20 VC 087: From The Investors Of Spotify, TrustPilot and Klarna with Jeppe Zink, General Partner @ Northzone

Jeppe Zink is the General Partner at Northzone, who have investments in the likes of Spotify, Bloglovin and TrustPilot, just to name a few. Jeppe himself established the London office of Northzone and his primary areas of focus are fintech, SaaS, marketplaces and mobile and has made investments in Wallapop, SpaceApe Games and many more.

Before we delve into the show today, our dear friend and kind donator, Brad Feld has agreed to do a competition giveaway featuring signed copies of his amazing book, Venture Deals, all you have to do to be in with a chance is headover to the website at www.thetwentyminutevc.com and sign up for our newsletter. It’s that simple.

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In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How did Jeppe become a dane, living in London, investing in tech?

2.) Having seen the evolution of the European tech environment over the 17 years, which stage of the cycle does Jeppe prefer as a VC? Some say downturns lead to a flushing out of the weaker funding sources and startups. Do you agree?

3.) What is it that is attracting Jeppe to Fintech? Where does Jeppe think Fintech will be in the next 5-10 years? What areas of Fintech is Jeppe excited by? Is the excitement surrounding Fintech in London not driving up valuations of startups?

4.) When looking at the banking industry for example, there are large incumbents that have not changed in decades, many see this as opportunity, is this not just representative of structural advantages creating barriers to entry?

5.) Skype, Spotify, SoundCloud, Supercell, King, all nordics, what is it about the Nordics that is generating this unicorn club?

6.) In the past Jeppe has attributed Northzone with a rarity of investor quality, saying that like entrepreneurs, Northzone have ambition. How does Jeppe assess his ambition? What metrics does Jeppe use to create goals for startups?

Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:

Jeppe’s Fave Book: Zero To One, Startup Growth Engines 

Jeppe’s Fave Blog: Strictly VC

Jeppe’s Productivity Tools: CityMapper, Genius

Jeppe’s Most Recent Investment: CrossLend

As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Jeppe on Twitter here!

If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session you can follow him on Instagram here!