EUVC

Welcome back to the EUVC Podcast.Today Andreas is joined by Stefan Roebel, Co‑Founder & CEO of ARX Robotics — one of Europe’s fastest-rising defense tech startups.From his 12 years in the German Armed Forces to leadership roles at Amazon, eBay, and Grover, Stefan has lived both sides: the military front line and the global business battlefield. Now, he’s combining that experience to tackle one of the most pressing challenges of our time: Europe’s ability to defend itself in a new era of war.In this episode, Stefan shares ARX’s journey from DIY decoy robots to NATO-backed modular robotic systems already deployed in Ukraine. We dive deep into why Europe must break with its slow procurement culture, how startups can become the “new primes,” and what it really takes to build dual-use autonomy in a defense-first world.Here’s what’s covered:00:56 | From Afghanistan to Amazon to ARX Robotics: Stefan’s unlikely founder journey02:30 | The broomstick that became a digital decoy — ARX’s origin story06:34 | The first breakthrough: selling duct-taped prototypes that worked08:30 | ARX’s modular robotics suite explained (500kg payload, autonomy, retrofits)10:47 | Educating VCs: how defense tech went from “too weird” to oversubscribed13:55 | Picking investors: big names vs true believers with military insight16:53 | Real deployments in Ukraine: ammo supply & medevac in the kill zone19:49 | Why Ukraine’s lessons are shaping Europe’s defense future23:24 | The drone war changed everything: solving Europe’s “lack of mass”27:31 | Will ARX become a “new prime”? Why incumbents can’t move fast enough29:17 | Dual use beyond defense: disaster relief, critical infrastructure & NGOs32:36 | AI in defense robotics: solving missions, not chasing the holy grail35:21 | Hiring for defense: when military background matters (and when it doesn’t)40:57 | Why Stefan is hopeful for Europe’s defense tech ecosystem44:56 | Veterans, perception, and why “peace comes from strength”

This week on the EUVC Podcast, Andreas Munk Holm sits down with Matthew Wilson, co-founder of Jack & Jill, and Peter Specht, General Partner at Creandum. Fresh off a $20M seed to take their AI recruiting agents global, they dig into how conviction is built in Europe, from founding insight to investor belief, and what it now takes to scale an agent-native company with speed, precision, and craft.Jack helps candidates find and optimize their careers. Jill helps companies hire brilliantly. Together, the two agents form a high-signal, two-sided network that aims to become the world’s most networked AI-powered recruitment agency — without the classical incentive conflicts of human middlemen.Here’s what’s covered:02:35 | Why Creandum leaned in, conviction on voice-based interfaces and why recruiting is a massive, broken vertical for agent AI03:38 | The founding moment: leaving Omnipresent, 18 months in the wilderness, and the February insight that agents make talent marketplaces finally viable07:07 | Recruiting is broken (and AI made it worse): why first-principles thinking is needed to avoid “more noise, not more signal.”09:15 | Investor conviction: founder/market fit, why this moment is different, and the defensibility of a two-sided agentic marketplace12:22 | The user experience: the “coffee chat” with an AI recruiter: deep voice conversation → matching, prep, coaching, introductions16:30 | Solving the incentives trap: why Jack works 100% for candidates and Jill works 100% for companies (fixing agency conflicts)19:10 | Coaching as core: how AI unlocks career guidance, interview prep, and hands-on support that humans rarely get today22:47 | Building fast in the AI era: talent density, global expansion, and why a 20M seed makes sense for a dual-product marketplace26:35 | Two companies in one: scaling Jack (consumer) + Jill (B2B) simultaneously, across markets, with AI leverage34:02 | The GTM playbook: engineering-led marketing, AI-driven creative testing, instant value, and rethinking B2B buying entirely37:47 | The new AI go-to-market: speed, PLG dominance, virality-by-design, and why distribution now matters more than ever43:52 | Two GTM worlds: viral AI products vs. slow, enterprise-heavy AI deployments (and why both will coexist)47:15 | The “productization” of marketing — why engineering now powers growth, not headcount-heavy marketing orgs50:29 | Final advice (VC POV) — start with a unique insight, not a trend; think in 5–10 year arcs, not quick ARR bumps

Welcome back to another episode of Upside at the EUVC Podcast, where ⁠Dan Bowyer⁠,⁠ Mads Jensen⁠ of ⁠SuperSeed⁠ and ⁠Lomax Ward⁠ of ⁠Outsized Ventures⁠⁠⁠ gather for a holiday-home special to cut through the noise around Europe’s tech, geopolitics and AI shifts. What begins as an innocent debate about whether DeepMind is “still a UK company” quickly spirals into a tour of sovereign AI strategy, the SpaceX mega-raise, Europe’s increasingly uncomfortable place between China and the US, defence-spending reality checks and a surprisingly uplifting set of deep-tech deals across the continent.It is classic Upside: the takes are sharp, the geopolitics gets spiky, and the optimism… well, it arrives eventually.What’s covered:04:36 AI-for-Science, robotics and the new “AI scientist” era06:50 A national-curriculum Gemini and the vision of a tutor for every child09:39 The SpaceX 2026 IPO: what investors are actually buying14:00 Starship, orbital compute and the trillion-dollar imagination gap18:07 Why Europe missed the space race once again19:43 Portugal flips the script: “Economy of the Year”22:58 Europe between China’s export tsunami and America’s cold shoulder32:07 Defence budgets: the hype, the delay and the reality for startups34:25 AI Corner: bubble fears, Mistral’s comeback, Meta goes closed, China goes full-stackComms Strategy Expert SessionApply or share the opportunity with a founder or investor in your network: https://luma.com/euvc-comms-expert-session

If you’re in B2B SaaS, you probably feel it already: the old way of “just hire more SDRs and send more emails” is broken.Everyone has the same tooling. Everyone is running the same sequences. Everyone is “personalising at scale” with the same prompts. Yet pipeline quality is down, efficiency is under scrutiny, and suddenly… go-to-market (GTM) design has become a first-class strategic problem.Few people are better positioned to talk about this shift than Harrison Rose.Harrison co-founded Paddle, helped turn it into one of the UK’s fastest-growing software companies, and has now raised a $13M Series A (led by Notion Capital, with participation from Robin Capital, Inovia, Salicap, Common Magic, Andrena and more) to build GoodFit – an AI-driven GTM data platform.Here’s what’s covered:00:47 | What GoodFit actually does — mapping your entire market and scoring every account01:32 | Paddle origins → the first-principles GTM problem that later became GoodFit03:31 | From internal tool to standalone company — recognizing the “product inside Paddle”04:18 | Who buys GoodFit — why B2B tech is the first adopter (and why the market is much bigger)06:28 | Second-time founder advantage — credibility, networks, and selling before the product exists08:29 | Choosing investors — why Notion, avoiding echo chambers, and constructing a syndicate13:24 | Bootstrapping for four years — optionality, profitability curiosity, and knowing when VC is the right path18:34 | AI’s real impact on go-to-market — why most teams are just automating bad outreach22:25 | The GoodFit vision — deciding who to sell to, why, and how (and leaving execution to others)35:34 | Leaving Paddle — identity, founder evolution, and learning to lead differently the second time around46:40 | Giving back — why Harrison opens his inbox for “weird, gnarly, unsaid” founder questions

This week, Andreas Munk Holm talks with Sergey Jakimov, Co-founder and Managing Partner at LongeVC, a leading longevity-focused venture fund backing breakthroughs in biotech, AI-driven drug discovery, and the science of healthy aging.From pre-seed biotech spin-outs to multi-hundred-million-dollar exits with Big Pharma, LongeVC is building the category-defining fund at the frontier of life extension. In this episode, Sergey walks us through the team’s 3x+ MOIC track record, how LongeVC’s scientific advisory board unlocks proprietary deal flow, and why longevity and healthspan investing could be venture’s next trillion-dollar frontier.🎧 Here’s what’s covered01:15 – Who is Sergey Jakimov? From biotech entrepreneur to longevity investor03:00 – What is LongeVC: thesis, structure, and Fund II snapshot06:20 – The market for longevity & age-related disease: a $1.6 trillion opportunity09:30 – Track record: Fund I’s 3x+ MOIC, 0 write-offs, 20 portfolio companies12:40 – How LongeVC sources deals: scientific advisory board and AI-driven diligence15:15 – Ecosystem advantage: from nonprofits to physician networks18:00 – Case study 1 – Insilico Medicine, the $1.5 billion AI-drug-discovery unicorn20:15 – Case study 2 – Turn Biotechnologies and $300 million + HanAll partnership22:30 – Case study 3 – Rubedo Life Sciences and Beiersdorf’s dermatology deal25:00 – How pharma’s pipeline erosion fuels biotech M&A28:10 – Fund II: $120 million target, 20 % carry, 10-year term31:20 – LP privileges: access, co-investments, and semi-annual IC observation34:00 – Sergey’s vision: longevity as both moral and financial imperative