Stranger than I could have imagined: 5 years in VC
I love to remind myself that the future is always “stranger than we can imagine”, to quote biologist JBS Haldane.
It’s late 2014
Donald Trump has just finished filming season 14 of The Apprentice. British Prime Minister David Cameron has mooted the possibility of an in/out referendum on Britain’s membership in the EU. Ed Sheeran, Taylor Swift and Coldplay(?!?) reign supreme in the charts, and I’d just started my first [VC] job with Oxford Capital Ventures. Upon starting, I knew NOTHING, and could have never imagined where the next 5 years would take me.
Fast forward to the present day
Things have indeed been strange. I certainly could not have imagined throwing a flat earth themed (paddling) pool party for a bunch of VCs and tech founders in central London. Nor could I have imagined meeting over 900 founders, and getting lucky enough to lead OC’s investments in Attest, Latent Logic (now Waymo UK) and HelloSelf. It’s been a privilege to learn everything from the teams of these companies, and from my former colleagues at OC (special shout out to Tom Bradley and Esther Delignat). And I’ve just joined OMERS Ventures!
Why VC (again)?
I’m excited to be doubling down on European VC with OMERS Ventures. Let me explain why…
The European Tech and VC ecosystems have been completely transformed since 2014:
…but despite the growth in funding , European tech is still under-indexed and under-financed; funding lags behind the potential of Europe’s talent pool and economies:
On VC specifically, I believe there’s a huge opportunity for VCs to better serve Europe’s founders. While at OC, we asked every founder we met between October 2017 and May 2019 (n=674) to state their most important attribute when selecting a VC partner:
Relationship with Investment Manager is understandably the most common choice. However I was surprised to see speed of execution feature so prominently, and operational support (where many VCs have made huge investments in platform teams) feature towards the bottom.
VC is a customer service business (where the entrepreneur = the customer). There’s a huge opportunity for funds that have the humility to realize this, and grit to execute on it. In other words, it shouldn’t be that hard to outperform!
…and Why OMERS?
The team assembling at OMERS Ventures Europe are some of the brightest, most accomplished and kindest people in the industry. I’m really excited to get to work with and learn from Harry, Tara, Jambu, Henry and the wider OMERS team. I feel lucky to join a team with the rare combination of world-class skills, and humility to take a relative newcomer like me under their wing.
Founders are increasingly conscious of where the money that fuels their businesses comes from, and whose financial success they enable through their own. OMERS’ ‘investors’ are the pensions of 500,000 public sector employees in Ontario. It matters to me, and to our founders, that an outsize return for OMERS will make a real difference to thousands of hardworking families in their retirement.
Finally, OMERS Ventures is focused on investing in 3 clear themes: the future of Healthcare, Cities and Fintech. These are themes that matter; solving macro problems in these sectors will improve quality of life for billions of people. Healthcare efficiency particularly is worsening over time, and the industry is ill-equipped to deal with changing demographics. Cities and urbanization are a boon for economic productivity thanks to agglomeration effects, and one of the best ways we can preserve our planet’s natural ecosystem and fight climate change is to encourage efficient urbanization.
I am incredibly fortunate to be part of this industry, and have only got this far thanks to the help of many others. After somewhat unusually beginning my career in VC, I was a little unsure about what to do next; a huge thank you to the many people far smarter and wiser than I who generously gave me their time to help me think through my next moves.*
Our mission is to partner with Europe’s best founders at Series A and B. If you think you could help us on our mission of backing the best European founders at Series A, B and beyond, or have any wonderfully strange predictions for what the next 5 years hold for all of us, please get in touch!
*Huge thanks to: Dom Diak, Julia Hawkins, Zack Nathan, Hampus Jakobsson, Bahbak Miremadi, Connell Locke, Matt Clifford, Dan Chaplin, Sonia Maciuszewicz, Will Dufton, Sitar Teli, Chris Edson, James Dacombe, Charlie Wells, Isa Bescos, Nadim Lahoud, Margaret Perchik, Chrys Chrysanthou, Damien Lane, Carina Namih, Daria Danilina, Hazel Mulhare, Sokratis Papafloratos, Tristan Fletcher, Michael Johnson, Henry Ludlam, Romanie Thomas, Tony Hunter, Mark Walker, Jeremy King… and apologies to those of you who I’ve invariably forgotten!
