🎧 Episode and guest overview
In this episode of Leaders in Cleantech, David Hunt is joined by Danijel Visevic, Managing Partner of World Fund, Europe’s largest climate tech VC. Danijel shares his personal and professional journey — from journalism and politics to launching a €300M venture fund dedicated to decarbonisation. They explore the challenges of scaling deep tech and hardware-centric startups, the urgent funding gaps at Series B, and how Europe risks losing its most promising IP to the US or China. With thoughtful insights on talent, climate urgency, and the real impact of aligned capital, this is a must-listen for founders, investors, and anyone passionate about climate innovation.
About Danijel Višević:
Danijel Višević is a General Partner at World Fund. He is a recognised climate tech thought leader, policy professional and journalist by vocation. Before co-founding World Fund, he was Director of Communications at Project A Ventures, co-founder of Zetra Project and Krautreporter. Danijel was also co-responsible for the audio-visual appearance of Angela Merkel for nearly half a decade.
About World Fund:
World Fund is a leading European venture capital fund investing in climate tech companies with significant decarbonisation potential. Their portfolio spans key sectors, such as energy, industry, built environment, transportation, food, agriculture, and biotech. World Fund has backed prominent companies such as cylib, Vaeridion, Planet A Foods, IQM and Space Forge. The firm manages a €300m fund and focuses on bridging the financing gap in the early growth stage.
Social links:
- Danijel Viševićon LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/visevic/
- World Fund on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/worldfund/
- World Fund website: https://www.worldfund.vc/
⏱️ Chapter Notes / Markers
00:00 – Introduction & First Meeting
David and Danijel recall their first meeting and set the stage for the conversation.
01:00 – Danijel’s Mission & the Origins of World Fund
How purpose, politics, and journalism led to founding Europe’s largest climate tech VC.
04:00 – Investment Thesis: Deep Tech for Deep Decarbonisation
World Fund’s criteria: 100Mt CO₂e/year mitigation potential, across verticals.
06:00 – Hardware vs Software & Deep Tech Talent
Why World Fund leans heavily into hardware and deep scientific talent.
09:00 – The Series B Funding Gap in Europe
Danijel explains why scaling remains Europe’s biggest cleantech bottleneck.
12:00 – Policy, Regulation & Risk Aversion
Why EU regulation and risk frameworks (e.g., Solvency II) hinder growth.
17:00 – US vs Europe: A Tale of Two Capital Ecosystems
A data-driven comparison of funding scale and fund maturity between regions.
20:00 – Scaling Challenges Beyond Capital
Permitting, regulation, offtakers, and IP protection—all barriers to scale.
23:00 – Communications, Lobbying, and Public Awareness
Why cleantech still loses the narrative battle to incumbents.
32:00 – What World Fund Looks for in Founders
Team, mission alignment, honesty, resilience—and healthy boundaries.
35:00 – Investing in People: Talent as a Core Value
Danijel underscores the irreplaceable value of great leadership hires.
37:00 – Final Reflections
The importance of role modelling and supporting the next generation of climate leaders.
About Hyperion Executive Search:
Hyperion are a specialist executive search firm working with some of the most innovative cleantech companies in the world, helping to find extraordinary talent to enable their growth and success. Partnering with leading cleantech VCs, as well as directly with founders and entrepreneurs in the sector. With our clients we are transforming business and growing a strong and prosperous cleantech economy.
If you want to grow your team, or move forward your career, visit www.hyperionsearch.com, or email info@hyperionsearch.com
Follow us online, write a review (please) or subscribe
I’m very keen to hear feedback on the podcast and my guests, and to hear your suggestions for future guests or topics. Contact via the website, or Twitter. If you do enjoy the podcast, please write a review on iTunes, or your usual podcast platform, and tell your cleantech friends about us. That would be much appreciated.
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-hunt-cleantech/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/DavidHsearch
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davidhuntcleantech/
David Hunt (00:01)
Hello welcome back to the Leeds and CleanSet podcast where I’m delighted to be joined today’s episode with Daniel Visevich. Daniel, great to have you with us.
Danijel Visevic (00:09)
Hey, good to be with you.
David Hunt (00:11)
Good. I was trying to think before we set off the last time or the time that we met was I think was a rock star event in Copenhagen if you recall. Must be two or three years ago now.
Danijel Visevic (00:22)
Yeah, I think it’s three years, yeah.
David Hunt (00:23)
Time flies.
So let’s start with a little bit of an introduction because your background is quite interesting in itself and of course very much at the forefront of what’s going on as managing partner with World Fund. So tell me a little bit about firstly about the fund, how that came about and then obviously your involvement in that early stage because you’d obviously been involved in VCs before with Plan A and obviously have a communications background which I think is quite interesting and something we’ll touch on for sure. But perhaps just tell us a little bit of the genesis of
of World Fund and your involvement with it.
Danijel Visevic (00:55)
with pleasure. So my motivation very much was to be able to combine ⁓ the purpose and what is really fulfilling me and that’s mainly to serve humankind and to tackle the climate crisis really ⁓ deep deep in me. is
the purpose of my call to combine it with something financially sustainable. And I was searching for that solution already for more than two decades. So I’m an economist and I met one of my co-founders Tim Schumacher already nearly 30 years ago. That’s the case. So maybe it’s even three decades nearly. I’m 47 and he was already a serial entrepreneur and as I am very much
driven
by the climate crisis already then. And yeah, I started to work as a journalist ⁓ to ⁓ report and write about those founders about the climate crisis, venture capital startups, so I was very much inspired also by those people who have ideas and build stuff. And of course I was inspired most by those people who build stuff to tackle or to help solve the biggest challenge of humankind, which is the climate crisis.
However, I was first writing, trying to change the world with writing. I think that worked to a certain degree, entered politics while I was journalist, also had five years working for Angela Merkel, who has a big green heart. And still the politics she and the German government did between 2012 and 17, exactly the time I worked for the German government. It was a time where I had to observe how we destroyed the
David Hunt (02:31)
Mm-hmm.
Danijel Visevic (02:39)
German solar industry, how we nearly destroyed the German wind industry and how the German car manufacturers who’ve been leading in EVs, electric vehicles, still wanted to protect their businesses with the combustion engine. Long story short, ⁓ venture capital was the solution, which I wouldn’t have thought like five or 10 years ago. ⁓ But I’ve seen already, ⁓ yeah, I started to work for Project A Ventures.
in 2017. But already earlier, we have recognized a huge investment gap that we have in Europe, especially when it comes to climate founders. So founders who built climate tech. we knew we need to build a big fund, Tim and I and Darya. Very fast, we’ve been able to build a fantastic team. And now looking back, it looks like it went fast. But when you are really in it, two and a half years of fundraising, the largest first time fund ever raised in
Europe, 300 million euros, that was quite tough. But here we are, ⁓ soon to raise our second fund.
David Hunt (03:49)
Yeah, it’s flown by and again, some great investments from that first fund, which we can perhaps talk on in terms of some of the places that you’ve already invested. We’ll dive into that a little bit, maybe just again for those who may be eager to see if they can be enjoying that portfolio. What is the investment thesis at WellFund in terms of what sort of ticket size, what are the particular types of climate technology? If you have a particular focus area, what’s the sort of your sweet spot from an investment point of view?
Danijel Visevic (04:17)
Yes, so deconvenation potential is very essential for us as we believe that in a world of deconvenation startups developing such technologies will be among the most valuable companies of the next decade.
So we have Morgan Scheele as our head of impact. ⁓ She moved over from New York to Berlin, joined our team a bit more than a year ago. And with the head of impact that we had before, ⁓ she already developed that methodology to really quantify decommunization potential. For us, the threshold is 100 megatons per year of CO2 emissions or equivalents, which is quite large, but it’s about the technology. So the technology has to have that potential.
⁓ And ⁓ so this could be like our sweet spot, but sweet spots sound so small and climate is not small, it’s not a vertical, it’s a horizontal. So this four, this includes energy, food, agriculture, construction, ⁓ industry of course a lot, but it also includes for example quantum computing.
It includes space technologies. even includes computing, like optimization and increasing, significantly increasing the efficiency of computing as computing power is more and more needed in times of AI. So it’s not that we are able to kind of… ⁓
curb this development and we also don’t want to but we want to help to have it decarbonized and so this for it’s let it be a huge sweet spot.
David Hunt (05:58)
Yeah, that’s good. to have as you say, I always have this because we live in a bit of a cleantech bubble and we just hired actually another person into our office. And again, trying to explain the cleantech in itself is a pretty broad umbrella of technologies and solutions which are driving the decarbonization effort as you say. in terms of, I guess, is there a preference towards software, which we know, of course, makes a fundamental difference, but equally
Danijel Visevic (06:09)
Yeah.
David Hunt (06:25)
we need hardware to sit this software on. Do you have in your portfolio a particular punch on for both or either?
Danijel Visevic (06:34)
Yes, so we have both. is the one who is really an expert in software companies. He has built some and he’s also the founder of the SaaS group. So he knows how software businesses work. Then we also have Darya Saharovar, who is a deep tech expert and who invests into deep technologies for 15 years, has a huge network here and has done many deals here. Craig Douglas, another partner and co-founder of ours, who’s a physicist and chemist.
most part of our team consists of ⁓ investors with scientific background like our principal Dr. Magrinde Knecht who is an engineer or Dr. Nadine Geiser, she’s a biochemist. So it’s mainly deep technologies or how even Tim who is our software guy would put it, it’s mainly atoms ⁓ that will help us to decarbonize and less bits but we do both right but most capital
goes into deep technologies like PsyLib is one example. Battery recycling, it’s about recycling lithium, graphite, etc. to accelerate the electrification of transportation. have, I mentioned before, quantum computing. IQM quantum computers is leading European quantum computer producer.
⁓ So SpaceForge, I mentioned SpaceTek, so they are producing ⁓ semiconductors in space or optimizing them so that they ⁓ use their UK base, so they use less energy and are significantly more efficient. So it’s mainly hardware, to be fair, let’s mention one software company, it’s Farcato, AI-driven ⁓ market. If you want to buy something online, you can install a plugin and it tells you
David Hunt (08:04)
Right. ⁓
Danijel Visevic (08:25)
where you can buy the same thing not new but used for cheaper price.
David Hunt (08:32)
Okay. It’s a broad range. Again, that’s something I enjoyed from looking at the portfolio, many of which I do know, of course, but that does have ⁓ depth. So how does that impact, I guess, a little bit on deal flow and how do you… I know we don’t compete because obviously a lot of investments we know very well, VCs are collaborating and sharing in the cap table. But of course, everybody’s looking for deal flow and for the next good opportunity.
Danijel Visevic (08:57)
course.
David Hunt (08:59)
How, and again, there’s a lot of money out there, right? I think a lot of people saw that in 2024, when things slowed down and there was a lot of talk from founders that nobody’s spending any money. Um, and obviously to a degree, the stats backed it up a little, but we do know that yourself and many other funds have raised or are raising significant chunks of money. So it can be quite competitive. So how does world fund, I guess, stand out to attract the best founders, the best innovators, the best ideas.
in this kind of competitive landscape.
Danijel Visevic (09:30)
Yes, ⁓ when you say it’s competitive, that’s true for pre-seed stage, that’s true for the seed stage and that might be true for the series A stage. In Europe, it’s not competitive when it comes to series B. That’s our major problem. And that’s the investment gap that we want to help to bridge ⁓ because usually this series B is the round that helps the company to become EBITDA positive. ⁓
David Hunt (09:57)
That’s good. Yeah.
Danijel Visevic (09:58)
But it’s a realm that is…
50, 100 million large or larger, especially when it’s about deep tech and building not only the first of a kind, but maybe the next of a kind. it’s, And so, it’s competitive in those early deals, but we see in Series B quite often ⁓ less risk, ⁓ further developed technology, but of course more capital need. And this is like the sweet spot where we ⁓ also, especially with the second fund,
want to be even more present with the 300 million. We are already significantly larger than most climate funds, but to be honest, it’s still not enough to really have a series B focus. So how we win deals is usually that when we enter at series A, ⁓ usually if that company develops well, they have with us already co-lead for the series B.
But of course, we also have the team that can help you with ⁓ what many VCs say they can, but we really can. ⁓ Those deep connections into industry, into potential customers. So our LP base, so our investors into our fund are from German Mittelstand, are from German industry, European industry. And so ⁓ those are founding investors, our founding investors, and we call them our LP powerhouse.
David Hunt (11:21)
Mm-hmm.
Danijel Visevic (11:22)
helping a lot with finding the right talent, ⁓ the right, ⁓ for example, also spot where you build a factory ⁓ with their industry connections. So this is really another superpower. I could mention even more, but I don’t want to make that like too advertising.
David Hunt (11:36)
Right. Yeah. Do you still see that a little? Think about the
stage thing, Daniel, because again, you touched on it there. we know, the very early stages weren’t quite so impacted. Seed, pre-seed, and perhaps smaller A rounds, not quite so impacted. And again, last year in particular, there were some mega rounds, primarily from debt rather than equity. But there is that space still.
I think maybe more so in Europe than in the US where the growth stage essentially is still a lack. Do you see that improving or do you see anything in the sort of, again, there’s a lot of talk of US money coming here now instead of because of the challenges in the US. How do you see that as a solution to get this real growth capital? Like you say, the BCD rounds where there’s real growth.
Danijel Visevic (12:18)
Yes.
Is it improving? I would say yes, but far too slow. And of course, partially it is just because it’s a healthy growth of funds. Also, we with our next fund, we’ve been also asked if we could really raise…
a very very large fund where we wouldn’t feel comfortable with so we will increase the size significantly already from the 300 million but you also need to grow in a healthy way and you because the the number one duty you have is that you return at least threefold this is our goal of the capital ULPs have invested into your fund right and if you let’s say raise as a second fund to build
you would have to return three billion and this is this wouldn’t be something we feel very comfortable with. ⁓ However the need is there, the need is so much there and to be honest as I said
before, ⁓ yes it’s improving but very very slow and the gap is just huge and we can’t wait for another 10 years. We have too many opportunities in CSB that we can’t make because we have a too small fund and those companies then either go bankrupt or they move to the US or which also happens very very often they go to China or
go in solvent and then the IP is sold to China, especially in the clean tech space. We have fantastic, amazing research in Europe, including the UK. And it’s really still saddening me because those cases only learned yesterday from another case where we were just not able to invest out of opportunity costs. Yes, they went in solvent and sold their IP to China. Yeah.
David Hunt (14:18)
Right.
Yeah. It is a challenge. mean, again, there’s been, but it’s been talked about a lot in the last year or so, particularly it’s the Draghi report. And again, I’ve been blessed to be involved with CleanTech for Europe and I guess, know, Jules and the guy there and the team there. But this thing of the scale up challenge has been, you know, highlighted quite heavily in the last year or so because of APE, because of those reports, because also again, of some of the dynamics around the energy crisis and energy security playing
Danijel Visevic (14:30)
Yes.
David Hunt (14:46)
I guess to the advantage of clean tech. ⁓ But again, it still seems to be there’s this gap and wonder if you have any either political, regulatory or financial ideas on what you might like to see happen to solve that problem.
Danijel Visevic (14:58)
Yes.
Yes, it’s a set of wishes. Let’s put it that way. ⁓ One problem is the solvency 2 regulation, which ⁓ demands
that ⁓ insurance companies ⁓ set a lot of capital aside if they want to invest into venture capital, even if an insurance company invests ⁓ or a pension fund, it’s also concerns pension funds, if they want to invest let’s say a billion into 20 different venture capital funds, with that they invest in basically 500 companies, right?
And still, is, and it’s, it’s huge, largely diversified. Still, this is, this is like a super risky investment and they need to reserve between 30 and 40 % of capital, which they, they just need to reserve for, for followed risks.
If you compare that with Greek bonds, for example, the amount would be 20 million that they need to reserve if they want to invest a billion into Greek bonds. And I think the risk is not higher if you invest into 20 funds, funds that invest into 500 companies. So this is one thing. And I know that the German government is working on it to get that solved, but it needs to happen also on EU level. Another thing is
that size of funds, right? So we need not only insurance companies and pension funds to invest into our funds. We also need the family offices, the high net worth individuals. In Europe, 70 % I think of the VC investments and it’s mainly the European investment fund come from public, it’s public capital.
⁓ compared to less than 30 in the US. So in the US you have many more, much more institutional investors and pension funds especially who invest into it. And it’s really another number that I can mention ⁓ when it comes to the size of the funds. In the US, we just did the research. In the US we have 729 funds that have more than 500 million US dollars assets in the management. And in Europe we have 44.
David Hunt (16:54)
Okay.
Danijel Visevic (17:23)
So it’s, no, it’s 44 with more than 100, sorry, more than 100. It’s 44. And in Europe, we have five that have more than 500. And in the US, it’s 729 that have more than 100.
and it’s 40 something that have more than 500 million. So it’s just like European founders. ⁓ It’s even more. So we have, ⁓ let me throw a few more numbers on you. Only in the climate space, we have 30,000 startups and scale-ups in the climate space, startups and scale-ups, European 30,000. It’s numbers from PriceBot, Voscooper.
and 14,300 or less than half in the US. And they have to compete for far less capital than those. ⁓
few kind of US. So to conclude that statement, and you see I get a bit emotional maybe here because I just see the gap and I see the opportunity for Europe and it’s driving me crazy that we invest billions into research and then let those IPs be bought by other continents. ⁓ We still need the US investors. So thanks for coming here and helping us to…
filled that series B rounds, but of course they demand the companies to move over to the US. But I mean it’s better than insolvency.
David Hunt (18:44)
Yeah, it’s a challenge. And to echo that point, know about a year or so ago, we worked with a US private equity fund whose third fund itself, this is one company, their fund was $1.5 billion for one PE firm. And they were dropping 100 million tickets on companies, ⁓ which is just a different entire scale, as you say, from what we’re able to achieve here.
But let’s hope, as you say, that perhaps some of the challenges in the US will come here. But it’s the case of keeping the IP, as you say, and keeping the talents here also in Europe, which I think can be a challenge. We’re fortunate, obviously, in what we do with Hyperion, we’re often moving people to Europe from other parts of the world, which is clearly a testament to the technology and innovation which is happening here, which is exceptional.
Danijel Visevic (19:29)
Yes. Yes.
David Hunt (19:33)
But like she says, the challenge still is to scale those companies. let’s follow on on that and just perhaps talking broadly about the challenges of scaling a clean tech company. Of course, the finances are one element, which are incredibly important. What else do you see some of the challenges that your portfolio companies or other companies you’re aware of in this moving beyond the sort of, I guess, the proof of concept and getting traction and then to really scale the business? What are some of the challenges that you’re seeing?
from a European perspective for some of your portfolio.
Danijel Visevic (20:05)
⁓ Yes, you of course need off takers of your products, right? ⁓
Let me just to be more specific ⁓ or so that it’s easier to understand let me stick with Xylip one company that we have invested in so they are recycling batteries they have world-leading tech so we compared and this spin-off of the Technik University of Aachen has the ⁓ most promising technology and they already have they’re achieving ⁓ very very high purity and can recycle every part of of an EV battery or whatever battery and recycle
to the lithium graphite, manganese, cobalt, et cetera, to really highest purity. So what they are struggling with, or I mean, it’s a really exceptionally well developing company, but they have got to comply with so many regulations. it’s about environmental protection. ⁓ I mean, it’s a company, but still. ⁓
they really have to fill out hundreds of pages of and do tests so that their facility where they’re building it is complying with very high standards and very complicated regulations to environmental standards. So it’s absurd, right? So that basically something, some relation that wants to help the environment is really hindering a climate tech company.
or could hinder. Second is ⁓ the off-takers. ⁓ So if we don’t have battery manufacturers in Europe, ⁓ of course the off-takers will be in China for sale, etc. So we also need to ⁓ have the off-takers and of course now I have the example of sale but also the state, ⁓ the German state, Europe and other European states could be off-takers. ⁓
But incumbents are very powerful in lobbying. also something I observed very closely while working for governments. ⁓ And unfortunately, usually ⁓ those off-tech agreements go to incumbents ⁓ and it’s not helping those new technologies. So, ⁓ yeah. And the exit market, of course, would help us very much. So in Europe, of course, this is…
David Hunt (22:08)
Mm-hmm.
Danijel Visevic (22:35)
I have no problem with IPO-ing a company at the NASDAQ in the US, but it would be fantastic if we would have more exit channels in Europe. then it would be also easier to attract investors.
David Hunt (22:49)
Yeah, Yeah, there’s certainly a number of challenges. Looking at your experience, Daniel, as you say, from a sort of government policy, from a commerce and PR perspective, that’s something that strikes me sometimes is whether how good we are at telling our message. I guess on two fronts, one on the political side, because there are some very, very well oiled machines, oiled is probably a good term, from established incumbent technologies, from the oil and gas, from the traditional automotive sectors you have.
Danijel Visevic (23:17)
Yes.
David Hunt (23:18)
very strong lobbying to lobby in the favor of course. So that’s probably an element. But what I’ve also found a little bit surprising and maybe it’s not so surprising, we live in a bit of a cleantech bubble. We come to the same events, we talk to each other, we understand what’s going on. We see there’s trillions of dollars investment. But I was asked to speak recently at a non cleantech event, which was just a transport and logistics event. And the number of people there that had no idea.
Danijel Visevic (23:23)
Yeah.
David Hunt (23:45)
of the evolution of what’s happening in electrification of transport, not just vehicles and trucks, everything else. So I stepped out of the bubble and there’s a world of people who are in business, have seriously, they might see an EV on people’s drive more often than they did before, but they have no idea of what’s going on broadly in the electrification of transport and batteries and all this kind of stuff. So do we have both a challenge from a policy and lobbying perspective, but also from a
reaching the general public to get them to understand this technology, of course, has an environmental impact, but typically is cleaner, more efficient, better, cheaper, all these kinds of things. We all understand this in this bubble, but it seems that outside of it, there’s still a big gap between people’s understanding. And maybe we’d move further along if governments were pressured both from a positive lobbying and also from the population being more savvy in terms of the benefits of this transition.
Danijel Visevic (24:38)
you’re pointing towards very important issues and topics and problems and challenges we have as ⁓ climate tech investors and founders. yes, we are not as good as we should be in communicating the benefits of our technologies. We are not. ⁓ But it’s not only us ourselves to blame, right? ⁓ We must ⁓ admit that there’s ⁓
like the gas industry that has a huge interest ⁓ that they can sell and burn their gas as long as possible. And of course they favor hydrogen, which is a fantastic solution, but the feasibility and really until it really hits the market, it will take a decade or two and it’s super expensive. But they have been very successful. And so we have hydrogen strategies and billions being poured into this fantastic space.
I don’t want to, but those billions could decarbonize much faster if we would electrify one example. I know that the gas lobby is very fortunate for them. They can show their green ambitions and still ⁓ delay the transition that we really need to happen. ⁓
And we, course, as the climate investors and also founders and companies, we should communicate the benefits much better. What I don’t like is when we really always talk about the greener and about climate. Unfortunately, it’s not tangible. Unfortunately not. So not everyone has or went through like weeks that I did. And most those who are in climate, when you really understand
what a wave of, I don’t know, sorry for that expression, what a wave of shit is really coming towards us with the climate crisis. It’s huge. Everything else is just a joke. ⁓ And it will hit not the planet, it will hit life on earth. And it has started. And we are those who are the reason for it with our emissions. It’s simple physics.
and we can avoid it, we can change and we don’t do it at the speed we should.
And yes, so unfortunately this is not something we should communicate as well, but the benefits as well we should communicate. mean, of course, everyone wants to breathe clean air. ⁓ If you have driven once in an EV, you don’t want to switch back to a combustion engine, or maybe those who like loud motors will still want to have that room, but feel free and have fun. But most would stick to cheaper, cleaner EVs that are just faster,
and easier to drive and more fun. ⁓ Same with all the alternative foods. I mean, it’s super tasty, it’s healthier. ⁓ And still, I must say, I don’t really understand why we’re not getting it into the markets. It’s the… Or not enough. It’s of course scale, it needs to be cheaper. ⁓ And unfortunately, we have that strong meat lobby that is getting billions every year in Europe, all the agricultural companies. ⁓
Yeah, and it’s those hundreds of millions of animals of billions that are killed every year. I mean, that’s another drama. But this alternative meat would be already much cheaper if that animal meat wouldn’t be subsidized. So, you see, that’s…
Maybe even we need better lobby, need better connection to the governments and we just need to do it better than the incumbents, but it’s really hard to replace established relationships, I observe that with my own eyes, and get into that ⁓ lobby play, so to say, as a new player.
David Hunt (28:34)
Yeah, that
Yeah, that’s why I thinking a little bit about the broader public because I guess you said the lobbying, the existing lobbies are well entrenched. They’ve been doing a long time. They have the playbooks from tobacco and all the rest of it. They know what they’re doing. They’re very well oiled. They have lots of money. so that can be hard to compete against. But then politicians are voted by people. And I think your analogy on EV is exactly right. I I’ve been driving car with a plug now for whatever, six, seven, eight years. Most people I know who’ve gone
Danijel Visevic (28:53)
Yeah.
David Hunt (29:08)
that direction are doing so because it’s actually faster, cleaner, no pollution, like air pollution rather than no climate pollution. Because the reality sadly is this big wave of shit issues that’s coming our direction. It’s hard for humans to comprehend that. And I think a lot of people are just like, well, we know it’s coming, but what can we do? And, I like my meter, I like my room or whatever.
Danijel Visevic (29:14)
Mm.
David Hunt (29:31)
Yeah, so I think there’s we need to do a lot more work. It frustrates me sometimes because it’s fun to go to a conference, we talk to each other and we get excited about what we’re doing. But and we’re doing good things as a collective as an ecosystem. But yeah, it just frustrates me sometimes you go into the real world outside of the bubble and people like, I don’t really care. I don’t understand or Yeah, but that’s, that’s not now kind of stuff. And ⁓
Yeah, sadly, we’re seeing more of the effects of climate change happening more rapidly, which is a bad thing, but maybe a good thing in a sense. It kicks people into some action. anyway, I just thought with your comms background and your communications background, you had some insights into how we can change behaviors and people’s concept on a consumer level, which I think drives a lot of change ultimately.
Danijel Visevic (30:05)
you
Yes, two ways maybe ⁓ to do it. ⁓ The one is maybe the negative way to really explain how bad those oil, gas, ⁓ meat is to you and your body and to your family. The second is of course those positive aspects ⁓ of the clean…
green technologies, we need to make it tangible. Usually it’s really, they need to have a teaser kind of, and then they understand, okay, that they will want to go back. And children, if they have children, that’s definitely something that works very, very good. We hear it so often from our investors when we ask them why, I mean, they did before that nothing with climate, but then they suddenly invest a huge amount into
fund and they say it’s because of my children. I know that it’s getting worse and I want them to live in the world and I also want to justify myself and tell them in five, ten years that I’ve done something against the climate crisis. But still, you see, I can totally understand your question. I would like to have that golden bullet. It’s definitely wrong to blame people. They then close. So if someone loves meat…
enjoy. If someone loves flying, I travel also a lot and I love traveling. I mean it’s nothing bad to travel. I wish and we also did one investment into Viridian. They’re producing electric planes and want to electrify and decarbonize aviation. So we should travel. It’s a fantastic thing. Don’t be, don’t give people a bad feeling that’s…
I mean, you will automatically if you talk about things like that. just, yeah, be maybe a role model and be, I’m vegetarian. I avoid flying as often as possible. I write about when I’m taking the train. I love really to travel by train. can work much better, et cetera. I talk about that also. Just be a role model. And I think this is already a lot.
David Hunt (32:25)
Yeah, obviously.
Yeah, to do what you can. Let’s jump back to business. To your view on leadership teams and founding teams. What do you look for in your investments from that perspective, from the talent, from the leadership, from the people in businesses? What do you look for as part of the investment decision and how do you support your founders post investment to beef up that
capability of leadership.
Danijel Visevic (33:08)
It’s not even ⁓ too much different than compared to other VCs. Usually it’s team, even in series B, even if it’s later stage, ⁓ the founders are really an essential, the essential part of company. Of course it’s the tech, but the founder and his or her team are essential.
Of course, we’re super happy ⁓ if the founder understands that the climate crisis is something they are tackling with their technology and it gives them, of course, meaningfulness, and it also motivates ⁓ the team when they know that they are working for a company that is really on a very important mission.
Still, I also tell those founders, ⁓ if you burn for something, take care not to burn out. ⁓ I also have experienced that, you know, it’s so important what we do, but don’t take yourself too important. You’re doing already a great thing, ⁓ and those people usually put themselves under huge pressure and then…
You know, it’s really to see the founders when your investor is telling you to stay healthy, it means a lot to them because usually investors increase the pressure, especially when things are not going well. But often things don’t go well because people are close to burnout. So let me say we look, of course, a huge market. We look for leading tech. We compare, we do a lot of…
David Hunt (34:24)
Yeah.
Danijel Visevic (34:47)
competitor analysis and want to bet on the best team. And the most important is really this honest relationship that you have to your investor. I want to be the first to know about problems that could pop up because I can help you. I can support you. Be honest, as we are with our LPs as well. We also have an insolvency in our portfolio and we communicated that far before it happened, months before that it could happen. And the LPs really appreciate that very much and the same as
what I ask of my founders. So be open about the problems and also please try to support and help and so do we. And then after ⁓ investment we try to support as much as possible as I mentioned before with our ⁓ contacts to the industry. We also support when it comes to ⁓
ESG is still important. It’s risk mitigation. We do it as easy as possible for our founders, but we help them to mitigate those risks. We help them to find talent. ⁓ We are there when they have problems. That’s very meaningful. And last but not least, I mean, we have a huge network of Series B plus investors, co-investors. We help them to find the best investors in Europe or in the US.
David Hunt (35:59)
There’s a leading question considering that I’m the founder of a search firm, do you think that there’s a sufficient investment in talent? It doesn’t have to be recruitment fees, of course. There are lots of aspects of costs when you’re hiring and growing, but do you see that there’s sufficient recognition of the importance of that investment in VCs and in the community generally?
Danijel Visevic (36:23)
to find the right talent.
I mean, it can’t be overstated, right? As I said before, team is not everything, but it’s the most important part of every team and company.
David Hunt (36:31)
I think so, but yeah.
Danijel Visevic (36:46)
So it definitely, yeah, I guess it’s underestimated. So it’s something where we put a lot of focus and we also involve our 150 plus LPs, those high net worth, ultra high net worth individuals who have built companies who have…
with industry, so we have a platform where we connect our founders with them and they help and it has already, Silib I mentioned before, they have hired ⁓ leading industry people from BISF, which is a chemical giant from Germany and they’re working now for Silib. And it was one, Wierte Kattelmann is her name, ⁓ one investor into our fund and she connected the founder, Lilian Schwich, with those people. So… ⁓
I can’t say anything more than it’s the most important thing and you can’t underestimate it.
David Hunt (37:36)
Yeah, yeah. No, I always say, again, I get blessed to speak at many events and it’s the first thought of course, it’s quite complex. But broadly, if you have the right money and the right team, you’ve got a fighting chance of success, think. ⁓ Yeah, so it’s the right VC and the right talent on board and the right people on the bus to take you to your journey electric bus, hopefully. Listen, it’s been great to talk to you, Daniel. It’s been I’ve enjoyed the conversation. I enjoy watching your travels on the train, unfortunately, from the UK.
Danijel Visevic (37:46)
Yes.
Thank
David Hunt (38:02)
It’s not so easy to travel by train onto some of these things, but I do have crossed Germany many times by train and it’s just a nicer way than an airport and an airplane. ⁓ yeah, it’s good to see you travel. It’s good to see the success. Good luck on the closing of the next fund and hopefully we’ll see you at an event soon.
Danijel Visevic (38:16)
It is. Thank you very much. It was a huge pleasure.

