🪄 Howard Wu

In recent months, the Swedish startup ecosystem witnessed the unfortunate downfall of three promising companies: Mycorena, Coloreel, and &Repeat. These startups, with unique value propositions, faced challenges that led to their bankruptcy. Let's analyze the common factors contributing to their struggles. Mycorena aimed to revolutionize the food industry with sustainable mycoprotein products. Despite the growing demand for alternative proteins, scaling issues, high operational costs, and intense market competition hindered their success. Coloreel brought innovation to the textile industry with its coloring technology for textile threads. However, intensive R&D, supply chain disruptions, and slow market adoption contributed to its downfall. &Repeat focused on a circular economy for disposable food packaging but encountered challenges in driving behavioral change, navigating regulations, and securing funding. Key themes among these startups include financial strains, market entry barriers, and external factors like the pandemic and regulatory changes. Their experiences highlight the importance of effective financial management, strategic scaling, and adaptability to market conditions for long-term success. While the bankruptcy of these startups is a setback, their innovative spirit leaves a lasting impact. Their journey provides valuable lessons for future entrepreneurs to learn and grow from, shaping a more resilient startup ecosystem.

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𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗡𝗼𝗿𝗱𝗶𝗰 𝗧𝗲𝗰𝗵 𝗣𝗮𝗿𝗮𝗱𝗼𝘅: 𝗕𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗹𝗱-𝗖𝗹𝗮𝘀𝘀 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗟𝗶𝗺𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁 𝗩𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 I recently sat down with Hannah Meiton Founding Partner at Ampli Ventures, a Stockholm-based venture capital firm specialising in early-stage investments in Nordic B2B SaaS companies. With a focus on capital-efficient businesses at the seed to pre-Series A stage, Ampli Ventures is redefining the investment landscape by working hands-on with founders to build scalable, sustainable companies. Before stepping into venture capital, Hannah held senior commercial roles within the tech industry as Chief Commercial Officer at Soundtrack Your Brand and VP of Sales at Zettle by PayPal in the years prior to their exit to PayPal, where she played pivotal roles in driving global growth. Her expertise in scaling B2B software businesses, particularly by building high-performing sales and marketing teams, is a cornerstone of her investment philosophy. In this episode we talked about: 🇸🇪 Whether Nordic startups have a tendency to undersell themselves? 🌍 Why you shouldn't build in your basement but forget to tell the world about it 🤝 How the founders job is to always be selling - throughout the lifecycle of the company. 🤑 Is the future of venture more concentrated portfolios where you’re not reliant on a few companies to return the fund? 📉 Are we seeing the start of software commoditisation? 🏷️ Will the traditional SaaS pricing model change as AI proliferates more? ＄ How costs will become more aligned with consumption and value. 🧮 Why Ampli won’t invest in founders who don’t have a solid understanding of the financial fundamentals of their company. 😓 Working in sales in 2024 has been a test of resilience. 💸 Hannah’s contrarian advice: raise less money and spend what you raise on where it truly matters. Join over 13,000 subscribers listening to these amazing conversations with the folk behind the stories that make the venture ecosystem go round - wherever you get your podcasts 🎙️ YouTube: https://lnkd.in/dyhiNjri Spotify: https://lnkd.in/d9nh_R6s Apple: https://lnkd.in/d8hrC9ES

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https://lnkd.in/dXeCRxmQ "State of the Cloud 2023 The cloud economy has entered the multiverse—we share insights for SaaS founders as they navigate today’s difficult financing climate and welcome the dawn of the AI era. If we thought the pandemic years were an era of dramatic cultural and digital transformation, think again. 2023 is the year of the “multiverse,” where technological and macro changes continue accelerating at stunning rates leaving SaaS builders, founders, and investors breathless. On one side of the cloud economy, founders and CEOs are weathering some of the most challenging storms since 2000 and the ‘08 Recession. Rising interest rates have evaporated the cheap equity of recent years forcing startups to reduce burn and drive towards efficient growth. The Silicon Valley Bank crisis drove even more uncertainty into an already fragile environment. But amidst the anxiety and turmoil, the tech ecosystem has witnessed something potentially as world-changing as electricity: a string of AI advancements that may prove to define technology and society for generations to come. The Large Language Model revolution is one of the most significant developments in computing history. We believe artificial intelligence will not only multiply software and human capabilities, but also completely transform and expand the cloud economy in the process."

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Want to hear some good tech news? Aleph Alpha and Silo AI have joined forces to unlock the full potential of generative AI across Europe! The two companies bring different elements to the table: 🔹 Silo AI has expertise in deploying enterprise environments and open source large language models for European languages. 🔹 Aleph Alpha's team of international scientists, engineers and innovators has developed a proprietary generative AI operating system and Europe's fastest commercial AI data center. This partnership will accelerate the growth of generative AI in Europe. Customers will be able to fully leverage Aleph Alpha's enterprise-grade tech stack, while leveraging Silo AI's experience in delivering AI to a wide range of customers across Europe. 🗣 Peter Sarlin, co-founder and CEO of Silo AI, said, "I am particularly excited about our mutual commitment to advancing open source models that support European languages. Aleph Alpha's deep research, tech stack and expertise, combined with our end-to-end capabilities and open-source models, make for a compelling offering." 🗣 Jonas Andrulis, co-founder and CEO of Aleph Alpha, adds, "We are united in our mission to empower European organizations with sovereign, generative AI technology." This long-term partnership between the two powerhouses of AI in Europe will enable enterprises and government organizations to leverage a generative AI tech stack that meets the highest standards of sovereignty, trustworthiness, and transparency. Get ready for exciting things! #D11ZVentures #innovation #artificialintelligence #partnerships

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🐎 Resurge Growth Partners: Some Reflections on Our Journey and Learnings to date 🐎 At the end of 2023, we launched Resurge Growth Partners with a clear mission to bridge the funding gap between venture capital and private equity. The venture capital ecosystem is driven by the pursuit of unicorns, often overlooking good companies that, while not meeting Venture scaling targets, still hold immense potential. In June, Eyal Malinger and I were thrilled to welcome Matt Jarmolkiewicz to our team. We are actively working on deals, have a healthy pipeline and have issued our first two term sheets. It's a good time to reflect. When we launched Resurge we had some core beliefs. Some have proved right and some less so. Here is what we have learnt to date. Belief: Wait to launch until the ecosystem has recalibrated and re-priced. Launching too early risks stakeholder disengagement. Finding: This strategy paid off. Private markets lag behind public markets, which corrected in the summer of ‘22. VCs need time to reassess portfolios and decide who they are backing and why. Additionally, founders need to understand that their world has changed; a path outside traditional VC might be more appropriate for their business. We are now seeing engagement. Belief: The timing of the last big wave of VC funding rounds, efforts by companies to lower burn, and "extend and pretend" behaviours will result in the lionshare of the ecosystem’s liquidity challenges in H2 2024 and 2025. Finding: Early data supports this. As one VC investor said to us; “Many bridges are turning out to be piers”. Belief: Many management teams have seen their equity value dramatically eroded or wiped out due to valuation corrections coupled with preferential liquidation stacks and anti dilution protection. Good companies deserve a reset. Finding: Absolutely true. Management teams and Founders have started to realise this, especially the reality that cheap money is not coming back. Belief: (Venture) Debt and high-growth loss making companies make a risky cocktail. Finding: Venture debt is indeed a major catalyst for many of the conversations we are having. So did we get anything wrong? Partially. We underestimated the challenge of  "threading the needle" – aligning multiple stakeholders who have different entry points and motivations. This is proving challenging and is a skill we are continually honing. Additionally, we anticipated our initial deals to come from sponsors. However, we've seen that founders are becoming a key source of pipeline, recognising the changing environment and seeking creative ways to preserve their years of hard work. Our type of solutions often presents the only viable option for these dedicated entrepreneurs to realise the potential of the companies they’ve built with blood, sweat, and tears. Stay tuned for more updates as we continue to navigate and shape this emerging and exciting landscape! #PrivateEquity #VentureCapital #ResurgeGrowthPartners

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Only one day left to register for the #GlobalStartupSymposium. You don't want to miss out on connecting with more than 170 investors and 150 founders ready to present. And the great speakers and panelists providing educational webinars and panel discussions hosted by Quan Nguyen | NGUYEN TARBET IP Law and others. Last day to register, but the event is next weeks with a full agenda geared towards facilitating interaction between startups and investors in addition to providing invaluable educational opportunities. The 4-day conference, Dec 9, 10, 11, & 12 is Pismo Ventures' 12th consecutive event for startups at the stages of Pre-Seed, Seed, and Series A - Life Science (Day 1), AI/ML (Day 2), DeepTech (Day 3), etc. (Day 4). The symposium offers a unique opportunity to connect startup founders with investors worldwide. Register Now and take advantage of a 50% discount code: SPO50GSS24 https://lnkd.in/g6nZegSz Thank you to all of our sponsors and partners for making this event happen. TCA Venture Group Orange County | TechCon SoCal | PeopleConnect Staffing | Orange County OC Startup Council | Keiretsu Forum | Berkeley Angel Network | New Mexico Angels, Inc. | Gao Family Office LLC | Ashton Capital | LabX Ventures®| Cross Ocean USSS Fund I (A) Del Feeder LP | Pasadena Angels | CarbonN Venture Partners | The Healthcare Syndicate | Medina Ventures | Rhapsody Venture Partners | MAKR Venture Fund | Indigenous VC | 7BC Venture Capital | Kamay Ventures | Breakform Ventures | VU Venture Partners | E12 Ventures | Venture Diplomat | Fundie Ventures | BDev Ventures | Techstars | Anza Capital | Allstate Strategic Ventures | Binary Crypto | Breakform Ventures | 37 Angels | NuFund Venture Group | TCA Venture Group | MEDA Ventures | TiE SoCal Angels | TiE Dallas Angels #Entrepreneurship #Startups #Founders #Angels #Investors #VentureCapital #TechLeadership #CommunityBuilder #FamilyOffices #PitchEvent #InvestorConference #StartupConference #PitchCompetition #Connect #Partners #Disrupt #Innovate #LifeScience #AI #ML #DeepTech #ClimateTech #Cybersecurity #Web3 #Blockchain #InnovativeLeadership #Networking #BusinessGrowth #Partner #BookAppointment #BookMeetings #Chat #Opportunities #DealFlow

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Woven Capital has two of hopefully many investments in the region. This great report on #CVC investments outlines the investors and types of deals in the New Nordics 🇯🇵🇳🇴 Japan is the most active Asian investor in the region, and Japanese VCs are aligning with Nordic strengths in #innovation and #sustainability. #VentureCapital #Innovation #NewNordics #JapaneseInvestment #WovenCapital #CVC #Japan

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Future VC 2025 Are you interested in a career in venture capital? Whether you're looking to make a career change, explore new opportunities, or simply want to learn more about the VC industry, this webinar is for you! Join Seb Butt, the founder of Future VC, as he takes you through everything you need to know about the program, how it works, and how you can apply. In this webinar, you’ll learn: What Future VC is and our mission to provide accessible opportunities in the venture capital space. What we do to support individuals from diverse backgrounds and help them build a career in VC. How you can apply to join our next cohort and take the next step in your professional journey.   www.futurevc.com   Venture With Vision   #VentureCapital #Entrepreneurship #Startups #StartupVentures #BoardOfDirectors #BoardDevelopment      

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Bunq continues to innovate! The latest updates, from AI-powered real-time translation to effortless investing and advanced business tools, are setting a new standard for digital banking. #AI #banking #banks #FinTech #finance

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Two days.. to Takwin VC Sprint#2 Takwin VC will invest in up to #5_startups_in_5_weeks, Time to finalize your pitch deck What we need from you: 1. Great and committed team. 2. Great idea, preferably based on tech innovation. 3. One Co-Founder is an Arab-Israeli. Stage: 1. Can be very early – idea can do, though validation check will help. 2. If you already have TNUFA or other early financing – no problem. What Takwin will give: 1. $50k in SAFE investment. 2. Support, good advice, network to scale. When: 1. Apply between June 1st to 30th, 2024. 2. We will meet the qualified teams and make our decision the week after! Link https://did.li/dEEaa (will be open on the 1st of June).

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🌎 Let's talk #FOAK (first-of-a-kind) climate tech and the funding structures that are enabling their deployment. Swedish startup H2 Green Steel has made headlines by securing €4.2 billion in funding this year—despite not yet delivering its low-carbon steel product. How? By securing billion-dollar “offtake agreements” with major companies like IKEA, Mercedes-Benz, and Scania Group, eager to future-proof their supply of greener steel. Offtake agreements are crucial for capital-intensive climate tech, acting as a signal that the startup is providing something the industry needs. Here's the scoop, courtesy of Sarah B. Söding & Freya Pratty: 🚦 Talk to potential offtakers from day one (at flex pilot/prototype stage): “Identify the first movers within the industries, read through the sustainability reports, understand their decarbonisation targets and understand whether you fit into that mission,” she says. 🚦Targeted networking: less procurement folks (they want proven, available and cheap tech), but think R&D, strategy or sustainability roles. 🚦Find a sponsor in a large company who could advocate for you internally. Sebastian Peck 🚦Not a one-size-fits-all, there are different levels of commitment. Conditional agreements - MOUs, LOIs - trigger a binding agreement only once performance milestones are met. They can provide a helpful sandbox environment to test in an industrial setting, pre offtake agreement. 🚦Once signed, don't overpromise: The effect of failing to deliver can have huge ramifications. @Sam Baker suggests factoring in time to build up inventory before shipping product. 🚦For the signer, offtakers are an inherently risky deal, being pre-product, and often inefficient on scale and quality. They are one-to-one, between one offtaker and one solution provider. ➡ Sarah is championing "#risksharing" - a commitment pool shared between offtakes and the respective climate tech opportunities. Hedging the risk an obvious benefit. [Frontier fund pooled $925mil for advanced offtake agreements with early-stage carbon removal companies.] Offtakers are the solution- wider deployment drives down price. “Industrial incumbents have the mandate to help bridge the gap from uncompetitive climate techs to on a par with fossil fuels.” Sarah B. Söding #ClimateTech #StartupFunding #OfftakeAgreements #VentureCapital

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📈 📊 70 Metrics to Drive Your B2B Marketplace Success In the world of B2B marketplaces, having the right set of metrics 🔢 at your fingertips can be the catalyst for real growth and success. To help founders and investors sharpen their strategies, we’ve put together a detailed list of 70 essential metrics. These are designed to provide a solid framework for making informed decisions and steering your business toward sustainable progress. Check out the full list below and join us in refining these metrics to better support everyone on the path to scaling a marketplace! 👇 #marketplace #b2bmarketplace #venturecapital #vc #uniteconomics #data #analytics #b2b

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How to be a top country to launch and scale a startup? The suggested Norwegian "exit tax" triggered a long-requested debate on the data informing the startup ecosystem, the effect of politics, and what it takes for Norway to take the lead. The viral mobilization of founders, and political responses, proved at least two things: It is a long way to the top, and it's critical to get there. We need endless numbers of new companies solving some of the biggest problems globally, and for Norway - and the world - it's critical to substitute the coming decline in traditional and fossil-based industries. For the Norwegian Association for Startups and Tech (NAST), the focus has been on the most upvoted topics by Norwegian Scaleup founders: Tax, Talent, and Venture Capital. This week Data-Driven VC newsletter (Jérôme Jaggi and Dr. Andre Retterath) wrote up a meta-analysis on the topic, filled with links to some of the leading data and research. Summarised with this top-five list: - Talent: The level of accessible human capital. - Culture: The inclusion and appreciation of entrepreneurship (reflected in politics). - Community: The level of connectivity, engagement, and support mechanisms - Funding: The maturity of competent Venture Capital and its regulations - Maturity: The number of startups, investment level, connectedness to incumbents and industry It is not that complicated to get right, and as they summarise the analysis; "Talent is distributed equally, but opportunity is not". Consequently, for small countries, it is even more crucial to create the politics of opportunity. For Norway, it's a long way to the top, a bit like for the European Football Championship, and it is up to us to change that. With exponentially more data available to analyze this - and with higher data quality - i.e. like the datasets Yoram Wijngaarde has built with Dealroom.co, these factors will be more and more prevalent, and we can go from the vague "startup ecosystem" terminology to more precise data-driven political insights. AI will be here to stay, also for political analysis... Anders Mjåset Håkon Haugli Merete Nygaard Ingar S. Bentsen Marit Rødevand Adam Scheuring Johan Brand, FRSA Kristian Jul Røsjø Anne Solhaug Tutar Vegard Aakre Vik Jon Kåre Stene Karl-Christian Agerup Karl Munthe-Kaas Karen Dolva Odd Skarheim Per Christian Goller Cecilie T. Myrseth Linda Hofstad Helleland Alfred Bjørlo Ingrid Liland Leo A Grunfeld Jarand Rystad

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Focal powered by HSBC Innovation Banking, is back! 🚨 Applications for Focal’s W24 demo day are open to startups raising in the next 6 months - DFF (Dutch Founders Fund) and other leading funds are participating. Probably the best way to get in front of hundreds of investors - applying takes just 5 minutes. See the link in the comments below to apply. Last year alone over 1600 introductions to investors were made! Talking about leverage.

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At ScaleupStream, we empower startups with essential tools and support. From strategic planning and financial projections to tailored marketing strategies and expert pitch deck development, we’ve got you covered. Connect with industry leaders and potential investors through our mentorship and networking programs. 🌐🤝💼 #StartupSuccess #BusinessStrategy #MarketingGrowth #Mentorship #Networking #PitchPerfect

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How did we get from CPUs and GPUs to all kinds of specialized chips today? What are current trends? And what happened in 2005? Happy to talk about the unbundling of chips later today as part of the First Momentum Ventures Industry Briefing ⚡️ (event link in the comments 🤗)

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Events and Meetups This is currently what brings the most profitable connections, and personal meetings make a much greater impact than online discussions. What is the magic in meetups? Just imagine everyone there is your potential customer—a person who provides feedback if you ask about whatever you’re doing, and true relationships start from real-life meetings. The key is that 90% of people at these meetups are your target audience. If it’s a big meetup with 500-1000 people, you’re looking at a 25-30% conversion rate if your product and reputation are solid. And if your sales funnel is effective, you can expect an additional 30% conversion. At the end of the day, 1000 visitors from online traffic may cost you thousands but wouldn’t bring nearly the same impact as meeting people in person at events, especially for established brands. That’s why, if you’re a Web3 business owner, project founder, or VC, we have an opportunity for you to be a sponsor of a side event at DEVCON with K300 Ventures, bringing massive impact to your business. This will create opportunities in fundraising, reputation building, and relationship management—adding both social and financial value and giving your brand the right visibility. We're hosting a VC Pitch Day in Devcon Bangkok along with @GSR_io Morningstar Ventures DFG Foresight Ventures AppWorks Cryptomind Labs ABCDE The form submission phase are opening until Nov 7th for all projects. The finalists will be chosen to pitch in front of VCs on Nov 14th in Bangkok. Details are below. - Sign up your project: https://bit.ly/vcpitchday - Attend offline Pitch Day: https://lnkd.in/dhxqzBgC #DEVCON #Thailand #Meetups #WEB3 #VC

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