Harry Nelis

Very proud to see the WVC:E dream team - Anisah Osman Britton MBE & Rachel Drapper - alongside long time friend and rockstar Ekaterina Gianelli on stage at TechBBQ discussing "Fixing the Talent Exodus in VC". Key Takeaways: 💰Impact of Consolidation on Culture and Talent: The ongoing consolidation in the VC industry is reshaping company culture, affecting morale, and influencing talent. 🚀Emerging Managers Aren’t Diversifying VC: Despite the rise of emerging managers, the industry remains largely homogenous, with many new managers still coming from the same traditional, non-diverse backgrounds. ⚠️Perceptions of Diversity as High Risk: Many in the VC industry continue to view diverse hires, investments, and business models as "high risk," "too time-consuming," or "too costly," perpetuating a cycle of exclusion. 🚼 Parental Leave Inequality: Inequities in parental leave policies are disproportionately affecting women in venture, creating additional barriers to progression. But there are funds, investors, LPs and organisations (like us!) that are trying to change this!

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✨ What founders and VCs should know about term sheets in 2024 🤝 Had a great chat with Sifted about HSBC Innovation Banking new report, in collaboration with Cooley LLP, which tracked how term sheets have changed in the past year. Glen Waters, Natasha Jones (Metris Energy) and I discussed: 🌎 International investors 💰 Secondaries (Big topic at the WVC:E Summit 2024!) 💃 Focus on DEI Link in the comments!

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I couldn’t be prouder to be a Venture Partner at Isomer Capital (aka the best European FoF - at least for me) as we just announced the launch of our pioneering £100m secondaries fund. This fund is dedicated to acquiring stakes from LPs in various VC funds, tapping into a massive and largely unexplored market. 🌟 Key Highlights: - Focused Investment: Primarily targeting stakes in VC funds, with selective investments in private companies. - Robust Funding: Already over 20% funded, thanks to strong support from Nordic family offices and a German foundation. - Market Potential: With a growing number of private tech companies and a VC liquidity crunch, Europe's VC secondaries market is poised for rapid growth. - Track Record: This isn’t Isomer’s first foray into the secondaries market. As a firm we’ve done several secondaries deals with portfolio companies and VC firms, including early-stage VC Seedcamp (in 2021) and mobility giant Bolt (in 2023). - Expert Team: Welcoming the amazing Omolade (Rachel) A., formerly of Coller Capital, as a principal to lead this initiative. 💡 Investment Strategy: - 65-75% of the fund will buy "LP interest" stakes in VC funds. - 15-25% will be directed towards stakes in companies. - Up to 15% reserved for flexible investment opportunities. 📈 Looking Ahead: We're targeting returns of 2-3x, with significant distributions expected in the next 4-7 years. As one of the few players in this space, we're not just participating in the market—we're driving it forward. Read all about it here: https://lnkd.in/dc7sbC3G #VentureCapital #SecondariesFund #EuropeanVC

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RETHINKING RETIREMENT We've been investing in the Future of Work since we launched BBG Ventures, targeting underserved segments like deskless workers (Anthill, OX) and solopreneurs (Topline Pro). Over the summer we spent time digging into another deeply underserved segment of the workforce: Boomers. By the end of this decade, the entire generation will have hit retirement age and, for the first time, Americans 65 will outnumber those under 18. This has huge implications for every aspect of society, and it mandates that we start thinking differently about retirement. The question for all of us is this: Can we re-focus healthy Americans 60 on a new phase of productivity, a “third act” that enables them to keep learning, keep earning, keep socially-engaged and contributing to the nation’s economic growth? And what role can AI play in helping every senior identify their unique skill set and personal priorities — and connect them with the right opportunities? We have some thoughts on how to make this happen, and we'd love you to give it a read, add your feedback, forward it to a founder who's working in this arena (or who you think might be intrigued), and share it! AgeTech has been too focused on death and decay; it's time we embrace longevity and give older Americans a way to keep working -- on their terms. cc: Carol Magalhães Isaacs, CFA Nisha Dua, Claire Biernacki, Drew Silverman Fennessy

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Since joining Media Development Investment Fund in 2022, several of you have asked me "what exactly does MDIF do?," "what is impact investing?" and "how does a not-for-profit investment fund work?" Here's a recent Reuters Breakingviews podcast with our CEO, Harlan Mandel, discussing our mission and investment model. I look forward to your questions and comments!

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Yesterday I attended a roundtable discussion that brought together an awesome group of people to discuss: Revising the UK's Invest in Women Code for Maximum Impact   Thanks to Shoosmiths for hosting, and the panellist Helen Burnell Alexandra Daly and Hephzi Pemberton 🙏 𝗦𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝗸𝗲𝘆 𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗮𝘄𝗮𝘆𝘀 🖊️ Signatories of the Invest in Women Code (IWC) have outperformed the market in terms of funding female-led businesses . However, challenges remain: - there is still vast underrepresentation of female investors on ICs - there are still 24% of signatories that have all male investment teams (and many more who haven't signed) - less than 2% of VC funding goes to all female teams (yes I am BORED for writing this too) 🏆 From analysis of the most successful funds, the key factors are: - diversity in decision making - diversity in the boots on the group (e.g. investors sourcing) - a focus on good data collection and analysis ✅ Many worry this is a tick box exercise and not an actual priority of the funds - data collection is hard and investors are busy - data is usually collected just before it needs to be reported, rather than as an on-going practice of the fund - how do we make this common practice? 🥕 So far the IWC has taken a carrot approach, to encourage good behaviour, but do we need more stick? - should there be more transparency on who is doing well and not well? - do we need more LPs to sign and not invest in funds that aren't taking their diversity seriously? - the signatories are usually the ones who care about this already, how do we get to those that don't? 🤬 It's obviously not f***ing working - can we do more? - do we need quotas, if not for founders then boards or c-suite? - do we need more action from the government, BBB etc to stop allocating tax payers money to funds that aren't taking this seriously? All thoughts / ideas / challenges welcome! Caroline English 😃 David Fogel Amy Lewin Georgia Haigh Valérie Aelbrecht Marla Shapiro

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Looking forward to joining this panel to discuss the fine balance between growth and burn for SaaS companies in the current funding environment alongside some great investors and operators:Jaysri, Julia, Rasika & Eva!

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London folks! It's starting to become a cliché that there are thousands of AI pilot projects and relatively few that make it to real life. Some of that is because the products just don't deliver. But some is just because founders and sales teams haven't learned how to sell AI yet. Come learn what actually works out there! #ai #aistartups #founder #founders #startupssales #gtm #startupgtm #founderledsales #startup #startups #aistartup

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