Upside

Upside is a weekly podcast looking behind the headlines to see what's going to affect European venture, start-ups and investing. Hosted by Dan and Mads from Superseed, and this week our special guest is Neil Shah from the London Stock Exchange. A man, his pants, and an ice cube. Dan melts on air. Neil gets called an "artificial Indian" for failing British weather. The London Stock Exchange's tech chief joins to share how the tide is turning. 02:00 — Mini market update: AI infra gets a kickingSpaceX limps from 225 to 150, now flogging a $25bn bond and moonlighting as an NVIDIA reseller. Shiller PE knocking on dot-com's door. Nothing to see here.05:56 — Micron: the canary, the coal mine, the lie detectorMads explains why a memory maker tells you everything. Revenue up 346%, 85% "sassy" margins, sold out for the year, customers throwing deposits at them. Also: this is why your iPhone got 20% pricier.10:06 — Can the UK unlock capital? (Spoiler: pensions)A history lesson. UK pension AUM in equities: 53% in 1997, ~2.8% now. Neil tours Mansion House, PISCES, AIM reform, and 19 train stations of brand recognition. One silver bullet: pensions. Also a confession about a tragic cash ISA.21:34 — Euro Defence attracts billionsKNDS, Stark, the EIC discovering it's allowed to do defence now the paperwork matches. Mads connects the dots from air-con bans to North Sea oil to virtue-signalling our industry offshore. Buckle up.30:39 — The AI invoice is due. Who's paying?Qualcomm crashes the chip party, 300 US data-centre moratoriums, enterprises haggling their bills down. Neil reveals the LSEG runs on Copilot (he's coping) and covets your Granola.37:16 — Sovereign AI: let a thousand flowers bloomItaly's Domyn gets anointed Europe's frontier champion. Mads thinks picking winners is "wasted money" and we should copy the Chinese: be a customer, not a VC.41:47 — Anthropic, Mythos & the Fable blackoutfable5up.com says "no." Refresh: still no. Coming 8 July: government ID and facial scans for your fix. Backup plan: send the next PM to Washington with a letter from the King.43:13 — PredictionsDan: SpaceX halves to 120. Neil: please, god, no - it'll ruin his IPO pipeline.44:01 — Deal of the WeekBritish Business Bank backs ten first-time UK VCs. Dan talks his own book, shamelessly.45:07 — Week aheadBending Spoons IPOs (AOL and Evernote's retirement home), SpaceX joins the Nasdaq 100, EIC defence equity, and Microsoft threatens to rip Claude Code from its devs by Monday. Pour one out.

Upside is a weekly show that looks behind the headlines affecting European venture. This week Dan and Mads are joined by Joe Schorge of Isomer Capital — one of the people who literally decides which European VC funds get to exist. England beat Croatia 4:2, a new PM may have appeared overnight, and somehow we tied none of it back to venture. Onwards.02:25 Economic vibe check — S&P on a record tear (up ~24%), but 75% of economists now whisper "20% drop." The FTSE hits 10,504 and the UK quietly out-grows everyone in Q1. Stagflation: not great, not recession, very British.05:25 Accenture eats it — Shares down ~16-18% on a "thanks for that" earnings call. Mads unpacks whether AI grows consulting or guts it. Verdict: secular pain for the body-shop, maybe salvation for the reinventors. Not a melting ice cube. Probably.11:54 Anthropic gets unplugged — The US switches off Fable 5 and Mythos 5 worldwide, three days after launch. Dario warns AI is dangerous; AI gets controlled; Dario is surprised. The boring real lesson: don't single-source your model. One portco's app worked, then broke, in a single week.20:12 The G7 AI coalition — Amodei and Hassabis pitch a US-led, China-excluding club. China counter-pitches a global one the same day. Mads calls it a market-grab in a national-security costume, and probably self-defeating. Joe wants Europe in the front seat, not talking itself down for once.26:41 DeepSeek's $7.4bn — Raised at $50bn+ with five-year lockups, zero investor votes, and the state AI fund as the only one allowed near the steering wheel. Joe, ever the governance romantic: superpowers tend to become superproblems. Tell Elon.32:07 Mistral's €20bn — Nearly double September, for data centres and compute. Joe is delighted there's a European champion; nobody's entirely sure how much cash it takes to win a war. DeepSeek did it on a shoestring, after all.35:49 Can Europe build a trillion-dollar company? — ASML's basically there (~$720bn). We make more startups than the US, earn 6% higher returns, and watch 30% of our winners emigrate west. Joe: the next European trillion-dollar company already exists. He just wishes he knew which one.42:34 Deal of the Week — Theker (Barcelona): generalist factory robots, €73m Series A, Europe's largest robotics round. We sold KUKA and ABB; this is the comeback.43:47 Week Ahead — Micron's HBM print, GPT-5.6 rumours, and the Anthropic restoration watch.

Upside is a weekly show that looks behind the headlines that will affect European venture, start-ups and investing. On the show this week: 3:03 — SpaceX IPO day: pop, flop or nothing-burger?7:16 — OpenAI files for IPO — own OpenAI at $1tn or Anthropic at $965bn?9:50 — Bending Spoons files for Nasdaq: Europe's app-Berkshire14:01 — ECB's first hike since 2023, and Iran14:35 — European Quantum Week: inside OQC's £260m round24:45 — Quantum sensing: navigation without GPS31:08 — Fable & Mythos: Anthropic's new model and the AI glass ceiling41:30 — AI safety, ENISA and CADA: the European sovereignty angle46:17 — Lumen Sovereign: Britain's first sovereign frontier model54:55 — UK AI Hardware Week: the £1.1bn plan & the Playground Global cheque1:05:50 — WWDC: Siri reborn with Google Gemini under the hood1:06:58 — Deal of the week: ICEYE (Finland)1:07:56 — Deal of the week: Neura Robotics (Germany)1:10:30 — The week ahead: SpaceX trades, Bending Spoons, AI Act loosening, AccentureThis week's guest Callum Stewart — Investment Principal, Bullhound CapitalHosts Mads Jensen (SuperSeed) & Andrew Scott (7percent Ventures)Links & sourcesQuantumOQC Series C: https://oqc.tech/company/newsroom/series-cBBB £100m into OQC: https://www.british-business-bank.co.uk/news-and-events/news/british-business-bank-commits-ps100m-oxford-quantum-circuitsQuobly €115m Series A: https://www.quobly.io/press-releases/quobly-secures-e115-million-series-a-to-bring-silicon-based-quantum-computers-to-marketIQM upsized PIPE: https://thequantuminsider.com/2026/06/02/iqm-and-real-asset-acquisition-corp-announce-upsized-146-million-pipe-with-new-commitment-from-ilmarinen/Anthropic — Fable & Mythoshttps://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-fable-5-mythos-5https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/09/anthropics-claude-fable-5-is-a-version-of-mythos-the-public-can-access-today/https://the-decoder.com/anthropic-releases-claude-fable-5-and-mythos-5-with-major-gains-in-coding-and-science/ENISA / Mythos access: https://thenextweb.com/news/anthropic-mythos-eu-enisa-cybersecurity-accessLumen Sovereignhttps://cosine.sh/blog/building-lumen-sovereign-uk-industry-coalitionhttps://tech.eu/2026/06/08/cosine-secures-industry-backing-for-britain-s-first-sovereign-frontier-model/UK AI Hardware WeekGov £1.1bn plan: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/a-decisive-shift-to-power-british-ai-new-11-billion-plan-to-back-chip-firms-boost-computing-power-and-skills-for-the-ai-revolutionBBB / Playground Global: https://www.british-business-bank.co.uk/news-and-events/events/silicon-valley-deeptech-vc-playground-global-launch-uk-support-british-business-bankAMD up to £2bn: https://ir.amd.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/1288/amd-commits-up-to-2-billion-to-accelerate-ai-innovation-and-research-in-the-united-kingdomWWDC / Sirihttps://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/06/apple-unveils-next-generation-of-apple-intelligence-siri-ai-and-more/EU rejects exemption: https://www.techtimes.com/articles/318136/20260610/eu-rejects-apple-siri-ai-exemption-commission-says-dma-never-blocked-launch.htmDeals of the weekICEYE €450m: https://tech.eu/2026/06/09/iceye-raises-eur450m-at-eur10b-valuation-as-demand-for-sovereign-space-intelligence-accelerates/Neura Robotics: https://www.ft.com/content/237f10c2-b2b2-490b-bec1-8864e0a22772

Plus it's EU Sovereignty Week, more on the EU's Palantir Problem & who's now in the the $80bn club?This week Dan and Mads are joined by Matt Russell, Head of Secondaries at VenCap, the 40-year-old firm with a look-through portfolio of ~500 funds and ~17,000 companies, and seemingly exposure to every name that's ever mattered. We get into why secondaries aren't the bargain-bin everyone thinks, why Brussels keeps reaching for the statute book instead of the chequebook, whether the NHS can actually rip out Palantir (spoiler: with what?), and the three biggest IPOs in history queuing up at once. Plus: Florida sues Sam Altman, Europe's two-tier AI future, and a baby that won't sleep.00:52 — Meet Matt Russell: a secondaries 101, and why the best deals are the ones you pay up for.04:23 — EU Sovereignty Week — CADA, the four tiers of "sovereign," and the great Azure/Bleu/Delos licensing fudge. Mads's verdict: stop tinkering, complete the single market, unlock the pension capital.19:00 — Europe's Palantir Problem — MPs want the £330m NHS contract torn up and handed to a British supplier that doesn't exist. Featuring the ghost of the National Programme for IT. 24:45 — The Enterprise vs the AI Bill — Uber caps staff at £1,500/month, Pizza Hut delivers cold, and nobody can forecast token spend. So how do you measure ROI? (Answer, eventually: cashflow.) Andreessen's "sand into intelligence". 31:25 — The $80 Billion Club — SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic all crowding the exit. Why buybacks mean the market can absorb it — and why SpaceX needs to 100x revenue by 2030 to justify the price. 39:30 — America Sues Its Own — Florida takes OpenAI (and Sam Altman, personally) to court as Trump waters down his own AI order. Limitation of liability, load-bearing. 43:05 — Dan's prediction: a two-tier European AI stack (sovereign Mistral/Aleph Alpha vs "tamed" US models) — plus Matt's "models are airlines, not utilities" framing. 48:33 — Deal of the Week: Stark (€300m at €2.5bn defence drones the Pope wouldn't approve of) and Dan's pick, Gigaton (née Carbon Re, £26m).50:18 — The Week Ahead: WWDC and the eternal wait for a real Siri, an ECB rate hike, and Friday's main event — the biggest IPO of all time.Upside: looking behind the headlines that move European venture. New episode every week.

This week, Dan and Mads dig into the AI infrastructure boom spreading beyond GPUs, Europe's sovereignty contradictions, the era of the zero-employee unicorn, and a Pope weighing in on AI.00:00 — The week's headlines and some chit chat.01:15 — Ferrari's Luce, SpaceX Starship postponement, Gary Lineker's VC firm, Kirkland & Ellis builds its own AI stack. 07:00 — The new Dealroom report: London reclaims top spot from Paris. 08:30 — AI infrastructure beyond GPUs. Micron and SK Hynix cross $1T as the 40-year DRAM cycle breaks. 13:40 — How much AI capex is enough? Pascal's wager and the hyperscaler bet. 16:00 — Snowflake's CoCo pops 37%, Salesforce stumbles on the seat-based model. The applications-layer thesis in action. 19:30 — S&P 500 rule changes: SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic's IPO clock accelerates.24:20 — Claude Opus 4.8 lands. Anthropic eclipses OpenAI as the most valuable frontier lab. 27:00 — European sovereignty in action. Dutch state blocks Kyndryl on CLOUD Act risk; ASML can't expand Eindhoven over nitrogen rules; €1.1T of European industry pushes back. 34:00 — The AI-only company era. Polsia raises $30m at $250m with zero employees and a 2.1 Trustpilot. Spell it backwards. 36:30 — AI-washing. Standard Chartered's "lower-value human capital", 7,800 cuts, and the real story behind the UK NEET crisis. 42:00 — The Pope's AI encyclical. 135 years after Rerum Novarum, Anthropic's Chris Olah stands at the Vatican. 47:00 — Predictions: which AI unicorn collapses first? 48:45 — Deal of the Week: Cognition's $1bn raise (Mads) and Eddy Grid's profitable Dutch energytech.51:30 — Week ahead: CrowdStrike and Quantinuum earnings. 53:00 — Mads turns 21 (again)

This week on Upside: Nvidia is so rich it's literally throwing money at shareholders, three megacaps queue up to IPO, and Americans discover they hate AI almost as much as politicians.(00:47) Mads at the BBCA / UKPC. Same name, same problem, same answers nobody's implementing. Plus a quick spin through Ben Evans' latest, ASML's revenue upgrade, and Meta canning 8,000 engineers. Cool, cool, cool.(02:30) Nvidia returns $80B to shareholders - roughly the GDP of Tunisia, give or take. Free cash flow of $49B a quarter. Stock down on earnings - maybe we've collectively lost our minds.(07:00) The Great IPO Unfreeze. SpaceX at $2T (an AI company wearing a rocket suit wearing a telecoms business), OpenAI at $1T (the most consequential S-1 of the decade, Dan bets it ain't pretty), and Anthropic's "final-final" pre-IPO round, number four. Sure.(13:24) Unitree IPOs in Shanghai at $67B. The dancing robot company actually shipping units. The Android of humanoids? Europe, please build the layer on top.(20:00) Europe writes its own future. Mistral grabs Vienna's EMMIE for neural physics simulation, EQT wins the €5B Scale-Up Europe mandate (sorry Atomico), and HMRC picks Quantexa over Palantir for £175M. Buying British: hopefully not the B-player.(27:30) American AI rebellion. AI now polls worse than ICE. Molotovs at Sam Altman's house. Europe, take note.(33:30) Prediction: France will cave on ESOP rules by end of '26. Mads disagrees.(36:30) Deal of the week: Isomorphic Labs, $2.1B Series B. Demis's side hustle is going great.(38:50) Week ahead: Salesforce earnings (where art thou, Agentforce?), AI-stack reports, and the S&P 500 rule change that could let SpaceX/OpenAI/Anthropic into the index faster than feels reasonable.

Upside Live from Montenegro: Five GPs, Five BetsRecorded live from a Montenegrin port at a European LP/GP gathering of 80 investors, Dan asked 5 European investors the same question: If you had to put every penny of your fund and personal capital into one bet in Europe, where would it go?(01:21) Jens Lapinski — German super angel Jens would back the full AI stack, money transfer infrastructure, training environments, enterprise deployment. On sovereign AI, he argues the US-Europe relationship is one investment continuum rather than two competing blocs: chips, foundation models, hyperscalers, operating systems and the application layer are predominantly US-built, and pretending otherwise isn't productive. He acknowledges defence and security carve-outs make sense, but the broader play is co-investing with American capital, not against it. The one structural fix: unlock European pension fund and insurance capital flows into venture, and fix the public market exit path so companies don't default to US listings.(07:24) Andra Bagdonaite — First Pick, Lithuania First-check pre-seed investor for Baltic founders since 2022. Andra's bet: AI applied to traditional SMBs; logistics, manufacturing, businesses still running on legacy ERPs and Excel. Lithuania functions as a fast sandbox for founders to pilot with one or two customers before going global. She frames this as a long compounding opportunity rather than a rocket ship, the scale of legacy process digitisation across European SMBs is the prize.(12:21) Ella Goldner — Zinc Ella would concentrate on transformative deep tech climate. Her view: incremental solutions won't shift the trajectory, so a portfolio approach to moonshot bets, fusion and energy provision featured explicitly, is the rational play. She cites Kate Bingham's COVID Vaccine Taskforce as the model: urgency strips out bureaucracy and accelerates the research-to-commercialisation path. Insurance pricing is already starting to reflect climate risk, which she sees as an early commercial signal. Her one change for Europe: cultural rather than structural, building a problem-solving, business-building mindset from school age. She contrasts this with Israel and the US, where building and discussing ventures is embedded in everyday conversation.(23:58) Mike Reiner — 432 Legacy, Netherlands Mike's bet: the software and safety layer around physical AI. Roughly 11% of revenue is currently lost to safety-driven slowdowns and caging where robots and humans share environments. His firm has already backed a Swiss company using ultra-wideband to detect people through walls for multi-sensor safety platforms. The thesis comes from a proprietary value-chain analysis system: the same tool surfaced transformer and specialist hardware supply as the binding constraint on data centre buildout (not just energy), and identified firmware security (portfolio company Binary) as a durable cyber gap less likely to be absorbed by the foundation model providers. On founders, he looks for trauma-driven ambition paired with active self-development work, the combination he sees correlating with mission-driven, durable companies. His one change: more funds willing to take on tough problems with longer fund cycles, which he argues is also where the largest demand-supply gaps, and returns sit.(34:39) Dave Haynes — FOV Ventures Dave's bet: robotics and physical AI. He separates the two cleanly; robotics is the embodiment, physical AI (or world models) is the intelligence layer that understands real-world physics rather than text and images. Sizing: digital economy roughly $15T, physical economy in the hundreds of trillions, and software has only meaningfully disrupted the former. FOV maps the space across four layers: hardware and infrastructure (sensors, hyperspectral imaging, wireless power, portfolio company Willow), software and operating systems, the intelligence layer (world models, where Yann LeCun's Amy sits as a European entrant), and vertical applications. Europe's edge, in his view, is in vertical deployment; labour shortages, real industrial pull, and strong robotics talent from TUM, ETH and Imperial. He frames the shift as "Robotics 2.0": where Robotics 1.0 needed £5m of CapEx, founders can now build serious automation businesses on a £500k cheque, mirroring the Web 1.0 to 2.0 transition. He estimates the ChatGPT-equivalent moment for robotics is roughly five years out.

Hosts: Mads Jensen (moderator), Lomax Ward (Lisbon beach bum), Dr. Andrew Scott (serial mute-button offender) Missing: Dan Bowyer — scaling actual mountains. We told him to come back alive. Mostly because nobody else wants to moderate.[02:30] — ARM vs Spotify: One the Market Loves, One It Doesn't Both posted good numbers. ARM got rewarded, Spotify got a -13% haircut and a 25% YTD drawdown despite record margins and 761m MAUs. Lomax calls ARM's AGI CPU pivot a "bet the farm." Mads drops the CPU:GPU ratio shift from 1:8 to potentially 1:1 as agentic AI explodes tool calls. Infrastructure compounds, consumer optimises, and the market knows which is which.[10:38] — Anthropic: $200bn Google Deal, $45bn ARR, Just Give Them Europe Too $200bn to Google Cloud. ARR at $45bn (up from ~$9bn in January). Potential $50bn raise north of $1tn. Lomax declares Anthropic "so, so hot right now" — secondary-market appetite lives in WhatsApp groups and members' club washrooms.[16:15] — Enterprise AI JVs: Palantir Meets Accenture Meets PE's Existential Crisis Anthropic and OpenAI both announced PE-backed JVs on May the 4th. Zero investor overlap. Andrew warns frontier labs risk becoming expensive consulting firms. Lomax: PE returns are compressed, LPs restless, AI is the new pitch to juice portfolio EBITDA. Everyone agrees this is IPO prep dressed in a consulting trench coat.[23:15] — Mythos, Trump's AI Safety U-Turn, and Regulatory Capture Mythos is so good at hacking that Trump is drafting FDA-style pre-deployment AI reviews — having revoked Biden's AI EO on Day One. Andrew deploys the nuclear weapons analogy (drink!). Lomax offers the conspiracy theory: everyone in the administration has so much money in these companies that regulation now suits them. He then distances himself from that theory. Barely.[31:30] — EU vs Meta/WhatsApp: Brussels Says Open Sesame, Zuck Says Pay Me Meta kicked rival chatbots out of WhatsApp, offered to let them back for a fee. Brussels rejected it. Mads lands the kill shot: open banking made UK payments vastly superior to America's. Sometimes the regulator is right. Potential fine: ~$16-20bn.[39:27] — ASML: "No One Is Coming for Us" (Famous Last Words?) Fouquet went to Milken and said "come at me." Lomax notes China isn't replicating EUV — they're engineering around it with Huawei's CloudMatrix. Mads roasts Fouquet for lacking Jensen's paranoia. Lomax delivers the closer: founder mode vs. conference mode.[46:33] — UK Fusion: Always 30 Years Away, Now Only 10 (Maybe) Sounds like a Bond villain's energy company: Gates money + American stellarator IP + UK magnets. 400MW by mid-2030s. Andrew: "magnets are not the reactor." Lomax: anemic growth, £120bn in interest payments, defence plan a year overdue. Building a fusion industry — or buying a franchise?[56:09] — 🏆 Deal of the Week: SAP Acquires Prior Labs for €1bn 15-month-old startup. €9m seed. €1bn exit. The "GPT for spreadsheets." Possibly the fastest seed-to-exit in European venture history.[57:30] — Week Ahead: Anthropic IPO board watch (they won't) · EU AI Act trilogue (~13 May) · Tencent Q1 earnings (13 May) · Fed transition — Powell's last day (15 May) · SpaceX S-1 (week of 18-22 May)[59:46] — Dan's back next week. The nation breathes a sigh of relief.

Every week on Upside, we look behind the headlines to expose the real news affecting European venture, startups and investing. Charles hands Trump a bell, Musk says he's not building AGI (this week), and Brussels manages 12 hours of trilogue with absolutely nothing to show for it. Meanwhile Big Tech spent the GDP of a small country on GPUs, and Europe, yes, Europe, quietly dropped two near-billion-dollar AI rounds out of UCL. Buckle up.(00:48) Round-up King Charles's grooming of Trump hits new heights with HMS Trump's actual ship's bell. Whisky tariff dropped one win, banked. Hormuz still a mess, Brent at $126, Canada launches a sovereign wealth fund, and Musk testifies under oath that Tesla isn't pursuing AGI. Six weeks after saying it would. Pick your audience, pick your claim.(02:42) Big Tech Earnings: capex needs cloud growth to justify itself Alphabet (+22%, cloud +63%) and Amazon (AWS +28%) get rewarded. Microsoft and Meta punished. Meta's stock down 8.5% for the crime of having no cloud P&L. Apple, supposedly the AI laggard, is the only one to trade up after print: iPhone +22%, Greater China +28%, and Tim Cookie insists AI will be "fast, personal, private." Memory is the new bottleneck    SK Hynix sold out for all of 2026.(09:14) Frontier-Lab Politics: state-level chess Musk vs Altman in court, with OpenAI's lawyer delivering the line of the week. China blocks Meta's $2bn Manus acquisition not tit-for-tat, but China running the US export-control playbook in reverse. Google's "up to $40bn" into Anthropic at a flat valuation: smart hedge, not a bailout.(14:31) Europe quietly outperforms Ineffable: $1.1bn at $5.1bn, David Silver, RL-from-scratch. Recursive Superintelligence: $500m, Tim Rocktäschel, AI that improves itself. Two UCL professors, two near-unicorn rounds, one week. The DeepMind diaspora is real.(16:29) Frontier Models: monetisation arrives GPT-5.5, Kimi K2.6, Grok 4.3, Opus 4.7 all in eight days. Cadence is no longer the story. OpenAI doubled API prices. Anthropic pulled every quiet lever it had, and your Claude bill went 10-50x. Nobody's leaving. Run-rate $9bn → $30bn in four months. Models commoditise; stacks don't.(21:09) SpaceX S-1: $1.75–2tn target Biggest IPO in history filing in May. 220x earnings. Bull case is space compute Musk's bet that we run out of Earth-based power before we run out of orbital sunlight. Don't bet against him, etc.(26:54) EU AI Act vs UK AI Plan Trilogue collapses. The Omnibus that would have softened the Act is what died Act now harder, not easier. London becomes the only place in Europe to build an AI lab. Not enough, but we'll take it.(30:04) Energy & SMRs UK industrial energy: 125% above EU-14 median. SMRs won't power a data centre until the 2030s. Even fixing energy doesn't fix the electrician shortage. Build everything, in parallel, yesterday.(35:43) Predictions Dan: France becomes Europe's OPEC by Q1 2027. Mads: Anthropic should IPO, probably won’t, the May board vote is the marker.Deal of the Week (38:40) Mads: Ineffable, obviously. Dan: Atech, £681k from Lovable, making hardware prototyping accessible.Until next week, muchachos. 

Upside is a weekly podcast that unpacks the real news behind the headlines affecting European venture startups and investing. Hosted by Mads and Dan from SuperSeed. This week: the EU admits it wrote a bad AI Act (shocking), Sergey Brin is wheeled out of retirement again, SpaceX buys a coding company because of course, and Wall Street invents a new way to short private credit. Dan and Mads untangle.(02:00) DeepSeek V4 drops overnight — Chinese open-weights model benchmarking at Opus 4.6 level. The gap between Western frontier and Chinese open source is now 78 days. Trained entirely on Huawei chips, so the three-year US chip embargo has been going brilliantly. Anthropic will probably survive, but NVIDIA might want to glance at its share price.(07:30) The EU quietly euthanises its own AI Act — Monday's trilogue is gutting the juicy bits and calling it "simplification." Translation: Brussels is admitting it was wrong without admitting it was wrong. Europe needs inference chips, public procurement as anchor demand, pension capital unlocked, a real 28th regime, and nuclear next to datacentres. Otherwise we're just tidying.(11:00) Cyber week: three stories, one confused headline — France's ANTS loses 19M identity records (run by Atos, which is insolvent, what could possibly go wrong). The UK Biobank "breach" isn't a breach, it's a 2003 open-science policy finally meeting 2026 strategic competition. (18:40) Sergey Brin un-retires (third time lucky?) — Leaked DeepMind memo: every Gemini engineer must now use Google's own agents, because they'd been quietly reaching for Claude Code when they actually wanted to ship. Embarrassing. Meanwhile Google owns 14% of Anthropic and just sold them $10bn of TPUs. Panic stations over here, revenue party over there. Beautifully incestuous.(24:20) SpaceX options Cursor at $60bn — or pays $10bn in compute to walk away. OpenAI has Codex, Anthropic has Claude Code, xAI had vibes. Now it has a distribution front door. Every frontier lab is becoming an application company. Europe's shot is here; Lovable, enterprise workflows, anything touching physical AI.(28:45) Europe has ceded space to SpaceX — we just haven't admitted it — Starlink: 7,000 satellites. Eutelsat: 600. IRIS² won't be operational until ~2030. The architecture's right, the scale is pathetic, procurement is pork-barrel nonsense. Fix: scrap ESA geographical return, let a thousand flowers bloom at every input layer, anchor with state demand.(33:30) Wall Street opens a short on private credit — JPM, Barclays, Morgan Stanley now making markets in CDS against Blackstone, Apollo, Ares. ~20% of BDC loans went to SaaS. AI is eating 25-35% of that. Blackstone took $3.8bn of redemptions in Q1 and posted its first monthly loss in three years. Not 2008, but a slow, jagged repricing of old-economy SaaS. (40:30) Predictions — Dan: the next trillion-dollar European company will be a defence prime, not software. Anthropic crosses $100bn ARR and never IPOs (Mads: sad, it should).(41:20) Deals of the week — Mads: ATMOS Space Cargo (€25.7M Series A: Europe can finally bring things back from orbit without asking SpaceX, Russia, or China nicely). Dan: €1.07bn into 57 EDF defence projects, yikes grants, yes, but hopefully the bedrock rather than a grantrepreneur buffet.(43:30) Week ahead — EU AI Act trilogue Tuesday, Ariane 6 launching American Kuiper satellites the same day (the irony writes itself), $14 trillion of hyperscaler earnings Wednesday, and a BoE decision that's drifted from "two cuts" to "possibly a hike." Cheers, Iran.

Upside is a weekly podcast that unpacks the news and headlines that will affect European venture startups and investing. This week Dan and Mads go deep on what Hungary's political earthquake means for European capital flows, why Anthropic is speedrunning a monopoly, and whether one bloke with a laptop can really build a unicorn (spoiler: it's complicated).[03:28] Orbán Out, Money In Hungary was the EU's most corrupt member state and Orbán was Russia and China's favourite circuit-breaker inside Brussels. Peter Magyar takes over mid-summer and suddenly €90bn in EU funding unlocks, twenty sanctions packages clear, and Hungarian defence spending gets greenlit. [09:53] Anthropic Eats the Stack Six months ago Mads predicted frontier labs would either become application companies or get absorbed by hyperscalers. Anthropic ships an app builder, leaks a design tool, hires Workday's CTO, and Mike Krieger resigns from Figma's board the same day the Figma-killer surfaces.[15:09] Mythos vs GPT-5.4-Cyber: The Weapon vs The Tool OpenAI released their cyber model publicly. Anthropic can't because Mythos is genuinely terrifying. First model to complete a full 32-step autonomous corporate network takeover from a simple prompt. No security expertise required. The distillation angle matters: every month Mythos stays gated is a month the Chinese open-source labs can't copy it. [21:53] The One-Man Unicorn (Or Is It?) Matthew Gallagher claims $400M in year-one revenue selling GLP-1 supplements, built with ChatGPT, Claude, and his brother. Sam Altman's prophecy, fulfilled? Not so fast. Class action lawsuits, dodgy marketing, and numbers that don't survive a Trustpilot audit. [28:19] Compute Scarcity: Still Very Much Early Innings TSMC spending $52-56bn in capex. ASML raising guidance. Blackwell GPU spot rent up 48% in two months. CoreWeave extending minimums from one to three years. OpenAI quietly cut its infra plan from $1.4T to $600B because Anthropic took pole position and they can't justify the spend. The lie detector test? If the chipmakers are still spending, the demand is real. [37:00] Musk's Terafab: 50x Global Compute, 80% in Space Elon's answer to scarcity: build a factory producing 50x today's global AI compute and launch most of it into orbit. The physics says cooling 1GW in a vacuum needs 834,000m² of radiators. A guest expert's verdict: "putting servers in orbit is a stupid idea, unless your customers are also in orbit." But betting against Musk has historically been expensive.[38:00] Predictions & Deal of the Week Dan calls it: within 12 months, a major breach gets publicly attributed to an AI model, triggering first AI-specific liability law. Mads picks Synera ($40M Series B, Bremen). Dan picks Helical (£10M, London) the AI virtual lab speeding up drug discovery.[41:00] Week Ahead TSMC Q1 earnings (already out by the time you hear this), EUVC Live in London on Wednesday, and Dan's off to dinner with founders he's known for 28 years.

Upside is a weekly podcast that looks behind the headlines affecting European venture, startups and investing. On this week's show...Anthropic is having the week of its life, Jamie Dimon wants you to know the sky is falling (again), and Germany spent €2 billion learning that shipbuilding is hard. Dan and Lomax fly as a duo this week.00:00 – Intro & News Radar – Iran ceasefire (maybe), global VC hits $300B in Q1 alone (70% of all 2025 deployment), four companies absorbed $188B of that, Russian hackers are in your router, and a Brit insists he isn't Satoshi Nakamoto. Busy week.04:16 – Anthropic: The Full Picture – Run rate has tripled to $30B, overtaking OpenAI's $25B. Over 1,000 enterprise customers spending $1M+, eight of the Fortune 10 on the books, and 32% of the enterprise LLM API market locked down. Mythos, their new frontier model, found thousands of zero-day vulnerabilities and hit a 72.4% exploit rate versus Opus 4.6's 14.4%. So powerful only 40 organisations have access. They also acquired Coefficient Bio for $400M in stock — six employees, founded last year, backed by Dimension Capital who turned $10M into $204M in Anthropic paper. EMEA is their fastest-growing region with 9x revenue growth and offices across six European cities.22:15 – Jamie Dimon's Annual Letter – 48 pages of structural warnings. Historically brilliant on multi-year calls (fiscal deficits, fintech disruption, HTM accounting), less brilliant on timing — he's called recession four years running. This year: inflation as "the skunk at the party," private credit's $1.8T transparency problem, and JPM spending $20B a year building AI in-house with $2B in cost savings already.29:36 – Mega IPOs – SpaceX ($2T, June), Anthropic (October, $60B raise), OpenAI (Q4/Q1 '27, $852B). Combined primary issuance could exceed 2025's entire US equity capital formation of $232B. Every major 2025 IPO traded down. Worth noting.37:43 – Climate Tech Returns – Rebranded as energy security and resilience. Climate VC hit $40.5B in 2025, up 8%. 87% of US companies quietly increased sustainability spend. The money's flowing — just under different letterhead.43:32 – Germany's Defence Nightmare – €10B for six warships, four years behind, prime contractor fired, Dutch-French-German finger-pointing all round. Defence budget rising from €86B to €152B by 2029 but procurement can't keep up. The EU's new AGILE fund offers €115M for defence startups with a four-month turnaround. Welcome to the age of cheap warfare.48:34 – OpenAI Buys TBPN – A one-year-old live tech show with 58,000 YouTube subscribers, acquired for low hundreds of millions weeks before a potential IPO. OpenAI says it'll stay independent. Sure.50:44 – Predictions & Deals of the Week – Dan calls Anthropic becoming Europe's de facto AI partner. Lomax brings Gilead's $5B acquisition of German biotech Tubulis. Dan flags Zero Shot Fund from OpenAI alumni.

Every week we look behind the headlines affecting European venture, startups and investing. This week it's with Lomax from Outsized Ventures, Andrew from 7 Percent, and myself, your host Dan Bowyer from Superseed. 00:00 – Dan declares himself sexy for the first time ever. The physical AI / reshoring zeitgeist has finally caught up with what SuperSeed's been doing for a decade. Lomax gently reminds him that being in vogue doesn't actually fix anything.06:01 – Quick-fire news roundup: Artemis II launches, Apple turns 50, software stocks crater, SpaceX files for what might be the largest IPO in human history. Andrew reminds us the stock market is mostly vibes anyway.11:06 – Mistral raises $830M in debt to build Nvidia-powered AI data centres in Europe. Lomax points out everything Mistral does is roughly 1% of the US equivalent. Andrew thinks it's a safe bet. Dan wonders if the French government will end up owning it.12:17 – NHS staff boycott Palantir. Andrew says this is the tip of the iceberg when you outsource critical infrastructure to a company whose chairman publicly slagged off the NHS. Lomax reveals New York is also dumping Palantir. The hunt for a European alternative begins. Lomax conveniently has an Italian pre-seed for this.31:13 – UK defence tech brain drain. Founders relocating to the Bay Area because MoD procurement takes longer than most startups survive. Lomax drops a monologue about Anduril's $20B contract while UK founders can't even get framework agreements cashed up. Andrew notes the MoD has capped software procurement at three years, which is still absurd.41:56 – Poolside loses its CoreWeave compute deal, tanking a $2B raise at $12B valuation. The lesson: if you're going full-stack, hire people who've actually built data centres.47:21 – Dan predicts local models will handle 95% of knowledge work within 18 months. Andrew remains wonderfully unconvinced.48:42 – Deals of the week: Starcloud ($170M, fastest YC unicorn ever), Fractile ($200M AI chip talks, Oxford spinout), and Manna Air Delivery ($50M Series B, drones from Dublin).

Every week, we look behind the headlines to explore what's coming down the track that will affect European venture, start-ups and investing. 00:00 — Meet Harry Destecroix Dan butchers the fund status (already closed, Dan), Harry sets out the SCVC thesis: generalist deep tech, breakthrough technologies from UK universities, everything from quantum to advanced therapeutics.01:40 — EIF's €15B Fund of Funds: Salvation or Same Old? The EU's massive growth-stage vehicle promises to unlock €80B in scale-up funding. Will it diversify European VC or just keep writing cheques to the same crowd? Harry drops the bomb that the ECF still has a €5M max round size. Lomax reminds everyone that 0.02% of EU pension assets are in venture. And the House of Lords just torpedoed Mansion House. Lovely.07:10 — Fund Size Is Strategy A €50M seed fund split 20 ways produces "horrible syndicated rounds." The US writes $10-20M seeds while Europe argues over whether £5M is too generous.11:02 — Should Europe Just Own the Application Layer? Let America build foundation models, let China sell cheap tokens, let Europe double down on defence, sovereignty, and AI applications. Harry agrees but insists deep tech still needs deep pockets.14:07 — Getting Governments Out of VC Lomax makes the case for private capital. Harry points out 5% allocation to high-risk assets is hardly betting the farm. Dan reveals his portfolio is "95% that way."21:10 — Project Prometheus: Bezos Drops $100B on Physical AI Buy old-economy manufacturers, juice them with AI. Europe has 20% GDP in manufacturing vs 10% in the US — massive opportunity. Harry suggests maybe it's just a clever way around EU planning laws. The eternal question: buy incumbents or build from scratch?28:21 — China's Token Economy: The New OPEC? China prices inference at 1/180th of OpenAI. Chinese models hold 4 of the top 5 spots on Open Router. NIST found them 12x more susceptible to hijacking attacks. Great for cash-strapped startups. Terrifying for enterprise CTOs.34:19 — Cursor's Kimi Scandal Got hammered not for using Moonshot AI's Kimi K2.5, but for not being upfront about it. A cautionary tale in transparency.36:14 — ARM Builds Its Own Chip After 36 Years ARM sacrifices its licensing model on the altar of AI inference. Meta is first customer. Dan asks if Intel still exists.39:54 — Innovate UK Gets a Founder at the Helm Tom Adeyoola takes the reins of ~£1B annual budget. Harry (council member) is cautiously optimistic: stop spreading money thin, start tracking "deal flow," stop wasting founders' time. Can a founder survive the civil service?48:12 — PREDICTIONS 🔮 Lomax: Hyperscaler revenue won't justify $602B capex. Amazon alone outspends the entire US energy sector. 🔮 Harry: Mag Seven fragmenting. Microsoft and Meta at 52-week lows. SpaceX/Anthropic/OpenAI IPOs could trigger rotation — unless Iran blows it up. 🔮 Dan: AI revenue reporting is smoke and mirrors. Anthropic's "$6B month" was run-rate maths. 79% of OpenAI customers also pay for Anthropic. Everyone's buying everything — and that stops.56:19 — Deals of the Week 🏆 Lomax: Air Street Capital Fund III — $232M, solo GP. 🏆 Dan: Granola hits unicorn status. British. Brilliant. 🏆 Harry: Lace Lithography — Norwegian startup breaking below EUV limits. Harry explains optical physics without his PhD colleague. Brave.Hosts Lomax Ward, Dan Bowyer and Harry Destecroix. Guest: Dr. Harry Destecroix - founder, PhD chemist, sold Ziylo to Novo Nordisk for £800M, founder of SCVC, Innovate UK council member,  and "super fabulous."

Every week on Upside, we try to unpack the news that's going to affect European venture, start-ups and investing. If you're a founder, GP, or LP, this is the show for you to catch up on the week's shenanigans.Hosted by Dan Bowyer, Mads Jensen, and Lomax Ward, all European venture capitalists. 00:00 — Nvidia's GTC: Jensen Drops a Trillion-Dollar Bomb Three new chips announced, each more ridiculous than the last. The Groq inference chip does 35x tokens per watt. Vera Rubin does 10x Blackwell. And the Feynman chip (2028) stacks silicon on silicon like a semiconductor lasagne. Marginal improvements these are not.04:38 — Star Cloud: Data Centres in Space, Because Why Not A seed-stage startup founded by an English bloke gets its video played at the biggest GPU conference on earth. The lads are impressed. Dan remains "not sold" but concedes it's "a lovely story." Literal moonshots, baby.07:54 — Is Nvidia a Buy? (This Is Not Investment Advice™) Mads runs the numbers: Nvidia trades at 21x forward earnings, basically the S&P average, except the S&P doesn't grow 73% a year. Bull case: it's cheap. Bear case: three of its biggest customers are building competing silicon. Classic.12:00 — The AI Lab Business Model Hunger Games OpenAI kills side gigs and panics into enterprise. Anthropic does a Palantir cosplay with Blackstone. Mistral quietly shows up with a billion-dollar run rate. Mads says without consumer monetisation, OpenAI is "toast." Dan doesn't buy the ad model. Lomax says think outside the box. 20:42 — Norway's $2.2 Trillion Fund Manager Is Spooked Nikolai Tangen says markets are sleepwalking past the Iran risk and an AI bubble could vaporise 35% of his fund. Amazon is free cash flow negative for the first time since the Clinton administration. Alphabet's FCF is down 90%. Meta's is near zero. The hyperscalers went from the greatest cash machines ever built to borrowing money for GPUs. Meanwhile Apple sits at the bottom of the CapEx chart, vibing.30:00 — A Man, His Dying Dog, and ChatGPT Sydney tech founder uses ChatGPT + AlphaFold + a university lab to build a custom mRNA cancer vaccine for his rescue dog. Lomax provides the necessary reality check (the dog still has cancer) but admits personalised medicine is coming, just give it 20-30 years. Meanwhile DeepMind can't define AGI and is paying researchers $200K to help them figure it out.41:00 — Google Stitch: Vibe Design & Lovable's Nightmare Google coins "vibe design" (jury's out on whether that sticks) and launches a free AI design canvas that ships code straight to MCP. Lovable's head of growth already said her biggest fear is platforms with distribution. Lovable responds by pivoting into... everything? The internet is not impressed.45:49 — Rachel Reeves Discovers Non-Competes Are Bad The Chancellor uses the Mais lecture to announce non-compete limits, £500M for sovereign AI, and £2B for quantum, including actually buying quantum computers from UK companies. Then she mentions £13.8M for quantum research hubs and the mood deflates slightly.50:10 — EU Inc: Europe's Delaware (Pending Lobbying Apocalypse) The EU wants 48-hour company formation, under €100, no notary. Andreas Klinger's movement becomes official policy. The gang gives it a 50/50 chance of surviving the legislative sausage factory. Lomax notes that even Delaware made him send a fax, so maybe the bar is lower than we thought.53:33 — Travis Comes Out of Stealth (Not the Band) The Uber founder resurfaces after eight years of cloud kitchens with "Atoms" - a physical AI company targeting food, transport, and mining. The combination makes zero obvious sense but nobody wants to bet against the man who built Uber. Fair.

Every week we dig into the news affecting European venture, startups and investing. This week, Trump may have speed-run a global recession. Europe is having a moment. Cursor might be toast. And Jensen Huang promises a chip that will "surprise the world."00:00 — The Oil Shock: Iran blocks the Strait of Hormuz, 20M barrels/day offline, IEA buffer lasts ~20 days. Dan calls it: we're in recession territory.01:37 — Europe's Energy Crisis 2.0: Gas storage down 40%, prices doubled, the post-2022 diversification strategy is broken.03:00 — Silver linings: UK nuclear push, EU Industrial Accelerator Act, sovereignty becoming investable.04:54 — Defence Tech & Drone Economics: Ukraine is the Silicon Valley of drone warfare. $20K Shahed drones are taking out $300M US radar bases.07:00 — The $3.6M Tomahawk problem: US firing missiles faster than it orders them. George Bush quote of the week involving a camel.08:38 — AI in warfare: school tragedy raises hard questions about AI-guided targeting and accountability gaps.11:08 — Poland rejects €44B EU defence loan for political reasons. Polish Iron Dome: €3.5B. US Golden Dome: $1T. "It's gold. It's Trump."13:03 — Europe's Big Week: AMI Labs raises $1B seed (Europe's first Instacorn), Revolut gets UK licence, Alan hits €800M ARR, #LondonMaxing trends.15:29 — World Models vs LLMs: LeCun thinks current AI is the wrong path to AGI. Mads agrees — you can't have general intelligence if you can't cross a room.25:19 — Cursor at $50B? 20x in a year, but it's a middleman. Claude Code killed the IDE. The Jasper parallel is not flattering.30:00 — AI & Chips: Meta building its own inference chips. Custom ASICs growing 3x faster than GPUs. Nvidia's moat showing cracks. GTC next week.33:30 — Atlassian & Oracle cutting jobs. AI as cover for a general RIF?34:18 — Deal of the Week: UForce (Ukrainian defence, UK-based), $1B valuation, $50M raise.34:53 — Week Ahead: Fed holds, rate cuts pushed to September, ECB meeting, 42% chance of a 2026 rate hike.36:00 — Hot Take: AI pendants and wearable mics — Dan's not buying it.🔥 BEST LINES"I don't know anybody who is a leading thinker on coding who writes their own code." "Computer science seems to be largely a solved problem." "Of course it's gold. It's Trump!” 

Every week we unpack the real stories behind the headlines affecting European venture. Hosts: Dan, Lomax and Mads - All European early stage VCs.02:00 — Why Hormuz matters more than you think. 04:08 — Europe: affected, not influential. Europe keeps ending up front row for crises it cannot shape.10:38 — The startup angles: energy, drones, sovereignty13:29 — “Fast fashion” warfare. Ukraine-style low-cost interceptor drones versus million-dollar missiles. Warfare has entered its brutally efficient Zara phase.17:29 — Anthropic vs the Pentagon. Anthropic says no to some defence use cases, Washington gets angry, OpenAI pounces, and Claude fans turn the whole thing into a consumer loyalty event.19:54 — Mads: pick a lane. You cannot call AI the new nuclear weapon and then act shocked when governments treat it like strategic infrastructure.24:30 — Lomax: moral stance, fine. Pentagon contracts, also fine? Anthropic can absolutely posture as the ethical lab. It just looks awkward while cashing defence-adjacent cheques.27:49 — AI layoffs… or just layoffs with better branding? Dan calls BS on Block’s “AI-driven” cuts: more likely a classic overhiring hangover dressed up in robot costume.32:30 — The tech is real, the memo is theatre. Mads agrees AI is delivering genuine productivity gains. That does not mean every layoff deck suddenly becomes visionary.34:19 — $650bn of AI infra: boom or bubble? Answer from the group: yes.35:57 — Mads: froth on top, substance underneath. Some of the market is ridiculous. But revenue growth at the top labs is so real that “it’s all a bubble” no longer survives contact with reality.38:26 — Black Swan memo season. Lomax reviews Lux’s warning to founders: preserve runway, know your infra risk, and do not assume the money tap stays on forever.45:23 — Real advice needs real trade-offs. Mads’ sharpest point: “raise more if it’s easy” is not advice. The real question is whether founders should spend time fundraising or building.47:05 — Merz drops the diplomatic niceties. Germany’s chancellor says Europeans are not productive enough, boosts defence, and generally sounds like someone who has seen the spreadsheet.51:20 — Lomax: kill FCAS. His take on the Franco-German-Spanish fighter programme: too slow, too old, too late. Back the future, not the museum.56:07 — Defence primes vs insurgents. Should Europe protect legacy giants or let new defence players eat their lunch? The answer gets lively.1:01:25 — Proxima Fusion: Europe swings big. A rare hopeful note: a European fusion startup is trying to build something properly enormous and properly ambitious.1:02:12 — Stellarators, briefly. Mads explains fusion like a sane person: tokamaks are more proven but unstable; stellarators are harder to build but may work better long term.

Upside is a weekly review of all of the news affecting European venture, startups and investing. VC Hosts: Dan, Mads, Lomax[03:05] Nvidia Earnings — 14th consecutive beat. Data centre rev up 75% to $62B. Stock basically flat. The market has priced in perfection. Bull case: 16x 2028 earnings, Rubin shipping, China at zero = pure upside. Bear case: custom ASICs climbing, 75% margins under siege. "The question is whether the AI companies can actually monetise it."[09:11] Ukraine, Four Years On — From aid recipient to defence-tech supplier. Ukrainian startups raised $105M in 2025 — a third of all European early-stage defence capital. European defence budgets heading from ~$300B to ~$600B. Defence tech investment: $100M in 2019 → $1.5B in 2025. The 100:1 drone kill ratio is extraordinary economics. War is maths, and Ukraine is winning it.[23:30] Anthropic's Safety Meets Reality — Founded to be the safe one. Now dropping guardrails weeks after a $30B raise. Pentagon threatened to brand them a supply chain risk. Lomax: "Call me cynical." Mads: "Existential threats rewire moral calculus. It happened to OpenAI. It happened to Google. Now it's Anthropic's turn." RIP Bletchley Park.[29:25] Chinese Distillation — 24,000 fake accounts. 16M exchanges. DeepSeek, Moonshot and Minimax caught training on Anthropic's models at industrial scale. National security issue? Obviously. But China has a chokehold on the US defence supply chain, so good luck with that conversation.[32:00] Anthropic Goes Enterprise — Salesforce, Slack, DocuSign integrations. Partner or Trojan horse? Mads: building enterprise apps is way harder than vibe coding on a Thursday afternoon.[35:30] SaaSpocalypse or Renaissance? — The market can't decide. Current thesis: SaaS = system of record, AI = system of action. Honest answer? Nobody knows.[36:20] AI Margins — OpenAI hit 33% gross margin (targeted 46%). Anthropic hit 30% (targeted 40%). Nearly $4B spent on free users. Break-even pushed to 2028-2030. Lomax: "Can you run a giant tech company on 30% gross margin? The multiple doesn't work."[41:45] European Quantum — Funding hit $1.5B in 2025 (+170% YoY). Strong science layer, governments actually buying from startups. But PsiQuantum alone raised $1B in the US. Mads: "Europe has €16T in pension capital. The deficit is plumbing, not capability."[52:45] The Doomsday Paper — "What if AI succeeds so hard it triggers a macro crisis?" Mads dismantles it. Jamie Dimon tie-in: maybe SaaS is the new subprime.[57:35] Deal of the Week — Wayve raising $1.2B at $8.6B. First automotive investor: Nissan.[58:20] Week Ahead — UK Spring Statement. DeepSeek DBC-4. OpenAI $100B round. Hegseth vs Amodei showdown — Dan's prediction: Anthropic caves.

For the week's latest news behind the headlines affecting European Venture, startups and investing.  Hosts: Dan Bowyer, Lomax Ward Guest: Eyal Malinger — Co-founder, Resurge Growth Partners (venture equity — the gap between VC and PE)[02:18] Humanoid Robots at China's Spring Festival Gala Four Chinese firms showed off cable-free dancing robots. Eyal's reaction progression: "game over" → "Clone Wars" → "why are there swords near children?" China controls ~90% of humanoid shipments. H1/G1 robots going for $6-10K. Europe has… Neuro Robotics and OverSonic at Series A. Cool.[05:59] Will Robots Replace Soldiers? Eyal: if you don't need to risk soldiers, you will use them. Lomax: nukes still deter total war, but skirmishes could proliferate. Everyone: yes, we'd have a robot butler. Lomax: depends on the price (he lives in Portugal).[10:57] Raspberry Pi — Europe's First Meme Stock? Stock pumped after CEO bought shares + Reddit hype around OpenClaw. Trading at ~£600M. Edge AI debate ensues. Lomax: "Isn't this a time to celebrate Europe finally has its own meme stock?"[14:36] AI Causing a Fuss: Anthropic vs The Pentagon Anthropic doesn't want autonomous kill decisions. Eyal channels Palantir's Alex Karp: "Our adversaries will not pause for theatrical debate." Lomax: Dario wants to have his cake and eat it. Everyone broadly agrees ethics are a luxury when the other side doesn't play by the rules.[17:19] Peter Steinberger Leaves Europe for OpenAI Created OpenClaw, Europe celebrated for two weeks, then he bounced to San Francisco. Lomax: "I thought things had got better." Dan: who in Europe could've called him? Eyal: if he'd been in London instead of Austria, maybe different story. Cue weekly EU ecosystem lament. Macron pledged €30M for AI. Anthropic just raised $30B. Right.[24:00] VC AI Toolkits — David Stark Open-Sources His Setup WhatsApp meeting briefs, auto-transcription, deal flow into HubSpot. Lomax calls it "cute." Eyal: most of this is just Zapier with extra steps. Real alpha = agentic AI that sources and approaches founders autonomously. Dan: if everyone has Harmonic, nobody has alpha.[31:00] Munich Security Conference Recap 62nd edition. Rubio slightly less abrasive than JD Vance (low bar). Merz says the old order is over. Starmer accelerating UK defence spend to 3%. Stark (drones) raised big from Founders Fund — German defence minister uncomfortable with Peter Thiel on the cap table. Sovereignty debates continue. Lomax: "You can't tell Europe to be sovereign then beat them for being sovereign."[37:56] Health & Bio Good News Compass Pathways nails second Phase 3 trial for synthetic psilocybin treating resistant depression — could be on market by 2027. Savo Health working on non-invasive CGM patches (goodbye arm claws).[39:56] Deals of the WeekQuantonation — largest European quantum fund everIneffable — $1B seed (!!) at $4B pre-money, led by Sequoia. David Silver (AlphaGo architect) leaves DeepMindNetflix / Warner Bros M&A — Eyal hopes it signals FTC/DOJ reopening the exit valve for VC and PE[42:30] Fin. 🎙️

01:52 - Anthropic's Insane $30B Round Started as $10B rumour, became $20B in January, closed at $30B. 03:21 - The Great Model Migration Sam finally kicked OpenAI off his iPhone homepage. Claude's in. 08:23 - Claude Code: Mads' Love Letter Mads hasn't looked back since discovering Claude Code's skills and agentic workflows. It's not just better writing anymore—it's a whole different way of working.09:36 - HBR Report: AI Makes Us Work MORE Generative AI isn't reducing work, it's intensifying it. Turns out when you can do everything yourself, you just... do everything yourself. Constant dopamine hits. 14:07 - AI as Your Second Opinion Mads fed his DNA and blood work to an LLM. 19:38 - Alphabet's 100-Year Bond Google just raised £5B more than expected. Priced like government bonds. Too big to fail, baby. 22:59 - Your Pension is Funding US Hyperscalers €35 trillion in European savings. None of these pension holders know they're financing 100-year bonds for Google. The rules say "minimise volatility," not "maximise returns." Cool cool cool.26:31 - European Sovereignty: Words → Action? Merz and von der Leyen saying the quiet parts loud. Two-tier EU? 28th regime? Ignoring planning rules? Also Mistral going from $25M to $400M run rate with a full sovereign stack (no US tech).27:31 - "What Even Is an AI Business?" If you're not using AI for what you're doing... what ARE you doing? Material science? Better use AI. Biotech? Better use AI. 30:32 - The Only Office Suite Update Was Google European governments spend billions yearly on decades-old Microsoft IP. Open source alternatives exist. Nobody cares.31:28 - Mistral: Not Dead, Actually Dan had written them off. Turns out they're crushing it with enterprise. Not a chatbot play—it's consultancy + transformation + Anthropic-level models. 34:50 - The China Manufacturing Model, Reversed German manufacturers using Chinese AI for factories? Probability: nil to zero. Regional fragmentation + massive AI growth = very large companies serving regional markets.35:42 - Europe Finally Saying It Out Loud Von der Leyen threatening breakaway subset unless countries get on board. Big words from the "protein" European government. Tax attempts always flounder but... momentum feels different?38:07 - Space: Orbex Down, Data Centres Up? UK's Orbex (low-carbon micro launcher) filed for administration. £49M debt. Government didn't support. Meanwhile: Elon eyeing Google's orbital data centre research. 40:45 - Billionaires Should Burn Capital McCalip's plea: goad more billionaires into irrational high-variance projects that advance civilisation. "No one cares about your Loro Piana." Build cathedrals. Fund ugly metal. Light up corners of the future.42:00 - Europe's Launch Problem No European small launcher has reached orbit. Not one. Airbus worked because we collaborated. Launch requires same logic. "We are mid-sized countries pretending we're still empires."43:15 - Fusion: Europe's Real Shot? Should Europe double down on quantum and fusion instead of chasing AI? Mads: "Fix capital markets union first." Everything circles back.45:04 - Deal of the Week: Olix 25-year-old British founder James de Combe raised £220M at $1B+ valuation for AI inference chips. Also runs Comind (raised £100M as a teenager). Is this our Elon without the red cap?46:22 - Upside Closeout "Nothing happens until somebody decides to do something." More entrepreneurs. Less standing in their way. Hosted by Dan Bowyer & Mads Jensen Guest: Sam Marchant

Upside captures all of the week's news affecting European Venture.01:22 — AI models: two flagships drop 20 minutes apartAnthropic ships Opus 4.6; OpenAI replies with GPT 5.3.Key tension: best model vs stickiest workflow (tooling + habits = raw benchmarks).China keeps coming: Kimi K2.5, Qwen3 Max — strong performance at lower cost, plus “swarm”/multi-agent vibes.07:02 — Recursive AI + security flexOpenAI: “GPT 5.3 helped build itself” (debugging training pipeline).Anthropic: claims model found 500+ serious open-source security issues → “bots find bugs better than eyeballs.”11:06 — Alphabet CapEx shockAlphabet expected $180B CapEx in 2026 → market flinches despite earnings beat.Take: hyperscalers signalling capacity constraint and “you ain’t seen nothing yet.”Debate: monster spend now vs how long monetisation takes (ads, pricing, enterprise budgets).18:53 — “SaaSpocalypse”~$300B wiped off software stocks on fear that seat-based SaaS collapses into usage/agent-driven economics.Claude Code “agentic workflows” spook the market: if models do the work, why pay the tool tax?Counterpoint: SaaS doesn’t die—it de-rates (from “growth multiple” to “utility multiple”).Lomax: market likely overcorrecting; enterprise adoption is slow and messy.26:07 — EU–US tech uncoupling (or… vibes?)France moves to ban civil servants from Zoom/Teams/WebEx → pushes homegrown “Visio” by 2027.Germany (Schleswig-Holstein) + Austrian army shifting off Microsoft to open-source alternatives.Group take: sovereignty goal is real, but government-built software ≠ winning strategy; better to back founders + procurement pathways.32:44 — Spain vs social mediaPedro Sánchez pushes: CEO accountability, misinformation/hate speech enforcement, under-16 social restriction.Smart framing: shifts from “free speech” to public health.Pushback: slippery slope risk → censorship-by-proxy debate.39:20 — Muskonomics: SpaceX + xAI + “data centres in space”Core claim gets roasted: physics/energy/cooling/payload/latency all feel brutal.Bull case (Lomax): if anyone can brute-force iterate at scale, it’s Musk + launch cadence.Bear case (Mads): narrative may be a financial wrapper to justify merging/funding xAI via SpaceX halo.51:10 — Anthropic Super Bowl ads + OpenAI shadeAnthropic pokes OpenAI over ads in AI (“we’d never”).Take: brand landgrab + positioning move; debate whether the ads were funny or cringe.53:52 — Europe corner: critical minerals reality checkEU auditor warns Critical Raw Materials Act targets likely missed (dependency on China still extreme).Problem isn’t geology—it’s permitting + processing + time (10–20 years to mine/start).US hosts rare earth summit; Europe tries to coordinate while still exporting heavily to the US.56:53 — Deal of the WeekLomax’s portfolio: Portuguese founder Pedro building LLM-driven clinical trial planning → reduces protocol amendments/costs.Raises $52.5M Series A (one of Iberia’s biggest; top-tier EU Series A scale).Dan: January saw 5 new European unicorns (Aikido shoutout highlighted).Mads: new European growth fund Cambara targeting €30–50M checks; €750M raised toward €1B.

00:59 — Saudi surprises, NEOM shrinks, Vision 2030 = Europe takes notes.02:58 — Europe: zero vibes, zero mission.03:55 — War bonds?! Saudi winter games postponed. Reality intrudes.🤖 AI Corner07:32 — Clawdbot → Moltbot now OpenClaw?! AI intern… with admin rights.09:19 — Early wins: negotiates car deals, plans diets, orders Tesco shops.10:38 — Early fear: unconstrained agents + inbox access = mild terror.12:22 — It wakes itself up and takes action. Cool. Also horrifying.13:17 — Security stories emerge. Nobody gives it their bank login (yet).💰 AI Mega-Rounds14:19 — SoftBank doubles down on OpenAI. Masa swings hard. Again.16:06 — Anthropic: hotter growth, $20bn round chatter, IPO whispers.16:50 — OpenAI ads incoming. Users threaten to… switch? Maybe.🧠 China Swarms18:01 — Moonshot drops “Swarm” models: 100 agents, one brain.19:34 — Parallel thinking = faster, not cheaper. Tokens go brrrr.20:55 — Open source as geopolitical side-eye.📊 Earnings Season21:40 — ASML prints money: AI capex not slowing, China still ~20%.23:05 — Memory beats logic: HBM crunch, chipmakers fully booked.25:38 — Meta vs Microsoft: ads + AI good, capex + slowing Azure bad.26:44 — Tesla: sales, “physical AI” story saves the stock.30:22 — Klarna –30%: credit nerves. Everyone shrugs.🇪🇺 Europe, Again32:19 — “United States of Europe?” Telegraph panics. Reality unimpressed.35:15 — Europe only moves when scared enough. Not there yet.39:35 — Integration: go wide, go deep, or argue forever.43:05 — Starmer in China: finance, vibes, low expectations.43:21 — EU–India deal > UK deals. Market size still matters.🪖 Defence45:49 — Europe rearms: drones, satellites, ISR, startups rejoice.51:21 — US spends ~$900bn; Europe debates what it actually needs.53:09 — Bull case: Ukraine = Europe’s defence tech lab.📱 Society54:23 — Social media bans for kids: messy science, real concern.56:47 — US sues, EU regulates. Meta lawyers busy.59:21 — Design-choice lawsuits = tobacco vibes.🧾 Deals1:01:34 — UK plans to train 10m people in AI. Ambitious. Necessary.1:03:12 — Deal of the Week: Sword Health buys Kaia for $285m. 1:04:24 — Synthesia hits ~$4bn. Regret levels spike.1:04:45 — Wrap. Brains emptied. See you next week.

01:35–10:24 — UK data centres: blocked… but a way throughA £1bn London-area data-centre project gets halted after a planning/EIA mess-up → delays of 9–12+ months, potentially worse.The twist: data centres are being upgraded to “nationally significant infrastructure,” enabling central-government fast-track (DCO route) instead of local NIMBY planning.Still: EIAs + judicial reviews can keep slowing everything down. Core complaint: the system keeps “deciding whether to build” after we’ve already decided we must.10:24–20:01 — Davos: in a fractured world, can middle powers go solo?Big takeaway: the old global order isn’t coming back. Middle powers doing bilateral deals risk being picked off one-by-one. The only viable strategy is bigger blocs + coordination.On AI/robotics: Europe shouldn’t obsess over winning foundation models; the opportunity is physical AI (robotics, manufacturing, automation) layered onto Europe’s engineering base—if politics and fragmentation don’t smother it.20:01–22:22 — AI vs jobs: don’t overkill the headlineEntry-level postings are down since early 2023, but the consensus here is: macro + rates explain most of it. AI will reshuffle work (especially junior/clerical tasks), but mass unemployment isn’t the base case.22:22–27:46 — EU Inc / “28th regime”: real momentum and real resistanceEU Inc aims to make a pan-EU startup entity that’s fast/cheap to set up (48 hours, no minimum capital), plus simpler ESOPs (ideally tax deferred until liquidity).The fight now: Regulation vs DirectiveRegulation = uniform + immediate, but needs unanimityDirective = easier, but invites delay + fragmentationExpect pushback framed around labour standards and “race-to-the-bottom” fears.27:46–34:51 — Has China already won AI?Reframe “winning”: it’s not god-like AI dominance; it’s economic + military power with AI as a lever. Models converge fast, advantages erode, and the “months not years” gap matters.Europe’s real risk is strategic irrelevance unless it scales power: capital markets, energy, defence capacity, and political cohesion (with a nod to the UK needing to be onside).34:51–39:30 — US science funding “collapse”: brutal in pockets, not totalBig cuts and cancellations are real—especially in politically sensitive areas—but most US R&D is private sector, and defence-linked R&D keeps growing. Europe is trying to attract researchers, but this doesn’t yet look like a permanent talent migration.39:30–43:13 — SaaS: dead? no? trapped?SaaS faces a fork:Mature into a cash machine (cut bloat, optimise margins), orBecome a “system of context” by embedding AI/agents deeplyWhy the pain: ZIRP-era bloat + expensive orgs + incentive traps. Bright spot: incumbents with distribution are already monetising AI add-ons at meaningful ARR.43:13–45:47 — Defence IPO era: the Overton window movedA blockbuster European defence IPO becomes the poster child for a broader trend: defence re-rated, ESG lines shifting, and a growing pipeline as European defence budgets rise for the next decade.45:47–47:02 — Quick hitsBillion-scale European fund raise gets a shout-out. More big AI deals bubbling. New fund launch focused on robotics/manufacturing, positioned as aligned with what Europe needs next.

BBC yeets kids shows onto YouTube, EU does a mega trade deal, Open Cosmos tries to be European-ish Starlink, Meta buys nuclear vibes, UK bins digital IDs (again), Anthropic’s “CoWork”, Grok vs governments, plus Deals of the Week. Basically: geopolitics, space, energy, AI, and British admin disintegration.(00:34) BBC on YouTube: “iPlayer walked so Netflix could run”Dan: YouTube is enormous; BBC is adapting for younger audiences (and maybe… survival mode).Mads: iPlayer was genuinely visionary; regulators stopped BBC going too commercial back then.Andrew: Stop geo-blocking. Just take my money. (“Not in your region” = crime.)(02:51) EU–Mercosur trade deal: 25 years, 700M people, farmers furiousBiggest-ever EU trade deal: Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay. (03:30)Why now: EU wants options beyond US gridlock + China dependence.(06:07) Open Cosmos: “EU Starlink?” …Not quite, but it’s somethingTakeaway: not a consumer Starlink clone; more “secure, sovereign comms” for governments. (07:56–08:32)(08:32) Meta’s 20-year nuclear power deals: AI runs on electricity (and contracts)Hyperscalers locking in long-term nuclear PPAs in the US; Europe stuck with slower buildout, planning pain, and NIMBY boss fights.(10:12) UK drops digital IDs: “25 incompatible IDs is the national strategy”Mads: Digital ID is foundational (identity + access). Most OECD countries have it; UK is the holdout. (10:45–12:14)UK backlash feels emotional; we already have loads of IDs that don’t talk to each other.Cost debate: rollout ~£2bn-ish vs long-term fraud reduction. (13:33–13:48)(15:35) Anthropic CoWork: “built in 10 days… by Claude Code”CoWork: “Claude Code for knowledge workers” — chat UI + sandboxed VM. (19:31)It’s early/buggy, but the meta-point is wild: AI building AI products at startup speed. (18:17–18:34)(20:30) Yann LeCun “world models”: why LLMs aren’t the whole storyLLMs can talk; they don’t understand physics.Four buckets: video prediction, interactive simulators (e.g. “move left/right”), physics engines, and latent world models (JEPA). (22:41–23:27)Robot “pick and place” success rate cited as a compelling signal for JEPA. (23:27–24:15)(28:13) Grok: sexualised imagery = policy grenadeGroup consensus: when it’s minors, “platform self-policing” isn’t cutting it.(32:19) JPM Health conference: biotech meets the LLM invasionNvidia + Eli Lilly: $1B partnership for AI drug discovery. (33:28)Big pharma facing $200–$300B revenue going off-patent → likely acquisitions spree. (33:28–33:53)Torch acquisition: “unified medical memory” pulling from records/wearables/visits. (36:54–37:10)Cool paper alert: stroke triage via CT platform cuts transfer time by 64 minutes; “2M brain cells die per minute.” (38:57–39:25)(42:19) Deals of the Week — “capital markets therapy session”Quantinuum files confidentially for IPO; quantum + encryption randomness today, “R&D roadmap” tomorrow. (42:32–43:52)Aikido Security (Ghent) hits unicorn: $60M Series B led by DST. (46:41–47:05)Parloa (Germany, call centre automation): $350M Series D @ $3B, six months after Series C. (46:41–47:05)Equal1 (Ireland, UCD spinout): $60M for quantum servers in data centers. (47:20)Harmattan AI (France, drones): €200M Series B @ €1.4B, Dassault invested; supplying drones incl. UK Army contract mentions. (47:36–48:12)

Hosts: Dan Bowyer, Lomax Ward, Mads JensenEpisode summaryThis week we cover Trump’s Greenland rhetoric and the broader implications for NATO, European defence spending, and sovereignty. Then we dive into the tech and markets that (quietly) moved: Meta’s acquisition of Manus, Octopus/“Kraken” spinning out as a major energy-software player, Discord’s IPO momentum, Revolut’s Turkey expansion via license acquisition, and why UK pensions are underperforming (plus what reform could actually fix). We finish with a big CES-driven AI corner—Nvidia’s autonomous-driving stack “Alpamayo,” the China compute/memory bottleneck, AMD vs Nvidia software moats, Grok’s enormous fundraise, and why Claude Code is showing up even inside Google.Topics 00:37 OpenAI “Health ChatGPT” launches (not in Europe) — what’s the deal? 02:26 FDA signals faster AI regulation: “move at the speed of Silicon Valley” 08:10 Trump + Greenland: history, Thule, and where’s the grift? 11:29 Pax Americana cracks 16:10 France: ban social media under-15s 18:21 EU regulation vs US deregulation: wedge widens 21:06 Meta buying Manus 22:27 Kraken (Octopus) spinout: big UK tech hiding in plain sight 25:02 IPO watch: Discord momentum + how it monetises 26:15 Revolut → Turkey via FUPS: buying access and licenses globally 29:19 UK pensions: underperformance + pushback on forced private allocations 31:57 Why pensions underperform 39:09 German dentists pension lawsuit + “shrimp farm VC” cautionary tale 40:27 Markets: FTSE hits 10,000 + quietly outperforms S&P 43:15 Biotech rebound + psychedelics 47:02 CES 2026...  48:05 Nvidia’s “Alpamayo”: full autonomy stack + open models/data 50:34 Nvidia vertical apps vs chips: execution risk outside core semis 52:07 China + H200s: memory bottlenecks and geopolitics of compute supply 53:20 AMD vs Nvidia: the CUDA/software moat 54:35 Grok raises: $20B at $230B 56:44 Claude Code: adoption even inside Google 57:25 Deals of the week: Faculty exit to Accenture 59:47 Biographica raises to build next-gen crop techNotable moments / quotables“The only people using cash or violence to negotiate are mobsters.” (12:32)“It’s super easy to get autonomy to 99%… the last 1% takes 10 years.” (48:52, referenced)“Much better to pay 2% to deliver 15% than 0.1% to deliver 1%.” (30:25)Deal of the weekLomax: Faculty reportedly sold to Accenture (UK AI/enterprise decision intelligence)Dan: Kraken spun out of Octopus Energy (energy metering + grid/flows platform)Mads: Biographica raises to build technology for next-gen, more resilient crops

Guests: Dan Bowyer, Mads Jensen, Lomax Ward and Dan GrayPart 1 — 2025 predictions: what hit, what missed?02:59 — OpenAI “dethroned”: debate, but mostly “yes”04:47 — China/Taiwan “decisive year”: mostly no05:46 — Defence tech surge: yes06:46 — Europe/UK tech sovereignty: yes-ish but hard to measure07:25 — Space enabling tech keeps attracting capital: yes07:30 — US recession H2 2025: nope09:07 — Stock correction early 2025: correct-ish09:45 — M&A rebounds: yes10:24 — IPO window reopens: yes-ish---Part 2 — 2026 predictions (with yardsticks)11:29 — (1) Dan Gray: “European Re-industrialisation”Big industrial families + family offices start allocating more directly into innovation (seen around Munich/TUM).13:11 — (2) Dan Bowyer: “Apple wins personal AI”Dan bets 2026 is Apple’s “Siri actually works” year—especially via on-device models + partnerships (Google mentioned).16:35 — (3) Mads: “3 major tech IPOs”From this list: SpaceX, Databricks, Canva, Anduril, Anthropic — pick 3/5. Mads goes big on Anthropic growth + enterprise leadership. Dan Gray adds: IPOs cluster; post-IPO M&A often spikes; real test is 6–9 months later.19:08 — (4) Lomax: “Biotech comes back from the dead”Biotech rally underway (XBI up hard off lows).24:39 — (5) Dan Gray: “Politics kills the 28th regime”He doubts a single EU incorporation regime survives politics, but suggests a workaround:28:51 — (6) Mads: “Chinese open-source AI hits 60% of downloads”Notes China open-source share ~44% by end of 2025 (per the conversation), and cites growing adoption of open-source models in startups.30:11 — (7) Lomax: “Longevity clinics go from boutique → (somewhat) mainstream”Thesis: preventative, subscription-style health scales (Neko, Function Health examples).33:31 — (8) Mads: “EU expands tariffs on Chinese goods beyond EVs”Europe stops pretending tariffs are morally evil, and starts protecting industrial base more aggressively (supply chain breadth and/or higher rates).34:50 — (9) Mads: “No AGI in 2026”AGI definition mess continues.40:19 — (10) Lomax: “Cyber becomes a clear and present threat”AI lowers cost of recon, phishing, persistence; cyber as statecraft sits below “war thresholds.”43:14 — Bonus (Mads): RobotaxisWaymo keeps lead in the West (incl. London expansion/testing), Tesla makes progress but stays behind.

With European VCs Lomax, Mads, Andrew and Dan2025 year-in-review for European tech: capital, unicorns, geopolitics, AI, health, defence, and space space spaaaace.01:25 – European tech in numbers$45bn into European startups (flat vs 2023–24, still ~½ of 2021 peak).28 new unicorns in 2025 (up from 14 in 2024).US dominates: ~$250bn private tech funding.VC fundraising still tight (~$10bn into European funds).Exits are back: Wiz–Google, Klarna IPO, SMG IPO.04:16 – 2025 in one sentenceDan: “Extreme volatility.”Lomax: “The final nail in globalisation.”Mads: “China became a true peer to the US.”Andrew: “Shipping fast beat gold-plated tech.”05:49 – Most exciting tech momentsMads: Claude Code, Chinese open-source AI, ASML–Mistral deal.Lomax: Wiz’s $32bn cash exit.Andrew: 6G moves from lab to real specs.08:39 – Darwin Awards (biggest screw-ups)Dan: Meta / Zuckerberg.Lomax: The entire EU institutional stack.Mads: Europe exporting founders to the US (incentive failure).Andrew: Rachel Reeves & UK growth policy.11:59 – What smart people got wrongMads: GPU bans didn’t stop China—backfired.Lomax: AI bubble didn’t burst.Dan: Investors piling blindly into defence.Andrew: LLMs are “dial-up,” not the endgame.16:42 – Why 2025 was a good yearEurope got a massive wake-up call (Dan).4 new European decacorns (Lomax).Founders kept building despite chaos (Mads).VC rediscovered deep tech & hardware (Andrew).21:23 – Geopolitics: a less naive worldGlobalisation fragmenting into blocs.Trust replaced by “trust but verify.”Sovereignty = opportunity for European founders (AI, defence, energy).34:30 – AI Corner: the year AI got realDeepSeek shock wipes ~$600bn off Nvidia (Jan).Claude Code: $1bn ARR in ~6 months.Google Gemini comeback beats rivals on benchmarks.China dominates open-source AI.Rise of VLAs (Vision-Language-Action models) → physical AI, robotics.Big question for 2026: “Are we the horses?”47:44 – Health & bio highlightsGLP-1s everywhere: diabetes → cardio, kidney, neuro.Sales ~$62bn, heading toward $120bn+.Preventative health clinics scale (Function, Neko).Biotech rebounds; AI-designed drugs hit Phase 2.Psychedelics back: AbbVie deal, mental health momentum.56:51 – Defence & spaceModern warfare now rewards fast shipping founders.Global launch cadence: every ~1.5 days.Space shifts from experimentation → permanent infrastructure.Blue Origin finally launches New Glenn; SpaceX eyes Mars (again).

Upside is a weekly pod that looks at the global news headlines and works out what really matters for European tech, venture, startups and investing.With European VCs - Lomax Ward, Dan Bowyer and Mads JensenWhat’s on the docket this week:•SpaceX mega-raise / IPO noise: “what are you really buying?”•“Europe’s euro success”: North–South polarity flipping•China’s $1T+ goods trade surplus + what it means for Europe•US defence spend reality check•AI corner: chips, models, and AI bubble chatter00:44 — Is DeepMind a “UK business”?02:07 — Sovereignty is back baby!•In defence / strategic sectors, cap table sovereignty now affects outcomes.•Mentioned: UK rules requiring government consent in certain sectors (context: national security screening).03:18 — DeepMind × UK DSIT partnership•New partnership + UK research lab expansion; tied to the AI Security Institute and public services.06:20 — AI tutor moment (education-focused Gemini)•Vision: curriculum-grounded AI tutor as a once-in-a-generation lever for education.08:56 — SpaceX: IPO in 2026? Raise ~ $30B? Valuation talk: $1.5T•Why IPO now if private markets still open? Answer: scale + capital needs + timing.◦Starlink: fast-growing, high-margin connectivity “golden goose”14:18 — The “rest of the valuation”: orbital data centres thesis•Speculative upside: compute in orbit (solar intensity, cooling, vacuum data transmission).•Reality check: today’s revenue is tiny; power + mass constraints are brutal.•Europe lens: founder talent often needs the US ecosystem to build at this frontier.20:02 — Europe gets hit from both sides: US + China•US signals Western Europe is lower priority; more warmth to Central/Eastern Europe (per discussion).•China’s exports keep powering ahead; tariffs leak via third-country routing.25:45 — Musk vs EU + the single-market problem•Musk lobs political grenades after X/EU regulatory action (context: DSA).•Core structural issue raised: no true EU single market in financial services → higher friction + lost productivity.29:17 — Defence spending•Warning to VCs: commitments don’t equal budgets landing now.•Startup mismatch: defence procurement cycles vs 18–24 month funding cadence.32:19 — AI corner: “bubble” talk + positioning•Institutions trimming exposure at the margin, but not fleeing.•View expressed: still upside runway, despite concentration and risk-off hedging.33:44 — Europe W: Mistral open-sources DevStral 2 (coding model)•Narrative: Europe “back in the open-source game.”•Contrast: Meta reportedly leaning toward a closed model strategy (“Avocado” mentioned).35:23 — Chips geopolitics: Nvidia H200s, China domestic ramp•Thesis: export controls accelerate Chinese domestic chip ecosystems.•Mentions: Huawei Ascend; Moore Threads momentum (plus broader “self-reliance” logic).38:18 — Deal of the week: Unconventional AI — $475M seed

Upside #69 - For the real news behind the headlines affecting European venture, startups and investing. Every week Mads, Lomax, Andrew and myself (Dan) get together and chat.Bending Spoons01:27 Berkshire-like roll-up; mostly debt-funded; big integration/tech-debt execution risk.3:30 “US→Italy arbitrage”—cut expensive US costs, rebuild with top Italian talent + high-efficiency culture; cash-cow ops; high employee satisfaction.05:13 Success likely hinges on better distribution/ops than previous owners.Brexit + Europe’s challenges07:01 “trade intensity” vs G7—UK uniquely diverging down since 2019; services don’t offset goods loss.09:20 Labour red lines may shift; customs union helps goods but politically messy (standards).11:02 IKEA label anecdote → regulatory complexity.12:30 VW/Europe: China competition + governance/union constraints; Europe slow to reform; supply-chain ripple risks.23:00 Ecosystem fix: more R&D, talent/immigration, cut red tape, govt as buyer; biggest issue = late-stage capital/pensions.AI Corner32:20 OpenAI “code red” on Google; distribution battle; OpenAI focusing on product vs ads/monetisation.36:03 Winners = product + distribution + cost at scale (Google infra/TPUs advantage).39:03 Anthropic IPO rumours (2026) debated: access to bigger pools vs “top of cycle” cynicism.Deal of the week41:54 Black Forest Labs — $300m at $3.25bn; image-model leader; strong ARR rumoured.43:13 ICEYE — €200m at ~€2.5bn; SAR satellites; defence demand.44:05 Expedition Growth Capital fundraise — €323m.44:23 Neurocore — ~$2.5m; platform tooling for robotics ML teams.

Upside #68 w/ Robin Haak (Robin Capital), Lomax (Outsized), Mads and Dan (SuperSeed).Topics: Germany’s slowdown • Social media bans • UK budget • Solo GPs • N26 • Europe vs Big Tech • AI Corner01:21 – Robin’s Background100+ investments, 8 unicorns. Co-founded SmartRecruiters → sold to SAP ($100M ARR). Former GP at Revaya (€600M AUM). Now building a 50-year solo GP franchise.03:58 – Social Media Ban for Under-16sMads: EU Parliament pushes advisory resolution; strong evidence social media harms teen mental health, especially girls.06:39 – US Says “Go Easy on Big Tech”Lomax: US Commerce voices warn EU that tech regulation ties into trade/tariff negotiations. Don’t conflate antitrust with child safety—two different battles.10:00 – UK BudgetImproved EMI stock options - More flexible EIS / VCT rules. Nice to hear a Chancellor talk about startups & innovation.12:17 – EU Space SurveillanceESA launches its first military space programme (€1B). Far behind the US, but a step toward defence autonomy.13:19 – N26 TroublesRegulatory caps slowed growth for years, BaFin repeatedly intervened. Leadership now reshuffling. Big question: Would N26 be Revolut-sized if founded outside Germany?18:49 – German Economy Reality CheckGDP still below 2019 levels. Insolvencies highest in a decade. Restaurants down 20–40%. Years of underinvestment in tech, infrastructure, energy. Early nuclear shutdown = higher energy costs, fallback to coal.25:04 – Why No Nuclear Return?Public wants it (~75%). Politics block it; ideology > pragmatism.27:07 – German Decline Impact on StartupsESOP improved (still heavy tax). Bureaucracy is brutal: notaries, translations, delays. Many founders incorporate Delaware C-Corp + German GmbH.Solo GP / Part-Time VC Trend34:21 – The MovementUS led the way: Elad Gil, Auren, Buckley.Three types: Lifelong solo GPs. Solo-to-multi-GP founders. Part-time solo GPs (e.g., 11 Labs’ Carlos Reiner). It works at $15–30M scale; Fund II usually becomes full-time.40:10 – OpenAI, Google & AnthropicOpenAI may need $200B+ by 2030. Google’s Gemini 3 beating OpenAI on many benchmarks. Monetisation gap: only ~5% of ChatGPT users pay. Warren Buffett buying Google is a signal?44:57 – The Scary Bit: God-AIRobin cites Eric Schmidt: If an adversary builds god-AI first, “we might have to bomb it.”

This week in Upside #67 Mads returns from Slush with 24 one-to-ones under his belt and a head full of insights. Dan and Lomax dig into Germany’s €35B space strategy, the surprising data behind immigrant-founded unicorns, and Europe’s defence-IPO boom. They break down Vinted’s huge secondary, the EU’s attempt to kill cookie banners, and the UK’s sudden wave of AI investment initiatives.In AI Corner: why 70% of AI startups now ship on open-source models, Google’s new TPU-trained Gemini 3, and another blowout quarter from Nvidia. Plus: Deal of the Week — Voize, the AI tool transforming nursing-home documentation.03:15 — Slush Deep Dive Mads on Helsinki’s neon-lit founder festival, matchmaking tables, and why Slush still beats Web Summit.07:45 — Germany’s €35B Space Strategy Why Berlin is going big on space-as-defence — and whether Europe can ever compete at scale.12:10 — Immigrant Founders Powerhouse The surprising stats: 50–90% of US unicorn founders are immigrants; half of the UK’s fastest-growing companies too.26:10 — Cookies Out, AI Regulation Rolled Back The EU’s Digital Omnibus: fewer cookie banners, looser GDPR for AI training, and a major regulatory U-turn.46:40 — AI Corner: TPUs vs GPUs & Open Source Wins 70% of startups using open-source LLMs; Google’s TPU-trained Gemini 3 beats benchmarks; Nvidia still sold out through 2026.

Each week a small bunch of us try and makes sense of the latest news affecting European venture. Upside #66 - The theme this week is back to tech sovereignty, what that really means, what’s trade, what’s security - and ultimately will we all become full stack nations?01:04 – UK exit tax: what it was and why it was dropped The mooted UK “exit tax” (tax on unrealised gains when leaving the country), why it would be disastrous for founders, political “pitch-rolling” before budgets, and Tom Blomfield’s alternative idea of taxing gains accrued while in the UK.08:17 – State of AI (McKinsey / QuantumBlack report) Quick take on enterprise AI: almost every large org says it’s using AI, mostly for agentic/workflow use cases, but only ~1% report mature deployment or meaningful bottom-line impact, implying a long runway but slower-than-hyped progress.09:54 – Nexperia & Europe’s chip vulnerability Deep dive into Nexperia’s role in Europe’s mid-tech auto chips, EU–China tensions, how wafers are made in Europe but packaged in China, and what that reveals about the fragility of the European automotive supply chain.13:15 – Ripping out Huawei/ZTE from 5G Discussion of the EU’s move to give legal force to removing Chinese vendors from 5G infrastructure, the huge retrofit costs for telcos (esp. German operators), and whether this is driven by trade, security, or both.16:18 – Einride SPAC & Palantir / Alex Karp Einride’s US SPAC at a $1.8B valuation vs the Nikola fiasco; Palantir’s soaring stock, Alex Karp’s persona and “word salad” style, his emphasis on privacy-centric data architectures for governments, and the tension between admiration for serious infra and discomfort with founder-power.23:06 – AI market wobble & Michael Burry’s bearish case The recent pull-back in Mag7/AI names (esp. Nvidia), and whether it’s a blip or bubble-pop; Burry’s big short on hyperscalers and AI plays, and his history as an early Cassandra of the GFC.23:52 – Chinese open-source models & hyperscaler accounting games How Chinese open-source models (e.g. Kimi K2) are catching frontier labs and threatening closed-source economics, plus Burry’s argument that hyperscalers are overstating profits by stretching GPU lifetimes (4→6 years) and front-loading capex based on optimistic AI revenue expectations.33:28 – Tech sovereignty, AI-powered cyber attacks & kill switches Anthropic’s disclosure of LLM-assisted cyber attacks using Claude Code via social engineering; concerns over remote kill switches in Chinese-made buses in UK/Scandi fleets; broader questions about dependence on Chinese vendors and the push for “full-stack” sovereignty.41:45 – De-globalisation & the cost of going ‘full stack’ Debate over whether every region trying to do everything domestically is sustainable; loss of cheap-labour-driven low inflation, need for critical minerals and energy at home, and how much poorer or safer societies might become under techno-sovereignty.47:49 – Deals of the Week: BillionToOne and Gamma BillionToOne’s ~$4.5–5B IPO (YC 2017; strong European VC participation); Pfizer’s $10B acquisition of GLP-1 player Metsera and what it signals for biotech; Gamma’s $68M Series B at a $2.1B valuation as a potential disruptor of the traditional Office/Slides stack.

Upside Ep #65 - A Baltic Boom, Matt Clifford Rouses, A Tale Of Two Quants A weekly show that unpacks the shenanigans affecting European venture.Dan (host), Mads, Lomax, Special Guest: Jone (Yo neh) — Managing Partner, First Pick (Lithuania)3:26 — Pre-seed vs Seed in the Baltics•Why pre-seed fits: seed still feels early; when companies inflect, foreign funds out-gun local check sizes. Funds in region typically €10–€100M AUM, so Series A+ is handed off.05:39 — Foreign funds’ interest & “guarding the land”•Active sharing with bigger EU funds; Creandum dinner takeaway: Baltics are insanely good at distribution; product/elite-tech depth thinner than popular myth, but revenue ramps fast. 07:29 — Baltic bootstrapping culture•Many regional champions are bootstrapped (e.g., Hostinger, Kilo Health, NordVPN/Tesonet group influence). Venture is used sparingly; winning a VC spot is hard as rounds are scarce/oversubscribed.10:49 — Defence: Rheinmetall–Lithuania invests €300m•Facts: €300M JV; Baisogala site; ~340 ha footprint; ~150 jobs; ground-breaking 4 Nov 2025; ops start 2026 with ramp in 2027. •Why Lithuania? Panel view: incentives, speed, and financing (tax holidays, fast-track planning, heavy local co-funding) plus NATO signaling despite border-risk optics.15:15 — Matt Clifford @ LFG: “Permissionlessness” & the stagnation decade•Vibe check from the room: energising, pro-growth, anti-bureaucracy.•Core claim discussed: ~17 years of UK productivity stagnation → lost income per head; call to cut red tape and celebrate building.•Reflexive critique: does it resonate beyond London; EF’s Delaware flips vs UK nation-building narrative tension.29:26 — Quantum UK - Can we?•FT-sparked chat on UK/EU quantum software (e.g., Phasecraft, Riverlane) and hardware roots (PsiQuantum, Quantinuum) with UK lineage; big valuations, long road to revenue.32:09 — Quants (trading): Yes we can!•UK bright spot: quant trading still world-class; XTX building a ~25k-GPU cluster (context: new German “AI factory” cited at ~10k GPUs).•Talent gravity: CS/math grads pulled into quant comp; debate on startup talent crowd-out vs recycling (e.g., XTX backing AI seeds).39:57 — AI Corner•Funding loops & hyperscaler deals: OpenAI multi-year cloud commits; when is it circular vs normal vendor financing? Panel splits hairs on cash vs credits and market discipline.•CALM (China): continuous autoregressive idea = interesting/iterative step, not a “DeepSeek moment.”•OpenAI & legal: limiting in-app legal advice framed as product direction/lead-gen potential for pros.•Nvidia + Deutsche Telekom: ~€1.2B / ~10k GPUs in Germany—welcomed, but scale gap vs US mega-centres.•Nebius “Token Factory”: EU-HQ’d “neo-cloud” (Yandex spin-out context) aggregating low-cost OS models; compelling for cost-sensitive workloads if 95–99% “good enough.” (Regional perception note: in Baltics it’s still seen as “Russian-adjacent”, brand kept intentionally low-key.)53:53 — Deal(s) of the Week)•Nexus AI (LT) — $8M on deck from Index, followed swiftly by Avantar/Creandum; Tesonet/NordVPN founders; routing/LLM infra for companies; signalling win for Vilnius scene. (Raised on deck, then followed up quickly.)•Poolside (FR/US) — Rumoured $2B round; Nvidia up to $1B; valuation jump $3B → $12B; deeper code-gen/automation focus; meaningful transatlantic footprint.

The pod that unpacks the real news behind the clickbait affecting European venture.Hosts: Dan, Mads, Lomax, Andrew02:41 — Bending Spoons deep dive Debt-fuelled roll-up, “Berkshire of consumer apps” analogy; Ukrainian peer Gentek noted; why more post-COVID roll-ups didn’t materialise.04:34 — US debt vs Europe risk Market’s view on capital allocation/dynamism; Decacorns vs unicorns; power-law returns reinforce Botha’s point.06:01 — “VC isn’t an asset class” debate Power-law concentration, PR angle, and incentives; media takeaways.07:31 — Euro VC vibes Lakestar & optics; ecosystem still 5× over decade despite headlines.08:30 — Feature: Should governments buy stocks? Khosla’s 10% stake in all public companies to offset AI/AGI shocks:Pros: Alignment with growth; potential UBI funding; sovereign-wealth-style upside.Cons: Partial nationalisation optics, execution complexity, tying state finances tighter to market swings.Middle paths: SWF/index recycling of taxes; robot/compute taxation; focus on efficient government vs expropriation.17:45 — Back-of-envelope math US equities ~$60T → 10% ≈ $6T; even 10% yield wouldn’t cover current US interest bill; cautions on bull-market assumptions.19:03 — UK Budget preview (26 Nov) Backdrop: softer productivity, fiscal squeeze.Likely: CGT/inheritance tweaks, mansion tax; maybe EMI/startup relief refinements.Founder advice: avoid doom loop—head down and build; some may move to US, less so Dubai.22:25 — Should founders raise now (pre-correction)?Consensus: If you can raise on decent terms, extend runway; always-be-raising (selectively).Don’t panic or over-dilute; keep shipping.If no PMF, fix product/positioning before chasing capital.29:02 — AI CornerNVIDIA at $5T: Hyperscalers’ capex still ramping; huge backlog; dominance but margins likely compress with competition/custom silicon.Nokia stake: Smart edge/5G–6G positioning; GPUs closer to towers for network optimisation & edge AI.OpenAI recap: For-profit structure finalised; Microsoft looks like the clearest public proxy (exclusivities, licenses).Meta’s mixed moment & layoffs framed more as performance-management cycles than AI doom.42:58 — Deals of the WeekSales Patriot (Warsaw): €4.2m to modernise defence procurement; aim to be system of record.Legora (legal AI, Stockholm): $150m at $1.8B, ~5 months after Series B.Robin AI: Sale process after $70m raised—cautionary tale on GTM/scale.Bending Spoons ↔ AOL/Vimeo: More roll-up momentum.Synthesia: $200m at $4B; reportedly turned down a $3B Adobe offer—go-for-growth stance.45:50 — UK quantum spotlight QFX round (Paul Graham involved); UK’s deep quantum bench (PsiQuantum/Quantinuum roots; Oxford Ionics ~$1B sale to IonQ). Challenge: scaling while keeping firms in the UK.

Upside - the weekly pod exploring the real news behind the clickrage affecting European venture, startups and investing.Hosts: Dan, Mads, Lomax, Andrew04:56 - Amazon, Robots & Europe’s Automation• Amazon aims for 75% robotised operations by 2033 in the US.• Automation = productivity growth, not mass layoffs.• Europe: >80% of warehouses still manual; Germany highly automated.• Debate: displacement vs. growth; Europe can't fall behind.18:50 - AI & Europe’s Industrial Revolution• Can Europe capture AI’s value?• Most AI projects fail due to lack of readiness, not tech.• The human in the loop - Underinvestment in training and integration.• Discussion: China racing ahead; Europe needs tech-smart leadership.39:04 - UK AI Sandbox - What a waste of sand?• New UK initiative to test AI under relaxed rules.• Unlike fintech, AI isn’t “gate-kept” - barriers are procurement and deployment.• Use NHS as testbed for AI admin tools to cut waitlists.50:13 - EU “28th Regime” - Directive or Law?• Proposed single EU startup entity (like a Delaware C-Corp).• Regulation = uniform law; Directive = messy national versions.• Local tailoring inevitable - but harmonisation could save €2B/yr in admin costs.59:54 Deal of the Week - Comind• Comind raises $102M Series A (Plural) — non-invasive brain-computer interface.• Mentions: Revolut ($75B raise rumour), Wayve ($2B fundraise).

Upside #62 w/ Dan and Mads from SuperSeed plus Ben from Bullhound CapitalKey Topics• Fundraising climate in European for VC - friend or foe?• Goldman Sachs’ Industry Ventures acquisition - getting into alternatives?!• Nobel Prize in Economics: Why does this matter to VC and Europe?• What's fuelling the AI bubble headlines? Hype vs fundamentals• China’s physical AI advantage - have they won AI already?• Europe does have a strategic path• Deal of the Week: ecoRobotix03:01 – VC Fundraising Outlook • Post-2021 pullback continues.• Flight to top brands: most LP capital going to top 30 funds.• More government/EU money = policy strings.• Low DPI but potential relief from Klarna IPO.• Market consolidation = stronger survivors.07:08 – LP Sentiment • Big AI rounds crowding noise → more space for overlooked gems.• Growing interest in early-stage, AI, defence, resilience.09:23 – GS Buys Industry Ventures - Why?• Traditional finance deeper in VC.• Secondary liquidity engine + huge data moat (700 funds / 10k co’s).• Smart strategic move for Goldman.12:36 – Nobel Prize in Economics?• Aghion & Howitt’s work proves innovation drives growth — VC validated.• Missing pieces: state de-risking, catch-up growth, China’s dual strategy.20:42 – AI “Bubble” or Just Massive Bets?• OpenAI’s trillion-dollar compute plans (NVIDIA, AMD, Broadcom, Oracle).• OpenAI vs Google monetisation war.• Circular financing risk with negative margins down the stack. Will retail be left holding the baby?• Long-term value in vertical AI with data moats.31:11 – China’s Physical AI Advantage• Western Execs return “shaken” from dark factories.• BYD rising fast.• China deploying “good enough” open-source AI into everything.39:24 – Europe’s Playbook• JP Morgan’s $1.5T “security & resiliency” plan shows capital *can* be mobilised.• Europe’s challenge: reallocate pension/government capital to productive tech.45:43 – Deal of the Week: ecoRobotix• Swiss physical AI agri-robotics.• Precision spraying cuts pesticide use 95%.• €90M Series D led by Highland Europe & McWin.

Voices: Nicholas Nelson (Archangel) • Dan • Lomax • Mads TL;DRDefence-first wins on capability and returns; primes are partners and channels.Helsing: buys platforms/revenue for access; layers AI—different from Anduril’s buy-TRL-tech + scale model.Beyond drones: biggest gap/opportunity is tactical EW.Procurement: more fast lanes (SOF, pilots); primes getting easier to work with.AI: real profits exist (esp. NVIDIA), but value chain is fragile; expect a correction, not a collapse. Picking winners > timing.02:40 — Why defence-first Beats dual-use on outcomes and returns; lifelong focus.04:32 — Definitions Customer = MoDs + primes; aim: lethality/readiness and societal resilience. Beware “defence-washing”.06:37 — What’s hot Avoid herd to drones only; counter-UAS, EW, human performance, deception, survivability.08:23 — Helsing buys Grob Neo-prime play: new co buys legacy manufacturing for platform access.10:42 — The two Defence M&A playbooks Anduril: buys mid-TRL tech (Area-I, Dive LD/Ghost Shark, Adranos) → scales via brand/distribution. Helsing: buys finished products/revenue (Mittelstand) → immediate customers; then add AI.14:25 — Prime status & capital Distribution + capital to AI-enable platforms.17:47 — Roll-up vs build Narrative “build”; execution “roll-up + build”.19:47 — Drones & ‘drone wall’ Layered answer: blunt with drones, hold with conventional forces.21:49 — The big one: Electronic Warfare (EW) NATO underinvested; tactical EW is the unmet need; legacy kit is ’80s/’90s.24:54 — Startup wedge Put EW at the edge (drones/aircraft/fixed) → near-term wins.26:33 — Baltic realism History, 2007–09 Estonia cyber, current incursions; likely Kaliningrad corridor.28:19 — Founder mistakes Tech ≠ win by itself; experience + gov engagement matters; US analogue: top funds have IC/SOF DNA.30:43 —  Are there really only a “Few buyers?” Many real buyers inside a MoD/DoD (services, sub-units, innovation orgs).36:23 — Sovereignty & US primes US strategics will buy abroad; Europe balancing autonomy with jobs/exits.41:07 — Starlink vs IRIS² Starlink’s lead + cadence; IRIS² slower—watch timelines vs evolving threats.47:18 — AI bubble? Warnings vs fundamentals; self-funded capex; real profits.49:37 — NVIDIA ramp $4.4B (2023) → $73B this year; growth tempers multiples.51:48 — AI Circular money & margins Cursor → Anthropic → hyperscalers → NVIDIA; only NVIDIA mints big margins; margin pressure coming (new semis, China, SLMs).53:12 — Picking beats timing Dot-com lesson: Cisco losses vs Amazon wins.54:19 — Capacity vs efficiency Capex likely useful long-run, but open source squeezes costs.55:52 — Platform risk Frontier labs moving up-stack; vertical AI + trust + data = moat.58:58 — Base case Likely correction (30–50%) at some point; timing is unknowable (not investment advice).

🎧 Upside Ep #60 — “White Gold, Red Ink, and Reinventing VC”Hosts: Dan · Lomax · Andrew Recorded: Oct 2, 202501:00 – Quick News Highlights🇺🇸 US Shutdown — $15B GDP loss per week; political theatre more than fiscal risk.🇬🇧 Labour Party Conference — Starmer’s 13% approval, OBR to cut productivity; £10B headroom could flip to £20B deficit.💰 UK recovers $5B from Bitcoin fraud (FT)🔐 UK demands Apple backdoor again (TechCrunch)🤖 OpenAI $500B valuation (FT)🌉 EF exits Europe, launches “Bridge” Bay Area program (Sifted)🎬 Sora 2 video model - Sam A videos. Bwahaha 10:00 – EF’s US PivotEF closes Paris/Berlin, focusing on US founder “sheep-dipping.” Validation of EU founder quality but reminder: growth capital + urgency still American advantages.17:00 – Germany’s Lithium Discovery43M tons found in northern Germany — ~$600B in-ground value.DLE extraction (from brines) cleaner but unproven.Europe could cover 50 years of demand, yet permitting, costs, and NIMBY issues loom.Real win may lie in refining and gigafactory build-out, not mining alone.22:00 – London’s IPO DeclineLondon slips to #23 globally; IPO volume down 69% ($248M → $42M).Causes: low equity appetite, no tech weighting, over-regulation, pension conservatism.Fixes: incentivise pension investment, cut stamp duty, attract tech listings.27:00 – Should Governments Bail Out?UK guarantees £1.5B loan to JLR (post-cyberattack).Critics: moral hazard, no cyber-insurance, political pork-barrelling.Compare: Germany’s bold €500B public investment plan.Consensus: backstop only if government gets warrants + drives reform.41:00 – Reinventing VCUS mega-firms become RIAs, investing across public/private assets.New players: Evantic ($400M), Striker (10 LPs × 10 startups).AI models now beat humans at picking founders.Europe lags — still relationship-driven, early-stage remains “artisanal.”51:00 – Deals of the Week💥 Concept Ventures – £88M pre-seed fund (UK)🧪 Periodic Labs – $300M seed (ex-DeepMind/OpenAI)💼 Creator Fund – €80M pan-EU deep tech⚖️ Legora – raising $100M @ $1.7B🧠 Black Forest Labs – $4B valuation talks🦄 Cleo, Tide hit unicorn status57:00 – Defence & TechHighlights from London Resilience Conference: surge in EU defence startups, faster US build cycles, procurement reform lagging.MI6’s real “Q” reveals gadget: surveillance dog poo.59:00 – WrapEurope’s week in contrast: industrial ambition (Germany), structural pain (London), creative churn (VC & AI). Momentum builds — even amid the mess.

Yes we're European VCs so YES we're talking AI and defence! But there's still more of the pie to eat, so dig in.02:00 🇬🇧 UK in the doldrums* Little to no growth (1.5% vs US 3.8%).* Inflation stubborn at 3.8%.* 130k jobs lost since last budget.* Housing, Heathrow, HS2 — stalled megaprojects.06:30 📉 Structural weaknesses* UK pensions: only 4.4% in UK equities (vs 50% in past).* FTSE = $2.8T — smaller than Apple alone.* R&D spend at 1.7% vs US 3.5%.10:00 🚀 Reasons for optimism* Revolut hits 70m users, Canary Wharf HQ, £3bn UK investment.* UK AI leaders: Wayve, ElevenLabs, Synthesia, Cleo.* Nvidia building Europe’s biggest GPU cluster (120k Blackwells by 2026).13:00 🤝 Trump visit & £150bn US deal* Breakdown: £90bn Blackstone, £22bn Microsoft, £5bn Google, £1.5bn Palantir, £3.9bn Prologis.* UK pledges $80bn procurement from US tech/defence.* Historic scale, but execution challenges loom.18:30 📝 What the UK must do — 5-Point Plan1. Regulatory bonfire2. Pension capital unlocked3. Energy independence4. Planning revolution5. Startup Central (“29th Regime”)24:00 🌍 H1B debacle* US slaps $100k fee on new H1Bs (was $1.5k).* Big Tech shrugs, startups squeezed.* Europe’s opening: 24h visas for £100k+ roles could flip the script.28:30 🤖 AI Corner* Nvidia invests $100B into OpenAI — vertical integration play.* Cohere hits $7B with AMD deal; Modular raises $250M to break CUDA lock-in.* DeepSeek achieves GPT-4-level performance at 1/20th cost.* JLR cyberattack halts production for 3+ weeks; systemic risk exposed.37:00 🛡️ Defence Corner* Russian drones breach NATO airspace — first NATO shots fired.* Copenhagen airport shut, Polish & Baltic incursions.* NATO launches Eastern Sentry, Europe boosts spend to 3.5% GDP.* Defence unicorns rising: Helsing ($12B), Quantum Systems, Tekever.45:00 💸 Deals of the Week* nScale: £1.1B raise at £3B — Europe’s newest AI datacenter unicorn.* Ōura: $875M raise at $11B valuation.* Aerospacelab: $110M for satellite constellation.On today: Dan, Mads, Lomax, Andrew.

This week we chat with Mike the ex editor of TechCrunch, getting his take on the past, present and future of all things Euro-startup. Mads shares his thoughts on the All In Summit. We chat about defence strategies, pension funds and Euro cash injections, Germany moving and shaking their startup scene, Draghi's anniversary, the EU Inc guys / 28th regime - and what this all means for us in venture, for founders, investors and startups.00:35 – TechCrunch Europe → resetRedundancies post-Yahoo sale; Mike takes a breather, experiments with social video.01:29 – Mike’s showreel’95 journo → FTGuardian → joins TechCrunch Europe in ’07; spins up The Europas and Techfugees.03:51 – New media > old blogsCreators (MrBeast, Bari Weiss, Cleo Abram) now disrupt the disruptors; social is the front door for news; AI reshapes formats.06:02 – Europe’s vibe, not the Valley’sFragmentation persists, but Slush VivaTech Web Summit LTW etc. anchor a distinct EU flavour.09:24 – Culture shift neededBe candid *and* boosterish; being bigger and bolder.12:17 – All-In Summit debriefRobotics “hand problem” (26 actuators arm; supply chain missing), AGI ≈ 5–10y, China’s practical AI push, enterprise AI moats (boring infra), Europe’s latent talent vs weak commercialisation; “physical AI” window is NOW.16:27 – EU Inc & Draghi (1-year on)EU-wide startup entity push; Draghi’s 383 recs: only ~40 actioned; public consultation live at eu-inc.org.18:29 – What to fix in EuropePlanning gridlock (HS2 file bloat; energy permits ~44 months) + misallocated pensions (€16T, >55% in bonds ~3%). Shift saver incentives and trustee “prudence” toward productive assets to unlock ~€970B yr.20:56 – Implementation dragOnly a sliver of Draghi implemented; call for a “crack” execution unit; R&D under-invested vs US. EU grants take ~240 days from green light to cash.24:02 – UK pensions: rhetoric vs mechanicsFee caps & plumbing still block meaningful allocations despite political cheerleading.28:28 – Germany’s draft startup tax reformFounder and VC-friendly fixes from German Govt (e.g., ESOP dry income relief, longer deferral, broader eligibility).35:39 – Deal of the week: ASML → Mistral (€2B)Mistral >€100m ARR; ASML’s strategic seat to frontier models; comps far below US hypers; BNP with 800+ use cases. Raises EU late-stage capital question; balance sheets stepping in.48:48 – Defence - UK Strategy, Russian Drones and NATO/European ReactionPoland shoots down Russian drones; UK to 2.5% GDP defence by 2027 (+ regional £250m hubs). Good signal, too small; procurement speed is the moat; Eastern front buying *now*.

Let markets drive early-stage VC; fix EU growth/IPO capital via pension reform. Win AI as power users, not model builders. Geopolitics demands EU/ally coordination. Quantum’s having a moment.This week it's Mads, Lomax and Dan. All European early stage VCs looking behind the headlines to explore what's affecting venture, founders and investors.00:00–03:07 — “28th regime” for EU VC?Dan proposes a structured EU venture vehicle03:07–07:46 — Let chaos reign- Bottom-up or top-down? governments already big LPs; VC must deliver performance to unlock pensions.07:46–13:11 — Macro & pensions.Dealroom report: EU VC-backed value ≈ $3.5T; domestic pensions rising but tiny vs need; UK fiscal context not worst in G7.13:24–16:46 — Macro vs micro - Do we care?Great teams still raise; next KPI is a Europe-born “Mag-7-scale” company.16:46–19:49 — Why UK tax payers support MAG7.Rules favour bonds (low fees/vol); reform prudential & tax to channel savings into EU productive assets.19:49–21:25 — Can EU scale.Capital aggregation at multi-billion rounds remains the choke point.22:41–25:48 — Google antitrust.No breakup; must share index/click data on commercial, non-discriminatory terms—light remedy.26:18–30:16 — Isambard & AI adoption.UK supercomputer is symbolic; real edge is becoming the best AI adopter (health/life-sciences, public services).32:25–39:47 — Power of Xi.China’s manufacturing lead; EU needs re-armament, industrial base, and alliances (US + Asian democracies).40:24–41:54 — Deals of the week (Quantum).Quantinuum raises $600m (≈$10B val); IQM hits unicorn; prior Oxford Ionics → IonQ deal noted.

This week on Upside – It's a digital sovereignty deeper dive - what does it really mean, Nvidia is up but kinda not, Apple vs CMA - stormy teacup, and Governments Buying AI - which is a a great thing! Yes it is.With Mads, Lomax, Andreas and Dan.00:52 – Why Nvidia is “the poster child”Picks & shovels of AI; outsized share of data-centre capex; sheer scale of valuation and index weight.01:49 – Numbers that bend the mind$100B rev $25B net income quarter; growth decelerating (YoY strong, QoQ data-centre +5%) and mostly “priced in.”04:33 – Europe’s chip toolkitASML, STMicro, Infineon, ARM as the homegrown counterweight—and the media’s US-centric bias.06:07 – Apple vs UK CMAInteroperability, payments, “Apple tax,” and the tension between competition policy and platform control.08:05 – When regulation helpsOpen banking as a rare win; risk of “fighting the last war” on phones while AI becomes the real battleground.16:36 – Antitrust lessons for AINeed smarter, transatlantic, pro-innovation guardrails before AI market power locks in.18:55 – Creative destruction vs. copsMarkets toppled IBM/Microsoft; you can’t regulate your way to greatness—create conditions to compete.21:05 – Sovereignty kicks off: US buys 10% of IntelEquity via CHIPS grants; debate on retroactive terms, national champions, and when government should own.28:26 – Europe’s long tradition of state helpAirbus, satellites, energy—how “strategic” differs from picking winners.30:42 – What should be sovereignCompute/chips, energy, critical minerals, food/health inputs, and space—areas where hands-off fails.37:12 – UK gov is buying AI (a lot)Spend surges; Microsoft & Palantir dominate; case for being a “power user” while seeding EU/UK alternatives.43:54 – Can startups sell to government?Procurement is the moat for incumbents; call for sandboxes, fast paths, and small experiments.50:01 – What is digital sovereignty (really)?Acting without others’ permission; Europe’s dilemma: US defence, China manufacturing, and now US AI.52:07 – China’s playbookBack sectors, unleash brutal competition (EVs), let winners emerge—then scale.57:33 – Follow the moneyEU pension funds underweight EU VC; stop funding US dominance if we want sovereignty.Fast takeaways* Nvidia remains the bellwether, but the growth rate is normalising at hyperscale.* Apple vs CMA = overdue competition questions, but don’t fight 2010’s war in 2025 - aim rules at AI.* Sovereignty ≠ autarky: diversify dependencies, go big on adoption, and grow local apps/infra.* Procurement reform (sandboxes, smaller tickets) is the cheapest way to catalyse EU/UK AI champions

For the real news behind the headlines affecting European venture.Hosts: Dan Bowyer & Mads Jensen, with Joe Knowles from Smedvig Ventures(01:15) US vs. Europe in Wealth CreationUS dominates wealth & compounders due to internet hyperscalers.Europe: strong talent, growing startups, but weaker late-stage funding & exits.Pension fund restrictions and lack of capital allocation are core structural issues.(12:10) AI Race & Europe’s ChallengeUS likely to win again; Europe risks falling far behind.Strategic gaps: compute, energy costs, slow policy response.(13:05) M&A BoomH1 2025: ~$100bn in deals (+155% YoY), led by Google–Wiz ($32bn).Hot areas: AI code gen, security, vertical apps.Europe well-placed in application-layer M&A and AI-enabled services.Exits recycle capital → critical for VC ecosystem health.(21:21) Defence Tech AwakeningPorsche & Deutsche Telekom launching €500m fund; Lakestar raising €250m.Cultural shift in Germany: mainstream corporates backing defence/dual-use.Small monetarily, but signals a tide change.(31:21) Energy & BatteriesBreakthroughs: lithium recycling (97%), sodium-ion at $10/kWh, EU gigafactories planned.Europe must cut energy costs (4x US levels).Nuclear, deregulation, and better storage key for AI competitiveness.(35:06) AI CornerGPT-5: Faster, unified model, free to ChatGPT’s 700M users. Incremental but strong in coding.Perplexity vs. Chrome: DOJ may force Chrome divestiture; Perplexity rumored buyer (PR stunt?).Economics: OpenAI at $500bn valuation despite $5bn losses; Anthropic ARR exploding ($1bn → $5bn in 7 months).(42:15) Chips & GeopoliticsUS restricting Nvidia chips to China; Trump proposes tariffed exports.Europe’s Chips Act stuck with outdated tech; Intel project canceled.Urgent need for “Chips 2.0” and partnerships with TSMC/Nvidia/ASML.(48:03) Closing NotesItaly’s record H1 (€655m raised).Europe’s momentum building across defence, energy, and venture.

Upside #52 The weekly podcast for all things European venture, startups and investing. Each week we look behind the headlines for the real news affecting our ecosystem.VC Hosts: Mads, Andrew & DanThis week: Seed-to-Series A: harder or hype?Germany’s €100B DeutschlandfondsUK interest rate cutOECD’s corporate investment warningEU Chips Act 2.0 - 1.0 #failAI Corner – GPT-5, Anthropic’s advances, open-source warsDeal of the Week00:50 – Series A: Out of Reach? Really?US: Avg. 2.5 years to Series A, down to 11% graduation rate. UK/Europe: ~18 months, higher graduation rates, but smaller rounds. AI reshaping funding pace; bridge rounds at record levels. Overhang from 2021–22 funding glut being flushed out. Carta data shows improving graduation rates. Labels distort. Under-capitalisation as a European challenge.07:59 – Germany’s €100B Deutschlandfonds - Be More GermanFund to secure strategic sectors: defence, energy, raw materials. Leverages €10B public → target €100B private. Germany’s growth stagnation since 2019 needs reversal.18:35 – UK Autumn Budget Of MiseryLikely tax rises despite Labour’s pledges - risk making UK unattractive for VC & startups. Millionaire exodus, low PE carried interest returns signal concern.22:09 – UK Interest Rate Cut Says What?BOE cuts from 4.25% → 4% despite sticky inflation (3.6% → rising to 4%). Growth fears outweigh inflation fight – signals economic fragility. Will lower rates make VC relatively more attractive?23:29 – OECD: Weak Corporate Investment Is Bad NewsInvestment still 20% below pre-GFC trends; physical asset investment lagging. Productivity stagnation since 2008. Corporates prioritising dividends over long-term growth.40:11 – EU Chips Act 2.0 - Can We, Should We?Act 1 mega fail: Missed 20% market share goal; may hit only 5% by 2030. Intel exit, focus on low-end chips, global oversupply, poor US trade terms. Need to attract TSMC/Samsung for cutting-edge fabs. Europe must avoid “please everyone” industrial policy. Chip demand will keep growing; still time to compete.50:35 – Mega AI CornerGPT-5 “soon” Anthropic’s Claude 4.1 leading in reliability. OpenAI launches first open-source model since GPT-2. Mega-rounds: OpenAI $8B, Mistral $10B, Perplexity raising. Open vs. closed source. IP & “decomposition” debate:1:04:04 – Deal of the WeekClay – $100M at $3.1B; widely used contact intelligence tool.n8n – Valuation surges past €2B amid investor frenzy.Voltrac – Spanish autonomous electric tractor; 70% fewer parts, strong ROI.AI in politics: Sweden’s PM admits using ChatGPT for second opinions.Recorded 7 August 2025

Upside is for anyone interested in the European tech and startup ecosystem. We discuss the real stories that live behind the headlines.Recorded: Friday August 1st 2025Hosts: VCs - Mads, Lomax, and Dan00:50 – Big Tech Earnings BlowoutsMassive Meta and MS uplift. Massive efficiency gains via AI, despite headcount cuts. Microsoft: $13B AI cloud run rate. Growth driven by CoPilot and Azure.11:20 – Fundamentally Flawed Figures Inflation sticky around 2.9%. Rates stuck. Why equity markets remain bullish despite macro pressure. AI productivity gains seen as the buffer against high rates. Not the dot-com? 17:42 – Europe’s No Mag7The sobering gap, but optimism for emerging EU-based players. Nurture “green shoots” of European innovation.18:34 – Markets - Figma IPO – Is SaaS Back?Massive Day 1 pop: from \$20B to \$65B market cap. 91% gross margin, 132% NDR, strong enterprise traction. Optimism for SaaS exits and public market appetite.26:27 – Markets - Anthropic vs. Figma – AI Valuations in ContextAnthropic at \$170B valuation (\~30x revenue).Contrasted with Figma’s 60x multiple. SaaS more stable; AI still in sandbox.27:23 – Markets - Return of Risk Appetite: Firefly & Space IPOsFirefly targeting a $5B IPO despite revenue.29:26 – Liberation Day 2.0 – Trump’s Trade Deal with the EU**EU commits to $750B in US energy, $600B in US manufacturing investment. Concern over EU sovereignty and realism of enforcement.37:54 – Implications for European StartupsSoftware firms largely unaffected. Hardware or hybrid firms need to rethink supply chains.Consumer hardware most at risk from tariffs.40:17 – Geopolitical Signalling and the Long GameEU’s long-term strategy will shift towards self-reliance and defence. Upside for local tech ecosystems.41:23 – AI Corner – Latest Deals & Developments.Anthropic: From $1B to $6B ARR in months. $5B raise underway.Alibaba: Launches Claude Code competitor for 1/60th the cost.Cognigy (Germany): Acquired for $1B by NICE (CX automation).n8n: Open source automation tool now valued at \$1.5B.OpenAI Study Mode: Personalised learning agents; education disruption incoming.47:26 – Is Germany Becoming Europe’s AI Leader?Germany, France, and the UK all seeing strong AI momentum. European AI isn’t centralised – strength lies in distributed hubs.50:01 – Why Billion-Dollar Exits Are No Longer a Big DealCognigy, Oxford Ionics → seen as “modest” compared to US mega-deals. Yet: exits like these power Europe’s VC ecosystem - billion-dollar exits still matter.51:00 – Project Europe – What Europe NeedsHarry Stebbings’ “Project Europe”: €200k per startup, under-25 founders.6 companies in batch one: drones, brain-computer interfaces, cybersecurity, robotics. Focused on deep tech and hard problems – not consumer fluff. A bet on Europe’s technical edge and early-stage ecosystem.56:30 – Challenges Ahead for Project EuropeAccelerators attract top-tier founders? Signalling risk? Success will require time, patient capital, and structural support.63:57 – Stopping the Brain DrainEU founders often register in the US, but real drain is sub-10%. IPO path must be restored in EU. Public markets offer cheaper capital vs. growth equity.65:30 – Deal(s) of the WeekCyberArk acquired by Palo Alto Networks for $25BProject Q (Germany) raises €7.5M for battlefield software. One to watch.

Upside - for the real stories behind the headlines affecting European Venture.In this week's episode:AI in Public Services - OpenAI and the UK govt sign dealThe US vs UK AI plans - how do they compare?Stablecoins - what are they really and why are they not in the UK?Deepmind wins the IMO maths competition - so what?Deal of the Week01:50 – AI in UK Government and Public ServicesUK government signs an MOU with OpenAI to explore AI in public services.Introduction of “Humphrey,” a ChatGPT-powered assistant for civil servants.03:21 – Will AI in Public Services Work?NHS could be a testbed for AI adoption, potentially with citizen opt-ins for faster treatments using AI technologies.05:26 – UK AI Plan and Public Sector ProductivityUK’s AI Opportunities Plan.Potential AI use cases: fraud prevention and efficiency in administrative tasks.08:24 – Challenges in Government AI Implementation09:27 – AI in NHS & HealthcareDebate on AI’s role in healthcare11:46 – UK Sovereignty & AI PartnershipsConcerns about reliance on US AI companies (OpenAI, Anthropic).13:03 – Is Reliance on US AI a Problem?Discussion on whether the UK should build its own foundational AI models.16:31 – National AI StrategiesDebate on the UK government’s responsibility to invest heavily in domestic AI.Comparison to the UK aerospace industry and state-backed R&D.19:26 – Comparing US and UK AI PlansOverview of both strategies:US: Innovation, leadership, and global dominance.UK: Sovereignty, public sector benefits, and homegrown champions.22:24 – Key Differences Between US and UK AI Approaches27:47 – What Should the UK Do Differently?Invest in national AI infrastructure. Mandate “buy UK first” for AI solutions.33:31 – AI in Large OrganizationsNorway’s sovereign wealth fund sees 20% efficiency gains using AI (Claude).36:01 – Transition to StablecoinsWhat they are and why they matter.41:02 – Dollar Dominance via StablecoinsStablecoins as a strategic tool to extend USD dominance.48:25 – Future of StablecoinsHow stablecoins will reshape DeFi, cross-border transactions, and payments.52:27 – AI Excels at MathematicsGoogle DeepMind and OpenAI achieve gold-level performance at the IMO (International Mathematical Olympiad). Significance: AI is moving from computation to creative problem-solving and advanced reasoning.55:47 – Implications of AI in Math & ScienceAI’s ability to solve complex math problems signals breakthroughs in R&D and engineering.58:14 – Philosophical Questions on AI ReasoningDebate on whether AI’s reasoning is “synthetic” or genuinely creative.AI’s utility matters more than its internal mechanics.59:33 – Deal of the WeekKeywords: AI, public services, OpenAI, UK government, healthcare, stablecoins, financial system, mathematics, funding, trade deals.

UPSIDE - For the week's *real news* behind the headlines affecting European venture.If curious about startups, investing, venture capital, innovation, AI, and all things going on in and around Europe - that's what this weekly roundup is all about.Hosts: Lomax from Outsized Ventures with Mads and myself from SuperSeed VCOn this week's show:04:02 – Shout out for EU Inc and The 28th RegimeLegal fragmentation in Europe increases friction and costs for pre-seed and seed funding. Comparison to US (Delaware + SAFE) vs. Europe’s notary-heavy systems.Potential savings of €350–500M annually by reducing legal overhead. ESOP (employee share options) complexity highlighted as a major barrier.09:55 – The United States of EuropeEU Inc. could be a “small first step” toward a unified European market post-Brexit. Lobbying from notaries and national interests creates significant resistance. Watered down is as good as not at all.15:14 – AI Corner: Huge AI news this weekMira Murati’s new startup raises $2B from A16Z, Nvidia, AMD. China’s Moonshot AI (Kimi 2) - 1T parameter open-source LLM outperforming Anthropic’s Opus 4 on coding tasks. Europe is trailing the US and China in foundational AI, but vertical AI and apps offer big opportunities.25:28 – The Application Layer BoomLovable Raised $200M at $1.8B valuation** with 75M ARR in 8 months.AI application companies like Tandem Health and Legora are scaling rapidly.31:51 – Apple Rumoured to Acquire Mistral?$15B acquisition? Would be the largest European AI exit, but raises sovereignty concerns in France.36:12 – UK Government ReformsRachel Reeves’ speeches: Streamlined reporting, pushing pension funds into riskier assets, and supporting LSE listings - symbolic or game-changing?42:21 – Crypto Week in the USBitcoin hits $120K as three major US crypto acts debated: Clarity Act, Genius Act, Anti-CBDC Act. Europe already has MiCA regulations but lacks a cohesive narrative. But should we have our own Crypto week?48:19 – European VC at 10-Year Low2025 projections: $10B VC capital raised. Solutions: Unlock pension capital, simplify retail VC access, and recycle returns from big exits like Mistral.54:28 – Deal of the Week: NumanMen’s D2C health startup: Raised $57M (30M equity + 27M debt). Pivoted to GLP-1-based weight-loss products, doubling revenue to $90M in 2024.56:16 – Closing Thoughts.

Upside for the real news behind the headlines affecting European Venture.This week: Is defence the only game in town? Any moral lines? Has Germany nailed its return to growth? OpenAI at peak LLM? Search engine wars are back! Does WFH kill culture, a tariff check in (already out of date!), EU fines and big tech - will we get the good sh*t? 00:00 – Welcome & RundownDan, Mads & Lomax set the scene: Europe’s defence startup boom, OpenAI’s new browser play, WFH vs. culture, Trump’s ever-shifting tariffs, UK H1 VC stats, and Big Tech vs. EU regulators.04:21 – Euro uplift €6.5b in June FundingEurope’s tech raises hit €6.5 billion across 323 deals; UK led with 30% (€1.95B) but dipped 18% MoM, while Germany surged past the UK on deep-tech, quantum, energy robotics & aerospace.05:40 – Defence vs. Resilience vs. Dual-UseWhat’s the difference? Defence = pure military; resilience = protecting society (cyber-security→critical infrastructure); dual-use = tech with both civilian & military applications.07:41 – German Market on FireDAX +22% YTD: Industrials up 30% (Rheinmetall, Airbus), Financials +16% on easing rates, Tech +14% via AI plays (SAP) & EV chip leader Infineon - autos and pharma lags.08:46 – Founder Caution in DefenceBudgets may double to €1 trillion, but only ~5–10% goes to R&D, procurement is slow, buyers are few & timelines clash - “proceed with caution” is the advice.10:56 – Defence Moral DebateIs it OK to back companies making weapons? Europe’s “sleepy time under US umbrella” ends do we agree protecting citizens and way of life is a moral imperative?17:03 – OpenAI’s Browser BetWith 3b Chrome users feeding Google $200 B/yr in search ad profit, OpenAI’s upcoming “AI browser” could unlock ad revenue ($1B ’26; $25B ’29) by capturing click & intent data.19:16 – Search Engine Wars Are Back AGAIN Beyond ChatGPT: Grok 4 (hooked to X), Perplexity’s Comet, and generative SEO shake up distribution—from keyword tags to “GEO” (Generative Engine Optimisation).31:28 – Does WFH Kill Culture?Values ≠ behaviours: true culture is “expected actions.” Zoom can’t replace serendipity, mentoring & rapid knowledge-share that happen when teams sit shoulder-to-shoulder.40:59 – Trump’s Tariff Tracker“90 deals in 90 days” fizzled - only UK, Vietnam & China. EU deadline pushed to August; Brazil hit with 50%; US aiming for $300b in tariff revenue.48:39 – UK H1 VC Snapshot£8 B raised (AI startups 30%), beats Germany & France combined; 188 unicorns (71 private) worth £230b; Oxford/Cambridge/Cardiff each hit £1b.56:57 – Will Europe get the good stuff if we keep fining and controlling? EU vs. Big Tech. Apple appeals €500m App-Store fine; Google races to comply with the DMA (10% global-revenue penalty); EU’s proposed chat back-door sparks mass-surveillance concerns.58:28 – Deal of the Week: Eutelsat €1.35 B RaiseFrance & UK gov’ts back a pan-European LEO+GEO satellite operator to rival Starlink - €1.35 B shows Europe’s push for sovereign space resilience.1:00:43 – Parting BytesAndrew’s rooting for “pet-emotion AI” (Purosense AI’s seed round); Mads eyes Nvidia’s Q2 (ASML report on July 16); Lomax plans LP visits - and everyone’s beach-office-envious!

🎙️ Upside #EP— IPOs, AI vs Doctors, London’s Trouble & The Internet’s Future⏱️ 02:30 – Figma’s IPO & European StakesFiling in NYC after failed Adobe acquisition$800M+ revenue, 91% margins, 132% NDR$5B Index Ventures paydayWhy this matters for Euro tech⏱️ 08:50 – London’s IPO DisasterWorst first half in nearly 30 years: only $160M raisedAstraZeneca flirting with a US listingCan London come back?25+ years of decline traced to pension reform post-Maxwell scandal⏱️ 14:10 – UK vs US Markets: Staggering ComparisonUS market cap: $60T vs UK: $3TTech in FTSE 100: only 1%Apple alone = FTSE 100Institutional apathy + structural rot⏱️ 18:00 – Pension Power & Mansion House DebateUK pension funds hold just 5% in UK equities£40B in annual tax breaks not translating into local investmentNeed for regulatory overhaul to unlock capital⏱️ 22:00 – Fixing the Public MarketsPublic markets *should* be the exit pathWithout them, the entire private capital waterfall stallsStagnation in public exits affects tax receipts, job creation, and the UK ecosystem⏱️ 25:45 – European Equities SurgeBiggest outperformance vs US stocks on record€46B inflows in 2025 vs €66B outflows in 2024Germany wakes up: €500B in infrastructure & defence spendSustainable or a short-term Trump-driven rotation?⏱️ 32:00 – UK Budget Black Hole£5B budget gap after Labour’s U-turnHighest tax burden since WWIISocial care + NHS = nearly 50% of budgetStuck between tax pledges, borrowing risks, and spending pressures⏱️ 41:00 – UK Future - 3-PathsStasis: stealth taxes, zero reformsFurther decline: shrinking influenceRecovery: bold reforms in pensions, NHS tech, and civil service productivityWhat road will we take?⏱️ 46:30 – EU AI Act: Incoming Train Wreck?Set for August rollout, but 44 major firms ask for pauseMissed code-of-practice deadline - What do we do?Healthcare, finance, and SaaS startups at riskGDPR 2.0 on steroids?⏱️ 52:45 – Can We Save the Open Web?Cloudflare’s bold move to gate AI scrapingAPI-first monetisation and licensing models emerging⏱️ 57:45 – AI vs DoctorsMicrosoft benchmark: AI got 80% of diagnoses right vs doctors’ 20%The end for doctors?Regulation, infrastructure, and explainability still big hurdles⏱️ 01:05:00 – Deal of the Week: Portal Biotech$35M Series A led by Earlybird + NATO Innovation FundProtein sequencing tech spun out of University of GroningenHopes to be “the Illumina of proteins”A deeptech win for Europe

🎙️ Episode Highlights00:00 – Market Pulse: We’re So Back Baby! US IPOs are red-hot (CoreWeave, Circle), S&P nearly at ATH, and Q2 GDP forecasts hit 3.5%. The resurgence in AI and crypto-led optimism despite fiscal clouds.03:00 – Bubble or Boom? Are we heading into bubble territory? US deficits are ballooning, but M&A tailwinds and LP liquidity look promising.05:00 – The Sentiment Effect Economic psychology: consumer sentiment drives GDP. Europe’s problem? It talks itself down. The US? Belief + boldness.06:50 – Big Tech Bets on Britain Amazon pledges £40B UK investment (data centres, fulfilment, even a film studio). British Business Bank expands to £25B. Visma chooses London IPO over Nasdaq—confidence win?14:00 – UK’s 10-Year Industrial Push Gov’t targets AI, defence, creative, and energy—aiming to slash grid connection delays. Electricity costs still a major drag. Can policy execution catch up to rhetoric?18:00 – The UK’s Economic Reality Check High inflation + stagnant growth = stagflation-lite. £66B in working-age benefits forecast by 2029. Labour’s internal revolt blocks real reform.27:00 – Tariff Tensions Mount Trump trade wars return: EU braces for July 9 deadline. Retaliation looms. Could German auto exports be the pressure point?32:00 – AI in the Wild Apple eyes Perplexity. DocuSign sues scrappy 2-day clone. Seed-strapped startups exit for millions without VC - Paradigm shift or PR hype?37:00 – Copyright Battles Begin Meta & Anthropic win round one using “transformative use” defence. The big legal fight (OpenAI vs NYT) still looms.41:00 – Robotaxi Rollout? Tesla demos driverless fleet in Austin - damp squib? Still lagging Waymo. Real progress or just share-price theatre?43:00 – Europe’s Bay Area Dream Can Europe become Silicon Valley? Should we can we? It’s not about funding - it’s confidence, imagination, and embracing failure.51:00 – Optimism Please! Q2 earnings optimism and promising chip efficiency breakthroughs. Markets strong, founders bold, and Europe's moment (maybe) coming.