Scaling Europe

Sebastian Johnson
  • 0.0 (0)
  • ENTREPRENEURSHIP
  • UPDATED WEEKLY

Every week Seb Johnson sits down with 5 of Europe's best builders and investors to talk about what's going on in European Tech. Prior guests include the founders of Lovable, Cleo, Voi an Zilch, as well as top VCs from 20VC, Index, Balderton and Creandum.

  1. 4D AGO

    Martin Mignot, Partner at Index Ventures: How founders are building and leading companies in the AI era

    European founders are still going to the US earlier than ever, but AI is now changing how the companies they build actually operate. Martin Mignot, Partner at Index Ventures, looks at this shift from inside a global firm working with founders on both sides of the Atlantic. For founders and CEOs, AI is becoming much bigger than a tooling question. The challenge is to rethink how the company works before the old structure slows them down. The Scaling Europe show is presented by Deel - check them out here: https://get.deel.com/ruynb7o4lfjk Sponsors: Mishcon: https://www.mishcon.com/pop-ups/scaling-europe Chargebee: https://www.chargebee.com/events/beelieve/london/2026 SurrealDB: https://surrealdb.com/ Airwallex: https://www.airwallex.com/uk?utm_source=other&utm_medium=partner_referral&utm_campaign=v01_emea_multi_ib_dg_prtmk_mofu_scalingeurope Timestamps: 0:00 - Introduction 0:32 - European founders going global earlier 2:12 - How AI is changing company building 3:02 - CEOs learning from San Francisco 4:39 - Founder mode and AI leadership 7:20 - How Index helps founders through the shift 9:48 - Why Index invested in Anthropic 13:04 - Index’s AI strategy 17:17 - Assessing AI founders 21:07 - Explore vs exploit in AI 22:19 - Index’s AI portfolio 24:27 - Why Index operates as one global team 27:24 - The trade-offs of a global partnership

    50 min

  2. MAY 8

    James Regan, CEO of Oriole Networks: Building radically faster networks for AI

    AI data centres are running into a network bottleneck as models demand more bandwidth, more connected processors and dramatically more power. James Regan, CEO of Oriole Networks, thinks the industry is still trying to scale architectures that fundamentally do not work at the size AI is heading towards. Oriole’s approach replaces electrical packet switches with photonic switching technology designed to move data optically across the data centre, with the long-term goal of connecting a million XPUs in a single hop while cutting power consumption at the same time. The Scaling Europe show is presented by Deel - check them out here: https://get.deel.com/ruynb7o4lfjk Sponsors: Mishcon: https://www.mishcon.com/pop-ups/scaling-europe Chargebee: https://www.chargebee.com/events/beelieve/london/2026 SurrealDB: https://surrealdb.com/ Airwallex: https://www.airwallex.com/uk?utm_source=other&utm_medium=partner_referral&utm_campaign=v01_emea_multi_ib_dg_prtmk_mofu_scalingeurope Timestamps: 0:00 - Introduction 0:27 - What Oriole Networks is building 1:48 - Why optical switching matters for AI 4:50 - The network bottleneck problem 7:22 - Prism Ultra and scaling AI infrastructure 10:24 - Industry reaction to Prism Ultra 12:49 - US vs European deep tech investors 16:07 - What James does differently as a repeat founder 20:27 - Spinning companies out of universities 24:15 - Why founders should avoid weak early deals 25:53 - Recognising bad VC deals as a repeat founder

    27 min

  3. MAY 7

    Kevin Smith, CEO at Venture Comet: Helping founders unlock equity earlier in their startup journey

    Founders can spend years building valuable companies while paying themselves almost nothing, with all of the upside locked away until an exit that may still be years off. Kevin Smith, CEO at Venture Comet, is building a platform that helps founders release a small amount of equity earlier in the journey instead of waiting for a single make-or-break outcome at the end. One of the biggest shifts he points to is how much investor attitudes around founder secondaries have changed, with far more acceptance that giving founders some financial breathing room can actually help companies last longer and build bigger outcomes. The Scaling Europe show is presented by Deel - check them out here: https://get.deel.com/ruynb7o4lfjk Sponsors: Mishcon: https://www.mishcon.com/pop-ups/scaling-europe Chargebee: https://www.chargebee.com/events/beelieve/london/2026 SurrealDB: https://surrealdb.com/ Airwallex: https://www.airwallex.com/uk?utm_source=other&utm_medium=partner_referral&utm_campaign=v01_emea_multi_ib_dg_prtmk_mofu_scalingeurope Timestamps: 0:00 - Introduction 1:07 - What Venture Comet does 2:20 - Why founders struggle in years 3-5 4:52 - When founders should consider secondaries 6:24 - Why Kevin started the company 8:36 - The rise of founder secondaries 11:17 - How Venture Comet works with investors 13:48 - The future of Venture Comet 16:38 - Building differently the second time around 19:23 - Staying focused as a second-time founder

    22 min

  4. MAY 6

    June Angelides MBE, Founder of the Portfolio Method and Venture Partner at Samos Investments: Building a platform to manage multiple roles and income streams

    Most people running multiple roles have no clear way to price their work or decide what is actually worth their time. June Angelides MBE, Founder of the Portfolio Method and Venture Partner at Samos Investments, is building a product around that problem after seeing it play out in her first workshop, where most participants realised they were underpricing themselves once they broke everything down. What started as a single session is already turning into a product with early users, as she builds it in real time and tests how a portfolio career can actually be structured instead of just managed informally. Find out more about the Portfolio Method and get a free audit here: https://theportfolio-method.com/. Most people running multiple roles have no clear way to price their work or decide what is actually worth their time.June Angelides MBE, Founder of the Portfolio Method and Venture Partner at Samos Investments, is building a product around that problem after seeing it play out in her first workshop, where most participants realised they were underpricing themselves once they broke everything down. What started as a single session is already turning into a product with early users, as she builds it in real time and tests how a portfolio career can actually be structured instead of just managed informally.Find out more about the Portfolio Method and get a free audit here: https://theportfolio-method.com/. An anonymous benchmarking survey for portfolio careers is also now live, check it out here: https://tally.so/r/eqxrQq. The Scaling Europe show is presented by Deel - check them out here: https://get.deel.com/ruynb7o4lfjk Sponsors: Mishcon: https://www.mishcon.com/pop-ups/scaling-europe Chargebee: https://www.chargebee.com/events/beelieve/london/2026 SurrealDB: https://surrealdb.com/ Airwallex: https://www.airwallex.com/uk?utm_source=other&utm_medium=partner_referral&utm_campaign=v01_emea_multi_ib_dg_prtmk_mofu_scalingeurope Timestamps: 0:00 - Introduction 0:25 - Why she started the Portfolio Method 2:36 - The cost of context switching 3:27 - Underpricing and workshop insight 4:02 - Going back into build mode 6:24 - Product vision and early users 11:38 - Investing in African startups 13:13 - African tech ecosystem 15:01 - Balancing a portfolio career

    18 min

  5. MAY 4

    Andre Retterath, General Partner at Earlybird Venture Capital: Earlybird’s €360m fund and the future of European deep tech

    Earlybird raised a €360 million early-stage fund, its largest yet, after extending the hard cap during the raise to bring in an additional institutional LP. Andre Retterath, General Partner at Earlybird Venture Capital, talks about how that number is decided before the fund is even raised, with ownership targets and follow-on reserves shaping the size more than anything else in a market where liquidity has been tight. The Scaling Europe show is presented by Deel - check them out here: https://get.deel.com/ruynb7o4lfjk Sponsors: Mishcon: https://www.mishcon.com/pop-ups/scaling-europe Chargebee: https://www.chargebee.com/events/beelieve/london/2026 SurrealDB: https://surrealdb.com/ Airwallex: https://www.airwallex.com/uk?utm_source=other&utm_medium=partner_referral&utm_campaign=v01_emea_multi_ib_dg_prtmk_mofu_scalingeurope Timestamps: 0:00 - Introduction 0:19 - €360m fund announcement 0:55 - Fund size and portfolio strategy 2:29 - Fundraising in today’s LP market 3:54 - IPOs and liquidity returning 5:39 - Deep tech focus 8:13 - What founders look for in investors 10:03 - Aleph Alpha and Cohere 12:24 - Sovereignty in Europe 15:39 - Ownership structure and long-term setup 20:14 - Advice for getting into VC

    23 min

  6. APR 30

    Stefan Bader: CEO on Cello on automating growth and GTM

    Stefan Bader is a the co-founder and CEO of Cello, a tech company focused on user-led growth through referral-based marketing for B2B software companies. He is also running the GTM10 awards - an awards programme for the best GTM operators. Check it out here: https://thegtm10.com/ The Scaling Europe show is presented by Deel - check them out here:] https://get.deel.com/ruynb7o4lfjkAlso by:Mishcon: https://www.mishcon.com/pop-ups/scaling-europeChargebee: https://www.chargebee.com/events/beelieve/london/2026SurrealDB: https://surrealdb.com/Airwallex: https://www.airwallex.com/uk?utm_source=other&utm_medium=partner_referral&utm_campaign=v01_emea_multi_ib_dg_prtmk_mofu_scalingeurope

    22 min

  7. APR 21

    Dan Westgarth, Chief Operating Officer at Deel: From Revolut to Deel: inside two hypergrowth companies

    Deel has grown into one of the fastest scaling SaaS companies globally, building a fully remote organisation of over 7,000 people and reaching more than $1 billion in annual revenue. Dan Westgarth, COO at Deel, shares how he went from customer support at Revolut to leading operations at Deel, and why scaling a company at that speed comes down to constant reinvention, high talent density and a culture built on accountability rather than location. The Scaling Europe show is presented by Deel - check them out here: https://get.deel.com/ruynb7o4lfjk Sponsors: SurrealDB: The multi-model database for AI agents. Check them out here: https://surrealdb.com/ Timestamps: 0:00 - Introduction 0:37 - From Revolut to Deel 2:37 - Why join early and back founders 4:20 - Deel’s growth and scale today 5:30 - Reinventing the COO role as the company grows 6:39 - What the role looks like day-to-day 7:30 - Hiring, culture and what makes a great operator 10:10 - Scaling a fully remote company 12:33 - Remote culture and accountability 12:38 - Views on the current market and AI 14:47 - The Revolut mafia and operator networks 15:51 - Staying at Deel and future plans 16:42 - AI adoption inside Deel

    18 min

  8. APR 20

    Harvey Hodd, founder at Rivan: Rivan raised a £25 million Series A

    Rivan has just raised a £25 million Series A to scale its synthetic fuel technology, after building and operating the UK’s largest synthetic natural gas plant in under a year. Harvey Hodd, Founder at Rivan, shares how the company built and proved its first plant and is now focused on scaling manufacturing to bring synthetic fuels into the grid at costs that compete with fossil fuels. The Scaling Europe show is presented by Deel - check them out here: https://get.deel.com/ruynb7o4lfjk Sponsors: SurrealDB: The multi-model database for AI agents. Check them out here: https://surrealdb.com/ Timestamps: 0:00 - Introduction 0:22 - £25m Series A announcement 0:52 - From hypothesis to working plant 2:11 - What Rivan is building 4:38 - Customer demand and commercial model 6:06 - Energy markets and European context 8:54 - Competing with fossil fuels 10:10 - Building fast in hardware 12:45 - Scaling manufacturing and new facility 14:08 - Deployment timelines 16:12 - Fundraising and investors 17:56 - Challenges and execution 19:02 - Building hardware vs software

    21 min
See All (191)

About

Every week Seb Johnson sits down with 5 of Europe's best builders and investors to talk about what's going on in European Tech. Prior guests include the founders of Lovable, Cleo, Voi an Zilch, as well as top VCs from 20VC, Index, Balderton and Creandum.

Information

  • Creator
    Sebastian Johnson
  • Years Active
    2K
  • Episodes
    191
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Sebastian Johnson
  • Show Website
    Scaling Europe

You Might Also Like