Tom Desmond

In recent years, the amount of capital raised in the Dutch private equity (PE) landscape has accelerated significantly. ➡️ This growth seems driven by both increased fund sizes and a rising number of funds. ➡️ Across specific asset classes (buy-out, early-stage, venture, growth, mezzanine, etc.), this pattern holds. ➡️ In fact, 2023 has been another record-breaking year despite the rough investment climate during and after the pandemic. ❓What do you think this implies for entrepreneurs, companies, LPs, and GPs? What are the crucial observations and nuances at a more granular level? 🤗 There's more behind these numbers. Let me know or reach out if you wish to discuss further!

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How do we make investment decisions at Scalebridge? 👀 This is a common question from founders and investors. 💬 To shed light on this opaque process, we are launching 𝗙𝘂𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗜𝗻𝗱𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 newsletter. Naturally, we kick things off with our investment theses. 🔮 🚀 𝗔𝘂𝘁𝗼𝗻𝗼𝗺𝗼𝘂𝘀 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 is a key investment thesis at Scalebridge, expected to redefine the tech landscape over the next decade. 🌟 The potential immense opportunity, with >$𝟱 𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝗻 𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗱 up for grabs. ❌ Traditional digital transformation, despite heavy investment, has a failure rate exceeding 70% 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘀𝘂𝗹𝘁𝗮𝗻𝘁-𝗱𝗿𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗻 𝗱𝗶𝗴𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗹 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗺𝗼𝗱𝗲𝗹 𝗶𝘀 𝗯𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗼𝗯𝘀𝗼𝗹𝗲𝘁𝗲, due to its rigidity and complexity. 🦾 Autonomous Transformation leverages data, workflow automation, and AI to achieve strategic goals with minimal manual interference. It allows for real-time autonomous decision-making and process adjustments, directing human efforts towards strategic management. 💸 The convergence of services and emerging technology capabilities has created 𝗼𝗽𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 #automation 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗲𝘀 to lead the future of Autonomous Transformation. These automation companies are poised to replace traditional IT services and consultancy, addressing accumulated technological and process debts. ❓𝗙𝘂𝗹𝗹-𝘀𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗲 #autonomoustransformation 𝗶𝘀 𝗮 𝗺𝘂𝗹𝘁𝗶-𝗱𝗲𝗰𝗮𝗱𝗲 𝗷𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗻𝗲𝘆, facing key challenges including limitations of #AI, #data quality & governance issues, and intricate enterprise #workflow. 💫 𝗔𝗹𝗹-𝗶𝗻 𝗼𝗻 𝗔𝘂𝘁𝗼𝗻𝗼𝗺𝗼𝘂𝘀 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘀𝗶𝘀 𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗗𝗮𝘆 𝗢𝗻𝗲. A new wave of automation startups is spearheading #autonomoustransformation, replacing traditional consultancy and IT services. The future is here! Check out our investments: Versori, Spendkey, Garvis (exited), Trusstor. 📥  https://lnkd.in/ehUh6eiW #Automation #Scalebridge #thesis #VC #emergingmanager #founder

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When I was taping my podcast CEO versus CEO with Rogier Thewessen, founder of YoungCapital I asked him what his biggest advice would be for people who want to scale like him… His answer…. TEAM When I was CEO I would invest an enourmous amount of time in my people…. These are my 2 cents… 1. Character Over Skills: Skills can be taught, but integrity and compassion build trust and long-term success. 2. Interdependence: Success stems from harmony. Hire team players who thrive on collaboration. 3. Self-Awareness: Mindful individuals who learn from feedback and act with intention make better decisions. 4. Aligned Intentions: Choose those who share your vision and prioritize collective success. And 5…..decide what is your SUPERPOWER …… ….. focus focus focus on this and ….outsource the rest…. That is why when I invest in #hrtech I invest in companies that align with this vision…. I am super happy that I invested in HirePort, 10x.Team and Lepaya and a big thanks Angelique Schouten, René Janssen, Peter Kuperus, Alexander Leenaers, Remco van de Ruit and Bram Medema for listening to me saying the same thing many times over 😳 By focusing on values, mindfulness, and balance, you’ll not only build a high-performing team but also foster a culture that thrives on purpose and harmony. How are you applying these principles to your team-building efforts? #hrtech #investor #mentor #coach #ceo #podcast #scaling #team

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I was glad to have attended the recent event hosted by our Plug and Play Netherlands team with AmCham. It was a real pleasure to meet so many interesting "innovators". I had a great time and engaging discussions. We saw a lot of interest in open innovation from companies across all industries aiming to innovate further, more efficiently and faster. Most of them are already collaborating with startups but are still interested in increasing their ROI from their open innovation activities. In terms of tech focus areas, the highest interest was in Sustainability and having AI impacting the business in a tangible way. 🚀 #PNPTCNetherlands #Sustainability

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Tomorrow, I have the honor of joining our special guest host, Min Bhogaita, on the next Making of a Nobody podcast. The discussion will encompass all facets of acquisitions, spanning from our strategic approach to the specific profiles of entrepreneurs we aim to engage on our mission to establish 100 startups in 5 years. Join us tomorrow with your questions and curiosity... Hope to see you all there! (link to join in comments) #acquisitions #startup #tech #strategy #founder

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🚀 **Scaling Your Startup: Insights from Think & Grow** 🚀 In the latest episode of Inhouse Ventures our co-founder, @Jonathan Jeffries (JJ), shares his expertise on driving rapid growth for tech startups and scale-ups. 🌍 With over a decade of experience, Think & Grow has supported high-growth companies across Australia, the US, Europe, Dubai, and Singapore. In this episode, JJ dives into strategies for accelerating growth by building the right systems, processes, and teams to support revenue and scalability. He also sheds light on key challenges that scale-ups often face, particularly around market prioritization and using data-driven insights to thrive in international expansion. ✨ Learn from real-world examples and gain valuable takeaways on how to grow your business from $100M to $1B ARR. Don’t miss out on expert advice from one of the leaders in the fast-growth ecosystem. #TechStartups #BusinessGrowth #InternationalExpansion #RevenueGrowth #ThinkAndGrow #ScaleUps #Leadership

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🔵 𝗙𝗶𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗩𝗖 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝗺 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗮𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗻𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗽𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝘀𝗻'𝘁 𝗲𝗮𝘀𝘆 Focus on how your background and interests align with the specific values and thesis of the firm: ✅ Conduct in-depth research on the firm’s focus areas and portfolio. 💬 Explain why you're interested in their specific sector expertise. ⭐ Illustrate how your past experiences can contribute to their mission. Show the VC firm that you're not just applying to any firm but are excited about contributing to their vision in a meaningful way. Your effort in tailoring your application matters!

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Today's episode is an exciting one for me — personally. I brought on Niklas James and Max Lummis, CPA, CVA, CFE, my 2 partners in Minds Capital, a fund we've recently launched to invest in the deals of searchers & sponsors. So this is the formal announcement of a project one year in the making. I didn't want this to just be a self-promotional episode, so we make a point to discuss Minds Capital in a way that is valuable to you. We talk about: * how a fund comes together, * why we would want to raise a fund, * what it was like to ourselves raise money from investors (the LPs), * how the perspective as an investor differs from that of a business buyer (listen closely there), * why small acquisitions are hard for a fund to invest in, * and much more. As you'll hear me say at the end, I'm thrilled to be partnered with Max & Niklas, who have years of experience and relationships in our space, but just as important, are 2 individuals I consider of the highest caliber. To learn more about what we're doing (or if you have a deal under LOI that you're raising money for!), see MindsCapital.co. Please enjoy this conversation with Max Lummis, Niklas James, and me, the 3 general partners of Minds Capital! 👉 link to interview in comments below

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What an extraordinary Venture Capital Conference. I gained powerful insights of the investment and entrepreneurial ecosystem in the netherlands and europe. 🚀🍀 It is also great to be member of the Financial Study association Rotterdam (FSR). #Slinghot #FinchCapital #NosuchVentures #venturecapital

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Should family offices invest themselves or use an external manager? Read my article in this month's Business Brief and find out! As always, thank you Amanda (Mandy) Eulenkamp for the opportunity to contribute. #founders #startups #venturecapital #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic More at unbundled dot vc.

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We're back with more Jaap Vriesendorp - one of my favorite episodes to record on Superclusters, not just with the amount of notes I took, but just that Even better, my man Jaap, just put another great Medium article that covers why entry windows and exit windows matter. Something I'd highly recommend checking out: https://lnkd.in/gvxCWwuj A lot of which harkens back to our episode together where most LPs think about time diversification only from a entry point perspective, but not enough think about diversifying exit windows. As such there is immense value in allocating to different asset classes with different time horizons. And also, the podcast is back online (had a few technical difficulties over the last few weeks)

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When I was taping my podcast CEO versus CEO with Rogier Thewessen, founder of YoungCapital I asked him what his biggest advice would be for people who want to scale like him… His answer….TEAM When I was CEO I would invest an enourmous amount of time in my people…. These are my 2 cents… 1. Character Over Skills: Skills can be taught, but integrity and compassion build trust and long-term success. 2. Interdependence: Success stems from harmony. Hire team players who thrive on collaboration. 3. Self-Awareness: Mindful individuals who learn from feedback and act with intention make better decisions. 4. Aligned Intentions: Choose those who share your vision and prioritize collective success. And 5…..decide what is and chose your superpower and focus focus focus on this and outsource the rest…. That is why when I invest in #hrtech I invest in companies that align with my vision…. I am super happy that I invested in HirePort, 10x.Team and Lepaya and a big thanks Angelique Schouten, René Janssen, Peter Kuperus, Alexander Leenaers, Remco van de Ruit and Bram Medema for listening to me saying the same thing many times over 😳 By focusing on values, mindfulness, and balance, you’ll not only build a high-performing team but also foster a culture that thrives on purpose and harmony. How are you applying these principles to your team-building efforts? #hrtech #investor #mentor #coach #ceo #podcast #scaling #team

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Unlock instant access to a thriving innovation community! Whether you're launching a startup or seeking investments, ScaleupStream connects you to the right people, right when you need them. 🌐Don’t miss out; join us at scaleupstream.com and sign up today! 🙌 #Entrepreneurship #Startups #Investors #Innovation

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📚 Holiday weekend reading: “Plurality.” This philosophical approach applies open technologies to foster diverse collaboration and coordination and solve our societal challenges. Technology can and will bring diverse viewpoints together with the transparent debates needed to come to coordinated solutions. These open technologies today encompass the powerful capabilities in our innovation systems today: open source #AI models, permissionless #blockchain, community #web3tokens, interoperable #metaverses, among the many public goods enabled by emerging technologies. Our social relationships provide the universal values and effective direction for such innovations to impact our world towards positive sum growth. “Plurality” is the central subject of a new book by Microsoft’s internal economist Glen Weyl and Taiwan’s former Minister of Digital Affairs Audrey Tang. That book collects ideas in a donation supported ebook.

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Excited to lead a $5M Seed in Daytona, building powerful and flexible development environments for individuals (open-source, https://lnkd.in/gy_u7j-m) and enterprise teams. Establishing a uniform computing environment is challenging, everything from missing or invalid env variables to inconsistent database states to 3rd party integration can break your development environment. Tack on multiple projects per developer and many developers per org, the problem becomes a nightmare for the developer and internal platform team tasked with fixing it. Daytona enables devs to spin up an env in the cloud while using their favorite IDEs (VS Code, JetBrian) on their local machine. Companies can also host the development env however they like: public cloud, private cloud or on-prem. Leading tech companies like Meta, GitHub and Spotify have moved to cloud development environments, and we believe Daytona can democratize the practice for individuals and teams. We are thrilled to jump on this journey with cofounders Ivan Burazin, Vedran Jukic, Goran Draganić. They have been tireless advocates for developer experience, dating 10+ years ago to their prior startup Codeanywhere, one of the first web IDEs. Check out our blog and interview with the founders to learn more, they’re hiring! https://lnkd.in/gpn36TXt #DeveloperTools #OpenSource #DevExperience

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Random Sunday Thoughts #121 1. I have been posting often about the macro economic and VC climate. As a recap, 2023 was a challenging year for VC's, maybe one of the most statistically off years I can remember, and their portfolio companies felt the ramifications. The most valuable exact match, category defining domain names that we invest in/advise on also were affected, especially brandable domains, largely acquired by these venture backed companies that are either looking to rebrand, have their global address match its brand (ie: HelloPublic becoming Public*com) or upgrading from a much riskier, less effective secondary TLD (ie *io) to .com. With that said, the end of 2023 and Q1 2024 were record breaking for us at Hilco Digital Assets. We oversaw 5 of the most valuable domain name transactions of all time. For maybe the first time since 1998, venture backed companies are open to, and even pushing, equity as part of the payment for domain name acquisitions. Usually, equity is held on-to like a dog holds its bone. This past spring, we did a deal that involved Series A equity, and recently we have had multiple negotiations where equity is being offered. From 2020-22, exact match domains were selling at the strongest prices and fastest pace I ever recall, but now, there are instances where companies are waiting for sunnier, more certain days, lower interest rates, freer flowing VC funds, more robust valuations, and the resolution of the election. I often use the term "marinate" when it comes to domain names. We speak with hundreds of companies monthly on relevant domains and just because they are not ready to acquire today, does not mean they will not do so when the timing aligns. I can share countless case studies of just this, including Gold*com, which I speak about in my keynotes and podcasts, https://lnkd.in/en92WFSG. I have never had more conviction that the most premium exact match, category domain name assets are more strategically important now than in any time in history, which some of our use cases reflect on https://lnkd.in/eFS_NYXp. All of the domain assets we own or oversee are at HilcoDigital.com/domains. 2. Last week I mentioned I was so excited to visit with my great friend Yinan, who was visiting the US for the first time. After years of Skype, it was so fun meeting him and his  amazing family. Next time in Beijing! 4. I ended up in 47th place in the DraftKings Inc. Milly Maker for The Open, not the coveted 1st I continue to chase but, a great outcome nonetheless. And, I  qualified yesterday for another  $4,444 ticket for the BMW Championship playoffs in August! More on that down the road. This past week, I completed my 750th SoulCycle Inc. ride, which I celebrated with my amazing community of Soul friends. Last but not  least, Friday would have been my brother Scotty's 57th birthday. Those who knew him do so as a legend.. Until Next Week #domainnames #digitalassets #digitalmarketing #Soulcycle #Draftkings

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Understanding the Rule of X for SaaS Scaleups For SaaS scaleups, the Rule of X offers a straightforward framework to estimate revenue multiples. It was originally developed by Bessemer Venture Partners and supplemented with data last week by Dealroom founder Yoram Wijngaarde. It emphasizes that growth significantly outweighs profitability, even amid VC crunches. However, when growth is constrained, profitability becomes essential. Framework Overview: The Rule of X combines growth rate and free cash flow (FCF) margin to evaluate company value, using a multiplier (typically 2-3x) on growth. Datadog Example: With a 25% growth rate and a 25% EBITDA margin, Datadog achieves a Rule of X score of 100%, implying a 15x revenue multiple for 2024. Importance of Growth: Growth has a compounding impact on valuation, significantly outweighing FCF margins. Subscribe to ‘Siliconnector’ Telegram channel for insights and news from Tech world and Silicon Valley: https://t.me/siliconnector

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Early stage venture investing is very interesting and unique, it relies less on numbers and more on identification of right teams working in the right markets. We are looking for characteristics like perseverance, humility, hustle and hunger to win. We look for founders that can thrive in chaos of early stage startup and find the answers to what their customers really want.. or even who the real customers actually are !! Personally doing this for the last 6 months has been one of the most satisfying work that I have ever done. I can now read about all the random things in the world from technology to economy to politics without any guilt. I get to dive deeper into the most amazing ideas and companies. I can do true problem solving with some of the smartest people I have ever known. I am very lucky to have partners like Abhinav Shashank, Jyotika Gupta and Sudarshan Ravi Jha to do this and supporters like Sumir Chadha, Manthan Shah and WestBridge Capital. We have also created an amazing community to support us and our founders in this journey to create the most impactful companies; and though I cannot possibly name everyone here but I would like to highlight Amar Maletira Avanish Mishra, Ph.D. Pawan Kumar Chandana Anand Deshpande Anshu Sharma Anita Manwani Aneesh Reddy Raj Judge Kabir Narang Ursheet P. Puneet Maheshwari Milind Chitgupakar Mudit Garg Krishna Mehra Vijay Krishnan Looking forward to support more founders to build purposeful companies. z21 Ventures Anand Akela Ankit Bhangar Shachi Shah Shivam Bhotika Ritik Singh

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Cambridge Future Tech builds companies. But what makes us different? We get involved from the pre-incorporation stage and join the team as co-founders. We start with the tech. ⚡⚡ Our research team perform extensive due diligence on product, tech and market fit. Then, we build the company around the tech. We help to build : 🚀 The team. 🚀 The vision. 🚀 The narrative. We’re hands-on. We support with: 🚀 Legal and governance. 🚀 Operational process and structure. 🚀 Financial and business models. We prepare the venture: 🚀 For pitching and fundraising. 🚀 For commercial engagements. 🚀 To bring the product to market. Then, we connect them with our international network of investors and VC. 🔗 We’re with them every step from incorporation through pre-seed, seed and beyond. #cambridgefuturetech #venturebuilder #deeptech

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