Christian Nagel, co-founder of Earlybird Venture Capital, unpacks 28 years of European VC: how to build top-performing funds, pick founders when product isn’t enough, and why real VC “education” costs $50M. We cover Earlybird’s evolution from the dot-com crash to €2.5B AUM, category-defining exits, and a data-driven future of founder discovery and portfolio construction. If you’re a VC, operator, or ambitious founder, you NEED to watch this. In this episode, Christian shares:
• Why “lose $50M” is the tuition great investors pay and what it teaches about portfolio construction.
• The playbook for surviving VC’s “nuclear winter”: using management fees for winners in 2000
• How to avoid being “dumb money” in co-invests and win by leading and staying close to founders.
• The next era of European VC: specialization and AI-enabled sourcing
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