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James Wise

General Partner, Balderton Capital · 3 appearances on the record.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

investorauthorhost@jamespaulwise ↗LinkedIn ↗jameswise.com ↗

James Wise is a General Partner at Balderton Capital, focusing on AI, healthtech, and enterprise software investments. He is the author of the book Start-Up Century and serves as the inaugural chair of the UK's Sovereign AI Unit.

31statements → 13claims → 9claims resolved → 89%fully supported → 3.87/5average certainty → 2.19/5average debate potential → 4.4/5argument clarity · the sources → 7said about them ↓

8 supported 1 partly supported 0 contradicted 2 not yet assessed 2 not checkable as stated how the 13 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

3 predictions · 10 assertions · 7 opinions · 8 insights · 3 disclosures · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 13 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 9 are resolved, 2 are not yet assessed, and 2 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how James argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Prediction Held up
Wise: Europe's next $100B tech giants will focus on AI, fintech, fashion
“They're going to go and build the third wave, which is the 10, fifty, hundred billion dollar companies. And they're obviously not going to be competitive with the types of companies built in San Francisco in the same fields, not in sort of the information sear…”
James Wise Apr 25, 2016 ▶ 9:07 20VC: Europe's Youngest Series A Venture Partner, James Wise @ Balderton Capital on How To Get Into Venture & What The Future Of The VC Industry Looks Like

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1
none yet certainty 2
100% certainty 3
100% certainty 4
50% certainty 5

weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet

Argument clarity: do they answer the question? how? →

4.4 / 5 directness 4.7 · coherence 4.5 · precision 4.1 · compression 3.8

answered every one of 30 assessed questions directly

This is a score against a rubric. It is not a rank. Every host question → answer exchange is scored with names hidden on directness, coherence, precision and compression, 1–5 each, on meaning alone: disfluencies are ignored, and only raw unedited episodes count. This is the score that measures thought. Every scored exchange, scores shown → · The rubric and its checks →

How they sound: speaking style how? →

276 words/min while actually speaking · 30.9 um and uh per 1k words

Measured by listening to the audio itself: 11,515 words across 3 episodes of raw-level tape, transcribed verbatim with every um and uh kept, each one attributed only where the alignment onto our timed stream is unambiguous. These are measurements of speaking style. We do not rank them: across this corpus, fluency and argument quality are nearly uncorrelated (ρ≈0.2), and smooth talking does not signal clear thinking. How it's measured →

How the interview went all their pushback → series average →

Across 3 rated episodes:

host pushback ▾ 2/10
pushed back at the host ▾ 2/10
setup questions received 80%

Everything James Wise said on 20VC that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Disclosure
Wise: Balderton receives 5,000-6,000 funding applications annually, double 2014 levels
“Our deal flow now is five to 6000 applications a year for funding. I mean, not all of them viable or, but you know, it's more than double what it was a couple of years ago.”
James Wise Apr 25, 2016 ▶ 17:26 20VC: Europe's Youngest Series A Venture Partner, James Wise @ Balderton Capital on How To Get Into Venture & What The Future Of The VC Industry Looks Like
Assertion Supported
Wise: Crowdcube raised £1 million in 16 minutes on its platform
“The fastest crowdfunding campaign, I think, was done on Crowdcube itself for Crowdcube. I think they did a million pounds in 16 minutes.”
James Wise Mar 12, 2015 ▶ 7:19 20 VC 019: Funding the Future with James Wise of Balderton Capital
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
JustPark saw a 3x increase in app downloads during Crowdcube campaign
“Just Park, who did their crowdfunding campaign recently on Crowdcube, they actually saw a three X increase in the number of downloads of the Just Park app.”
James Wise Mar 12, 2015 ▶ 8:30 20 VC 019: Funding the Future with James Wise of Balderton Capital
Assertion Supported
Balderton Capital limits check sizes between $1 million and $100 million
“We don't do a hundred million dollar tickets, and we don't really do less than a million dollar tickets.”
James Wise Mar 12, 2015 ▶ 9:28 20 VC 019: Funding the Future with James Wise of Balderton Capital
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
Wise: Balderton holds companies for an average of 7.1 years before exit
“You know, we normally know the companies we invest in for, I think it's just about two years before we invest, and we On average, hold our companies for 7.1 years before exit.”
James Wise Mar 12, 2015 ▶ 10:21 20 VC 019: Funding the Future with James Wise of Balderton Capital
Disclosure
Wise: Sunrise validated value through engagement before monetizing
“I was involved in a company called Sunrise. We didn't charge for it, but we knew we were creating value because people were spending time using it and coming back to the app.”
James Wise Mar 12, 2015 ▶ 13:00 20 VC 019: Funding the Future with James Wise of Balderton Capital
Disclosure
Wise: Balderton Capital's most recent investment is in MyTomorrows
“Most recent investment was in a company called MyTomorrows. They are targeting the delivery of drugs on, for early access programs. So completely changing the way that drug distribution is done for people who are very, very ill. And we said yes, because we tho…”
James Wise Mar 12, 2015 ▶ 18:43 20 VC 019: Funding the Future with James Wise of Balderton Capital

The other half of the tape: James Wise's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 7 times in 3 episodes on 20VC. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 4Luke Lang 3

Every mention by year

tap a year for its mentions
002131201520162017episodesmentions
011201520162017episodes it came up in
001.50.531201520162017episodesmentions per episode
2017 3 mentions in 1 episode
2016 1 mention in 1 episode
2015 3 mentions in 1 episode

Appearances (3)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
20VC: Europe's Youngest Series A Venture Partner, James Wise @ Balderton Capital on How To Apr 25, 2016 27m
Founders Friday 002: Balderton's James Wise interviews 20VC Founder, Harry Stebbings Jul 3, 2015 4m
20 VC 019: Funding the Future with James Wise of Balderton Capital Mar 12, 2015 15m
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