Micromobility Founder Turned VC: Building, Scaling, and Investing in Europe - Thijn Van Helvoirt

[MUSIC] Welcome to the Micromobility Podcast. I'm your host, Praveen Joyl Jones. I have a very interesting episode today. I have somebody who was a founder, operator in mobility, who turned Risi. Before getting into the episode, a quick announcement. So we have Micromobility Europe coming up in Berlin in 2026 on 2nd and 3rd of June. Tickets are on sale. So there's early but distance going on, go to micromobility.io and get your tickets. If you'd like to speak at the event, please send in your speaker request before end of the year, so that we can plan better. With that, let's get into today's episode. I have 10, who is, I hope I said the name correct, but this is very well. So, 10 is the one of the co-founders of check. It's a micromobility startup. Now they also have car sharing, a very popular in the Netherlands. If you go to Amsterdam, Amsterdam, you'll see all this check, what bits. So he was a VC and then, sorry, was a founder and then now he's a VC at No Such Wengers. So, then welcome to this show. Yeah, thanks, Praveen. Thanks for having me. Great. So, for the audience to know, probably many in the mobility world they know you, but for people who don't know you, can you give a quick intro. Yeah, sure. Well, I'm tied. I have a weird background. So I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I debilt a little bit in theater and in acting. I actually was an actor in some movies that were broadcast in the Dutch in the master's, for instance. Switched to studying law and, and also then at, at a point I was a lawyer for a couple of years. And, turns investor for, for a year, but I quickly discovered that a lot of investors are actually spreadsheet warriors, right? They know a little about Excel, but they know very little about entrepreneurship at least. That's, that's what you see in the European landscape. And it is changing now a bit, but, but when I was coming to that conclusion, I actually thought to myself, do, do things one, if I want to be a good investor, maybe I should also be a founder. Maybe I should actually be an entrepreneur to understand and to sort of tell the entrepreneur, say, take my advice, right? And the other thing I also found is, hey, there's actually lots of opportunities because when, when you start sort of, if I think a little bit in, in startups, you just see so many opportunities. So I felt like, ah, this is maybe something I could do. So with that in the back of my mind, I started, I started check, started with an idea, raised some money for it, and then we really got it going. What we tried to do differently, so this is back 2018. What we tried to do differently back then, everybody was growing, growing, growing. Capital was plenty, it was easy to attract money. And people were saying, well, let's just dominate the market and we worry about sort of profitability a unit economics later. And when I started, I thought, okay, maybe we should do that differently. So maybe we should first look at, okay, can we actually get these in unity economics before you're going to scale this? And back then, that was not too popular. Yeah. I also got some, some other founders that were operating in the same space here on the island saying, okay, you guys are going to slowly, what are you doing? But we kept to it. And I think after 16 months, we turned the first profit and we've never had vaccines. How did we do that? We can probably talk about that a little bit later in the story. But indeed, did check, we built it from nothing to companies now doing good. We're a very active, and as you already said, you know, like most markets in the Netherlands, we've been active in Germany a little bit. And we actually put back from our market, can explain a little bit why that was a strategic decision as well. Opinies grow very fast these days, also, actually into a car sharing these days. We're really trying to touch upon every mode of mobility. And two and a half years ago, I left check and now a third full time investing again, indeed. That knows it's ventures. And those ventures were also building still a little bit on that thesis that I just said, like, there should be more entrepreneurs investing. So what we do is we invest only with entrepreneurs. So we have in our L people, now 180 entrepreneurs that all have as the common denominator, they've been successful with their businesses scaling across Europe. We put them in entities that we think this is actually a company they would be good fit into actually help us. We put them in entities with us entities, we have as companies, meaning as founder, you get sort of the benefits of angels without having a memory of capital. So you only have to deal with us like an official. And it's a bit about the idea that if you have founders helping out founders investing in founders, yeah, and the results. Karo, so tech is one of the very few companies that are a bit positive in this industry. Right. Can it seem more about how that happened? I mean, if you're you're out of the business, not actively involved for over two years, but I think at the time when you accepted you were already on the way to be a bit positive or they were already positive. We were a bit positive. You were. Okay, great. So can you tell us more about it? How do you achieve that? Yeah, sure. Yeah, it's always a theory easy to to to complicate about it a bit, right? But I think what we did tried to do differently were two things. One is we based every decision on data and two, we tried to solve everything with tech. And that sounds very easy. But but actually basing every decision on data is very hard to do. And just to give a couple of examples, I often see founders now from as a investor, right? They say, yes, we asked our customers and we did a survey and this is what came and then I always say, yes, but there's a very big delta between what the customers are telling you and how they will actually act. And the best example we always had were the little heronets it's a check. So you probably know if you've driven a check mopet, you need to wear a helmet in an image, right? So here some people don't like to put a helmet directly on their hair. So we provide little heronets, you probably also not have some of the other operators put little heronets on your hair and then you put a helmet on. And then if we would ask in a survey like, hey, how many people would actually use drive light? The question I think was would you drive a drive a check if there were no heronets? And I think, well, maybe you guess, which percentage do you think said like hell no, I would never drive a check if there were no heronets? Oh, maybe 30% or 30% is. Yeah, it's close to 35%. Wow. And then go, hey, this is actually very important. Right? We need to make sure we always have heronets. Then we start to look, hey, wait a minute, we can actually also see how much heronets burn we have because we can simply see how many heronets were refilling and then we can also calculate how many trips it would do. And then if we divide those numbers, we see our heronets burn per trip. So then the question is what is then our heronet burn? Because that should then be at least, right? One and three at least, right? It's actually one and 50. Wow. So nobody can. There's nobody care. And it doesn't even take into account that you pull out one heronets, five foamy grounds, probably right? So actually, heronets burn is even lower. So that's just an easy example because this is a very clear one, but there's a very big delta because what your customers will tell you was actually going to happen. And if you really optimize what's actually happening, then you're going to have a different strategy. And that has also to do with, for instance, when we were looking at, okay, how we're optimizing for a surface area. And back then, and now this is already so it's less unique these days. But back then, everybody was thinking, okay, we need to think about the user experience. And we need to think, okay, I agree. But we also need to think about the user journey. So how are people using their products? It's a very popular term in startups like a think about your customer and how are they using your product? And then they were, you had all these personas. How are they using right? They're still still a lot of startups do that. Okay, I'm taking a check and I'm going to grandma. I'm taking a check and I'm going to the bakery, dropping off my kids and then try to see if you can get to those use cases. Some of our competitors did that, right? So they really optimized making sure you have the biggest surface area you can have. Make sure you can get every area with your vehicle. We were looking at the data. We saw, okay, we get a permit because if you want to operate this, shareability operator, you need to get a permit because you're operating in public space. So we're looking at a permit conditions and we saw, well, okay, there's a maximum amount of vehicles. We can put it in an area. Then we're looking at where are people actually using our vehicles. And we saw that within our surface area, in 95% of the trips, stilt and ended in a very small part of the surface area. Then if you take those two factors into account, also knowing that a lot of people are multi-homers, and maybe to explain that to her, right? Multi-homing means that if you have similar services, people will just have both services. So in case of my community, you'll have both apps or four apps. Maybe you have a lie, maybe you have a dot, maybe you have a check, all installed on your phone. So if you know people are multi-homing, people are using only a very small part of your serious area. And you're limited to amount of vehicles you can put in your area. They think, "Okay, how should I actually optimize for this?" Then we start looking at, "Okay, what about distance to vehicle?" If you're looking at people opening your app, you call that an "ibol," right? People opening their eyes on the screen called an "ibol." You calculate when people are opening the app at the distance to the nearest scooter, and then really the relationship with the conversion. So how many people would then actually book a trip? Would find that if you need to walk less than 200 meters, the version was more than 50%. So with all these things into account, we actually realized, wait a minute, we shouldn't optimize for these journeys at all. Right? Make sure we're in a very small service area because the identity of our vehicles is way higher. And because everybody's multi-homing, I'm totally fine that on Sunday evening, they're taking a line to their grandma in Amsterdam North. Along as a moment, they choose to go to work, they take a check. And that's just also, you can think about your vision, and that's fine. It's very strong and good to have a vision, but you always need to check what's actually going on. And that can go very far, right? That's all the easy examples. And it wasn't that popular now. I think a lot of people are doing it. Think about, hey, I can pick up a vehicle that's been standing idle in a specific area for a long time. It costs me about eight euros to send the van, send the students or maybe sort of a mechanic right to pick it up, bring it back to a serves area where there's a higher chance that people will rent it or maybe I can sort of design a dynamic pricing algorithm where vehicles are standing out of a long time comes a little bit cheaper. And you can take that one step further. Think about if you ever go to festivals. And sometimes you have at least in the Netherlands in the festivals, you have these people under collecting the glasses because you get 50 cents on the glasses. We realized these people paid 70 euros for a ticket for the festival. They're still collecting glasses. I guess, however you were right. So we created the beta app that was forever in beta for these typos people they could sign up. Whenever there was an item up at nearby, they would get a popup message like, hey, there's a mob at nearby. We gave them three free trips. People would even take a bus to get those free free trips. And then the cost of your trip is well less than 50 cents. Right. So then even if I gave away 10 free trips, I can give away five euros. And it cost me eight euros. So these are all these things you can do to make sure that you're just way more capital efficient. And for instance, also we never did any social social media. Just we didn't have anyone managing an Instagram account. We didn't have anyone doing tick to like all our competitors were right there. Social media mark. But the moment you start to do that, you need to think, okay, I need to have a marketing manager. Then I need to have a social media manager. They need to have an intern for tech talk, interfer. One of them can be really good. So this can be full time hire. At some point they also want to hire before you know it, you're running a business with a hundred people at headquarters. Very adamant. Keeping it below 30. For two reasons, right. One is just capital efficiency. But two, it's also when you're in a team that's less than I think the sweet spot is about around 3035. When your headquarters count is less than that, you can still operate as one team. Yes, that's something you call undercurrents, right. Sort of people with each other are feeling more and plea that an owner of your business. You can reduce that quite significantly. And that's actually going to make every individual that worth the company way more projects. Yeah, I'm with you on the surveys and user journey mapping and all that. What's the right approach? Don't do user surveys. Don't do mapping. Just come over something that and then keep it's preventing till that heads or what would your advice found is. Yeah, now it's 100% the second. So I'm definitely going down to social media, but just realize what you have what you don't have. For instance, if you're a sharp mobility operator and you're operating in Amsterdam, you have well, the thousand vehicles there. That means you have a thousand advertising boards that are literally in the city. So what do you need to do? Well, for instance, if you look at the coloring scheme of check with white scooters with almost reflective purple and black on it, right. Why? Because in Netherlands is is pretty high latitude country in the winter, literally today. It's been dark since five five 15 or something, right. So that means that if you have a dark green a color scheme, which some of our competitors in the market have at night, half the year. No, but but but of wise with reflective letters, they're just advertising boards everywhere in the city. So so you're way more noticeable, but also that also means you don't have to do an out of home campaign. Right. So going to Abri's, but stands where you put on posters. Probably really not going to add any value. But if you're a company that doesn't have that, maybe out of home is great. So exactly as you say, I would advise every founder to just experiment. We did with check a lot. We were a beat us in a lot of your testing it out. Do little experiments once it hits if that's a little bit more and that experiment. If it doesn't work, you kill it and you're back to sort of the core of your business that's actually working. Yeah. And you would always the same for the product as well. Like I mean, don't do service, you know, just go do things, experiment fail and you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think so. Yes. And yes, we also did surveys. We did pizza session, even, you know, like we did all the shenanigans. Yes. And it's sort of helpful. Right. But it's helpful in a way that it's very nice when you do a pizza session. And we did a marketing agency. You see a couple of people sitting at the room, putting up some stuff, experimenting with some stuff, even have to test and some features. And you can sort of be a fly on the wall and see how they're actually interacting with it. It's very entertaining. But it's also very anecdotal. So, you know, just by default, you can do five pizza sessions, then you maybe have your n is 80 right. You maybe I've seen 80 people. So very small sample set. And it's very easy to get a bias in there. So also there. I'm not saying don't to surf. But maybe I am. I was talking to Horas and one of the podcast episodes and he was saying that in most cases users don't really know what they want. As founders, you have to actually tell them, hey, I mean, this is probably what you need. You know, it's a very different approach. Exactly like you said, you know, if you've gone by your survey, you would have noticed a lot in the head nets. Right. But yeah, I mean, that wasn't the case because they don't know what they really need or want. But you also need to test it out. Right. Like winter everybody was testing out those little blankets that you would attach to the mouth. I don't know. I understand the perception there. We also tested out. But what we then did is we selected one city and then 50% of the vehicles in that city got them. If you didn't get a retry to a B test it's still hard to a B test. Right. So the actually thing you need to do is always a lot of one standing with and one standing without one next to each other to get a really honest comparison and then do that skill. That's almost impossible. But we sort of found that there was not a real correlation. And we would even indicate it in the app in that city. But you tested that at small skills or investment is minimal. You just have a hundred or so vehicles with there. And yet we saw no statistical evidence that there was any adventure of having them. But you see that they were very gross. And then there was a model them. They were semi wet. It just it looked horrible. Right. It sort of looked like a sort of deflated balloon laying vehicle. And especially come spring. We all have sort of those early March months when suddenly the weather turn is at least in sort of the Netherlands and Germany right where the weather starts turning good. And then your whole fleet is still covered in a winter blanket. Those days we did way better than a couple of those that had a blanket because it was like I'm not driving those gross. We need to experiment. And sometimes also you don't really know what's going to stick. We had we had moments where I think we had so many also in our product so many different versions flying around literary where you put in your buttons where people clicking on test test test to see what sticks. So you know you did this adventure. I mean like you said it's one of the few companies that are a bit positive today. If you go to Amsterdam it's very popular. And then you made a switch to you know becoming a VC. Can you talk to can you explain a bit about that journey and what's your focus within those such ventures in terms of verticals the companies that you've invested can you just you know give a give a summary. Yeah sure. Yeah. How I got to switching. So it's not as wise ask me that. I had a company that was doing well. Why did you leave? But for me it was I started to company the first thing I did was try to find good for co fund as right exactly as you said I found two great co funders. They're still running the business today of Mary Borer Marko Knitle. Great guys very knowledgeable. I call consumer. We're called called Green Wheels. No industry very well and with the three of us we were very complimentary and start. That's really great because you rely on each other but that also means that you're building a business together and what we always have really tried to optimize for higher people that are smarter than you are. And I think we were very successful at that. So at some point we just had a team that was very efficient. They were very much owning the business themselves. So our roles became more strategic and strategic and less hand zone. Co funders do well and was profitable and then the final of now such ventures Rijner. He and I knew for a few years. So when I was still with Jack I sometimes advised him on deals he was looking into mainly in mobility space. For instance, Goboony is investment. Now such a venture did before I joined the board for people and don't know the company. It's like Snapcar for RVs. So what they do is it's a peer-to-peer platform with you owned an RV motorhome. And you want to sort of the newt go on holiday for holiday you can offer it on the platform when other people can rent it and if you don't want to rent it from rent to complete somebody else you can have a peer-to-peer. It's a little bit cheaper but it's also just a very nice ecosystem. I've really pinsed their own RV so you get a way better experience. So it sort of advice on that deal a bit started. So I think that the ventures are very strongly with an IG that's very close to how I view the rules. I think it touched upon it a little bit. But I strongly believe that if you want to do successful investments you should look beyond the spreadsheets. That doesn't mean that you don't shouldn't look at data. I think if you got anything from the first bit of this conversation that I very much like to look into the data. But what I do mean is if you look at the most successful startups throughout history or at least in the last couple of decades they've all had unique stories. And if you want to assist those unique stories or support those unique stories you need to be flexible as an investor. So you cannot be a checklist investor just says okay we need only recurring revenue it needs to be 100% year over year. Check check check check check if note your art. Right you need to think what's going to be the best growth path for this company. How can we best support that was the best business model. Yes there is really good business models out there that are not fully recurring size revenue. And then and if you think about it in that way what's the best support we can deliver. Well that's literally sort of why I thought I need to be an entrepreneur myself. That's yours trick at otherwise the investor and in reiners or building that and he basically it. let's build this further out together. And that's the mission I signed on for. And I thought, well, there's always a reason not to leave your company. But I'm still pretty evolved in a century. Raci, I'm still evolved anymore. But I speak to Paul and Marco on a weekly basis. Instead of being together, we're pretty good friends. So I can interfere a little bit from us, and then of course, in what's going on. I'm still involved and now with my company, that sort of, how do you say that? Is thatifiable for myself? Yeah. So I felt there's a great opportunity to now actually start making more impact as a new investor. And I think that's the main reason I was strongly for that if we really want to change something to act. And I felt that as a founder, I could do that. But as a new investor, I can make way more impact. OK, so that's a switch. And how big is the fund? At least the latest fund? Yeah, yeah, good question. So as nosage ventures, we're investing on a deal with deal basis. So when we see company, we give them a term sheet. We go to our base. As I said, they're all entrepreneurs. We try to see who are the best fit. We put them in SPV. We invest through the SPV. So far on 16 investments. And we invest a little bit more than 55 million. Meaning a typical investment for nosage ventures is between 2 and 8 million. But literally the last couple of months, we've been discussing internally a little bit. And if you look at the funding gap in Europe, you see the funding gap is actually a little bit earlier. And if you look at what are all our big investors are doing, you see everybody creeping a little bit earlier. And so many times that I was talking to really great founders, and I would try to help them out a little bit, try to maybe give them a lead or do something. But we always say, well, let's first get to know each other a little bit also because we know that we typically like to invest a little bit later. And the last year and a half, we had a couple of instances that we had a really great founder. Actually knew we wanted to invest, but we just we just waited a little bit longer. And that's somebody else invested. We want to get rid of that. So that's why now all of the nosage ventures saying we should be able to invest earlier. This still means we need to see some revenue, but be able to also invest a ticket of a million. Invest in a company that sees a little bit of traction. If all our KPIs are indicating stuff is going well, because I think that was your other question, what I'm thinking sort of from check here. The nosage ventures, that's very much that, right? I'm still very much data focused. I'm still very much looking at that. And that's also what I try to see in founders. What are different criteria that you look at when you're investing from no such ventures? In terms of revenue range, or I don't know if we have some favorite verticals that you're looking at. What are you looking at? What are your KPIs? Yeah, so of course I have a background in mobility. And also with an energy. So I'm looking more into mobility companies. But energy in mobility is often taking into one work at right. So there are many investors that see them as one interactive sort of space. So I'm very much looking into those companies. But as an investor, we're everything agnostic. And that also means exactly as I said on the checklist, we just believe that if you want to go to the investments, we cannot limit ourselves to things. That does mean that there are some things that we don't like to do. We do like to build companies that are attributing something to the world or to the industry they're operating in. That means that if it's just another thing that's giving you 2% more efficiency or something, that's maybe not that infestible for us. And they do need to have their mission aligned with our mission. And our mission is very much Europe focused. OK. Got it. But you don't have revenue range. You have to be extremely-- you have to have ex-customers. No. No. As in normally we fast when you do-- what is it? 540K in recurring revenue or non-recurring revenue. Of course, we like to see companies grow fast. But I think the last company we invested in was way beyond that. They did 5 million revenue. We've also done a pretty revenue deal. So I think that's always the hard thing. People find hard to pinpoint us. I think what you should-- because we're always saying, well, we like to keep our options open. I think the strength thing that is we want to see clear signals that there's commercial traction. So if that's not going to be revenue, then some other KPIs that are very clearly indicated of that. So if that's not there, then it's uninvestable for us. Big reason also because everybody that's invested with us has experience in that. So that's also our biggest failure at. So if you're not there yet, as a founder, you might be better of all signing with somebody. It can help you sort of discover product market fit a bit better. We're just not the best investor for that. So as a founder, you should also be on that. You know, like that's not a founder. The moment you sort of found something that worked, and now you have no clue how to scale it, then you come to us. But what we do want to see, and that's sort of the three pillars we invest in, so they're not verticals, but they should be either companies that are treating Europe as a single market, meaning, for instance, it can be mobility is a great example, right? Physically almost connecting the different markets in Europe, but it can also be REC tech or legal tech that just makes navigating the regulated markets of Europe more as a single market. Second pillar is they are building Europe from the ground up, meaning can be deep tech, can be industry, can be everything that's really sort of supporting us from the ground up can also be automation with our AI, FeshMissar, and that buckets. And third pillar is we also need to defend our sovereignty. And that does also mean that we also are looking into defense tech. - Okay, got it. So, you know, you have a unique experience. So you were a mobility operator and then now you're an investor. The last couple of years were really great for mobility and micromoleating in specific, but, you know, I think we also spoke about it at the event, and we also saw at the event that things are changing, you know, just this year we had dot raising 85 million, or we raised another massive debt-trone. We also hear so many funding news across the world. Do you see any, you know, any such unique, you know, indicators that you see from your day to day job? Do you think, do you see things shifting? - Yes, I do, but I'm pretty cautious not timing of it. - Oh. - Everybody likes to see the market recovery quickly, right? Everybody would like that. Since we've seen hey days in the market, we did it specifically, but also just the mobility space. And everybody sort of sees the long-term potential. So I like to believe that the day has come that it's all clearing up. I do see stuff chasing for better. For instance, a big issue was in the two-wheeler industry, because of COVID, this you probably had is five times mentioned on your podcast. - Already, right? But sort of, so many two-wheeler's just flooding the markets that were just possible for anyone to make any money, because the stockpiles were so high, you do see the chasing a little bit, but there's still big stocks out there, right? And it's not the only factor influencing it. Yes, you see way more appetite to start investing in development a bit. We also just see the markets improving. And that maybe almost has to do with something that people are just not that enrolled is in sort of a less of a crisis mode. And it's very easy always to sort of tie directly to interest rates or whatever. But I think it's almost more sentimental than that. If that can be the case, I think people are just, okay, I just accept that the world's in crisis, let's move on. And I think it's specifically Europe. People are really figuring out, okay, we just need to do it ourselves. So we're almost dragging ourselves from the mud, from my hair from the mud, to make it happen. So that's all very positive. But I do think that at least the start of 2026 is still going to be pretty rough. We're going to have winners that will be very successful. There is capital in the market. So you should be able to raise. We also see actually across our portfolio, most companies are being way more successful at sort of commercial traction. But the big but also lots of mobility focuses on enterprise. And enterprise is still rough. Automotive in Europe, but also globally, but definitely Europe is in a rush, but that's not going to change quickly. The recent decision on sort of giving automotive companies a bit more leeway and sort of facing a combustion engine, an ICE engines, I'm not sure, right? Because I think it's time to sort of really embrace that this is just happening and actually start to optimize for sort of pure EV world. And then you also see for instance, the German automotive companies looking into sort of defense a little bit because they know that they have the industry set up to be really great at that. And it seems to be a demand for it. So that almost means that a lot of automotive players are investing again, but they're more investing in sort of those type of things. And that also means that if you're selling into automotive, that your lead times are not necessary improving. So maybe you're seeing in the market reports that the average lead times are improving, but that's because for specific parts of the market, that's happening. So that's also just the reality of it. - Yeah, yeah. So just to stay on that topic for AI is a big hype today. I mean, everybody wants to build an AI. Most of the funding news that we hear is AI related companies, if you have to look five, 10 years down the lane and see them in, these are a couple of things in mobility that's worth building today. Do you have a couple of things that you're thinking about? - Yeah, I think there are two big things that sort of if you're a bit in the AI space, maybe three that you should be mindful of. And one is that most of you is one I think is just autonomous. Right? Autonomous driving in any aspects. That doesn't mean that everybody should now start to develop their own autonomous models quite the opposite, right? But you do need to think about the world where autonomous is becoming more prevalent. You're already seeing sort of a dominating taxis in the US. We'll start to happen in Europe as well. Two, seven, I'm fairly bullish on it that we will see the first robot taxis as well in Amsterdam driving around. Put a pin on that and then check in with me in the next seven, right? But I think it should be at least aware of that. The second is everything related to computer vision, because that's just becoming such, especially in the world of AI, where it just becomes easier to create opportunities for computer vision. I see a lot of computer vision applications as well in a mobility space that are actually have a lot of cross-pollination into other industries, meaning you can actually sell to different markets for mobility, which is great. And the general AI embracing AI agents, if you're not using AI in your own operations, think you should quickly start doing that. If nothing else, because every investor's looking for it. And sort of every investor these days, it's a lot of the talk of the town, it's at most PC tables. Everybody's worried for sort of an AI bubble to pop. And everybody's also, and I think the consensus now is a little bit, it's literally the same, it's the dot com bubble. Yes, there will be a bubble, yes, it will pop. But when the dot com bubble pops, internet didn't go bankrupt, right? Yeah, quite a lot of it. So for AI, it will be the same. Make sure that you're applying AI in your operations. Make sure that you're doing half development work. You don't do this double development work with healthy and pleased because you're actually using AI processes. Make sure that you build it into your products. So when the bubble pops, technology is still there. That's also a few blockchain, by the way. People are always like, are you blockchain investor or crypto investor or not? Like, well, if you sort of look at it as a technology, it can be great. But would I, if I said crypto, platform, no, probably not. Got it. In terms of the autonomous vehicles, so Waymo announced that they are going to launch in London, in 2026, there's also bold announcing partnerships with companies. So if you look globally, I think Waymo is probably the leader today, you know, we have taken enough rights in San Francisco and LA. There's not a lot of other companies that have a product that you can want to start and compare with Waymo. Of course, there's so much buzz on Twitter about Tesla's doing robot access, but then it's still not to the level of what we move yesterday. Right. And Europe being kind of like the core market for all this, you know, for automotive. Historically, Europe is where many large brands came up, you know, a lot of technology evolved from Europe. Why don't we see a lot of companies building here? I mean, why don't we see a lot of autonomous vehicle companies here? Yeah, I think that has to do with the commercialization part of innovation. I think lately, and lately, I mean, last four decades, Europe is very poor at that. We have great innovation. Europe has seen many inventions also lately. There's like universities do great, great jobs. But what you often see is, I have this amazing piece of tech. You speak to sort of an early, yeah, it's really, IP is worth millions, okay, but it was going to buy it and how they, like, almost seems like they're looking at it from a scientific perspective, right? I think that does almost irrelevant to me, right? But it's a very cool invention, and that's just worth something. And I think, and that's what they do really well in the US. They think commercially from the start. And I think if Europe can learn how to commercialize early on, way earlier, also in their thinking, how to build products from their inventions, then they can do great things. But it's also good to realize that very well, yeah, fully agree, but their tech is not only their tech, right? I think they are 50 to 100 tech suppliers supplying tech to make their tech. And that's just something you should always realize about these industries. Then we're packing on a ton of mess. Doesn't mean that you always need to compete with the way in most of the world. You just, you can also be a good supplier of them. Mel is, as Mel is a great example in Netherlands, a great company, but people always say when they say, when they say, yes, they're 10 years ahead of everybody, that their tech is great. That's all very true. The big part of the magic is also that their whole supply chain is there are 10,000 companies supplying into a million, they're supply chain consultants and they're working. There's a whole startup community built in the Netherlands and Germany around one company. And that's just going to be true for our customers as well. So if you're a founder, you should just think about if you find this space interesting, how can a caravanese into it was going to be my role? Mm-hmm. Okay. Because, you know, our audiences and most of them are into microbobility. Do you see any interesting things happening in microbobility and new business models and in new tech that's, you know, what do you see in your, you know, you probably get a ton of pitch techs every day. So, do you see another interesting, that's popping up? Yeah, it's a good question to ask. Because there are different approaches to it. You see just because the software part of it is maturing a lot, that just more use cases are easily, more easily available. I think our investment in the claim, that's my best intel, to sort of what the startup are also doing because yes, it's a lot of pitch techs. Like if pitch techs reflect the reality, then the world will be great, right? And they're living in the future. So also looking a bit and what are their customers doing and what are they seeing? And what should you see that because a lot of software is becoming a lot better and a lot of embedded software also enables a lot of more applications that means that you can actually cater to niches. You can do interesting things, can build interesting businesses that are actually used today. And you see some founders smartly optimizing for that. So you see propositions that are catering more to niche. It might be less of a market directly, but it's a way more capital market. And what you see some founders are doing very smartly is they sort of start to realize, hey, how, first of all, when we were discussing a little bit about selling to enterprise, you should realize if you want to sign a big enterprise contract, that's almost impossible to do directly, right? It's going to take you five years. You can fast track that a bit if you manage to get into sort of a pilot, how do you do that? Well, most decision making breaches are about 30K. So if you're selling it, that's also another portfolio company that was really went on the exploration route. They're like, hey, how can we help them sell to enterprises? And there was literally this ceiling. When we started offering the product below 30K, we realized we didn't need somebody in the sea level to put a stamp on it. So decision making power was with the innovation manager. He can actually get great POCs, eight POCs, with the first to love to see, because it's the best for the day she do, and the company can still do it. And then a year later, you sort of have validated your added value to this enterprise. If you're running for a year, then you can build a business case, this innovation manager can actually build a business case. He lost that because he has been sort of using his innovation budget to work with you. Now, definitely wants to prove that the company should use this. And then you're in a great spot. And you sometimes see founders do that really well, especially if you're purely talking about the tracking investments, right? When you're a very good investor, you are always in conflict with yourself, because what you like to see is what you like to do is you like to see it there. Business case, you like to look at it. And then think, OK, if I just extrapolate those lines of next couple of years, it's got to be great business. But that's just not the reality. The reality is the final will need to pay for it. They will need to overcome some difficulties. So what you actually try to do, you should try to see, do I think that these people sort of got it in themselves to actually pivot away and change. And from that perspective, if you're building a microability, find your knees, sell smartly, if I have high confidence that you're a founder that does that really well, I also gain confidence that you will overcome some issues, that you will make there. And then it's almost less relevant if the market is going to pick up greatly in 2026 or only 2027. Because as long as I can see, yeah, OK, but from today, to tomorrow, the company will do it all. And a year after they will double again. And then maybe I only see a path to about 4 million revenue, not to the 100 million rocket chip that I would like to invest in. But that's fine. Right? We have time to figure that out together. And something that we notice in the industry side, if you look at why or dot or a line, but they're all measuring over the years. And most of them, they're growing double-jet every year. And when these companies become really big, some of them, some of the tech that they do, it's cool for them, they'll build it internally. But there are so many non-core tech that they probably would want to earn out so's or get it from somebody else. Same goes for larger direct to consumer products as well. I mean, if you look at Canyon building, so many bikes a year, almost pushing close to a billion and a billion dollar in revenue. I think there's so much happening in my company where I think entrepreneurs can build a sell to these larger companies, that's the image. That's right. 100%. But it's good to realize what is core tech to them. Because I also see a lot of propositions that are saying, indeed, hey, I'm going to sell to Void to Lyon whatever. And I'm going to sell that my fleet bill is being sold there. Yeah. That's really the best tech. You will not be able to sell that. They're not willing to pay any money for that. And also they've built something better themselves. So it's good to realize that, but as you rightfully say, there are also many very mature enterprises that are in the mobility space. But that where mobility is not a core business, car-leasing companies are a great example. Telltays are a great example. You have sort of the center parks, parks where lots of mobility is going on. But it's not actually a core business. So if you can sort of cater to that, you can greatly help them out. They're great mobility use cases in a lot of manufacturing environments. So that's what I meant with that niche. Find something and I think you're very right. Gator to something that's not in their core tech. But you can sell. Yeah. And I think there's also opportunity to talk to some of these companies. Because again, they're measuring, they're focusing on profitability. They probably built a lot of non-core tech over the years. Because they had enough cash. I think it's also an opportunity to talk to them and probably take over some of the non-core and try to sell it to others as well. Unobsessed. But I think one thing that some people might be overestimating or are viewing differently than I at least I do, like the these companies are maturing. They're becoming profitable. They have some cash. It doesn't mean that they want to park with that cash as fast as they can. There's a reason, there's a reason, and they're also very careful, but there's a reason how they became profitable. They need to stay capital efficient, and I think that's what we always optimize for check as well. We really try to see at least protect the ownership, and that's also the big boys who are very much doing these days. So also a company like Feuerlake Lyme, they're very careful about the case. They need to maintain the status, because they cannot afford having any scratches in that armor, right? They want to show them to the world. Look, we are out there, we're doing great, and we will continue to do great. So it's not that they're suddenly, we have cash now, and I think some people are misunderstanding that, but what I very much like what you're saying, I think that's very true. There will be also many ideas within these companies that are just letting you share, else that you can pick up. Exactly. And a good thing, and I think that's the positive thing about the industry, right? It's the last micromancy event. For two years, it's pretty, sort of from the micromancy operators. Like the last people attended, the last people were visible last year, suddenly everybody was there again. Yeah. So as a founder, go to your events, and you can literally speak, but yeah, exactly. I'll be following you for a while, but not but seriously, as a founder, you can again walk into them, just have chat with them. Yeah, I mean, the event in Brussels was really great, because for founders building in the space, they could meet all the decision makers, I mean, all the CEOs in this industry, all the founders in this industry. Before we move on, one question, you built a hardware heavy business, right? In 2018, it made sense. Has it really made sense to, right, not to build a hardware company hardware heavy business? At the best bit, how you see it. So first is the first thing we try to do with Jack is we try to think, where do we need to use your equity for, right? And if we think about it, we actually thought it was a pretty dumb idea to spend the money that you raise from equity investors on the hardware. So we try to find the off-balance lease facility, which we also found. And that's how we sort of start with Jack and at the start, that's expensive, right? Because you need to convince this lease company that's actually a great idea that people are just, and they look with big eyes, you're telling them, yes, we put them on the street, and everybody can take them. We're like, what? But so it's going to be pretty expensive for the first small fleet, same with the insurance, right? Insurance, first year, our previous one is true to roof. But then after a year, you can share the official data, and then they say, hey, this is actually pretty safe. Actually, there are not that many damages. There are not that much sandalism. They win a man's disassurance fee. Actually, somebody's trying to unaccut me. Now suddenly, the big insurance companies are trying to fly it, because they also ask what they all have in common, is leasing companies on the one hand insurance companies all your ads. They have a big perception that they're rents boring, and they need to test themselves innovation, right? As you can also utilize that a little bit. If you go, if you're in an ellipse here in the train of the N.S., try to look at the advertisements you see of checking all the N.S. trades. It's been that way for the last two years. You think we have a pay to single euro for that? No, because it's a great collaboration, right? And that's a great partner, because the use case made a lot of sense. But it's also, they like it very much, and as can tell, I'm connecting my brands to sort of a bit more innovative brands. And for us, as innovative companies, it was really great that we could attach our brands. They're a reliable brand. So it's a great match. And as a founder, you can also, there are so many of these matches in the world today. You can also try to use them as. True. You're focusing on Europe a lot. I mean, you said your first investor as well, right? So I came to Europe 11 years ago, and one of the things that I mean, I come from India. So the startup scene is very different. It's a very large country. Every state is different. But when founders are building, they build for the entire country. They don't talk about different laws in every state. They're okay. I mean, they build for the entire country. So in Europe, it was very difficult to find founders or companies that are that are building for entire Europe at that time. And micromobility companies, tier and boy and daughter, they were kind of the first ones to, though it's very difficult, I mean, it's like you have to physically go to a city by city, company by country. They skill very, very quick. But within a year, they were almost every, every country here in the EU. And fast forward today, we have very interesting companies. Like for example, lovable is a good example. They're scaling fast. What do you see? What is changing in Europe today? Yeah, it's a good question. I'm very bullish in Europe. So I'm a for three, but not only because I feel it's necessary, so that that's just you also lives. Right? I think we spoke about it earlier, but I'm coming to death very quickly in a couple of weeks from now. I'm very aware that if I want to raise my kids in the same free environment that I was raised in myself, we need to protect our sort of sovereign values in Europe. And that starts with innovation because if we can't be productive ourselves, we need to rely on other ones, tech, we need to be independent there. So it's existential. I think was different from the debate 20 years ago. It was always inconvenience. Oh no, we're 10% behind the US. Oh no, right? It's just not annoying anymore. So people are starting to realize we actually need to act. So the existential part of it, that's helping. But it's also, if you just look at what's going on in Europe, it is a big market. There are many people there. There's lots of money there. And it's very dense. So especially for mobility, you know, like it's just almost like a play garden where you can sort of be very successful. Companies. And if you think about, yes, you can see everybody's complaining, regulations, parts, and you know, like, and all these different. Yes, that's true, but it's also not true. And also, and when you think about the US freeze, there are also different states. And these states are becoming more different every day these days. But we're also just very culturally very aligned with in Europe. So yes, you can cater to all the European people. Yes, there are some issues maybe with different jurisdictions, but they're also pretty easily available. Just to begin and try to make it work. And the bonus of that is, since we have been neglected this for the last 23 years, just catching up to that can build unicorn. So we don't need to have crazy innovation to be successful. You can, by just increasing productivity and do a little bit better, and focus on European market, build great companies. And look at all the regulatory tailwinds that are flying in here. There will be loser regulations. So if you can already make it work in the current regulatory regulatory environment, you will be more successful every year from now, because it will become easier. But also, there will so many public funds are now flowing into private markets, both investing in FEC, set our investing Europe, as well as the regulatory startups, as well as just in the industry. So if there was ever a continent where I would be bullish on, it's actually a nice sort of environment to invest in, and set up my company to be Europe. So what you're saying is that there's no lack for lack of funding today. There's enough cash in the market. Or. Well, yes and no. There are just two things with that. Yes, there are funding gaps, as you call them. I think in Europe, there are two big parts. There's a bit of an early funding gap. It relates a bit to what we discussed earlier. Europe is very good at inventing stuff in the university, but very bad at commercializing it, and also funding that very first bit is tricky. So you see that there should be more investors trying to invest very early. And there's a bit of funding gap a bit later, where you sort of come serious BN onwards. I think serious A, we were pretty well capitalized. And you know, serious BN onwards is becoming way harder, but what people. There was a brief time in history, or maybe two times in recent history, where capital was very plentiful. And the most recent world was 2017, 2018, right? Like. And then the quick commas we were, as well, I mean, those cash were on the COVID time. Yeah, but. Yeah, also true, but there was some. But there was no more than ever business, but that. That is just not the standard. So if you see that. That is the standard, yes. Then there is less capital, but also know that very bad companies were funded back then, and that's also not good for the ecosystem. Sometimes you need that a little bit of a forest fire to have sort of young trees grow well again, to keep a healthy forest. That's also what I strongly think about all these COVID loans that were everywhere in the world. I understand it. I understand how it sort of helps support the economy, and it was nice that that happened. There was a lot of pretty poor businesses stayed just in existence, and they also locked up a lot of people. Great talents that was just stuck to sort of in the performing businesses. So sort of having those companies bankrupt, I know it sounds painful, but that will unlock a lot of talent that actually can flow into good performing companies, and that will actually bring out the ecosystem again. So yes, I don't think we're on the funders, but I do think investors are way more selective these days. God, so you know. The things happening in the US that are on Patreon, BVs, and you know, creation cut and all the stuff. I have like friends who are working in the US who had to leave their job and leave the country overnight, because you know, I don't know, one of the papers didn't go through. Which doesn't happen in Europe, and today with all the. Everything that's happening in the US, do you think it's an opportunity for Europe in terms of attracting global talent? Or is it happening already? Well, at least Europe is trying. You see Europe itself is trying. Yes, you know, I'm trying it for France a little bit. And then it also has some sort of a scheme that we're welcoming people from the US and help it a little bit. And in France, you have that sort of talent program. Also for academics, right? Where you sort of can take your academic scholarship by the kind of matching academic scholarship at the European University. Okay, it's also heavily banking on that. So yes, there are initiatives. It's very hard for me to just how effective they are, to be honest. It's just. It's big policy. It's a lot of talk. I don't see it happening around. I don't see a lot of people coming from the US apart maybe from social media, but I think it's very anecdotal. So I would like to believe in a narrative. I do believe that the environment here is great. If I was in the US, I would consider it right. But it's very hard for me to judge how affected FedEx are actually. That's something that's puzzling me. If you look at, I mean, I live in Belgium and we've hired people in Belgium, Switzerland, Germany and many countries across Europe. And it was very, very easy to hire international talent. Just to give you an idea, in Belgium, a best case scenario was bringing somebody over in four weeks. From the interview and giving an offer, applying for all the permits and everything locally and getting them to the country, it was just for you. It doesn't happen anywhere. The worst case was like about two months. So it's so easy to attack international talent. But what's puzzling me is that why isn't it happening? Why do you? It's a good question. The question is if all the companies in Europe are really aware of that, if they're open to that. It's almost a question right? Yeah, I don't think people know. I mean, like we were discussing earlier, I think people still think that there's so much bureaucracy involved. It's so difficult to bring people in. I mean, that's not the case. Like you said, maybe founders don't know, but I still don't know what's stopping people from high talented people coming to Europe. By free agree. And I mean, we have portfolio companies that are hiring as out of Europe and that are experiencing that. But yeah, maybe that also has a little bit to do with the industry is moving is slowly to accept that. Maybe it also has to do with just generally a lot of companies stressing out about just labor shortages. We need to fill the gas, but not barely thinking, but also look at some of the bigger companies, as a male's grade example, that's very successful at hiring people outside of Europe that are pulling talent in by the hundreds by the thousands. Right. The biggest issue that they're facing is building houses for these people. And they're also trying to fix that. Right. That's also a mindset. Right. You can as a company think, okay, I now I need to hire people, but I need to fill in five forms and I still or you can think, okay, what needs to happen and will actually bring me benefits. And it often does and just good ROI on that decision. But then you need to stretch out your neck. Yeah, that's a Dutch saying, but you need to sort of. Right. You need to show up and do it. Exactly. So, you know, we also have a lot of founders as part of our audience and maybe there are many that are also looking at building companies in Europe as an investor, you know, ex operator. What's your message to entrepreneurs who want to build in Europe today? Yeah. If you now want to build a business in Europe, the first thing I would really think about is, okay, what are you building that you can actually show a measure of success? It's not only me looking into this gap, guys, every investor in Europe wants to have something that they can measure. So if you can demonstrate your success on a small scale, that's a festival. Build something that addresses the problems that we face here. Either sort of the big general problems or just address something that works and the big problem is already Europe one's European tech. So if you can bring any equivalent to whatever foreign-ish, I think I already shared a lot of things, right? Build foreign-ish. Think about sort of a budget level or proof rules and think about what you can test on a small scale. But there are quite some business angels that are pretty open or linked in that you can find, but they get hammered with messages from people that have an ID. Don't bring them an ID. Tell them, okay, I had an ID. I tried it out. I built this MVP. I shipped it to 100 people. They tried it out. So if you have your friends or your class, whatever, right? You are the results. And this is why I think I now need to invest 500K to build my first traction. If you push that narrative and you can prove that a little bit, then that's pretty investible. And I think a lot of founders will be successful at raising also early money on that. And if you're a non-technical founder, then of course you need to find your technical founder because the cliché there is a bit true. And to have a business guy and art at least a lot of investors like to see it. I do think there's no shortage of technical founders. But I do think that they rarely find each other. You have some accelerated programs. You have to have ant learns and some related programs that try to match technical funds with non-technical founders. But I think it's as simple as just go to the universities. Just go there. They are there. Go to this product. Go to these days. Speak to people. I think if you really want to build something and you spend a couple of months just browsing these places, you will find your technical co-founder. And if you're a technical co-founder, you want a business partner, just go on LinkedIn and easily find them as well. That's location matter. I mean, is building in Berlin better than building in I don't know. Yes, yes, yes. That's a good question. Yes and no. No, in the sense that I do think you should be able to cater to Europe. Yes, in the sense that there are just some parts of Europe that people are earlier doctors. And it's a great company to build in because people like to try things out. Just in the culture of touch people. So build something people like to try that. When you move it to France, also the cliche is true. You sort of need a French company and a French person, whatever. And there's not so much. If you're a Canadian or a US or whatever in the Netherlands, people just try it out and like it. And then in Germany's, the end of the truth is easier to build in the bigger cities and then just have sort of the local market. But if you're purely building a software company, it matters less. Yeah, software across the borders. So for people who are listening, who should contact you? I mean, for the set up founders, there's hardly a funder, software founders that are people building in different streams, different products. Who should contact you to get a good response from you? Literally what I just said, what I gave us at FI's, if you approach me with that, if you approach me with a message, look, you didn't do need to show some traction. I don't want to see commercial traction. I want to see decent KPIs. I want to see some measurable success. But if you approach me with, look, I'm tackling this problem. These are the KPIs that matter. This is why they matter. This is what I tested all of them. These are the results. And now I'm building to the next level needs with this. That's already pretty accessible for me. We can invest in software and hardware companies. We prefer software companies. We also say we're software first investment. But that means a business like check, for instance, which I see as a software business with a big operational component. But the magic is in the software. Magic is not in the same form of robotics for instance. Right. People always think robotics is about screws and nuts and bolts. It's about the software that makes it into an arm. Right. So if the magic is in the software, we can invest. If the capital that you're trying to attract is properly used. One of me with that is if you need to work in capital financing, that look for work capital financing solutions. And then it's fine if you approach me say, hey, I want to track the work in capital financing. They are, I found these three parties. They need to have an equity tickets coming in as well for this part. That's very investible, right? Because you show me that you research, you actually have something sort of set up. But you don't approach me saying, oh, I don't know. Nobody wants to fund me. I mean, five million to my hardware. Like that you didn't do your research and you're not understanding how you properly use the money raised by equity. True. Well, can people find you? What's easy to reach you? Yeah, LinkedIn is good. And I do personally also check my LinkedIn. So people often ask like, I do some, I literally, it's my social media. So LinkedIn works. But also email works. You can literally, my first name at nosysfanshers.com. And you're there. Okay. And it's also my LinkedIn, right? I really, I think as we see she shouldn't hide behind things. She should be open. And then you're at every mobility even. I mean, which mobility even that was part of the last like one, two years you were always around. I'm always there. Yeah. Yeah. I'm almost always there. Yeah. And also, yeah, if it does matter, I'm going to move. I'm always in Barcelona. You know, I'm always at your events. Yeah. I'm always at the Tomi in Paris. So well, I always was at the Tomi in Paris. And because I think they're not gonna do not know anymore. I'm at most, most of the events, but I'm also at different events, right? I'm always at busy Brussels. Okay. Super. But it was, it was nice talking to you. I mean, it was good to get your perspectives from an operator, one of you in my community and also from an investor point of view. You were also on stage with me in Brussels. I think that episode is going to go live in the next couple of weeks as well. So there's so much content about you that's going to go online in the next weeks. But was a pleasure talking to you. And thank you so much for taking the time and hopefully see you in Brussels as well. Sorry, Berlin in 2020. Yes. Yeah. I will be there. And thanks for having me. It was a pleasure. Same here. Take care. Okay. Bye. [Music]