Investment Associate or Principal in CEE

VentureFriends is a venture capital fund with offices in London, Barcelona, Warsaw & Athens. We back ambitious early-stage founders at Pre-Seed & Seed across Europe & UAE, with a sector-agnostic approach as long as there is a significant software element.

We launched VentureFriends in 2016 and through 3 funds totalling €170M, we have invested in more than 70 startups across Europe & UAE. Some of our success stories include Blueground, Instashop, Huspy, Carmoola, Plum, Flexcar, Harbor Lab & Embat.

We are an entrepreneurial fund and abide by a start-up style pace and performance culture, where our people get significant responsibility and unique opportunities to learn and develop. We believe in and operate by clear and uncompromising values of meritocracy, candour and respect.

Having said the above, VentureFriends is looking to grow its team and hire an investor to be an integral part of our investment team and lead our presence in the CEE. As an investor, you will have the unique opportunity to have a meaningful role when it comes to identify and eventually invest in new companies from the region. You will be part of a 9 people investment team, thus having direct exposure and strong influence in the investment decision making process of VentureFriends.

The Key responsibilities will be:

DEAL SOURCING AND EVALUATION

• Proactively source interesting start-ups based on investment focus, qualitative or quantitative metrics and founder merit
• Cultivate your existing network in the tech startup ecosystem so that you identify great entrepreneurs and partners early on
• Analyse inbound deal flow and be able to quickly gain understanding of new tech business models in order to assess and identify opportunities

TRANSACTIONS

• Compile investment memos for presentation to the Investment Committee
• Manage due diligence work streams on investment opportunities
• Liaise with solicitors and founders to negotiate and align on legal documents

PORTFOLIO SUPPORT

• Review portfolio updates, analyse, summarise and present conclusions to the team and be part of monthly portfolio meetings
• Support existing portfolio companies on PR, recruitment, fundraising as well as connecting them with potential customers, partners and investors

Requirements

• Having invested in tech companies either as a VC or as an angel
• Uncompromising drive to perform at a high level and constantly learn and develop
• Entrepreneurial mindset with a keen interest in startups and technology
• Minimum 2-4 years of relevant experience, in a VC or in a rigorous startup/investment environment with involvement and existing network in a local or overall in the European startup ecosystem
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills in English and a CEE language as well as the ability to think in business terms
• Comfort with analyses and numbers and ability to draw decisions based on both intuition and data