This is an AI Transcription. It’s pretty good, but please forgive any errors.

[00:00:00] Jonathan: Welcome to the Difference Engine, the show for tech founders, investors, and innovators.

[00:00:15] Paul: Today's guest is another man not from these parts, in this case, La Belle France.

[00:00:20] Jonathan: Starting his LinkedIn profile with entrepreneur slash VC slash tech lover slash sport addict, Ben Morrell's experience as a founder and his passion for entrepreneurship led him to co found Briga, a fast growing founder led European based VC company.

Specializing in financing tech startups from pre seed to series B.

[00:00:40] Paul: Today, Ben's based in mostly London with Briga also having offices in Paris and Barcelona, supporting highly promising startups with purpose, such as Curve, Kuva, Exotech, Udell, Alice and Bob. 99 and Moneybox. Moneybox,

[00:00:55] Jonathan: an app based saving and investment company, has appeared in Deloitte UK's technology Fast 50 for the fourth year running, climbing 19 places compared to last year, and has just secured a 550 million valuation ahead of a secondary share sale after it moved into profit.

[00:01:11] Paul: Ben Morrell, welcome to The Difference Engine.

[00:01:18] Jonathan: So the first thing we wanted to talk about was The state of early stage funding in Europe, is it a fundamental barrier to category creation? Now, conventional wisdom in tech has it that founder involvement in funds is much more common in the U S and Europe. This is a reason often given for the historical success of the U S VC ecosystem and its ability to sustain a.

Virtuous circle where proceeds from successful exits and earnings are plowed back into creating successive and new ecosystems. According to today's guest, Brieger was established to break the European tradition, financier run investment funds to bring the operational excellence and real business experience of founders, as well as cash to early stage companies.

10 years on, the formula is working with 700 million having been invested in what might be viewed as a contrarian approach, but running with the trends has never been in Breger's DNA. So Ben, as tech comes to an inflection point and the industry asks, what's next, what do you see coming at us?

[00:02:23] Ben: It's quite fascinating to, to, you know, actually look at what has been changing over the last few years.

Um, if you rewind a little bit, you know, we had. A first go at it back in the 2000s, and you know, the bubble burst hit us very hard, right? We all need to bear in mind that the US, um, they started, you know, tech and VC back just after World War II. So, you know, they've been at it for, you know, 70 or 80 years now, uh, and it's all fresh.

And, you know, my grandfather used to say, you know, you don't make a baby in a month with nine women and it's impossible to fast forward this, right. It takes time to, to create, you know, an ecosystem and, you know, have, you know, create companies and have exits and then have founders who go on the other side of the, of the fence and, you know, try to be investing in companies themselves.

And he takes a bit of time and obviously. I think Europe and especially through the UK first, uh, given the strong links between the UK and the U S have been able to fast forward that a little bit, uh, with more experience coming from the U. S. With more sort of, you know, U. S. Mindset. Um, but a, you know, we, we started later and this, we have to acknowledge that.

Um, and B, we don't have the same dynamics. I think, you know, Europe is a constellation of countries and cultures and languages and, and, and, and frameworks that we need to circulate when, you know, you were a U. S. founder, it's, it's a different approach to it. So, you know, I think for a long time, the early stage investment was.

Born by, you know, private equity and finance people, which, you know, kind of felt normal, like it's a new asset class. And, you know, you kind of come down the ladder and, and look at it from that lens. Um, our conviction at Briga, and it's always been mine. I mean, you know, I've been an entrepreneur for 15 years and I've created companies before Briga in the tech space.

And, and, you know, it's always been, you know, Early stage investment. It's all about operations. It's not about finance. I mean, if you look at it, there's no finance, right? There's no, there's all red and no, no black in there. Like it's, you're only investing for the future. So it's all about, you know, how do you establish your vision and your mission as a company and your values and how do you, you know, hire the best talent out there and how do you make sure you're actually solving a problem, which is, you know, painful enough.

So people, you know, will pay for it ultimately. And, and big enough that, you know, you can build a company that reaches, you know, start to scale and, and, and that's, you know, that's, that's, that's

[00:04:55] Paul: crucial. What's interesting about what you're saying there, Ben, is you're talking about the people aspects. You know, you talked about the relationship between, um, you know, the UK and U S and then you very much focused on the people and sort of the law and it becoming culturally appropriate for people to start up companies and take this massive risk.

Now, a decade in, um, Some of your founding principles at Briga, funded by founders for founders, is a really strong message. And you started this, uh, partially, as I understand it, as a reaction against the finance bro type of, um, funders that previously maybe tried to get involved in tech. Is that a fair characterization, Ben?

And can you explain this Briga principle of Founders first,

[00:05:37] Ben: you know, it comes two ways. I think first of all, as you said, within the team, I think to us, he was crucial and, and, you know, to have that sort of founder DNA within Briga, you know, in and out and, and the entire, uh, investment team at Briga is, is composed of ex founders and operators in the tech space.

So we really know what it takes to create a business from the ground up. And I think, you know, it makes a huge difference to a lot of investors out there. Who probably don't have that particular knowledge and, and once again, you need a lot of different pieces to, to, to make a puzzle, but, but, you know, having this one, you know, is, is quite important to us.

And we've seen it, you know, along the years, um, both when we were on the other side of the tables and, you know, sitting at board meetings with people who. Into Excel spreadsheets and try to make it work. But you know, when you go into operations, it's way more complicated than this, right?

[00:06:27] Paul: And look, it works, right?

Let's, let's, let's, let's, it would be totally remiss of us if we weren't to mention your big success this week with, uh, with Moneybox. I mean, just very briefly, that's a shining example. It's a British company, actually, but could you tell us a little bit about why. How that's worked so well.

[00:06:43] Ben: Look, you know, it goes back to the people.

I mean, you know, that's, that's the point you made earlier. And I think it makes a huge difference. When I met Ben and Charlie back in 2017, you know, they had just started the company and they were with this vision of bringing, you know, wealth. To the masses, they started with roundups and they had this approach of like, Hey, can we make this, you know, um, product, you know, savings, um, available to everyone.

So how do we build something that works for everyone? Because everyone deserves to be investing in its own future. I was, I was totally bought in. I was like, look guys, it's important to me as a human being to be able to back people who have these amazing visions going forward. And yes, you know, yes, it's tough.

And yes, at the beginning, you know, interest rates were nil and therefore they went through a lot of lows before, you know, hitting, you know, amazing, amazing highs like they do today. I've always been here to back them and support them because once again, you know, the vision was more than anything else.

And that's why. You know, to us and to me, like it's, it's crucial, like I'm, I'm, you know, when I invest into people, I invest into amazing people that can transform the industries they're in and, you know, the odds. And then sometimes, you know, it's tough and sometimes you fail, but when you succeed, it's just massive.

[00:08:00] Jonathan: Yeah. Hats off to you and the guys. Absolutely. And I think, um, in the current FinTech environment, which is not particularly rosy, uh, to get a 550 million valuation ahead of a secondary. Share sale is really quite amazing and being in, in Deloitte UK technology fast 50 for the fourth year running. So, you know, well done on, on getting that going.

One of the things that, um, people might notice if they went to the Breger website was that something which appears central to, to Breger's investment philosophy is what you call full stack funding. Can you explain what this is and what it's designed to achieve and crucially why it's different to other funding approaches?

[00:08:41] Ben: As tech founders ourselves, you know, we couldn't imagine a, a firm building a new firm that couldn't operate like a normal firm, let's put it this way. And in a lot of VC companies, you know, um, partners pretend they do everything right. So raise money, invest into companies. And then, and then help them in the day to day, which is impossible.

I mean, you have way too much on your plate and you're probably very good at something, but you can't be good at everything. So the vision from the get go was to say, look, you know, we're going to have a team dedicated to that portfolio support and make sure that we have the best operators on top of our investment team, comprising of.

Founders to support our startups, you know, in their day to day. So, um, you know, operations, you know, recruiting your C level organization, how do you make sure, you know, your, your whole structures and all works and your compensation and all of that, um, your, your, your values and your, and your mission alignment, you know, to make sure that what you.

Talk about out there is also, you know, real in there when you, when you're in the company, um, and that's crucial. And, you know, we have a team of 10 people as of now, you know, on our P and L just dedicated to our portfolio companies, which is unheard of. And we were one of the very, very first ones to, to, to put in place.

So once again, it was, it was a question of, you know, walk the walk and not only talk to talk. You can meet so many, so many investors, which we're going to tell you, look, we've got to be supportive. We've got to be hands on and, you know, blah, blah, blah. But you know, we all know it's blah, blah, blah.

[00:10:16] Jonathan: When we were talking a few weeks ago about this and we were really asking you, look, do you really get stuck in?

Cause everybody says they do, but we all know. They probably don't. And you mentioned a specific example of a food delivery portfolio company, um, that came to you for advice after a complete disaster in their prep kitchens. Can you share with the listeners what happens and why they called you first for advice?

[00:10:42] Ben: It's the incarnation of, of, you know, that founder of DNA around the table. And, and we invested in food cherry back in 2016, I think. Um, so one of our first investments is actually one of the, you know, very few successes in the food tech space in Europe and Patrick, the founder one day in his first kitchen to fire.

And, um, and the first person he called, you know, was me. Because I think, you know, when you talk to him today, it was like, you know, I knew you would come with ideas and solutions and support. Cause I

[00:11:17] Paul: have to say, I have to say, Ben, um, you know, there's a fire in your kitchen and your kitchen is your business.

It's not very intuitive that the first person you're going to call is the VC, right?

[00:11:27] Ben: It's just mental, but it proves, you know, a, how, you know, when you're a founder, you feel lonely a lot of times, right? Because, you know, you, you just have to manage internally, you know, being always on the hype and, and, and, you know, making sure that your team is, is, you know, fully behind you and pushing strong.

Same story on the outside. You know, that's what, that's why there's been a lot of. You know, bullshit around unicorn status and things like that. You know, people have been bragging about it just to show that they are best than the other one. But at the end of the day, you're on your own and you want someone who's going to understand you and someone who's not going to be judging you and someone who's going to be trying to find solutions and not tell you, you know, damn it, you know, what's your, what's your new reforecast?

You know, at that point in time, Patrick didn't give a damn about reforecasting. It was like, look, my kitchen's on fire. So what do I do? I don't know. And, uh, you know, so, so that thing that's, that's also proves the, the, the sort of different approach, you know, one, one founder in the UK who, you know, I, I really appreciate.

And we backed early on as well, um, told me, you know, what I like about you is, you know, you give me tough love. And I think that was, that was, that was great. Cause I think that really impersonates what we try to do as a company. And what I try to do as a, as a, as an investor is like, I'm not going to say, you know, everything's rosy when it's not.

But I'm not going to let you down, like I'm going to be helping you, you know, making it better. And, and, and that's what counts, I suppose.

[00:12:53] Paul: I know, because I've had the privilege of working with you and the team that, um, when you build out categories, really, one of the things you look for early on is this operational savvy that you're talking about.

Um, and as you say, there's, there's lots more to it. The glamorous bit of building a category is coming up with is, you know, the bit that Jonathan and I do, which is, you know, thinking out the, how it's the vision is going to be, et cetera, et cetera. But also the operational savvy is really important. And in fact, I believe, um, you think it's at least as important, if not more important than this high level strategy.

That's so counterintuitive. Can you, can you explain why?

[00:13:28] Ben: We all know that an amazing idea without execution is worthless. Right. So, I mean, having that vision of, okay, I'm going to build a category leader. I'm going to change the face of the earth. This is crucial. That's, you know, this is what we fight for.

This is what we want to be doing. Uh, and you know, we can't say there aren't any, you know, challenges or issues in the world we live in. Right. So there are plenty, plenty of things to improve. But once you say this, it's like, okay, well, but if it were easy, everyone would do it. So, you know, you need to come down to execution and, and, you know, amazing ideas without execution are worthless.

That's why to me, being able to share, um, you know, your journey as a founder, uh, with other founders, you know, it's kind of, you know, helping them obviously, you know, things change and they change rapidly, you know, um, One of the first companies I created was a DNVB, one of the first ones in Europe, a rugby clothing brand called Rugby Division and, and You know, when I look back at the time, there was no Instagram and there was no, it was only the early days of iPhone.

So obviously you don't build a brand like you do today. So I would be, you know, bad at it, but, but on the way I've learned so much on, you know, people, organization, incentive, you know. Um, execution planning, uh, equity story as well, which I think a lot of founder forget about or not very well advised about.

And to me, it's crucial.

[00:14:53] Paul: You mean like, uh, you're talking about the stack, the preference stack?

[00:14:56] Ben: Yeah. The whole, the entire journey actually, right? You know, for, for many years, the last. 10, 10 years, probably we've heard all, you know, raising money and raising a valuation and this and that. I mean, it felt kind of a, kind of a game, but it, but it's not, I think ultimately as a founder, it's your main assets.

You're actually, you know, building and You want to make sure you build it with the right partners and the right foundation. So if you start, you know, raising too much, uh, too high evaluation and you don't grow into this, then you know, you're, you're fucked. Like I talked to a friend of mine yesterday. Um, and you know, it was kind of a great chat before our conversation this morning.

Um, the guy, Um, had an offer on the table for an acquisition of his business at $800 million. So you can imagine that, you know, it probably changes your life as a, as an individual and probably changes the lives of, of your entire team. Right. And then, and then a fund, which I'm not gonna give the name of, but you know, gave him a term sheet of 200 million at a billion valuation.

[00:16:05] Paul: Oh,

[00:16:05] Ben: tempting. Tempting. And you know what? The guy took the check and from there on it went bonkers because you know, when you take a check at that valuation, you need to grow into it. Building an 800 million valuation business is already, you know, fucking kudos, but, but, you know, taking it to 3 billion, because that's the, what the new guy is actually expecting from you, you know, it's, it's putting the company under pressure.

It's, it's another order of magnitude in terms of size and growth and pressure to the team. And if. Anything goes pear shaped, then you are done. And that's, that's exactly what happened to that business. Don't get me wrong, I think, you know, we as a, as a tech industry must be ambitious. And, and, and, you know, we need to build big businesses.

So don't get me wrong, I'm not like, oh, you know, you should be on the low end. No, no, no. We should be thinking big, but at the same time. Thinking being means that he needs to be constructed the right way. And we need to make sure that all, you know, interests are aligned and that, you know, we're not skiing ahead of our skis.

Basically.

[00:17:04] Jonathan: Just wanted to finish this section off a little bit by, um, maybe looking a little bit further forward and all of us who. I've worked in tech for, for decades and spent an awful lot of that time looking for the, the next big thing, the, the sort of paradigm that's gonna move forward, the, the next, uh, set of tech s curves.

Um, we've had a couple recently which, um, have proved so far not to have lived up to the hype, hype, you know, uh, false storms like blockchain. Um, I think perhaps with a couple of exceptions. The metaverse, of course, where even Facebook had to eat humble pie. So as we exit the SAS and mobile eras, which is the third coming of AI?

Is it, is it a mega wave or is this still hype?

[00:17:50] Ben: Yeah, well, it's, it's, it's a very interesting one. I think, you know, Any big wave of innovation requires a new breakthrough in tech, right? And I think the one we've experienced over the last 15 years is all been is all been about mobile on one hand. And cloud on the other end, right?

It was like a capacity of a, because for those of you who are, you know, old enough to remember before 2010, you know, you needed to receive a windows cd rom to be able to, you know, upgrade your software. SAS has been able to be like, Hey, you know, your software is blue today. It's going to be red tomorrow.

Your software is doing this today. It's going to be doing this tomorrow and you don't have to change anything. It's just mental. And a lot of people don't realize the incredible breakthrough, but it's been Changing the industry we're in coming on premise to to sass and that's one and then obviously mobile because you know, we've always been, we've all been dreaming about our connectivity is gonna be everywhere and you know, in the 2000s, we want to be too fast into it.

But from 2007, the iPhone, and then 2010 and onwards, you know, everyone is now connected, you know, 24 hours, seven days a week. And so that connectivity element with, you know, cloud, you know, created that huge potential for innovation and disruption, which we are still You know, not at the end of, obviously a lot of models have been tried and a lot of the stuff has been moving, but you know, you'll see a lot of industries still operate very, very old fashionly today.

So there's still a big chunk of that to be, to be innovated upon. We need a new, a new wave, right? So as much as you know, the internet in 2000, you know, waited for the 2010, I think, you know, as of now, AI and quantum computing in the digital space are probably the two things that are gonna move the needle.

Because all of a sudden you create that potential brain, you know, of, of superpower in terms of calculation and ingesting data, which is phenomenal. Obviously, you know, we shouldn't discount the other bit, which is, you know, Climate and, you know, this bit hasn't been covered yet. There's plenty of industries that need to be rethought entirely the way they operate from farming to construction, because we've been doing this, you know, the way we do it today for the last 100 years, and we know it's not working.

So in there, we need that new wave of innovation. But in the digital space, yes, of course. And, you know, AI, of course, you know, we still need to Thanks. Reduce consumption and, you know, make sure that it's not, it's not a, an ecological plague, but the way it operates and the way that we do things can really change the world we live in.

[00:20:43] Jonathan: So it's really mega wave for you. It's, uh, we're past, we're past hype. This is, this is, you know, you're looking at AI, um, in your investments.

[00:20:52] Ben: Like any new breakthrough technology, there's a bit of a, There's a bit of a Forrester or Garnet curve, right? So it gets really high, then comes down and then back up again, right?

So hype cycle, tons of money. People think, Oh, you know, it's going to be changing the world tomorrow. No, it's not like it's going to be taking a little bit of time. We now see the complexity of running these models, the cost associated to it, both from a financial but also ecological cost. So these, you know, needs to be improved.

But fundamentally, when you think of what it does, you're like, yes, you know, as much as robotics changed, you know, the industry. AI is going to change the service industry. There's no doubt. Like, you know, it's going to be changing a lot of repetitive and basic and, and, you know, cumbersome tasks that, you know, we all do and that we shouldn't be doing and probably spend our time doing something different, either, you know, um, more work for those that want to, want to work more and, and for the, and create more and, and, you know, or spend more time with your, uh, with your loved ones.

[00:22:02] Jonathan: Is diversity really a differentiator? And what does diversity in tech actually

[00:22:08] Paul: mean? And how do you apply it at Briga? Because it strikes me you take a slightly different take on diversity rooted in the fact that you call Briga contrarian, um, and believe in innovators, um, rather than just vertical markets.

So can you talk us through your thinking on diversity and what that means for you at Briga?

[00:22:26] Ben: Diversity to me, it's become the sort of new thing. Diversity washing a little bit, right? People use it all the time and this and that. If you think of the rationale for it, up until the 40s, probably, we built a world where some people were deciding, you know, for the rest of humankind, right?

And it was unfair. So what we need today is real representation. That's what we need. We are. And, you know, I think we need it even more in tech because in tech we are somehow. Participating in building the future. So if you, if you build a future for the world, then you should be representative of the world in a way, right?

Um, otherwise you're, you're, you're missing your mission

[00:23:13] Jonathan: and

[00:23:13] Ben: you know, you're building a world only with tech bros and it's, it's not working, right? So that's why. To us at Briga, it's crucial to be able to build teams where diversity is prevalent. And diversity is not only, you know, gender and color, it's, it's more than that.

You know, a lot of studies today show that there is not so much diversity because there's no social diversity. So yes, first of all, you know, we should be fighting for gender. Diversity, um, you know, cause you know, as of today, um, female people in the world represent more than half of the population. So not having them represented into companies that are actually building the future feels a bit, you know, off and then social diversity as well.

Because, you know, if you take only people coming out of Oxford or, you know, coming out of a rich family, they will probably look at the world very differently from someone who's not there. That's very important to me and to us at Briga and it should be important to us in the tech world where building the future We should be taking into account all these all these, you know Views of the world to make sure we build a better place for everyone investing shouldn't be about you know trends It should be about you know solving the challenges the world is facing And doing so applying the best solution at it and, and therefore the best tech for it.

If you think that tech can solve the problem and that's why to us and to me, it's, it's crucial to, it's very important to invest into visionary people who want to change. Their industry. I don't care about, oh, you know, this is the new hot, uh, blockchain company, or this is the new hot, you know, LLM company.

I don't give a damn. I mean, to me, it's like, what do you want to do with this? What do you want to change? What do you think that in today's world is not working the way it should? And why should we change it? Why should I spend my time as an investor and my money? Why should I spend the next? 10 years with you in the trenches to actually build this business.

Well, it's because I believe it's, you know, it's changing the status quo. Not just because it's cool. And I'm going to a dinner VC and I'm like, Oh guys, I invested in the new blockchain, you know, I don't care.

[00:25:34] Jonathan: Now, diversity isn't just ethically the right thing to do, but your research says that the firms which are more diverse perform better financially.

[00:25:44] Ben: They do. I mean, you know, we now have, we've got to be. 10 years in, in, in to bring on each year. Um, we've gathered amazing, you know, a big amount of data on, you know, our now more than a hundred portfolio companies. And when you measure, and so we did, we did it internally. So, so once again, a lot of people, you know, talk to talk, we walk the walk, we measured all of our portfolio companies, you know, and their financial performance versus their diversity and overall ESG, um, conscience.

And the ones that are there are actually do perform better and they do perform better because their people internally are more motivated their client externally feel more represented and you know, they kind of understand the positioning and the mission better. So they're happy to pay more, you know, you're happy to pay more for a pair of official shoes because they're cleaner because they're better.

And that's why. These companies and, you know, the Patagonia's of this world are doing better. They're doing better because they're building better. And therefore, you know, clients and the entire world is taking them to the high. So we have data showing it, and that's why it's part of our process today.

There's not a single company that we invest in that doesn't go through our own impact analysis. And, you know, if it's not a green light. It's a no go.

[00:27:06] Jonathan: Yeah. I noticed too recently that you, you, you did turn down in investments in fintech essentially on ethical grounds. I remember you using the phrase they were not operating fairly.

Can you take us through that judgment?

[00:27:19] Ben: Look, you know, it's obviously all very personal and, and as you said, it's a judgment that um, is, is only one you can apply to yourself. And, you know, I'm not, I'm not judging. People ultimately, I'm judging the business I want to support and put money and time in, but yes, when I see FinTech companies, you know, charging, uh, 50 percent or a hundred percent APRs, I'm like, ah, really, right.

Is that really the right way to do things? Um, you know, are we sophisticated enough to find other options? Probably. So, you know, once again, do I want to spend my money and time on this one? There are better things to be doing. Like I prefer spending money, you know, and we were invested in a company called Oh, 11 H down in Spain.

These guys are revolutionizing the way we build houses and flats with a different approach to what has been doing, been going in the construction world for the last a hundred years. Is it complicated? Yes. Is it painful? Yes. Is it, you know, a straight go? No. Do you have SAS metrics like your MRR is growing every month?

No. But are you building something? Which is going to change the entire category. Yes. No. And this is, this is what I like about it is like spending, you know, my resources onto something that can really impact the world we live in. And thankfully enough, you know, I do this with amazing people. The founders were back, you know, in they've, they created a business previously that 600 million.

I mean, if they are, if there's a team that can actually do it, it's them. And yes, there's risk attached to it. But to me, it's way more interesting that the, you know, the usual enterprise software piece where I'm not saying it's not great. And some of them are phenomenal, but the, the question I always ask myself is like, you know, are we really moving the needle?

[00:29:08] Paul: Yeah, this is really interesting because I think you guys for diversity for you also means diversity of types of investments. You have B2B. And B2C, which in itself is unusual. We talked earlier about, you believe in the innovator that it's a people first founder, first, uh, ideology, not vertical markets.

You know, we don't need the sixth FinTech doing exactly the same thing as, as the last piece. And it's part of this, Ben, the fact that you guys really focus on. Deep tech. It's not the superficial you're going deep. Is this part of your diversity?

[00:29:40] Ben: Of course. It's part of the diversity. I think it's, you know, it's part of diversity.

And we see it on our, in our performance because our portfolio is diverse. You know, we are in the top decile investments funds in Europe, right? We give back money to our LPs when the rest of the market is tanked. And why is that? It's because you build a diverse portfolio. Um, it's because you're trying to evaluate different opportunities.

Um, you keep your mind open as well. I mean, there's nothing worse than an investor has been doing, you know, the same thing for 20 years and then comes out of business is like, ah, it's never going to work. But it's never going to work until it works and until someone, you know, does it. So having that.

Diversity of, of investment also creates better performance ultimately. And that's why on one hand, yeah, there are services or, or, or, or status quo that could be challenged with, you know, uh, just incremental innovation and, You know, we're happy to back these if we think they really move the needle on the other end of the spectrum, we've never been afraid of backing deep tech businesses when we think that there is no piece of technology working as of today that can, you know, move the needle as it should.

And so therefore, if the investment must be into hardcore tech, well, then we do it. And, you know, we've been investors in. Exotech, the first, you know, um, industrial unicorn in Europe and in France. We're investors in, uh, Alice and Bob in the quantum computing space. Yes, it's risky. Yes, it's complicated. Yes, it's different.

But that diversity in our portfolio, in our approach gives us a different perspective on things. And ultimately performance,

[00:31:26] Paul: right? Then we're going to ask you to look in your crystal ball. And, um, I think you see a little bit further than most people. What do you see in the future with your crystal ball?

[00:31:33] Ben: When you look at what's, you know, what the situation we're in in Europe today, um, we have a non growing economy in a non growing population, which means that a lot of companies we see are actually fighting against incumbents, right?

So it's like, it's a zero sum game where you try to take a piece of the cake of someone else.

[00:31:50] Paul: It's a wallet share scramble.

[00:31:52] Ben: Exactly. That's exactly what it is versus all the growing economies around us. And the biggest one with, you know, which Europe has had the stronger ties forever, and particularly the UK and France is just across the, the, the, the met it's, it's Africa.

But if you look at the map of the world, the next billion people on the planet are to come from Africa. And either we are able to feed To educate, to put a roof over the head of these people and create a sustainable economy and world, or it's going to be a disaster because, you know, everyone deserves a decent living if they don't find it in their own country, they will flee.

That's what it is. And that's what we're seeing today. So, you know, once again, building a better world as Europeans, we should be highly investing into Africa. Yeah. Uh, and not for them, obviously for us, for everyone, for the entire planet, right? And this will require innovation and tech. If you get 1 billion people in the next 20 years, that's 50 million a year, like 50 million people you need to send to school.

You can't actually even build these schools. It's impossible, right? So it needs to be tech driven. Otherwise it's going to be a disaster. So to me, I see a huge potential. Um, obviously it's not going to be easy. Obviously you're starting from a lower base. Obviously a lot of the infrastructure is not there and it's not in place.

So you need to rebuild and rethink a lot of stuff. Um, but the reason why we launched an Africa dedicated fund earlier this year is that, There is a tremendous potential. It's a very young population, very creative, you know, very connected. And so it's the perfect environment for, uh, for innovation. It's, and it's, it's, it's phenomenal.

It's phenomenal. I was in Lagos two weeks ago. Wow, you know, it's, it's, it's crazy

[00:33:51] Jonathan: as I guess the listeners will have worked out by now. Um, you ain't going to be looking at your crystal ball without actually doing something about it. So you've actually been investing in Africa.

[00:34:02] Ben: Yes. You know, once again, I put my money where my mouth is, otherwise I don't do things or I shut up.

You know, the African ecosystem is obviously still very nascent. So you have to go for the first, the big markets first. And you know, that's why I was so vocal about Europe because, you know, big markets make big companies and, uh, you know, category leaders that can transform their industry. So in Africa, as of today, the four biggest economies are, you know, Nigeria, South Africa, Egypt, Kenya.

Um, very soon Morocco, I hope, which is the fifth one. And, you know, he's lagging behind a little bit like Italy in Europe when it comes to tech. Um, so yes, you know, these are the major markets we're looking at. And we have, you know, people on the ground in, in, in Nigeria and South Africa. We are open to invest all across, you know, they are Amazing founders, a lot of them repats, by the way, you know, people who've been abroad, uh, being educated in what some of the best, you know, universities out there.

I've been working at some of the best tech companies out there and then come back to their own country with that experience and will to change, you know, the world. And, you know, we've invested in Senegal very recently, a company called Socham and, you know, the team is just phenomenal. Um, so it's a booming ecosystem and it's, and it's, it's fascinating to see.

See what people do to change their day to day.

[00:35:21] Paul: You know, if I'm, if I'm a potential LP, I'm listening to someone who's actually, as you say, boots on the ground, actual money, uh, invested. This isn't just aspirational. Like this is real stuff.

[00:35:32] Ben: But to your question earlier, I think, you know, there's the big vision, which is great, and you need to have one as a, as a CEO, as a founder, as a, as a tech entrepreneur, but you need to be executing right.

You need to be down on the ground and be like, look, the vision's great. But it's only going to be great if we do stuff, right? If we, if we actually execute on, on that vision and to me, yes, there are going to be changes. Yes. You know, finally, the economy is going to be down and this and that. But, but ultimately, if you have the drive and the passion to make things change.

Well, then you do otherwise, you know, you just sit on front of TV and talk about it

[00:36:10] Jonathan: It's also sort of interesting that you know, people didn't really think it through one might think that Where investments need to be targeted would be say agri tech ed tech health tech but the problem is is if you don't have the technologies that Underpin the critical infrastructure on which that will work, you know, FinTech, logistics, mobility, um, energy and climate, then, then none of it's really going to work.

So, you know, in terms of what sort of checks are you writing and for what sort of stages of companies and what about, you know, getting the follow on investors in there?

[00:36:45] Ben: So in Europe, you know, cause you know, the majority of our investments are still in Europe, between London and Paris and we do early stage up to series B.

So, you know, we're, we're having to take risks sort of, you know, two people in the garage kind of stage up to a few millions of revenue. And uh, in Africa, obviously the ecosystem isn't as, as advanced, right? So you have to do a lot of early stage. Any ecosystem is like a pyramid, right? You can't pretend you're going to be investing late stage when it's still early days because A, there's not enough companies and B, you're overpricing them.

And then you go back to my point around equity stories just ruined. So we do early stage stuff, you know, tickets from a few hundreds to a few millions. We love being the first investor in the business and acting as a real partner alongside, alongside the founders. And yes, we need to make the two move together.

A lot of people have only thought about fintech, fintech, fintech and developing markets. Yes. To build an economy, you need to be able to pay, you You need to be able to move people and goods and you need to be able to connect if you want to have, you know, a digital economy. So these are the four things you need to be doing.

But on top of that, once you have that sort of first layer, then you can build the rest. Then you can build food and education and services and anything that makes the lives of people better. Um, so we do this in parallel. And yes, some of our first investments in Africa have been in fintech. And energy as well, because, you know, uh, these, these are pillars to build the rest of the economy, uh, on top of, and then, yes, you know, we've doing, you know, some, uh, social, uh, and HR solutions for employees to get advance payment, for instance, which is crucial in the economy where there's no lending or.

You know, solutions for, uh, for merchants to actually build their businesses. We're looking at a, at a company today that provides a solution to, uh, improve and max optimize for your energy consumption, for instance, in countries where, you know, oil can go from 100 to 200 liter in two days. All of that are issues.

Do you see locally that you need to solve for? Uh, and are are gonna, you know, be improving the foundation for the economy to, to thrive.

[00:38:53] Jonathan: Thank you for listening. If you wanna learn more about Ben Morell and B Briga, then you can go to ww dot b brier.com. That's with two E's, and you could also read an informative piece on Ben's new Africa fund. Courtesy of our friends at www sifted EU linked. If you're wondering how Category Design can turbocharge your investment strategy, then we can help.

Get in touch with us. You can find our contact details, again, in the show notes.