Nicolas Chow

BREAKING: Serena launches €200M fund (Serena IV) to back Europe’s next leaders in AI & Energy Transition! ⚡️ Paris-based Serena Capital just closed its fourth-generation fund, Serena IV, to invest from the very first steps of founders tackling the world’s biggest challenges. Here are the details: 🔥 Fund size: €200M | Final target: €250M 🔥 AI and Energy Transition, solving real problems at scale 🔥 Track record: Backed 100+ startups, including Electra, Underdog, Lifen, Dataiku, Accenta.ai, and others! Congrats Paul, Sébastien, Olivier, and Constance👏 Let’s go 🇪🇺 --- 📍 For more climate-tech insights, follow me @Hugo

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Flagship Pioneering founded Lila Sciences in 2023 to remake one of the most important human inventions in history: the scientific method. How? By building fully autonomous science labs that enable AI to perform the scientific method itself – from hypothesis to experiment to analysis to iteration.  This idea grew out of the internal combination of FL96 and FL97, two earlier Flagship prototyping projects. With FL96 we asked, “What if machines could autonomously reimagine and reconstruct the physical (materials) world?” FL97 wondered, “What if machines could autonomously make life science advances?” Now, Lila is answering those questions.  Lila’s AI models don’t just regurgitate existing knowledge when tasked with a research question. They create new knowledge by connecting dots across incumbent scientific literature and traditionally siloed disciplines; generating novel hypotheses; and then designing and conducting experiments to test those hypotheses in our autonomous labs.  When this process repeats itself thousands or eventually millions of times in parallel, we believe it will lead to what we call scientific superintelligence — enabling new discoveries on a scale and at a pace that has never been achievable until now. Already, Lila’s team has made early molecular breakthroughs in therapeutics, energy, and carbon capture.  At a time when the challenges humanity faces seem to be accelerating, we must also accelerate our ability to find solutions. I believe Lila’s technology has the potential to do that, and to launch a new golden age of science in the process. Today, I’m proud to welcome a ​new group of investors who have joined Lila’s Series A fundraising round, adding another $235M to the $200M we’ve already raised and bringing the total to $435M. This is an important foundation for Lila’s next phase of discovery and growth. Our work is just beginning. https://lnkd.in/eHGVYaaJ 

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𝐏𝐄 𝐯𝐬. 𝐕𝐂 𝐢𝐧 𝐄𝐮𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐞: 𝐀 𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐰𝐨 𝐟𝐨𝐨𝐭𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐬 Our latest data at Gain.pro highlights how PE and VC firms invest across Europe: ▪ PE-backed businesses are widely spread across the continent ▪ VC-owned assets are clustered in cities 📊 Sector focus drives this: – VC assets = 47% TMT (vs. 17% for PE) → drawn to innovation hubs – PE = 24% Services + 22% Industrials (vs. 13% & 7% for VC) → broader geographic reach beyond capitals 🌍 Top destinations: – Both: London & Paris lead – VC: 25% of assets in 11 cities (Berlin, Munich, Amsterdam next) – PE: 25% spread across 22 cities (Stockholm, Milan, Madrid stand out) ➡️ Same continent. Very different maps.

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Rethinking Blended Finance: From Vertical Stacks to Horizontal Flows In my thoughts on climate finance recently, there is something that has been bothering me. Much has been said about “stacking” different layers of capital—concessional, development finance, and commercial—into blended structures. This vertical model has been useful for making projects potentially attractive for commercial capital, ensuring that varying risk and return expectations can align to finance the same project, at the same time. But what if we went further? Projects don’t have the same needs at every stage. Early phases often require concessional or development finance to de-risk innovation and navigate regulatory hurdles. Later, as revenues stabilize, commercial capital can flow in with confidence. Instead of stacking capital just vertically at a single moment, perhaps the next frontier is deploying it horizontally across time—aligning each type of capital to the stage of the project where it adds the most value. The key is orchestration: this isn’t about separate funding moments, but about designing a capital timeline from the beginning. Concessional, development, and commercial investors would know their roles upfront, creating a coordinated pipeline where capital evolves as the project matures. As noted at the recent UN Financing for Development conference, blended-finance flows last year totalled only $18.3 billion—far below the $1.3 trillion developing countries need annually for climate finance . Intentional orchestration—rather than ad hoc blending—is precisely what can unlock scale. Insights from prominent climate finance forums echo that blended finance must be specific and designed by sector, geography, and project lifecycle—not generic layering. In a world where climate solutions demand both speed and scale, maybe it’s time to reimagine blended finance not just as a stack, but as a symphony. 🎶

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It’s no longer enough to just buy well and hope for multiple expansion. Time to roll up your sleeves. GPs have been hearing this from LPs for years — especially during fundraising. #Operational value creation has become the main act in private equity, not the footnote. Why? - Because with rising competition, more dry powder, and tighter exit markets, helping your portfolio companies actually improve is the only real edge left. I’ve kicked off a short YouTube series on how experienced funds approach value creation — where it starts, what works, and what LPs are now asking about in diligence. We started with a fireside chat featuring Anne Arlinghaus from KKR Capstone (link below in comments). In Part 1, I cover: • Why the real work begins long before the ink is dry • The go-to value levers (and why overhead reduction is just the start) • How firms are building internal ops teams — and tracking impact If you’re curious what “hands-on” really means — or what it takes to become an Operating Partner — this one’s for you. 🎥 Watch the full video here: https://lnkd.in/drfgcsMV Next up: Buy & Build — and yes, it’s as messy as it sounds. #PrivateEquity #ValueCreation #OperationalExcellence #PortfolioCompanies #GPstrategy #LPperspective #INSEAD Arnaud Bonzom Bowen White Michael Prahl Harsh Temurnikar @

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Why I Don't Sign NDAs for Early-Stage Founders — And Why Founders Shouldn't Ask Your idea is your baby. I get it. But for VC, asking for an NDA before sharing that idea isn't protecting your future - it's limiting it. In my latest article, I break down why NDAs create more problems than they solve for founders seeking early-stage funding. I explain why VCs structurally cannot sign them (reviewing 1,500+ decks annually makes this impossible), why they signal inexperience rather than caution, and most importantly - why your execution matters infinitely more than your idea. If you're a founder worried about idea theft, this perspective might change how you approach investor conversations forever. I explain why trust is the real compounding currency in venture capital - not legal protection.

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