Stefan Roebel: Building Europe’s New Defense Tech Prime

Welcome back to the EUVC Podcast.Today Andreas is joined by Stefan Roebel, Co‑Founder & CEO of ARX Robotics — one of Europe’s fastest-rising defense tech startups.From his 12 years in the German Armed Forces to leadership roles at Amazon, eBay, and Grover, Stefan has lived both sides: the military front line and the global business battlefield. Now, he’s combining that experience to tackle one of the most pressing challenges of our time: Europe’s ability to defend itself in a new era of war.In this episode, Stefan shares ARX’s journey from DIY decoy robots to NATO-backed modular robotic systems already deployed in Ukraine. We dive deep into why Europe must break with its slow procurement culture, how startups can become the “new primes,” and what it really takes to build dual-use autonomy in a defense-first world.Here’s what’s covered:00:56 | From Afghanistan to Amazon to ARX Robotics: Stefan’s unlikely founder journey02:30 | The broomstick that became a digital decoy — ARX’s origin story06:34 | The first breakthrough: selling duct-taped prototypes that worked08:30 | ARX’s modular robotics suite explained (500kg payload, autonomy, retrofits)10:47 | Educating VCs: how defense tech went from “too weird” to oversubscribed13:55 | Picking investors: big names vs true believers with military insight16:53 | Real deployments in Ukraine: ammo supply & medevac in the kill zone19:49 | Why Ukraine’s lessons are shaping Europe’s defense future23:24 | The drone war changed everything: solving Europe’s “lack of mass”27:31 | Will ARX become a “new prime”? Why incumbents can’t move fast enough29:17 | Dual use beyond defense: disaster relief, critical infrastructure & NGOs32:36 | AI in defense robotics: solving missions, not chasing the holy grail35:21 | Hiring for defense: when military background matters (and when it doesn’t)40:57 | Why Stefan is hopeful for Europe’s defense tech ecosystem44:56 | Veterans, perception, and why “peace comes from strength”

This week on the EUVC Podcast, Andreas Munk Holm sits down with Matthew Wilson, co-founder of Jack & Jill, and Peter Specht, General Partner at Creandum. Fresh off a $20M seed to take their AI recruiting agents global, they dig into how conviction is built in Europe, from founding insight to investor belief, and what it now takes to scale an agent-native company with speed, precision, and craft.Jack helps candidates find and optimize their careers. Jill helps companies hire brilliantly. Together, the two agents form a high-signal, two-sided network that aims to become the world’s most networked AI-powered recruitment agency — without the classical incentive conflicts of human middlemen.Here’s what’s covered:02:35 | Why Creandum leaned in, conviction on voice-based interfaces and why recruiting is a massive, broken vertical for agent AI03:38 | The founding moment: leaving Omnipresent, 18 months in the wilderness, and the February insight that agents make talent marketplaces finally viable07:07 | Recruiting is broken (and AI made it worse): why first-principles thinking is needed to avoid “more noise, not more signal.”09:15 | Investor conviction: founder/market fit, why this moment is different, and the defensibility of a two-sided agentic marketplace12:22 | The user experience: the “coffee chat” with an AI recruiter: deep voice conversation → matching, prep, coaching, introductions16:30 | Solving the incentives trap: why Jack works 100% for candidates and Jill works 100% for companies (fixing agency conflicts)19:10 | Coaching as core: how AI unlocks career guidance, interview prep, and hands-on support that humans rarely get today22:47 | Building fast in the AI era: talent density, global expansion, and why a 20M seed makes sense for a dual-product marketplace26:35 | Two companies in one: scaling Jack (consumer) + Jill (B2B) simultaneously, across markets, with AI leverage34:02 | The GTM playbook: engineering-led marketing, AI-driven creative testing, instant value, and rethinking B2B buying entirely37:47 | The new AI go-to-market: speed, PLG dominance, virality-by-design, and why distribution now matters more than ever43:52 | Two GTM worlds: viral AI products vs. slow, enterprise-heavy AI deployments (and why both will coexist)47:15 | The “productization” of marketing — why engineering now powers growth, not headcount-heavy marketing orgs50:29 | Final advice (VC POV) — start with a unique insight, not a trend; think in 5–10 year arcs, not quick ARR bumps

Welcome back to another episode of Upside at the EUVC Podcast, where ⁠Dan Bowyer⁠,⁠ Mads Jensen⁠ of ⁠SuperSeed⁠ and ⁠Lomax Ward⁠ of ⁠Outsized Ventures⁠⁠⁠ gather for a holiday-home special to cut through the noise around Europe’s tech, geopolitics and AI shifts. What begins as an innocent debate about whether DeepMind is “still a UK company” quickly spirals into a tour of sovereign AI strategy, the SpaceX mega-raise, Europe’s increasingly uncomfortable place between China and the US, defence-spending reality checks and a surprisingly uplifting set of deep-tech deals across the continent.It is classic Upside: the takes are sharp, the geopolitics gets spiky, and the optimism… well, it arrives eventually.What’s covered:04:36 AI-for-Science, robotics and the new “AI scientist” era06:50 A national-curriculum Gemini and the vision of a tutor for every child09:39 The SpaceX 2026 IPO: what investors are actually buying14:00 Starship, orbital compute and the trillion-dollar imagination gap18:07 Why Europe missed the space race once again19:43 Portugal flips the script: “Economy of the Year”22:58 Europe between China’s export tsunami and America’s cold shoulder32:07 Defence budgets: the hype, the delay and the reality for startups34:25 AI Corner: bubble fears, Mistral’s comeback, Meta goes closed, China goes full-stackComms Strategy Expert SessionApply or share the opportunity with a founder or investor in your network: https://luma.com/euvc-comms-expert-session

If you’re in B2B SaaS, you probably feel it already: the old way of “just hire more SDRs and send more emails” is broken.Everyone has the same tooling. Everyone is running the same sequences. Everyone is “personalising at scale” with the same prompts. Yet pipeline quality is down, efficiency is under scrutiny, and suddenly… go-to-market (GTM) design has become a first-class strategic problem.Few people are better positioned to talk about this shift than Harrison Rose.Harrison co-founded Paddle, helped turn it into one of the UK’s fastest-growing software companies, and has now raised a $13M Series A (led by Notion Capital, with participation from Robin Capital, Inovia, Salicap, Common Magic, Andrena and more) to build GoodFit – an AI-driven GTM data platform.Here’s what’s covered:00:47 | What GoodFit actually does — mapping your entire market and scoring every account01:32 | Paddle origins → the first-principles GTM problem that later became GoodFit03:31 | From internal tool to standalone company — recognizing the “product inside Paddle”04:18 | Who buys GoodFit — why B2B tech is the first adopter (and why the market is much bigger)06:28 | Second-time founder advantage — credibility, networks, and selling before the product exists08:29 | Choosing investors — why Notion, avoiding echo chambers, and constructing a syndicate13:24 | Bootstrapping for four years — optionality, profitability curiosity, and knowing when VC is the right path18:34 | AI’s real impact on go-to-market — why most teams are just automating bad outreach22:25 | The GoodFit vision — deciding who to sell to, why, and how (and leaving execution to others)35:34 | Leaving Paddle — identity, founder evolution, and learning to lead differently the second time around46:40 | Giving back — why Harrison opens his inbox for “weird, gnarly, unsaid” founder questions

This week, Andreas Munk Holm talks with Sergey Jakimov, Co-founder and Managing Partner at LongeVC, a leading longevity-focused venture fund backing breakthroughs in biotech, AI-driven drug discovery, and the science of healthy aging.From pre-seed biotech spin-outs to multi-hundred-million-dollar exits with Big Pharma, LongeVC is building the category-defining fund at the frontier of life extension. In this episode, Sergey walks us through the team’s 3x+ MOIC track record, how LongeVC’s scientific advisory board unlocks proprietary deal flow, and why longevity and healthspan investing could be venture’s next trillion-dollar frontier.🎧 Here’s what’s covered01:15 – Who is Sergey Jakimov? From biotech entrepreneur to longevity investor03:00 – What is LongeVC: thesis, structure, and Fund II snapshot06:20 – The market for longevity & age-related disease: a $1.6 trillion opportunity09:30 – Track record: Fund I’s 3x+ MOIC, 0 write-offs, 20 portfolio companies12:40 – How LongeVC sources deals: scientific advisory board and AI-driven diligence15:15 – Ecosystem advantage: from nonprofits to physician networks18:00 – Case study 1 – Insilico Medicine, the $1.5 billion AI-drug-discovery unicorn20:15 – Case study 2 – Turn Biotechnologies and $300 million + HanAll partnership22:30 – Case study 3 – Rubedo Life Sciences and Beiersdorf’s dermatology deal25:00 – How pharma’s pipeline erosion fuels biotech M&A28:10 – Fund II: $120 million target, 20 % carry, 10-year term31:20 – LP privileges: access, co-investments, and semi-annual IC observation34:00 – Sergey’s vision: longevity as both moral and financial imperative

In this episode, Andreas Munk Holm sits down with Ole Lehmann to explore the rise of the solopreneur movement, what AI unlocks for solo founders, and how blockchain may finally have its moment as the infrastructure layer for AI. Ole also unpacks his new initiative, Built in Europe, and why he’s betting on a future where ambitious company builders thrive without moving to the U.S.Here’s what’s covered:00:52 Ole’s Journey: From Music Production to Crypto to AI Education03:57 Crypto Disillusionment & the Promise of Blockchain Infrastructure10:08 Inside the Solopreneur Mindset: Freedom, Curiosity & Leverage16:32 Content Market Fit > Product Market Fit: A New Way to Build21:18 Why Interest Graphs Beat Follower Counts in 202528:43 A New Class of Founders—and the Portfolio Play to Back Them39:10 How AI Tools Empower a One-Person Media Company43:31 Building in Europe: More Than a Narrative Play47:05 The Cultural and Regulatory Hurdles Still Holding Europe Back50:08 Why European Tech Founders Need to Enter the Political Arena

Andreas Munk Holm opens the episode by introducing Charles Dunn, Principal at SV Health Investors, and Ruth McKernan, CBE and Operating Partner at SV Health, former CEO of Innovate UK. SV Health is a transatlantic healthcare specialist with a focus on company creation and full-spectrum biotech investing. Notable wins include the exit of SV-created EyeBio to Merck & Co for up to $3bn including $1.3bn upfront, and the recent launch of SV’s newest company creation Driag Therapeutics, a UK-based neuropsychiatry company, which recently announced its $140m Series A financing.SV Health’s approach blends early-stage company creation with later-stage venture investment. Charles emphasizes that this structure allows:Diversified risk for LPs: Early-stage opportunities carry higher risk but higher upside; later-stage investments provide more stability.Learning across stages: Experience in late-stage investing informs early-stage decision-making, and vice versa.Flexible company formation: SV Health creates companies across different development stages, sometimes even after Phase 1 data exists, as with Draig Therapeutics.

Welcome back to another episode of Upside at the EUVC Podcast, where ⁠Dan Bowyer⁠,⁠ Mads Jensen⁠ of ⁠SuperSeed⁠, ⁠Lomax Ward⁠ of ⁠Outsized Ventures⁠⁠⁠, and Andrew Scott of 7percent Ventures to break down the real stories behind the headlines shaping European tech and venture.From Bending Spoons’ audacious European rollup strategy, to Brexit’s economic hangover, to the existential challenges facing Volkswagen, to Google vs. OpenAI’s new “Code Red”, and finally whether Europe has had its long-overdue shock moment — this episode goes wide, fast, and deep.This is Upside, where the takes are sharp, the macro is messy, and the optimism is… conditional.What’s covered:02:00 The valuation reset, debt-fuelled M&A, and the Italian PE–VC hybrid model04:00 Arbitrage: firing US teams, rehiring elite Italian engineers06:00 Do rollups really work? Tech debt, distribution, and execution risk07:00 Brexit revisited: GDP losses, trade collapse, and political reality08:00 The myth of “you can’t know the counterfactual” — and why you actually can10:00 Will the UK rejoin the customs union? And would Europe even take us back?12:00 Europe’s manufacturing crisis: Porsche, Volkswagen, BYD and the end of German exceptionalism15:00 China’s shift: stop importing, start replicating17:00 Welfare-state complacency and the European stagnation problem20:00 The bitter truth about Europe’s carbon “success story”22:00 How to actually fix European tech: R&D, immigration, procurement, capital markets24:00 Why 0.02% pension allocation to VC is Europe’s biggest structural handicap26:00 Should we “Farage-pill” Europe into a tech-first agenda?33:00 Distribution vs. loyalty: why consumers don’t care about brand36:00 Who wins the cost base war: Google, Amazon, Meta, or OpenAI?38:00 Anthropic’s IPO plans and what they signal about the private capital cycle42:00 Deals of the Week: Black Forest Labs, ICEYE, Expedition Growth Capital44:00 Robotics is the next AI wave — and the picks-and-shovels startups emerging now

This week on the EUVC Podcast, Andreas Munk Holm sits down with Mikael Johnsson, Co-founder & General Partner at Oxx, one of Europe’s leading specialist B2B software investors.Mikael has a very clear-eyed view on the current AI wave: he’s seeing valuation discipline slip, fundamentals being stretched, and a real risk that the market mistakes pilot-driven excitement for lasting enterprise value.In this episode, they explore how to distinguish hype from substance, what “real” AI adoption looks like within a business process, and how both founders and investors can remain level-headed when everyone else is losing theirs.

Welcome back to another episode of the EUVC Podcast. Today, we’re thrilled to feature Leyla Holterud, partner at Vintage Investment Partners. Many know Leyla from her years at StepStone, where she led venture growth across EMEA. Now, at Vintage, she’s helping deploy $4.3 billion from their global platform to double down on Europe, anchored by the firm’s new London office. With a strategy spanning fund-of-funds, growth, and secondaries, Leyla offers a rare vantage point on the European VC landscape.