From Entrepreneur to Investor — Hans Peddemors on VenturesOne’s Secret to Helping Build Lasting Companies
With more fuel for entrepreneurs through new funds and partnerships, 2019 promises to be a landmark year for VenturesOne. Hans Peddemors, Director of VenturesOne, reflects on his journey with VenturesOne from entrepreneur to investor, while also speaking about what distinguishes VenturesOne from typical VC’s, and what we can expect from VenturesOne in 2019.
Before Hans Peddemors was supporting entrepreneurs and helping them create lasting companies with VenturesOne, he was an entrepreneur himself. He believes that this experience gives him and his team the empathy required to understand the issues faced by the entrepreneurs of today. On the back of seven years as an Audit Manager at Pricewaterhouse Coopers, in 1994, he set up Rekenmeesters, a company specializing in temporary staffing for finance and accounting professionals. He did this with the support of long-time business partner and CEO of the VenturesOne Group, Edward de Jager — one of the very first investments made by VenturesOne. Leveraging his past experience in a multinational professional services environment, Hans scaled up Rekenmeesters from scratch in a short time. Six years after founding, Rekenmeesters had four offices and was providing temporary finance and accounting professionals to large organizations which included local government institutions, banks, and other large multinationals. At their peak, Rekemeesters had over 250 employees and over 100 interim managers working at their clients’. In 2008, Rekenmeesters was acquired by the global leader in HR services and staffing, Randstad. In hindsight, Hans looks back at this as a crucial moment in his entrepreneurial journey: “From being my own boss, I went back to working for a large organization — one that was centralized and in my opinion, not conducive to the entrepreneurial mindset”. Sixteen years after he founded Rekenmeesters, Hans sold his remaining shares in 2009, patiently awaiting the next opportunity for him to use his skill in building companies.
This opportunity arrived in 2011, in the form of VenturesOne. From being a successful funded entrepreneur, Hans decided it was the right time to switch seats, go to the other side of the table, and help funding startups with the company that invested in his own venture fifteen years ago. Eager to take the lessons he learnt from his time as a business owner, Hans was determined to make startup funding as efficient and effective as possible. And the rest, as they say, is history.
When asked about what motivates him — over thirty years since his career began — Hans very simply says that he “… likes to create something with value and meaning. To turn a bright idea into a successful venture is what inspires me”. As an entrepreneur who was able to succeed in part through the funding of investors, Hans today is motivated by the prospect of sharing his experience forward by supporting the dreams of the next generation of entrepreneurs.
Looking back on the last eight years at VenturesOne, Hans remarks at how much the industries — and indeed, his own — idea of venture capitalism has evolved. “Networks have always been important”, he says, “but with technology and social media, networking has been taken to another level and is essential for any investor to fund in the right venture and any startup to find the best type of investor”. In his experience as an investor, he has realized the importance of assessing the strength of the management teams of any prospective startups VenturesOne is looking to invest in —
“If you ask me to pick between a strong management team with a weak business case and a weak management team with a strong business case, I will always pick the strong team with the weaker business case. Business can be taught and qualifications can be achieved, but for me, ethics and principles are the most important”.
In his capacity as Director, Hans played a role in making VenturesOne the first Netherlands-based VC to be accredited by the European Investment Fund (‘EIF’) in 2016. This was an important juncture in VenturesOne’s history as the EIF accreditation legitimized VenturesOne in the VC world. Moreover, this allowed VenturesOne to at least double their investment capacity for future funds and opened the door for ‘business angel scheme’ joint venture with EIF. Today, VenturesOne remains one of the nine EIF-accredited VCs in The Netherlands — and Hans says that VenturesOne enjoys the challenges that come with wearing the hat of Fund Manager. “Managing a €10 million fund has been an educative experience for us and we’re certain that our strong relationship with the EIF will open more doors for future opportunities and joint ventures”, he remarks.
The motto of VenturesOne: “We Fuel Entrepreneurs” resonates greatly with Hans. But what, according to him, is the ‘fuel’ that entrepreneurs need? He answers: “99% of the time, the businesses we meet need financial support. But this is only the start — because we’ve seen that non-financial support is just as important”.
Using another key VenturesOne investment, Skelex, as an example, Hans elaborates: “Before we invested in Skelex, the Founder was an industrial designer with much to learn about entrepreneurship. After our investment, the non-financial ‘fuel’ we provided the company was probably as important as the funding we supplied. Funding can come from anywhere, but the crucial help in running a business is something that VenturesOne provides. We pride ourselves in ‘fueling’ our investments by helping entrepreneurs with deal structures, sales, marketing, and scaling up their businesses sustainably”.
Hans’ genuine passion for creating successful disruptors out of promising startups is evident when he speaks about VenturesOne’s exit strategy: “Most venture capitalists exit after five to eight years, but at VenturesOne, we partner-up for the long term. Twenty-five years ago, when the predecessor of VenturesOne invested in my company, they weren’t looking for an exit. This is something that has carried on through the years — we never actively push for an exit. From my personal experience selling Rekenmeesters, I know that exit offers always come at unexpected moments. VenturesOne’s strategy is to fully back and put belief in the entrepreneur and their management teams.
Hans believes that years of experience in maintaining the confidence of clientele and entrepreneurs has allowed VenturesOne to set ambitious targets for 2019. He is targeting larger investments after VenturesOne establishes their own fund. He is also looking forward to possible third-party funding opportunities, much like the previous collaboration with the EIF. And of course, he looks forward to helping VenturesOne’s existing investments grow and succeed further. He signs off with a valuable piece of advice for all entrepreneurs and business owners — “Follow your passion and do what you are good at and accelerate. Don’t focus so much on the financial benefits that you lose sight of your original goals”.
