Off Balance #32

👋🏾 Hi friends!

Sorry for the radio silence on my end, I’ve been having a fairly busy month, on top of which a few health concerns in my family have had my full focus over the last couple of months - thankfully all clear now and moving forward.

I have also (again) been thinking about what value actually looks like with this newsletter, how often I should really be sending it out and what is it that people want me to talk about.

So, I’d love for you to reply to this mail and tell me what it is that you want to hear more about from me.

One thing I will be doing is sending this out at least once a week, but only doing something long form every other week. The one constant will be a quick review of the latest Nothing Ventured pod so you can ensure you don’t miss out on a single one.

So today’s edition will be a catch up on all the pods that have gone out over the last several weeks, and I’ll be back to writing my thoughts, opinions, advice and research on venture from next Tuesday!

Thanks for your support and hope you find a pod sparks your interest 😀 

I’m well underway writing about all the things I’ve learned from the last couple of decades as founder, CFO and CEO, so sign up for early access to Off Balance - The Book and feel free to share with anyone else you think might enjoy it 😄.

Now let’s get down to business…

In today’s Podcast Only editition, you can catch up on a few of the conversations I’ve been having around the tech and venture ecosystem over the last few weeks:

🤑 Jack Kuveke on shitposting and crazy ICOs.
🧑‍💻 Francesco Perticarari on the rise of deeptech.
🏭 Renan Devillieres on investing in operations.
🦠 Nik Sharma & Mo Alomari, using NASA’s playbook to build BioCorteX.
🫀 Mohamed Abou-Alam on building Precision Cardiovascular.
🇹🇷 Enis Hulli on building 500 Emerging Europe, part of the 500 Startups family.
🤖 Sean Williams on using LLMs to build bidtech at AutogenAI

If you like wild rides and crazy stories, then you should definitely check out this episode of Nothing Ventured I recorded with Jack Kuveke founder of Raise Your Seed Round and author of Jabroni Capital, the newsletter as reliable as your lead investor.

He talked to me about how he decided to start writing comedic posts on LinkedIn to deflate some of the hubris associated with the venture ecosystem, raising a huge ICO and fleeing Eastern Europe!

Spotify, Apple

If, on the other hand, deeptech is more your cup of tea, the watch this episode in conversation with Francesco Perticarari General Partner at Silicon Roundabout Ventures a specialist fund investing in engineer-led, deep tech entrepreneurs.

We talked about the rise of titans over unicorns, how defence and strategic supply chain repatriation are driving the growth of deeptech building and investing and why the European ecosystem needs to be more joined up, not less.

Spotify, Apple

How about something a little more old school? I spoke to Renan Devillieres founder of OSS Ventures a startup studio building & investing in the future of operations. OSS ideates, tests, builds, and invests in great ideas to change the future of the organizations who provide physical services to the world.

We talked about how only 0.7% of VC flows to operations based businesses even though 50% of the work force works in these companies and they drive 25% of GDP and how walking into Tesla factory caused him to have the epiphany that this was the future of manufacturing.

Spotify, Apple

Next up we had Nik Sharma and Mo Alomari Co-Founders of BioCorteX, a techbio backed by Hoxton Ventures and Sofinnova Partners providing actionable insights for future therapeutic development.

We talked about the $2.6bn per asset cost of drug development, how BioCorteX is building the worlds largest biology graph with billions of data points and how they are borrowing from NASA’s playbook to develop their proposition.

Spotify, Apple

The following week I spoke to Mohamed Abou-Alam, CEO of Precision Cardiovascular, a medical devices venture in the business of predictive maintenance of one's heart.

We talked about taking tech from the industrial space and translating it into the body, the difficulty in quantifying impact to LPs and how to keep the team malleable as you scale.

Spotify, Apple

After a couple of operator stories, I went back to my roots and spoke to Enis Hulli, General Partner at 500 Emerging Europe - part of the 500 Global (previously 500 Startups) family, a pre-seed and seed fund based out of Istanbul and London and investing in the best companies from Emerging Europe to help them scale globally.

Our discussion ranged from how listening to VC podcasts while installing air conditioning led him to angel investing and launching a fund, how information and access asymmetries requires boots on the ground to invest at pre-seed and seed and why Americanising your culture as a startup founder in Emerging Europe is so important.

Spotify, Apple

Finally, I spoke to Sean Williams, Founder and CEO of AutogenAI, a generative AI startup backed by Blossom Capital and Salesforce Ventures with a mission to revolutionise proposal preparation, enabling companies to create compelling, evidence-based submissions fast.

Sean talked about learning lessons by falling over himself, how managers are paid to make up numbers and then they’re paid to deliver on them and linguistic engineering and the different between argument and rhetoric and it’s application to LLMs.

Spotify, Apple

And there you have it, a few weeks of Nothing Ventured wrapped up for you with a bow!

Also, if you have any feedback, or if there’s something you’re desperate to see me include, just reply to this mail or ping me online - I’m very open to conversations.

If you like what I’m putting out, do give me a follow on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram.

(If you are trying to connect with me on LinkedIn, maybe read this post I wrote and make sure to start your request with “Off Balance” and, more importantly, tell me why you’d like to connect 💪🏾)

Don’t forget to like, rate and subscribe to Nothing Ventured on Apple, Spotify or YouTube, it really helps more people see what we’re doing - you can find links to these (and more including my Office Hours) right here!

As always, my office hours are open, if you’d like to chat about anything finance, tech or venture releated, just grab some time 😊.

I hope you found Off Balance #32 useful. As always, I’d love to get your feedback and understand the sort of topics you would love to hear about.

Just hit reply to this mail or drop me a line at [email protected] and let me know 😊

🚀And that’s a wrap for this edition of Off Balance - I’d appreciate your feedback so just reply to this email if you’ve got something you’d like to say.

📨 If you think someone else might love this, please forward it on to them,

🎧 Finally, if you’re a fan of the Nothing Ventured podcast, please don’t forget to like, rate and subscribe wherever you get your pods - it really helps us spread the word.

That’s it from me so until next time…

Stay liquid :)

Aarish