups that have the potential to become national, regional and global tech champions. 🏆

Direct Air Capture (DAC) is hard. It's hard to find the right technology for it. It's slow and costly to scale. It has no co-benefits. The buyer pool for it is too small. Or so we thought. Read here how Thoralf Gutierrez, Gauthier LIMPENS and their team put these concerns to bed, and why we're thrilled to officially welcome Sirona Technologies to the LocalGlobe family today. We're excited to co-lead this €6m seed round with our friends XAnge, and with support from Look Up Ventures, Satgana, VOYAGERS.io, Syndicate One, Renaud Visage and Bernard Hazard. Coverage: 🔹 Sifted -> https://lnkd.in/ekCyseXj 🔹 Tech.eu -> https://lnkd.in/ewf4tcp2 🔹 Maddyness -> https://lnkd.in/eBSkkJtU 🔹 De Standaard -> https://lnkd.in/eGzRTK6e 🔹 L'Echo -> https://lnkd.in/eqUwR7pY 🔹 De Tijd -> https://lnkd.in/ez8cz_Du 🔹 Le Libre -> https://lnkd.in/eZ9gZbF3 https://lnkd.in/e7zsbQuB

There is ambition and then there is Sirona Technologies :) LocalGlobe is thrilled and honoured to join Thoralf Gutierrez, Gauthier LIMPENS and their team on their inspiring mission. Belgium is fortunate to have such a talented and ambitious team building a "moonshot project" on home soil. To all the most talented Belgian engineers abroad who are homesick, go check them out - they are hiring (link in comment)! Go Sirona, Go Belgium, Go Europe! cc Ferdinando Sigona

Always great to see our Catherine Lenson on stage!