More founder firepower: welcome to Alexis Bonte and Harry Stebbings

We’re really proud of our founder DNA. Our experience means we have huge respect for the founders we work with and we’re able to provide the best operational advice as they scale. It’s also important because we recognise the qualities it takes to succeed — we’ve been there and done it so we know what to look for.

We’ve worked hard over the last decade to build the strongest team in Europe but we’re always on the lookout for fresh, new talent and we love working with people who live and breathe European tech. That’s why we’re excited to welcome Alexis Bonte and Harry Stebbings to our team.

Alexis Bonte will join us as an Executive-in-Residence, sharing his experience as a serial entrepreneur and operator with our portfolio. Alexis is co-founder and CEO of eRepublik Labs, a dynamic games studio based in Madrid, Bucharest and Dublin. Prior to this, Alexis worked in the founding team at lastminute.com, right up until it was acquired by Sabre in 2005 for $1.1bn. He’s also an angel investor and will be helping us to source the best companies in Spain, Portugal and France, which according to our State of European Tech report is challenging the primacy of London and Berlin in terms of VC capital invested and deal volume. Alexis was born in Paris, and we can’t wait to tap into his local knowledge to work with the most exciting young companies.

We’re also proud to introduce Harry Stebbings as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence on the Investment Team. Harry founded The Twenty Minute VC podcast when he was 17. Three years later he has over 100,000 listeners, partnerships with Mattermark and ProductHunt, and a network of guests from over 200 VCs globally. In addition to this, Harry has made a number of angel investments utilising the network he’s developed via The Twenty Minute VC. Harry’s entrepreneurial flair and millennial instincts means he’s in sync with a new generation of founders and consumers which will be an invaluable asset to our team.

We’ve been founder centric from the start but 2016 has been a game-changer. We’ve doubled our bench of founders and operators who can find and partner with the best entrepreneurs — we’re excited to start working with them.