In this episode, we catch up with Andre Retterath, author of Data-Driven VC and Partner & EagleEye Lead at Earlybird Venture Capital, one of the most established and active venture capital firms in Europe. Founded in 1997, they invest in all development and growth phases of technology companies. Currently, they have over €2 billion under management, eight IPOs, and 31 trade sales.
Andre focuses on enterprise software, with a particular interest in developer tools, AI-centric products, and robotics. He leads Earlybird’s engineering team and its proprietary data-driven platform, “EagleEye.” He is also the author of Data-Driven VC, a community of 30k+ experts, producing newsletters, reports, and events on startups, VC, data, and AI.
Andre discusses the shift from traditional VC to a data-driven approach, explaining how data-driven VC provides an edge in picking winners by improving the sourcing and screening process. He also highlights the importance of balancing data-driven insights with gut feelings and the human component in venture capital. Andre shares insights on overhyped startup metrics and the value of headcount as an indicator. He further explores the challenges of integrating data science in VC and the future of the industry, and much more.
Video version of episode 85:
Audio version of episode 85:
Key takeaways
- Balancing data-driven insights with gut feelings and the human component is crucial in venture capital.
- Headcount is an important indicator for evaluating the growth and inflexion points of startups.
- Overhyped startup metrics, such as GitHub stars, may not necessarily indicate the success of a company.
- Integrating data science in VC requires identifying and addressing human biases in AI models.
- The future of VC involves the professionalization of the industry and the aggregation of VC tools.
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