The Impact of Machine Learning In European Venture Capital
Efficiency. Speed. Proactive outreach.
Two years ago Ben, John and I started InReach Ventures with a great idea, a strong will to work hard, and special support from our friend Riccardo Donadon and H-FARM. Today we have more friends supporting us and the idea is a reality. Our suspicions are being proven out by real-world evidence. Our biggest learning so far: we have a hell of a lot more to do.
Let’s start with some numbers. The chart below details what the team at InReach Ventures has achieved.
These numbers are important for three reasons:
Efficiency: Smart technology obviates the operational model of a traditional Venture Firm. So far InReach Ventures is benefiting from a 10x efficiency gain. It’s clear that we can do even better.
Speed: DIG (InReach’s proprietary tech platform) enables us to discover deals, across the whole of Europe, faster and earlier than would otherwise could.
Proactive outreach: InReach deal-flow is based on proactive hunting. We reach out to the entrepreneurs that our platform discovers. We needn’t wait for them to come to us.
After looking at companies all over Europe, in the last 18 months we invested in six companies (Soldo, Oberlo, Qriously, Kontena, Shapr3D and Aibl) in five different European countries (UK, Hungary, Finland, Lithuania and Sweden).
One more thing…Our portfolio company, Oberlo, has been acquired by Shopify!
More than 18 months ago, using a primitive version of today’s much enhanced DIG, we discovered what was (at the time) a largely unknown startup called Oberlo based out of Vilnius, Lithuania. Since then, with our help, the Oberlo founding team has grown from its small, Lithuanian, office to comprise a 40 person-strong team spanning from Vilnius to Berlin.