VC platform in Europe —3 insights from the 2019 EU Platform Summit
Last week over 50 platform leaders from funds across Europe gathered at AWS HQ for the first ever EU Platform Summit. The goal of the event was to bring together the growing community of platform people in Europe. We spent the day learning, sharing knowledge and building relationships with each other.
After eight hours, five lightning talks, three panels, one unconference block and several connections later, I came away with three key takeaways…
Takeaway 1: Finding your white space in terms of your platform USP and building a strong firm brand is critical. We all have the same goal. We want to add value to the companies in our portfolio and increase their chances of success. We do so by helping them grow faster which then leads to a higher chance of a meaningful exit. If a company has several VCs on their cap-table all of whom offer platform, we need to avoid doubling up on the same work. If most of our offerings are all the same, picking an area to focus on is important. This helps us become clearer on how we spend our time and platform resources. The key is to do less but do it better.
Takeaway 2: All platforms run on software. Most platform teams rely on a suite of tools bring support to their portfolio. Some of the most popular tools used are as follows…for communication the go-to is Mobilize; for portfolio mapping it’s Airtable; community polling it’s got to be Typeform; for event planning many love SplashThat; for talent tracking Sompani is leading the pack; and for knowledge sharing Notion is fast-becoming the favourite. Platform teams are spending more time than ever before scouting, testing and implementing new tools and software. They’re working to get more insight from, and have more impact on, their growing portfolios. Some platform leads are building their own micro sites to avoid having to track the data analytics coming from so many different tools. The jury is still out as to which option is best so only time will tell.
Takeaway 3: A firm’s brand is increasingly important. With so much competition in the European VC market today, brand awareness is essential. Founders care about brand which means it impacts deal flow. It also has an effect on the advisors you can bring into your wider network to help support your portfolio companies. Advisors are a core part of any platform offering. To be able to connect founders and their teams to the right people at the right time, helps speed up their decision-making process. Having access to the right experts and operators is key. The quality of the advisors in a firm’s wider network ties in to the strength of a firm’s brand.
It was great to connect with peers, discuss top-of-mind topics and hear how others are serving their portfolio companies. It’s clear that there is value and power in coming together especially, now that the community is 100+ strong and growing. I look forward to seeing how it continues to evolve in 2020!
To recap the takeaways from the VC Platform Summit 2019, have a read here.
