EUVC #265: Simon Lohman on building the Cavalry Platform

Today we have Simon Lohmann, Head of Platform & Investor Relations at Cavalry Ventures, an early-stage generalist venture fund in Germany to back European Software companies with a huge LP network and a sizeable platform team in place.Cavalry is investing out of Fund 3 with a total of 250m AUM and an established portfolio of 50+ companies and notable investments including Usercentrics (Consent Management), Planradar (Real-Estate Construction Management), Forto (Digital Freight Forwarder), and Aleph Alpha (Generative Enterprise AI), which just raised an enormous Series B.At Cavalry, Simon focuses on Fundraising and Investor Relations now and built up the platform before.Go to eu.vc for a full write up of our learnings from this episode 🧠 Chapters:00:00:00 - Introduction and Sponsor Message00:03:30 - Investment Announcement with German Corporates00:06:58 - From Sales to VC: My Journey in the Industry00:10:15 - The Importance of Education and Learning00:13:47 - Investing in Talent and Consolidation in the VC Space00:17:29 - The Challenges in the VC Industry00:21:09 - Adjusting Valuations and Interacting with LPs00:24:35 - The Beginning of Cavalry and the Platform Activities00:28:11 - Structured Approach to Platform Development00:31:40 - Using an App for Communication00:35:04 - Using Affinity as our CRM00:38:30 - Tracking the Success of Introductions00:41:59 - The Value of a Platform Team in Venture Capital00:45:28 - Importance of Value Add and Trust00:48:45 - Supporting Portfolio Companies00:52:14 - Shoutouts to Christian Du and Hannah from Don Capital00:55:49 - Strategic Work and Scalability00:59:20 - Capacity Management and Scalability Techniques01:02:53 - Advice for First-Time Founders and Long-Term Thinking01:06:27 - Communicating Clearly with LPs in Venture Capital01:10:15 - European Unity and Values