Welcoming Andy to the Crane Herd and the Crane Seed Summit

We are hugely excited to announce that Andy Leaver has joined Crane as a Partner. We have known Andy since he was leading Workday’s expansion across Europe and Japan several years ago. In that time we collaborated with him on the Internationalisation of Enterprise Software Companies project (expect more from us on this topic in the near future) and have also co-invested in and advised startups together.

Working with and watching him operate is deeply rewarding and a constant education (and its fun) and it made us realise we really wanted him on the Crane team. Leveraging Andy’s experience from the data analytics, open source and the enterprise software worlds adds a new dimension to how we can support enterprise founders.

Andy is too modest to say so, but we are happy to sing his praises as a truly unique entrant to the European startup and venture scene (read Andy’s post on joining Crane). He has helped to internationalise 5 iconic US enterprise software companies — typically as the first Exec boots on the ground in a new market. We’ve been talking to Andy for years about about hanging up his green lightsaber for a red one and it’s been great to watch him transition to the investing side of the table. We would characterise the impact he’s made with some of the Crane portfolio as having an “immediate time-to-value”.

Separately, we‘ve also been thinking about how we can scale Crane’s support for our current and future portfolio companies. Our focus is Post Seed (or Pre-A) enterprise companies which we believe, in Europe, is often the most difficult and most necessary funding to secure to get to the “$100k+ MRR” milestone most funds look for at the Series A stage.

To that end, we are excited to announce the inaugural Crane Seed Summit for Enterprise Founders. Its an an invite only, free, day long event bringing together Europe’s most promising Pre Series A enterprise and data startups tackling big problems using proprietary tech in advanced analytics, machine learning/AI with a deep appreciation for the value of data.

As a founder of a next generation enterprise and data company, we know how hard it is to achieve initial product market fit, onboard first customers, make your first commercial hires in the pursuit of the illusive $100k MRR — there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach.

We have assembled a set of world-class practitioners who are themselves still in the trenches growing their operations. The agenda is focused on what it takes to build a successful company and to successfully close your Post Seed and/or Series A.

We’re excited to have teamed up with Entrepreneur First for this event. Entrepreneur First brings together extraordinary people to build startups from scratch. They fund individuals and help build co-founding teams, develop ideas, and accelerate through fundraising from the world’s best investors.

We have a limited number of spaces left for the event on November 1st in London at the offices of Silicon Valley Bank (thank you SVB for your support). If you are a Pre Series A enterprise/data focused founder and are interested in attending, please email events@crane.vc and we will respond to the first applicants who fulfil this criteria.

Scott and Krishna