Adrian Montoya

🚀 UVC Partners: Driving Europe's Leading Deeptech Startup Ecosystem 🌍 Munich’s UnternehmerTUM stands out as a powerhouse in Europe’s startup scene, largely thanks to UVC Partners, a key player providing vital early-stage funding for B2B deeptech, climate tech, software, and mobility startups. 🚗 A Hub for Innovation and Growth📈 Founded within UnternehmerTUM in 2011, UVC Partners has grown significantly, helping to transform the funding landscape for European startups. 💰Initially starting with a modest €25 million fund, UVC Partners now manages around €400 million in assets and is currently raising its fourth fund, targeting €200-250 million. This impressive growth reflects the firm’s success in identifying and nurturing startups with the potential for world-changing innovations, such as space technology platforms and flying taxis. A Changing Funding Landscape💰 The shift in funding dynamics is stark. In 2012, deeptech companies across Europe received a mere €400 million. Fast forward to 2023, and German deeptech startups alone secured €1.6 billion, with the German government announcing a €1 billion fund for deeptech and climate tech growth-stage companies. UVC Partners has been at the forefront of this evolution, closing its third fund generation in 2021 with €260 million raised across two funds. Strategic Connections and Deep Expertise🤝 UVC Partners benefits from its close ties to UnternehmerTUM, leveraging a vast network of corporates, Mittelstand companies, universities, and government figures. This network provides startups with unparalleled access to industry leaders and policymakers, a significant advantage highlighted by many portfolio companies. “We have a unit called Value Creation that focuses on customer creation and knowledge,” explains UVC partner Benjamin Erhart. This unit taps into UnternehmerTUM’s business relations, offering startups tailored introductions to industry heavyweights when needed. Success Stories and Flagship Investments UVC Partners has a strong track record of successful investments and exits. Notable investments include: Flix, Isar Aerospace, Vimcar, FAZUA, Aleph Alpha, Reel The Future of European Deeptech🤖 UVC Partners' commitment to fostering innovation and connecting startups with essential resources has solidified its role in Europe’s leading startup ecosystem as an early-stage backer of B2B deeptech, climate tech, software, and mobility startups that are working on potentially world-changing innovations, reported Sifted. ✅ Looking to raise capital for your #fund and increase the international pool of your LP #investors?   🤝 Need warm #LP introductions?   📝 Selling #secondaries to increase liquidity?   🧐 Looking for co-investments?   ▶ G+QUANT's link for inquiries and fund decks: https://lnkd.in/gjC_EuTE 🌟 #VentureCapital #Startups #Deeptech #Innovation #Entrepreneurship #UVCPartners #TechFunding #MunichTech #ClimateTech #EuropeanStartups

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Is Germany missing out by not backing its tech champions? 🤔💭🚀 Germany is a global leader in innovation with over 1000 companies driving disruption worldwide. However, many promising startups struggle to scale internationally due to a lack of large local funding. When growth-stage companies have to look abroad for investment, it puts them at a competitive disadvantage versus overseas rivals. With limited local options, more may feel pushed to relocate rather than stay to build in Germany. While American tech companies have abundant access to both private and public investment, including VC funding and IPOs, financing for later-stage German startups tends to lag. On average, US tech companies raise significantly more money per funding round compared to their German counterparts.  📈 For example, in 2021 the average Series B round for a US startup was $35 million, whereas for a German startup, it was only $10 million. This financing gap has real consequences. With more funding, American tech scaleups can achieve stronger growth and international expansion faster—and they can also offer higher salaries to attract top talent 🔝 on a global stage. As a result, many promising German founders end up relocating to Silicon Valley to access resources and continue building at the scale required to succeed in a global market. 🌎 We believe in leading great entrepreneurial visions sustainably into the digital future—D11Z can provide a network to enable startups to have better later-stage options. So how can we inspire our own investors to back the country's burgeoning tech champions and help them scale at home? I'm interested in your thoughts on strategies to close the late-stage funding gap. #D11ZVentures #FutureOfTech #VCInsights

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𝐖𝐡𝐲 𝐚𝐧 𝐢𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫 is 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐋𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐞𝐝𝐈𝐧 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐟𝐢𝐥𝐞? The reason VCs are interested in looking into the LinkedIn profiles of co-founders is that 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐭𝐲𝐩𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐢𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐢𝐧 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐬. A strong team with a proven track record, relevant experience, and robust professional networks can significantly influence the success of a startup. Therefore, 𝐕𝐂𝐬 𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐳𝐞 𝐋𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐞𝐝𝐈𝐧 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐟𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬' 𝐜𝐚𝐩𝐚𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬, 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐩𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐭𝐨 𝐞𝐱𝐞𝐜𝐮𝐭𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐛𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐬 𝐞𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐲. It's crucial to ensure that the founders' profiles reflect their competence and reliability, as VCs want to invest in a team that can drive the business to success.

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Fintech mittelstand I became an entrepreneur in 2015 when I fell in love with blockchain and broke the shackles forever impeding my creativity. My calling was to democratise finance. I have failed to make any dent, but the game is not over yet. One thing I wanted to replicate was a mittelstand, the family-owned backbone of Germany’s manufacturing prowess and much of its GDP: the best quality possible known from devoted aficionados. Picture meeting for a coffee and whilst talking, your fingers run spontaneously appreciating the grain of that tabletop. You look under it and spot a brand you have never heard of; an online search finds it is behind the best coffee tables in the world…You are hooked and have become an ambassador. It’s a story of unbending, uncompromising quality, and care in everything you do: you aim to provide the best service and build the best product ever. In that quest, you have to be forever disappointed because it is an antidote to complacency.   Whilst the term “mittelstand” describes SMEs under 500 employees, I take the following attributes in everything I want to build (in no particular order): ✅ Quality – Respect the vision, the brand…treat everything you do as an opportunity to show your craft, as an opportunity to excel. Be proud of your output as good work done, not to build your ego. ✅ People – Without your team, you can’t build anything let alone get clients. Whilst you may not be able to pay market rate at the beginning, pay over it once you can because your teammates are your soul, your sales, your brand. ✅ Clients – Be of service with unparalleled customer service. There is always a human at the end of your tech stack so not only build your products for them but also with them (in mind but critically in flesh through user testing). Solve a customer’s problem without creating any in the process. ✅ Pride – Whilst you treat everyone with respect, you have a mindset where your product is the best in class, the Hermes of your aspirations which means you can say no to anyone that doesn't share your vision...prospect, client, or investor. ✅ Cashflow mission control – Easier said than done. Setting up a business is stressful enough hence having the right focus on the right numbers is important: low operating costs, decent margins, recurring revenues and therefore positive cashflow. ✅ Independence – it’s key to have control of your future to be free to research and develop new products, let alone pivot when the headwinds are too strong. Innovativeness is priceless. ✅ Strong connections – Size matters when it comes to making meaningful connections, knowing each other, and driving towards a shared goal. Your brand is an ambassador of the place it emanates from. It represents the best of the people building it. Be proud, be you...keep building! #motivation #leadership #learning #entrepreneurship #fintech #mindset #success #brand #startuplife #growth #mentalhealth #bankingindustry

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How do I know if my idea is a good one? Ask your customer. But most founders don't do this. Instead they ask, - Their friends, families, and colleagues about the idea. - Asking investors about the idea: Investors could offer unique perspectives, however, opinion does not equal validation. Their primary concern is potential return, not necessarily idea viability. - Showing the prototype to the wrong people: Asking someone who is not one of the target customers about the prototype when they are not experiencing the problems being solved can lead to misleading insights. - Listening to words not actions: "Great concept," "I love the idea," "This is so cool," "I think I will pay for it" is not validation. Where is their action? Did they use the prototype? Did they pay for it? To truly validate the idea, founders should speak directly with target customers to understand their pain points, needs, and preferences through interviews, surveys, or focus groups. However, even most founders fail in conducting interviews and surveys properly. So, we have shared a framework in the attached PDF. It includes: 1. Ways to Validate Startup Ideas 2. Customer Discovery and how to do it? 3. Building Hypothesis and Validating it 4. Rule: You are not allowed to talk about your idea! 5. Customer Interview Guide  6. Where the magic happens #1  7. How to Interview? 8. Number of question and no. of customers to speak? 9. Asking yourself: …Is it a Really Big Problem?  10. Customer Segments - Divided into 3 phases. 11. Customer Validation 12. Case Studies: B2B, B2C & B2B2Cetc. That's it. If you find this helpful - please like, comment & share so that it reaches founders . 👉 Check out my free newsletter for more insights: https://lnkd.in/dKZQKHg2 . #startups #startup #funding #founders #investors #entrepreneur #idea #entrepreneurship #vc #venturecapital #angelinvesotrs #ideavalidation #founder #mvp #ycombinator #validation #framework #startuptips

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People are so focused on the Input Context of LLMs but often overlook that there are limitations in the output. Long input contexts still present two problems: • The model does not give equal attention to all parts of the text (this is quite commonly discussed). • The output is not as long as the input context. Therefore it might not be granular enough. For many tasks, such as "Extract ALL the topics in this long text" chunking the text yields much more granular results. Obviously, the caveat is that the chunking strategy becomes a very important piece. For advanced cases, beyond simple summarization, chunking is still the better strategy. #LLMs #Chunking #LongInputContext

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One very annoying thing as an angel investor is when VC outreach happens to your portfolio companies. Very often unexperienced founders get kind of excited, inform shareholder and at the very end founders sometimes don't believe that VC outreach is 99,99% irrelevant. #fckbessemer, #fckinsightventures, #fckbatteryventures

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Definitely more interested in building “Mittelstands” first over “unicorns”.

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You might disagree with me but: Having your partner as a co-founder is great. I talked to Vivien Bresson about this a while back on my podcast. Vivien and her husband have co-founded multiple companies. They love building startups together. I got some mixed reactions on this topic after releasing the podcast. Some people said they couldn’t imagine working with their partners. Mixing personal and business seems like a no-go to them. But in my personal experience, working with your partner is great. When I met my wife in Toronto, she was a beauty technician at a Korean Beauty Salon. Her clients loved her and always had ideas on improving the business, but the owner always objected. She was frustrated. I hated seeing her initiatives constantly being shot down and wanted her to be free to implement her vision. So we did our own thing. She quit her job and we set up her own beauty salon. We thought out the entire game plan on a month-long trip to Ko Pha Ngan island in Thailand. It was pretty simple: • She keeps doing what she does best: Making clients happy. • I run some digital marketing and operations in the background. We came back to Canada and got to work - and it was a mega success. She grew it from a small salon with three staff to having two locations and 12 full-time employees. • Top rated on Google. • Clients were raving about it. • Both salons were constantly packed. This isn’t supposed to be a brag about how good we are at building beauty salons. (even though we are.) It’s a reminder that building a business with your partner can be extremely fulfilling, while it might be a relationship test at times. 2 weeks ago, we visited Ko Pha Ngan island again to reminisce about the time we planned out the business together. There’s something about that island that gets us thinking about business and let’s just say - there might be something else in the works. Stay tuned…

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#Founders - Are you struggling to turn your startup vision into actual sales? 🤔 You're not alone.😀 Getting paying customers is one of the biggest challenges for the founders I speak with, but it doesn’t have to be… A question all founders should be asking themselves is: “Who are we trying to sell to and why would they want to take the risk of buying from us?” Yes… I said “risk”.☢️ While you may be confident that you are not a risk, your prospects don’t share your viewpoint. From their standpoint, you are the risk that comes with switching from a known to an unknown. That makes one of your goals “become less unknown”!👀 How do you do that? Get customers! 🔄 I know. It seems circular, but hear me out… You are a risk for all of your prospects, but for a segment of your market, the risk is worth it because their status quo is not sustainable or they will get so much value out of your offering, that the risk is outweighed by the reward. This sliver of your market are your early adopters. They should be the focus of your early sales efforts for 2 reasons: ➡️ They will have the highest “perceived value” for your product (and people buy value) ➡️ If you can’t sell to your early adopters, you won’t be able to sell to anyone (poor product or poor messaging) I know that you want to attack the huge market you talked about in your pitch deck, but to get to that, you should start with defining your early adopters and understanding how they perceive value!😍 Do you know how to define early adopters? Follow #TheFoundersForge for more Traction Building Insights Follow #FounderCoaching for tips on being the best founder you can be! #StartupLife #CustomerCentric #BusinessGrowth #EarlyStage

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Dear investors, Founders often hear from VCs: "It's not a venture case". I think I know the core characteristics of a venture case. Nevertheless in some cases I'm still surprised by the judgement of some investors. In both directions. Companies with massive VC funding which clearly lack one or more of the typical venture case characteristics and on the other hand cases which seem to check many boxes are judged differently by some VCs. To clarify my and many founder's confusion: What do you think are the main characteristics for a venture case? If you can quantify them, what are the thresholds? Please comment 🙏 At Climate Founders we don't necessarily go for typical VC cases. We go for founders and topics which are able to create breakthroughs in their markets, have the potential to become massive businesses and most importantly have huge impact potential. Most cases are right on the VC track, others are better suited for different financing routes. But it's good to understand the logic for edge cases to define the right route, therefore I ask.

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Adapting or adopting? ⭐️⭐️⭐️ AI can be a game-changer for businesses and projects looking to revolutionize their products. Here's how you can approach it: Deciding on Adoption or Adaptation: Adoption: This involves integrating pre-built AI solutions into your existing workflow. It's a faster and potentially less expensive option, especially for tasks like data analysis, customer service chatbots, or image recognition. Adaptation: This means developing custom AI models tailored to your specific needs. It requires more expertise and resources but offers greater control and potentially higher impact on your product. At the end of the day: data's #reliability, #scalability and #accessibility are goals and standards to maintain high performance. Be a #changemaker ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Invest in systemic coaching to kickstart desired change. Now! Tanja Hobmaier www.hsoe-coaching.de #coaching #systemiccoaching #systemiccoachingtools

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He went from 0 to $1M in ARR over the last 15 months. The journey wasn’t smooth, but it definitely was eventful 👇 In 2020, maximus was a Product Manager at Google. “At 25, I didn’t know anything about sales, buying software, or running a startup.” Nevertheless, he took a leap of faith, leaving Google to pursue an idea for a Tinder-like app for co-founders. It wasn’t the best of ideas, mostly because they hardly did any customer discovery, but it got him into the startup world. The app didn’t take off. But it taught Max a crucial lesson: It's not enough to just have an idea; you need to know if people actually want it and are willing to pay for it. They quickly learned that founders weren’t looking to connect on an app, but salespeople were eager to meet more customers. This led to EIGHT pivots, each one bringing them closer to a solution that added real value. The journey was far from smooth. From scraping LinkedIn to pivoting during the pandemic, Max faced numerous challenges. They built tools to help salespeople look professional in virtual meetings, but it still wasn’t the right fit. The growth numbers just didn’t make sense yet. 📣 "Our breakthrough finally came when we decided to de-anonymize website traffic. This technology unlocked a new realm of possibilities," Max shares. In just 15 months, Warmly, grew from zero to over a million in revenue, leveraging AI and automation to efficiently follow up with leads. 📣 "We finally cracked the code on how to help salespeople get more sales. It’s been a journey of constant iteration and listening to the market," Max reflects. Max's story is about more than building a successful business; it's about finding the right idea that meets a genuine need and adds value. It’s about creating a legacy and building something meaningful that helps people connect and succeed. Join us in celebrating Max's inspiring journey from Google to Warmly, navigating through multiple pivots and challenges to achieve remarkable growth. 🔗 Read the full, inspiring story of Max Greenwald and Warmly here: https://lnkd.in/eM8UNua6 #FounderDiaries #StartupJourney #TechInnovation #Entrepreneurship #Warmly #SalesTech

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Please check out my latest chat with Aleksa Gordić. We had a great time chatting about everything from my story to why thousands of users love Julius AI #artificialintelligence #ai #gpt4 #gpt5 #data #datascience #dataanalytics

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More VCs should operate as business angels with their portfolio companies. 🔥 Make your companies a priority over new investments, ⬇️ Be there when your CEOs are down, 📞 Be the one they want to call when metrics are not looking good, ✌️ Show up when they need a sparring partner to brainstorm on their roadmap. Remember, being a CEO is the loneliest job in the world, really, so if you're the one who surrounds them during the full roller coaster ride 🎢, you'll be the one-in-a-million kind of investor everyone is looking for.

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Common and popular advice in the startup space (often from VCs) is for founders to focus on a very narrow segment and then grow from there. This is particularly common advice in more mature and crowded developed, Western markets. Unfortunately, this advice is often taken too literally when applied to marketplace business models, and especially borders on bad advice when looking at it from an emerging markets lens. For the latter, often a more broader versus narrower approach tends to work better. Broader >> narrower Because for marketplaces: Liquidity >> user experience It's easier to dig new holes than to dig yourself out of a narrow hole. "Do you guys remember this [unbundling of Craiglist] graph? There's one from way back in the day, and it has like a zillion companies trying to eat at Craigslist. And they're all pointed at the fine-grain level of each of these. And what's interesting is if you look at the one published more recently of the winners, all the winners are at the header level. It's like Airbnb for all of it. You see the winners ending up at the more category, domain level rather than the very specific sub-type. What people fail to appreciate is, marketplaces are primarily about liquidity, and creating liquidity is sometimes aided by being broader. Competitors often had an advantage in terms of user experience, of like how crafted the user experience was for that category, but they typically lacked quite significantly when it came to liquidity which is the ultimate determinant of loyalty, retention, monetization, and satisfaction." Everything Marketplaces Thumbtack

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How many people do you need for your #startup? Probably fewer than you think. Wil Schroter at Startups.com wrote that the new mark of a standout Founder is no longer how big they can make their staff — it's how small they can keep it. At High Mobility, we have found that we can punch way above our weight with about 20 talented people. As Wil writes - we're entering the Age of Efficiency, where we are rewarded not for a bloated headcount but a tiny headcount that can produce even greater output. If you are starting out now, think about it - what can new technologies and smart knowledge management do for your dream? https://lnkd.in/eKJs_mWB #startups #sana #highmobility

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My dear #founders, Do you know today’s St Jordi? 🐲 🌹 Yep, we give books as gifts to people we like. So here I recommend you my product abc with links 😊 👇 1️⃣ Lean Startup - Eric Ries(Startup basics): A great way to understand how big startups from the last 13 years got founded. -> https://amzn.to/3WbWGpb 2️⃣ The mom test - Rob Fitzpatrick (Validate your idea by having conversations): It doesn't matter the stage of your #startup. It's a great reading for Discovery pre and post launch. -> https://amzn.to/3JtJ9Se 3️⃣ Escaping the build trap - Melissa Perri (Great reminder about the type of company you don't want to become): Great reading for those startups who became feature factories, and also for the ones that don't want to become one. -> https://amzn.to/4aNkO5V 4️⃣ Obviously awesome + Sales pitch by April Dunford (Positioning 101 and how to craft a sales pitch decently): Once you have launched, you need to narrow down and positioning, so these two are great 😊 https://amzn.to/3QeDVxK / https://amzn.to/4aH2v2m 5️⃣ The Lean Product Playbook - Dan Olsen (Great for Non-Tech Founders that want to learn the basics about Product and how to work with a Product team) -> https://amzn.to/3xRer35 6️⃣ Hooked - Nir Eyal (Sticky features mean engagement, and engagement avoids churn. Stop launching nonsense features and get better engagement) -> https://amzn.to/44j2bog 7️⃣ When the coffee & Kale compete - Alan Klement ( Jobs to be done, once you learn about it, you will love how it works and how it helps you 😊) -> https://amzn.to/49XbdZm These are great basics to start my dear non-product Founder, you can read, watch or listen about the topics I just shared, there are plenty of videos on youtube. REPOST THIS ♻️ to help #entrepreneurs find great basics about Product. 👉🏽 This is me reading for the 3rd time Escaping the build trap. P.S: And you, What book would you recommend to your entrepreneur friend? #nocodepm #stjordi #booksforentrepreneurs #productmanagementbasics

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