(He's a solid A now.) The 24-year-old Londoner behind a technology investing podcast that he launched as a teenager has raised $140 million in new funds to back start-up firms. He quite correctly, given his stage didnt want to risk pissing off his guests, for fear of getting a bad rep and losing referral intros. I have ZERO doubt that Harry soon will not be able to escape the allure of venture. Success breeds success. @balderton.com, @thetwentyminutevc.com, @googlemail.com @gmail.com, and @stride.vc. Big Tech Jobs Were Once a Golden Ticket. Today, The Twenty Minute VC makes enough money from sponsorship to employ four full-time contractors, including Stebbings' father as head of business development. This ep tomorrow is not only a masterclass in building & scaling sales teams but is beyond fricking motivational. They meet the coolest companies, and the founders go, Oh my god, were meeting the founder of Nubank. It helps on both sides of the table, and we can really win deals because of that.. The enshittification of apps is real. Stebbings also noted that the successful founders who are also investors in 20VCs funds would be able to provide operational assistance and advice to the companies in the firms portfolio.An $8.3 million micro seed fund that Stebbings began managing under the 20VC name in April 2020 has made investments in several companies that experienced runaway growth during the COVID-19 pandemic, including Hopin and social media app Clubhouse, as well as RevenueCat, a startup whose technology makes it simple for companies to take in-app payments from users. [1] The first episode was an interview with Guy Kawasaki, released on 10 January 2015. 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Compare Standard and Premium Digital here. . Postings on Product Hunt? All Rights Reserved. Meanwhile Stebbings still a relatively new kid on the block in VC says hes learning how to be a great fund manager via his LPs. (Harry, I know youre reading thisyoud become my favorite podcaster of all time if you get another interview with Tim Draper and ask What is it with this Ayn Randian bullshit about all government is bad, Silicon Valley should secede from the US so you dont have to support less advantaged parts of the country, and your refusal to admit that Theranos management made egregious errors? Just asking! This approach is based on the understanding that, in venture capital, who you know matters a great deal. Updated to note Daniel Ek is not an LP in this fund. [Postscriptafter seeing the published post, Harry informs me he is no longer a teenager, having turned 20 two weeks ago. It is the essential source of information and ideas that make sense of a world in constant transformation. That blue check mark looks awfully familiar. He has an audience, he understands what it is to be a founder, he has influential fans, knows how to ask questions, and works his ass off. The earliest podcasts werent that great, but they just kept getting better. From the $107m later-stage fund, hell be writing cheques of $3-5m in $30-50m Series B or C rounds, in the very best companies from Europe and the US. He asked about a competitive VC interview show (one that was a little longer and more ponderous) that Id given higher grades to, and wanted to know why. Host - Harry Stebbings ( @HarryStebbings ) The Genesis of Mailchimp Ben was an entrepreneur from an early age, selling cartoon flip books he created himself, candies, and comic books on the school bus Mailchimp is the end of a series of pivots all the way back to grade school He is also the founding partner of Stride.VC, a London-based early-stage fund. In 2000, Harry joined Fulham Pre School and graduated in 2004. Podcaster-turned-VC Harry Stebbings raises two funds totalling $140m, Former McKinsey boss joins a VC to raise one of CEEs largest growth funds, Wise and Monzo founders back legal generative AI startups $10.5m Series A. Shes the coauthor of our weekly Startup Life newsletter, which you can subscribe to here. commentary and analysis you can trust. When other investors invite Stebbings to join a round, the motivation is simple: hes a pretty useful PR machine. This past week, Brad Feld, Fred Wilson, Justin Kan, Roelof Botha and Marc Andreessen all separately praised the journalism of Harry Stebbings. How do they think about putting a structure in place to grow into their leadership?. He founded the worlds largest independent venture capital podcast, The Twenty Minute VC which has more than 100,000 listeners and has partnerships with Mattermark as well as ProductHunt. Why PLG and enterprise at same time is SO hard. Interviews of low profile angels investing small amounts of money couldnt compete with shows with higher profile VCs investing big buckets of money. On February 11, 2019, Harry revealed on tweeter that his dad has had multiple heart attacks while his mother suffers from relapsing & remitting MS. That man . Since launching in 2015, hes produced over 2.6k episodes and regularly speaks to the kind of founders and investors folks in the tech industry would kill to sit next to at a dinner party people like Spotifys Daniel Ek and Coinbases Brian Armstrong. As for what he needs to learn, he thinks its mental plasticity changing strategy based on what the market is up to, especially given the emergence of fast-deploying funds like Tiger. Which brings me to my second point, which is that Stebbings raising such a massive tranche of capital could quiet some of the worry around emerging fund managers being unable to, well, 15X their initial micro-funds. Despite an economic crisis, political chaos, and the regimes ban, TikTok influencers are still thriving in Afghanistan. Harry Stebbings' Creator Profile This is a podcast creator profile for Harry Stebbings. 20VC: Harry Stebbings on The Biggest Takeaways From Interviewing The World's Best Investors, What Makes A Truly Great Interview & Some Big News. I love founders calling me up at midnight. He formally announced he was leaving Stride in February. Harry actually was doing two podcasts at the time, the other one focusing on European angels; it was justifiably forgettable. Harry Stebbings is a British venture capitalist, that started "The Twenty Minute VC" podcast and in 2020 launched his own venture capital fund. Stebbings stepped down as partner at Stride.VC, a firm he co-founded with Fred Destin in 2018 with 100,000,000. offers FT membership to read for free. ChatGPT Has Been Sucked Into India's Culture Wars. But hes confident that investing is his true calling. Danny [Rimer], one of the very best VCs of our generation, is a mentor to me. Harry also works very closely with Jason Lemkin @ SaaStr where they work to produce The Official SaaStr Podcast. Five years' time - that is, by age 25. Hes excited to be there, so his guests are too. Thats more than $500 million-worth of funds-under-management singing the praises of a 20-year-old university drop-out. Powered and implemented by Interactive Data Managed Solutions. I gave Harry a B, summing up the show as VCs fawned over by an overenthusiastic Brit. Also investing in the fund are several founders of successful startups, including Johnny Boufarhat, the CEO and founder of virtual events software platform Hopin, and Alex Will, cofounder and chief strategy officer at mental health app Calm. The show drew the attention of early adopter website Product Hunt: by November that year, an interview with Mark Suster pulled in over 100,000 listeners. The fired Google engineer who thought its A.I. He said Destin is primarily interested in investing in European startups, and that the veteran VC likes to lead investment rounds and take a seat on the boards of his portfolio companies. What are you trying to prove or disprove with this round? The answers will show how well you understand the business and funding environment., Leadership skills arent so important although if they dont have them, they need to be figuring out how to gain them. If I grow the business and continue to to grow the business, my brand gets better and my deal flow gets better, he says. More from Forbes 30 Under 30 - Europe - Finance 2019 List. Harry Stebbings, the podcaster-turned-VC, is stepping down as a partner of Stride.VC, the London-based venture capital firm he co-founded with Fred Destin, formerly of Accel. I've heard so many good things from Delian, from Alex, from Keith, from Alfred. If you have a brand your ability to get into the best deals is massively heightened., Now Stebbings is moving onto the next phase of his career. So, thank you so much for joining me. Harry Stebbings is the founder of The Twenty Minute VC, the world's largest media brand in venture capital with over 100 million downloads across 190 countries and guests from over 200 VCs . "Five years later, after obsessively reading and studying the industry, I saw the opportunity for a podcast.". [7] For a full comparison of Standard and Premium Digital, click here. Harry Stebbings is the founder of The Twenty Minute VC, the world's largest media brand in venture capital with over 100 million downloads across 190 countries and guests from over 200 VCs including Sequoia, Founders Fund, Y Combinator, Benchmark and Index Ventures. (Women are, however, notably few and far between on the guestlist.). Harry Stebbings, the 24-year-old London-based creator and host of The Twenty Minute VC, is launching a micro VC fund of $8.3 million. Thoma Bravo buys third identity company this year with $2.3B ForgeRock acquisition I thought not. "I looked at it and I thought, this is where my abilities lie, and this is what I love," Stebbings recalls. There are many investors who started as journalistsMichael Moritz, Esther Dyson, Stuart Alsop, Jason Calacanis, Semil Shah, MG Siegler the list goes on. Because of all the shows and relationships, if were looking at a payments infrastructure business, we can speak to the founding team at Stripe or Nubank [an LP in the fund] and pull in the best minds to help me analyse this business. He earns an average salary of $79,384 per year. At least in theory, everyone benefits. [2], In May 2017, Stebbings left his job at venture capital firm Atomico after six months working there. You can follow this profile to get notifications of Harry Stebbings' new podcast credits. That's one of the biggest solo VC partner funds either side of the Atlantic. While every Harvard MBA is trying to find a way into venture capital, how did an unknown Brit cut ahead in line and become a go-to-source and door-opener? If you do not want us and our partners to use cookies and personal data for these additional purposes, click 'Reject all'. Tech Volunteers Rush to Save Turkeys Earthquake Survivors. Standard Digital includes access to a wealth of global news, analysis and expert opinion. ], Thank you to Ty Danco for allowing us to republish his post, and to Harry Stebbings for being such an awesome member of the Product Hunt community! Didis Revival Shows China Cant Live Without Big Tech. Stebbings also works as a. . The trouble with teams is you need to create culture, you need to manage, do 1-1s, reviews, give feedback and anything that takes me away from meeting the next Stripe or Hopin, that time could be used meeting companies., Stebbings thinks that great founders are often systems thinkers they view the business in component parts, and each one unlocks the next one. In 2018, he co-founded Stride.VC with Fred Destin with 100,000,000 but later stepped down as partner. For Stebbings, its far from over. Today, Stebbings is announcing that hes now raised two 20VC funds a $33m early-stage fund and another $107m growth fund which he will lead as a solo general partner. Menu. He already has a head of finance its important to build the best LP product as well as the best founder product and hes currently hiring a head of operations and an executive assistant. "I came out of the lecture, phoned my parents and said, 'I'm leaving.'". He interviews entrepreneurs, as well as limited partners, the big funds that provide most of the money for VCs. He wants to invest one way and I wanted to do something else, he said of Destin. At the end of the day, media is venture and venture is media. Harry Stebbings Expand search. How and when to hire for sales? Central banks need to show a bit more imagination, Who to fire? They get risk-free exposure; he gets content. If you do not want us and our partners to use cookies and personal data for these additional purposes, click 'Reject all'. The 20VC portfolio already includes a few reported unicorns, including audio app Clubhouse and virtual event organizer Hopin. He proceeded to Northcote Lodge from 2004 to 2008. In a series of tweets . Any changes made can be done at any time and will become effective at the end of the trial period, allowing you to retain full access for 4 weeks, even if you downgrade or cancel. Whether or not Stebbings is a one-off is unclear, but we do at least know that venture backers are viewing his Rolodex as a key competitive advantage and asset in the wild world of investing. If youd like to retain your premium access and save 20%, you can opt to pay annually at the end of the trial. From Twenty Minute VC to 20VC, Harry Stebbings launches a micro VC off the back of his popular podcast. Harry filled the gap, with examples like this show with my favorite LP/blogger, Chris Douvos, of Venture Investment Associates. I've told Atomico very clearly, I'm not changing my mission., Ah yes, the mission. His father is a stockbroker and his mother has multiple sclerosis; the podcast was initially. Hindu nationalists claim that the chatbot has insulted their deities, sparking an online uproar. He was born to his parents in London, England. Harry Stebbings started The Twenty Minute VC podcast after being inspired by The Social Network, 'Now is the best time in history to be an entrepreneur in Europe': State of European Tech report. (Stebbings says that Stride to eventually raise the full 100 million it had initially planned for, but that achievement of the milestone was never formally announced. Called 20VC, the plan is to invest in U.S. startups across. On December 6, 2015, Stebbings was sitting in a lecture when he received a call from newly minted VC Arielle Zuckerberg, Mark's youngest sister. Yet Harry Stebbings is already a podcaster whose episodes have been downloaded more than 100 million times and who last year raised $140 million for his own venture capital fund. Stebbings started The Twenty Minute VC podcast with $50 and not a single contact in the venture capital industry. His major role is to cover all things startups and VC funding. We use (Hes a solid A now.) Stebbings laughs. Its even harder for diverse, underrepresented founders. The list goes on. )Later, Stebbings began managing his 20VC microfund alongside his Stride role. He told his partner Fred Destin that he wanted out of Stride, the VC firm theyd set up together in 2018, so he could focus on his own fund, 20VC. How to Raise an Adult: Break Free of the Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kid for Success by Julie Lythcott-Haims. In other words: You might be able to get a few of your buddies in venture to throw some checks in, but how do you get a full endowment to sign on board? I was introduced to Harry Stebbings work at my lowest moment. Jan 17, 2023 419.8K Views 98 Retweets 61 Quote Tweets 1,238 Likes While not all shows actually stick to twenty minutes, it seems to be just the right amount of time for a listener to digest a show during a commute and for the interview to contain something of substance. After my post, Harry contacted me, saying: Hi Im that overenthusiastic, fawning Brit you reviewed. His investors are a notable bunch too, including institutional investors MIT and RIT Capital Partners; founders of many tech companies, from Atlassian, Unity and Mercado Libre to Calm, Alan, Rappi, Hopin and Nubank; alongside prominent VCs and angels, like Indexs Danny Rimer and Prima Materias Shakil Khan. I was undergoing chemo and radiation and had little energy. WIRED first speaks to Stebbings on a brisk Thursday morning in early October. Some of them were really interesting. The pair of funds one for early stage and one for growth stage total $140 million in assets under management, plucked from LPs including MIT, early Spotify investor Shakil Khan and RIT Capital partners. A lot of times a Series B or C [stage startup] approaches us or their investors do and say, Hey, were thinking about distribution, the content machine, the founder brand and then I write a $3-5m cheque in a $30-50m round, he explains. The fund got off to an inauspicious start: Just as Stride was courting investors for its first fund, Bloomberg News reported that at a previous fund, Destin had once made inappropriate sexual advances toward a female founder trying to raise money for her startup.Destin apologized for his conduct, saying he had sometimes acted without awareness at parties. Still, the story hurt Strides fundraising drive, and it wound up raising just 50 million ($70 million), half the amount it had initially targeted. Welcome to Episode #001 of the SaaStr Podcast! Its the focus on collaborating, rather than competing, which really sets 20VC aside from Stride, says Stebbings. Today, Stebbings is announcing that he's now raised two 20VC funds a $33m early-stage fund and another $107m growth fund which he will lead as a solo general partner. Why? The WIRED conversation illuminates how technology is changing every aspect of our livesfrom culture to business, science to design. In 2009, Harry joined Felsted School where he studied English, History, and Economics graduating in 2013. Within hours of the disaster, software engineers were rolling out applications to help locate people in need and distribute aid. The gamble paid off. The simple answer is the network he has built up through his podcast. When expanded it provides a list of search options that will switch the search inputs to match the current selection. Harry Stebbings: Ryan. If you would like to customise your choices, click 'Manage privacy settings'. You may change or cancel your subscription or trial at any time online. A Conversation with SaaStr Founder Jason Lemkin and 20VC Host Harry Stebbings (Pod 631+Video) by Amelia Ibarra | Blog Posts , Fundraising , Podcasts , Videos After several years of booming business in SaaS, the world of fundraising nearly gave everyone whiplash when capital stopped flowing as freely in 2022 as it did in 2021. WIRED is where tomorrow is realised. What does he send emails about? Stebbings said that a $33 million fund will be dedicated to pre-seed and seed investments, each totaling between $250,000 to $500,000, and a larger, $107 million fund will target growth stage startups, with investments of $3 million to $5 million each.He said the fund, in which he is the sole general partner and will make all the investment decisions, would back startups from anywhere in the world. Harry Stebbings' Post Harry Stebbings Founder @ 20VC 4d Report this post . If you do nothing, you will be auto-enrolled in our premium digital monthly subscription plan and retain complete access for 65 per month. Be like Harry. Stebbings sits at the intersection of that trend, and with $140 million more, it will be interesting to see what he does next, and if returns come along for the ride. Meta Verified Shows a Company Running Out of Ideas. harry stebbings Apps Meta says it is experimenting with AI-powered chat on WhatsApp and Messenger Ivan Mehta 10:18 PM PST February 27, 2023 No company is immune from the generative AI wave,. During those long hours with my feet propped up, I checked out every podcast I could find about startups and came across Harrys The Twenty Minute VC. Well, one interview leads to anotherand hes always quick to thank and give public credit to the introducer. I can introduce you if you like.. The government has used fines, bans, and golden shares to control tech companies. But the best, definitely, was Atomico. authenticate users, apply security measures, and prevent spam and abuse, and, display personalised ads and content based on interest profiles, measure the effectiveness of personalised ads and content, and, develop and improve our products and services. But the idea was at best fanciful, at worst downright foolhardy. He's a legend of the industry and a true pioneer and I . Mr. Stebbings launched 20VC out of London with an $8.3. I've wanted to do thi s episode ever since I started the show over five years ago. I gave Harry a B, summing up the show as "VCs fawned over by an overenthusiastic Brit". Text Harry Stebbings, the 24-year-old host of a popular podcast about venture capital, has raised $140 million to invest in startups. But success posed a dilemma for Stebbings, who was starting a law degree at King's College, London. WIRED can reveal that the London-based fund set up by Skype co-founder Niklas Zennstrm has hired Stebbings as an investor. Which goes back to. Unlike Stride, 20VC does not lead deals and does not take board seats. Looking back, these early podcasts were classic examples of creating MVPs essentially Harry executed 2 beta projects, and then focused on improving the more successful VC podcast. And he posts on all the major social media channels. Stay informed and spot emerging risks and opportunities with independent global reporting, expert Its a small part, but its super collaborative, and I bring something very different., He says he can also bring something to the due diligence process.