There is not one right approach to digital transformation. “It is actually a puzzle of many different, tiny actions and activities that you need to do. And one of these is definitely the collaboration with the startup ecosystem.”
Marie-Helene Ametsreiter, Partner at Speedinvest, takes us on the journey of reinventing traditional VC through collaboration and enabling corporates to access startup innovation power. Hear her story of creating win-wins by connecting the traditional world with the startup ecosystem and what’s really important to make this relationship work.
There is not one right approach to digital transformation. “It is actually a puzzle of many different, tiny actions and activities that you need to do. And one of these is definitely the collaboration with the startup ecosystem.”
Marie-Helene Ametsreiter, Partner at Speedinvest, takes us on the journey of reinventing traditional VC through collaboration and enabling corporates to access startup innovation power. Hear her story of creating win-wins by connecting the traditional world with the startup ecosystem and what’s really important to make this relationship work.
Marie-Helene: (00:01)
What I see there is not that one right approach or this one way how to overcome, this digitization or the digital transformation. I think it's a puzzle of many different, tiny actions and activities that you need to do.
Christine: (00:21)
Welcome to the Lost in Transformation podcast series dedicated to the complex world of Digital Transformation. We feature guests from large corporations, start-ups, consultancies and more, to shed light on the success factors around Innovation, Transformation, and adjacent topics.
We share first-hand insights and inspiration from experts for all the intrapreneurs, entrepreneurs and anyone curious about Digital Transformation.
Christine: (00:50)
Marie-Helene Ametsreiter is a partner at Speedinvest and now oversees the investments in the Industry 4.0 space, after many years of experience in the corporate world and especially in the telco industry. She’s sharing the journey of how Speedinvest Industry came about, and which noteworthy startups she’s worked with. We hope you enjoy this episode.
Christine: (01:21)
Hi, Marie-Helene. It's great to have you with us on the show today and thank you for taking the time. So you are a partner at Speedinvest, which is an early stage venture capital firm that focuses amongst other areas also on deep tech and industry and FinTech and marketplaces. Today, we're curious to learn about the journey of speed invest and in particular speed in this industry, but let's just start from the very beginning. I'd also like to understand what is speed invest in more detail and what sets it apart from other VCs.
Marie-Helene: (01:43)
Hi. Well, first of all, thanks for the invitation. Very happy to be here. Very briefly on Speedinvest, as you already mentioned, we are a venture capital fund in Europe. So we invest all across Europe in startups, very early stage, so in the seed stage. We have 400 million Euro assets under management and, so far we've been invested in 180 startups.
Marie-Helene: (02:13)
So, maybe what sets us apart, because there is lots of VCs at the moment out there. And, what we consider ourselves as so called operational VC. So what does it mean that, we try to really work hands on. We sell our startups, so it's not just that we would invest capital, but we would physically invest operational time management time. We have experts of different fields in order to help the startups grow. So it's, what Speedinvest is all about.
Christine: (02:52)
Interesting. And, you yourself have also been working in the corporate world before you started at Speedinvest. I'm curious to hear more, how did things work there before your journey?
Marie-Helene: (03:06)
I have a very, let's say classic corporate background. That was 20 years in the telecommunication industry, more specifically I was CEO of a mobile operator that we started as green field operations or from scratch. And after that, I was with OMV which is a oil and gas company. So, two big corporations that I've been working with. And I think, what triggered me to start, at Speedinvest and in the VC industry, was trying to find something where I can incorporate my experiences and also the lessons learned, and the failures that we have done. And invest these learnings and help to bring these learnings into the startups.
Christine: (03:56)
And then, was there a certain point of time where, you know, Speedinvest as a company felt like it needed to change, or was there a point where there was like a catalyst for change?
Marie-Helene: (04:08)
Well, I'd say, you know, my experience in the corporate world was that the mobile communication was one of the first industries that went through digital transformation. So, what has happened is that we had invested in very expensive infrastructure, in the connectivity. And all of a sudden there came the so called OTTs and the over the top players, which were the app providers. So the, WhatsApps of this world, and they disrupted our business and kept and took part of our value chain. Very nice part, because it was the user generated revenues that all of a sudden were repped by these new players. And, we were young miniatures.
Marie-Helene: (04:57)
I was in my twenties when this whole digital transformation took place and we saw this coming and this revenues all of a sudden flowing away, but we were unable to come to fight it. Why? And this is something that they're really elaborated afterwards. It was, in my opinion, two reasons. One was greediness. We simply thought we want to not let go of this part of the revenue and do it ourselves. So we tried to build content libraries, our own ISP, mobile wallets. So we tried to cover all these value generating applications ourselves. And that's the second main point, do not invent a tier, rather than collaborating with this new players and trying to take at least a part of this revenues. We said, no, no, no, we want to own it all. And we want to build it ourselves. We are eager and we are sure we can build it ourselves.
Marie-Helene: (05:55)
And this experience. And I had a very similar experience then in the oil and gas industry afterwards, where we had, where we were running our own green energy fund, where we tried to invest into startups and into new innovation. So, a little bit smarter, but still, you know, thinking that we can find the right startups to learn from. These both experiences gave us in a way or me in a way that idea, Hey, we need a model to find how can the traditional industries, the traditional players collaborate in a fruitful and in a positive way with the startup world in order to gain their innovation power. And this is in a way what we tried, at the certain point, with Speedinvest, when we reinvented the very traditional old VC model into where we are today.
Christine: (06:56)
So you're mentioning that, you know, those traditional companies, they kind of also had to deal with the big digital transformation that came across. What were maybe some first approaches to the problem that they, that you encountered?
Marie-Helene: (07:11)
Well, I think that, you know, we tried different things. We thought there is this one thing to fix the innovation and digital transformation problem. So, we wanted, we generated this big vision of how we would look tomorrow and then we tried to transform our business in that way. I think there is today, what I see there is not that one right approach or this one way how to overcome, this digitization or the digital transformation. I think it's a puzzle of many different, tiny actions and activities that you need to do. And one of these is definitely, you know, the collaboration with the startup ecosystem, because many things you are blind from, within your own organization.
Marie-Helene: (08:05)
And you also know, it's counter intuitive, to come up with an idea that is cannibalizing your own business. So in that respect, I think one of the learning was from there, you need to have an outside in approach to gain innovation from the outside into the company. And, this is, I think that the model that I try, we're trying at Speedinvesting industry. And come there in a moment, how we do that, to bring this innovation from the startup ecosystem, into traditional organizations.
Christine: (08:40)
It's nice that you're collaborating so closely with the ecosystem in that way. And because you are already mentioning about Speedinvest industry a bit more, what is maybe the bigger purpose or the biggest vision for Speedinvest industry?
Marie-Helene: (08:54)
Well, I deeply believe that, for the traditional industry, it all starts with the mindset change. It's more a cultural issue, to benefit from digital world. Then it is a technological or something about the processes. And my vision for Speedinvest industry is really, to enable traditional players with the access to the innovation power of the startup world. And to create a win - win situation for both sides. So the underlying concept is that, the traditional industry invests money into our fund, and we reinvest this money into relevant startups, only industrial tech startups. But at the same time, not just invest the money, but also bring the two together, but at the right moment with the right people in a very efficient way, so that they can learn and benefit from each other. And in the end, I think then, when we need that, you know, the traditional companies, they get a return, a financial return by investing in the fund.
Marie-Helene: (10:15)
It's not at the end, money that is gone through the roof or just, you know, OPEX and spendings, but it is money. You invest in, you even get an interest rate or return for. And on the other hand, we have an investment in a startup ecosystem for Europe, for industrial tech, that tech role. And I think for Europe, that's really one of the peak heritage is we have, we are good in industry. And, in all traditional industrial, from manufacturing to automotive to [...] a paper, you name it. And I think if we, if we do not manage to bring these traditional industries to the next level and digitize them, in Europe, we are really having an issue. So the bigger vision that I have is to have with this model as one puzzle. This will not solve it at the whole, but we are one puzzle hopefully in these big European driving force of industry, have also think, you know, tomorrow, one of the global players when it comes to industrial tech.
Christine: (11:28)
I really like the notion of creating a win - win that you mentioned for both sides. That's really important as well. And do you have maybe one or two examples of concrete cases or startups that maybe you've invested in or worked with?
Marie-Helene: (11:46)
For example, one being Twaice. So, Twaice it's very typical. It's a spinout of the technical university in Munich, and it was a team that were researching on the behavior of lithium batteries. So, what they are building, it's a analytic software where they build a digital twin in the cloud of battery. And they cannot only more or less analyze what's the current status of the battery, but more importantly, they can simulate and they can simulate behavior, and how certain behavior is influencing the lifetime of the battery. So in this development, of the whole electrification, that we see on the market at the moment, is it in automotive for those in many other industries. The battery becomes one central part and there is a big at the moment competition going on, because China currently is really taking over the whole power and in the whole battery manufacturing market.
Marie-Helene: (12:53)
So Twaice is having at the moment, huge successes, which with its analytics software, also collaborating and providing a supplier, some of the Chinese manufacturers, but more importantly, they working together. Of course, we saw big OEMs here in Europe, in the automotive sector, but also with insurance companies who would like, you know, to ensure, for example, some of the electric, electricity power plants, in order to know, when will there might be a failure in the battery lifetime or a downtime or something like that. So, I think that's a good example to see how strong European inventions can be and can go. And at the moment they're really one line I'd say, very good role models to see how they grow and how quick their market acceptances.
Marie-Helene: (13:48)
I mean, another one for example is Telus. Telus is at the moment, is revolutionizing the design process of PCB manufacturing. And electronics is something that is in every washing machine, in every coffee machine in almost every single part of our lives today. And however, the design of this electronics of the PCPC is still a very manual process. And these guys have developed a methodology on how to optimize this. Also that thing, you know, it's really time efficient. Efficiency gains of 90%, which makes us more cost efficient and therefore more competitive against other players, too.
Christine: (14:37)
Super nice examples also to see, okay, like competitiveness of the European startups in the field. Really interesting. And so you've probably had a lot of, or like, you've seen a lot of startups grow over the year, also with Speedinvest industry. I think it's around two years old. You mentioned at some point, what would you say is your biggest learning up until today from the journey so far?
Marie-Helene: (15:01)
Well, I think it's a collaboration of corporate, so the investors of ours with the startups. What we try is to find relevant startups and bring them together for collaboration and in order to do so, we really need to understand the nature of the business of the traditional players. And that's not so easy. It is not that you say there's a lot of screening agencies out there that promise, you know, we bring you relevant startups, but you really need to understand the value chain of the existing industry. What is also the threats, what is also the optionalities in the future? How are they working today? What is a regional aspect and so on. And only then, if you understand their business, you can find this metric of relevant startups. And I think this is also one of the reason of the misalignment. I think, there is many examples of disappointment when the startup collaboration with the corporates is not working well because first, this match - is this really a suitable startup? Or innovation that can really, you know, fit into who we are, also cultural wise.
Marie-Helene: (16:31)
Secondly, it's very often expectation management. I think, you have to be crystal clear in the beginning of this collaboration, and this is just meant to help us doing a due diligence. So we just want to understand, is this startup addressing a pain point, or is this collaboration intended to potentially lead to business, you know, a customer supplier relationship, or is the aim of the corporate to buy rather than build some technology? This is three very different use cases of this startup corporate collaboration. And the thing, if not both sides are crystal clear on what's the aim at the very beginning and what the source of the commercial conditions of this working together, then the failure is more or less, very obvious to happen. And this is probably the biggest takeaway, on this, you know, two years, bringing together and collaboration between traditional industries and startup world, that I'd say I would take along.
Christine: (17:40)
There were probably a lot of success cases. And then also failure cases where maybe the misalignment wasn't there from the very beginning, I assume.
Marie-Helene: (17:48)
Again, I think this is not our core business. You know, our core business is to invest in successful industrial tech companies. We just feel that we can find and identify the real success cases much better with the help of the domain expertise of the existing players out there. And therefore for us as an investor, I'm a hundred percent sure we are much better suited to identify and find the right investment targets, the right startups that have to potential to become successful, as we have the luxury of this network of LPs and industry players, that help us on that way in the identification first product. But then also on the growth path, you know, how to gain customers for success cases. And then also revenue models.
Christine: (18:46)
As you said, it's like a joint project basically, it's like a collaboration. So, you rely on the other side to do their part as well. And with Speedinvest working side by side with the founders as well. How do you know whether or not you've been successful in working with them? Do you have any metrics or indicators where you measure your success?
Marie-Helene: (19:09)
So, of course it is always in the founder's discretion to decide, how much operational involvement from our side they really want to have. And also which areas is something that we would identify jointly. So, we would sit together, or we have a very close more or less weekly, you know, interaction with them. Just, you know, is it a meeting or a call, will we see what's going on in the company? What are the current challenges, and then out of these talks very quickly, you identify, is there something where we can help?
Marie-Helene: (19:45)
Can we help with network? Can we help with, you know, maybe co-founders out of 180 other startups that might have seen a similar problem and just bring them together. Is it maybe a workshop with some experts? We have a platform of forty experts coming from different disciplines. We have experts from communications. So, we have an agency, communication agency, that helps them positioning in branding, but also online marketing activities. We have a HR company that can help with experts that helps our startup in recruiting processes, in how do I set up the contracts for employees, stock option program.
Marie-Helene: (20:32)
We have legal experts that can can support. And I think most importantly, where we help is, where they also, you know, appreciate the support is giving them access for so-called business development, meaning bringing them together with relevant potential clients or customers that, they have the eagerness to collaborate with startups and to co-create and build a product or a service that is best addressing the pain point or the problem.
Do we have a measurement of success? I'd say, it's a joint journey and our success is their success. If we jointly manage to grow the business in the sense of clients, revenues, and of course also follow on fundraising rounds, that's the success and that's enough, I'd say of KPI that we can be sure.
Christine: (21:35)
But that's also something beautiful to kind of go on this journey together and say, okay, their success is our success as well, because you obviously worked together. I like that. Looking at the future of Speedinvest industry, is there anything you're looking forward to? What's next that you can already share with?
Marie-Helene: (21:55)
Well, I guess we, for sure gonna raise the next fund in a Speedinvest industry two, the model is such, and we are a young company.
I mean, speaking of its industries there only for two years, but so far the model, that of course we need those to tweak here and there and develop further, but the underlying assumption seems to be right and to prove, right. It is also that industrial tech has very long sales cycles. It's not the classic VC case, where you have very quick returns and very quick roll out globally. So, you need the different species of NPS, that have also some strategic interests and not just quick returns.
Marie-Helene: (22:40)
And this is also why, like the business, because we are building serious real businesses, our businesses are here to stay and I'm not here to just, you know, being sold out or making quick returns. The big vision is, as I said before, expand to be more European. At the moment we are very much focused on the DACH region. Also we have investments from the UK and so on, but we would like to, in the next fund to expand these definitely further and therefore to make the fund a bit bigger.
Christine: (23:17)
Cool. That sounds like exciting prospects. Marie-Helene, thank you so much for taking us along the journey of Speedinvest industry and for sharing some more insights and examples. It has been a really interesting chat with you. Thanks again.
Marie-Helene: (23:30)
Thanks for having me.
Christine: (23:34)
Thank you for listening to this episode of “Lost in Transformation” with our host Sebastian from MING Labs. If you enjoy our podcast, please subscribe to our channel and leave us a review on iTunes. Join us next time for another episode of our podcast.