Fabio Lancellotti

I adapted my corporate consulting expertise for the VC world

When I first joined, I thought I’d help solve the challenges startups face by applying all the things I’d learnt from helping big corporates become more competitive. In hindsight, it’s obvious why that doesn’t work. Startups simply don’t have the time to wait for clarity, and gather enough data from the marketplace or competitors before acting, as the big guys can afford to do. At the same time, failure is not an option.

I realised the best way I could help startups was to bring the complementary perspective of a co-entrepreneur in a non-executive position. An experienced venture capitalist can provide a founder with valuable insights from peer entrepreneurs, all of whom are also going through the unavoidable ups and downs every startup faces.

Funding isn’t everything

Aster’s influence doesn’t come from being the guy in the boardroom with deep pockets. It comes from constant, enduring, constructive and dialectic collaboration – genuine collaboration that often starts even before we make the investment. We believe this is the main way to gain trust and inspire confidence when the time to make tough decisions comes, and I can tell you it typically does faster and more often than expected.

That collaboration extends beyond the VC-founder partnership. Aster stands out as a family in a sea of VCs formed of individual contributors. We bring our wealth of experience together as a team.

Exciting things are happening in Europe

Europe is progressively catching up with the US in terms of the funding available to startups, the talent pool and the number of experienced venture capitalists and entrepreneurs. I tend to focus on the bright side of what trend analysis tells us, and I am definitely happy about what Europe is doing.

However, I believe there’s a tremendous opportunity for Europe to become THE place for purpose-driven entrepreneurs. It’s in Europe that human rights were first recognised, and this legacy is one of the things that binds us together as European citizens.

As of 2019, the amount of money invested in purpose-driven European venture-backed companies has more than doubled compared to the year before, with more than €4Bn in fresh funding. I’m really keen to see how this trend evolves in the next couple of years and I urge any founder to think again about the benefits his or her company can bring to society. There are big opportunities out there.