Alexander Hemm

Yikes. 1 in 4 startups could leave Germany due to lack of capital. More than that probably should. I spoke at an event at the Technical University of Munich (great school btw) a couple of months back and was surprised at how many founders I met were looking to leave Germany. Much higher than I expected. https://lnkd.in/eHv2nPwT

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Spoke with Brevo's Chairman of the Advisory Board. Steffen Schebesta led Brevo's M&A for 3+ years. Here's their acquisition playbook: Steffen founded Newsletter2Go back in 2011. And he kept building it for over 7 years until it became: One of the top email marketing platforms in the German-speaking market. In late 2018, Sendinblue (now Brevo) acquired them. (but it was almost like a merger) At that time, they were both figuring out how to merge the companies. And that's how Steffen became in charge of Brevo's M&A strategy: Phase 1: Geographic Consolidation (2018-2019) → Started by acquiring Newsletter2Go to crack the German market → But Europe isn't one market - each country needs localization → So they bought local players over organic expansion Phase 2: Product Extensions (2020+) After raising €140M, they shifted the strategy: → E-commerce focus: Chatra (chat), Push Owl (notifications), Metrio (analytics) → CRM expansion: Yodel (telephony), Meet Fox (scheduling), Captain Wallet (mobile) → Infrastructure: Mail Clark (email parsing) TLDR: Early on, they focused on geographic expansion through local acquisitions. When scaling, they shifted to product capability expansion. Now, they're into platform consolidation plays. And their next M&A activity? Likely after their next fundraising round. If you were leading Brevo's next acquisition strategy, what would you focus on? #acquisitions #saas #strategy

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Europe has the talent — now it’s time to bet on ourselves. When Sandra Navidi and I met in Davos during World Economic Forum, one question kept coming back: What will it take for Europe to build global tech champions? We continued that conversation on ntvNachrichten’s BIZ & beyond podcast with Ulrich Reitz. From building Europe’s first venture studio, finleap, in Berlin to now leading early-stage investing at Motive Ventures in New York, that vantage point shapes how I see Europe’s path forward. Here’s what I believe: ▪️ Europe has great ideas — but we lack the structures, speed, and capital to scale them. ▪️Especially in later stages, we hesitate to go all in — and when capital finally comes, it’s often not European. ▪️We should learn from the U.S. — but not everything that shines is gold. ▪️Our real strengths, like quality of life and global talent, are already here. ▪️Capital matters. But culture decides. If we want to build global champions, we need belief. Belief that we can build big — and the urgency to work for it. That mindset is one of the few things Europe should take from the U.S. In short: If Europe wants to become a true tech force, the time to act is now. And it starts by betting on ourselves. A big thank you to Sandra and Ulrich for an insightful, thought-provoking discussion. And about that headline calling me “Tech-Wunderkind” — it made me smile. Feels good to be young again 😄 🎧 Listen via the link in the comments (German only). #Capital #Entrepreneurship #Europe #Leadership #Fintech

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After running a bunch of workshops with our portfolio companies and giving multiple keynotes on "how to get the most out of AI", I'm now 100% convinced of two truths: 1️⃣ 𝗔𝗹𝗺𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝘀𝗮𝗹𝗲𝘀 + 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗺 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗯𝗲 𝗱𝗼𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮 𝗟𝗢𝗧 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝘄/ 𝗔𝗜. Everyone is playing with these tools - but hardly 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘰𝘯𝘦 has embedded them into their everyday work. Most people are only scratching the surface. And the teams willing to spend the time to play around with AI and find what works for them are going to lap their competitors. (Also, this isn't about replacing people. It's about making your entire team more productive. It's about giving everyone on your team a robot sidekick who can't wait to help and never gets sick of your feedback.) 2️⃣ 𝗚𝗶𝘃𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗽𝗮𝗰𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 (𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘄𝗮𝘁𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗔𝗜) 𝗶𝘀 𝗮 𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗽𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘂𝗻𝗹𝗼𝗰𝗸. From what I've seen, sharing/mutual experimentation is as important as teaching people how to use this stuff. So as you and your team are experimenting with AI, find time to screenshare and cross-pollinate. Sharing what's working might be the most critical part of building an AI-enabled team. And most companies aren't doing nearly enough of it. (Want a simple way to start doing this? Just create an "AI Ideas" slack channel and start sharing prompts, workflows, and articles with your team. It's a no-brainer way to start making AI a thing for your business.) I created a dedicated "AI 101" page for my newsletter (5k+ subscribers and growing) with all my best stuff on this topic: ✅ Prompt libraries ✅ Keynote materials ✅ Workshop ideas Check it out at the link in the "Featured" section of my profile. It's free. 👍

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