Robin Wauters, Co-Founder of Tech.eu | Obsessed With Solving a Problem

Robin Wauters, co-founder of Tech.eu, talks with Robert Valentine and Kayvan Nikjou at HumanX in Amsterdam. Robin wrote for TechCrunch and was European editor of The Next Web before he started Tech.eu in 2013 to cover the European tech scene. He sold the company to Webrazzi in 2021 and left in 2024. Today he helps manage Syndicate One, a Belgian seed fund that invests in Belgian founders wherever they are. Robin says most growth capital still comes from outside Europe and that Europe missed the boat on social networks, semiconductors and hardware. He is one of the people behind EU-INC, a campaign for one company standard that founders could use across the EU. If he were dictator of Belgium, he would first guarantee for fifty years that founders and investors only pay tax on their shares when they sell them. As an investor Robin looks for founders who are “so obsessed with solving that problem that that's all they think about.” Syndicate One invested early in Aikido, a cybersecurity company that has since become a unicorn. Robin wants his children to stay curious and thinks all children should learn basic business thinking from elementary school to university. He gives Robert and Kayvan advice for their new podcast: “So just keep at it. Like, don't stop.” New episodes every Monday and Friday. Recorded at HumanX, Amsterdam. Chapters 0:00 Cold open 0:49 Jürgen Ingels and SuperNova 1:24 How Kayvan met Robin 3:51 Welcome to HumanX and bike thieves 5:28 Tech.eu and how tech media changed 7:43 Ambitious founders, exits and the EIC 12:28 Why the US has more capital 14:40 Delaware, Spotify and taxing paper gains 18:46 Estonia and smarter regulation 21:44 EU Inc explained 25:00 If Robin ruled Belgium 27:05 Europe in the AI race 28:57 Angel investing and Aikido 32:20 From journalist to investor at Syndicate One 36:01 A new generation building in Europe 39:37 Cosmic Aerospace and electric flight 40:45 What should kids learn? 43:45 Education and the lonely founder 47:01 Profits, exits and what investors bring 49:59 Why does Belgium exist? 54:14 White Box Rodeo and Robin's advice for the podcast Correction: at 14:09 Robert says none of ASML's machines go to Europe. ASML does deliver machines in Europe, for example to Intel's chip plant in Ireland. In 2025, €529 million of ASML's €32.7 billion in net sales came from customers in the Netherlands and the rest of EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa). Correction: at 34:33 Kayvan calls Jack Clark, the Anthropic co-founder who started out as a tech journalist, Jason Clark. Correction: at 47:45 Robin says Amazon hasn't made a profit for more than a decade. Amazon made its first full-year profit in 2003 and has been profitable in most years since. In 2025 its net income was $77.7 billion. White Box Rodeo is for information and entertainment only and is not investment advice. The hosts may hold interests in companies they discuss. Watch the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCmmlLMuCak White Box Rodeo: https://whiteboxrodeo.com Hosts: Robert Valentine and Kayvan Nikjou