Meet Bjoern Wolf, Partner at Contrivance Ventures
Bjoern is one of the three co-founders of Contrivance Ventures, an early-stage angel investment network focusing on Central and Eastern Europe. Contrivance Ventures was founded in 2019 and has completed 6 angel investments to date across different sectors and countries within the region. Bjoern co-founded Contrivance Ventures after working on entrepreneurial ventures for a few years with his business partner Evgenii. Prior to Contrivance Ventures, Bjoern worked as a strategy consultant for McKinsey & Company, as well as management roles in product and operations in well-funded startups.
How was the idea for Contrivance Ventures born?
I had been working with Evgenii on a couple of side-projects, most prominently flatser (www.flatser.com) und Show Your Space (www.showyour.space). We decided to move from operationally running startups into angel investing. We are big believers in the extended Eastern European area and our workforce has always been from Russia and other Eastern European countries. The combination of a well-educated workforce with low GDP levels makes the region a very attractive one. Our full reasoning is laid down in an article.
We simply used the existing corporation from our previous ventures — Contrivance Ltd., and invested past profits into the first few angel investments. We got lucky with some of our picks and decided to intensify our efforts.
What is your industry focus at Contrivance Ventures?
Contrivance Ventures is an industry-agnostic investor. However, we have a strong preference for investing in sectors where we have some prior experience and can offer support and mentorship to our portfolio companies. My personal interests are relatively eclectic and include FinTech (particularly exotic ones like income share agreements, prediction markets or asset-backed stablecoins), online retail, quantified health / mind, psychometrics and many more.
What do you think is the most interesting sector/trend in the region and why?
I do not think that there are specific trends in the region that go counter to the overall development. The interesting part of the CEE region in my opinion is the possibility of geographical arbitrage, particularly in a post-Covid world.
What technology/company you would like to see that does not exist yet?
The next few decades will be wild. I believe prediction markets will play relevant roles in decision making, humans will augment themselves after birth (via nootropics or eventually technologies like Neuralink), as well as before via embryo selection and FinTech trends such as DeFi and trustless pegging mechanisms will shake up the traditional financial landscape.
What makes a good angel investor?
Someone willing to go the extra mile beyond just wiring money, in terms of advice, introductions or whatever the company needs.
Best/worst thing to see in a pitch deck?
I like a clear description of the problem they are trying to solve, along with their solution and the moat. In the very early stage, numbers are shaky anyhow, so the product must make sense. What I do not like is fluff. If I can not understand what the company does, I do not care about any metrics.
Favorite metric when analyzing a company?
In addition to the classical “user / sales growth” numbers, I find cost figures quite interesting. They tell how the founders are handling money, whether they are resourceful or wasteful.
Interesting book you read lately?
In terms of non-fiction, I mostly read long-form blog posts, such as the LessWrong Sequences, Gwern or Scott Alexander.
In terms of fiction, I really like the web serial concept and regularly read A Practical Guide to Evil.
Favorite podcast/series to recommend?
In terms of podcasts I most enjoy Sam Harris, but also listen to Joe Rogan and Patrick O’Shaughnessy. In terms of TV series I enjoyed Peaky Blinders, The Expanse, Dark and Westworld.
