Startup Europe — The Sifted Podcast
Get to know the brightest and boldest names in European tech with Sifted’s weekly podcast, hosted by John Thornhill and Freya Pratty. John interviews the founders, operators and investors building Europe’s most exciting startups and Freya, in conversation with Sifted’s expert journalists, pulls back the curtain on the most intriguing companies they’ve been reporting on.
Startup Europe — The Sifted Podcast
Why is Northzone betting on scouts as Sequoia walks away?
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Sequoia has just shut down its scout programme after 17 years. Northzone, the $3.1bn VC behind Spotify, Klarna and Black Forest Labs, has launched one.
Northstars brings together 25 operators from AI-native companies across Europe, including ElevenLabs, Black Forest Labs, Neko Health and Langdock. They'll source deals, co-invest alongside the firm and mentor its founders. Most of them aren't C-suite either. They include chiefs of staff, heads of engineering and talent leads.
So why look to operators over angels? How does the co-investment actually work? And what does success look like in three years?
Joining host Freya Pratty on this episode of the Sifted podcast is Elena Pantazi, partner for talent and portfolio development at Northzone. The pair also dig into how the war for talent is changing and the rise of the "player-coach" hire, and how investors can best do diligence on a pre-product AI team in two weeks. Elena also shares the sectors she wants scouts to bring her, from robotics infrastructure to preventative health.
Sign up to Sifted's newsletters here: https://sifted.eu/newsletters
This podcast was brought to you by Chargebee.