Nico Wittenborn
Founder & Solo GP, Adjacent. On 1 show, 2 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
investorfounder@ncsh ↗adjacent.com ↗
Nico Wittenborn is an early-stage tech investor known for pioneering the solo GP model with his fund Adjacent, which focuses on mobile-first consumer subscription apps and software. Prior to Adjacent, he invested at Point Nine Capital and Insight Partners, backing companies including Photoroom, Calm, Oura, Revolut, and RevenueCat.
1shows
2appearances
49statements
9resolved
5supported
0contradicted
56%fully supported
18said about them ↓ Everything Nico Wittenborn said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Wittenborn: Macro growth drivers matter far more than execution
“And so I believe that those companies benefit from growth drivers that are much more meaningful than any execution.”
Wittenborn: The US has a higher caliber of venture investors than Europe
“That being said, I've met many more investors that I'm impressed with in the U.S. Than in Europe, right?”
Wittenborn: Paywall display frequency is top driver of subscription conversion
“And so what Superwall is doing is optimizing paywalls. And so one of the learnings that we have from that is that the number one indicator for driving conversion is how often do you see the paywall, right?”
Wittenborn: VCs Dislike Consumer Subscription Until Tens of Millions in Revenue
“Because people don't like consumer subscription until it does tens of millions in revenue.”
Wittenborn: Existing consumer subscription apps will win most value from AI
“The way I think about it from an adjacent perspective is we're going to have companies that are already consumer subscription companies that are implementing this to make their products even more sticky, more functional and give features that were not possible…”
Wittenborn: Venture capital fund sizes will shrink in coming years
“It's certainly hard to make a blanket statement, but I think that fund sizes will go down.”
Wittenborn: Duolingo commands higher revenue multiples than comparable SaaS companies
“There's now a Duolingo that's, I would just want to stress this, in this current macro, they have a much higher multiple on their revenue run rate than comparable SaaS companies.”
Founders Fund was the only VC to proactively halve its fund size
“Also, they're the only ones that Cut their fund size in half proactively when the macro changed. So they went from, I don't know, 1.8 to nine hundred million in two funds, right?”
Wittenborn: Consumer subscription apps can reach $1B to $5B outcomes
“So I think that, yes, today, I believe we're early. However, I have enough confidence based on what I've seen that we can get to multi-billion dollar outcomes, right? I don't know about ten billion dollar outcomes, but I think one, two, three, four, five billi…”
Wittenborn: Consumer App Churn Resembles SMB SaaS After Year One
“The insight that we've had with some of the first companies we invested in is that the churn is usually high in the first year, and then from the second year on, it looks very much like SMB SaaS churn.”
Wittenborn: Consumer app prices will follow SaaS trajectory over 5-10 years
“The price increases that we have seen since, like, let's say, a corn launch to what it charges yearly today and what it will charge in five to 10 years, I think it has a similar trajectory to what we've seen with SaaS companies and their ability to extract val…”
Wittenborn: Seed-stage consumer subscription apps can reach tens of millions in revenue
“Often with a seed round, you get to tens of millions in revenue.”
Wittenborn: Adjacent Plans for Three-Year Cash Runway in Round Structuring
“At the same time, it enables the founder to have more money so that they have longer runway, which typically now I plan for three years.”
Wittenborn: Seed-Stage Startups Do Not Need Formal Board Seats
“At Seed, you don't need a board, I think, because you're chasing product market fit, and so most of the time I'm in your way.”
Point Nine broke its rules to invest in Revolut's seed round
“When I was with .9 and reinvested in Revolut, it was both outside of the focus, right? It's a mobile consumer app. It was actually had just closed the seat round with Balderton. So there was no actionable opportunity and the only way to get in was actually for…”
Wittenborn: Investment frameworks exist to test conviction when breaking them
“I think that part of the frameworks that we set for ourselves are litmus test for the conviction to break them.”
Wittenborn: Solo GP model fits early-stage VC better than consensus partnerships
“I think solo GP is, For the right person, a very good fit for the early stage. And I think most consensus driven models at the early stage, unless it's a very aware and mindful partnership that really supports each other and, you know, can all see the complexi…”
Wittenborn: Backed founders who initially aimed for $10M scale
“So I do, like, I've invested in founders that told me, we want to scale to ten million and then we'll see. Right? Like, which nobody else would do that.”
Wittenborn: European founders prioritize US venture investors over local funds
“One thing I've actually noticed is that the European founders care about having a US investor.”
Wittenborn: Founders respect VCs who built their own firm over hired partners
“And I think that is something, by the way, that I think founders respect, right? Because you're not an associate or principal, even a partner that was hired into a firm with a cushy salary, but you took a risk, you built something, and you're trying to, you kn…”
Massive user engagement allows early startups to figure out monetization later
“If you can show that this is something people really love, and there's just huge traction in terms of usage or growth, then we think that monetization can often, often follow that.”
Wittenborn: Tech evolution occurs deterministically through combining existing phenomena
“Evolution happens usually as a combination of the existing phenomena and in a relatively deterministic way.”
Wittenborn: Adjacent Portfolio Companies Must Pay Back CAC Within One Year
“We steer acquisition so that we recover the CAC with the first year, ok? So every time you get a yearly subscriber that pays back your CAC, you don't overspend”
The other half of the tape: Nico Wittenborn's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 18 times in 11 episodes across the shows. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 14Suchit Dash 2Martin Mignot 2
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
20VC 18
2025 4 mentions in 2 episodes 2 per episode
2024 4 mentions in 2 episodes 2 per episode
2023 6 mentions in 4 episodes 2 per episode
- Suchit Dash: Scaling Dubsmash to 43M Users, Battling TikTok & Joining Reddit | E1060 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Peter Lacaillade: Why Now is the Best Time to Invest in Emerging Managers | E1096 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Matthieu Rouif: The Story of PhotoRoom, Is This YC’s Most Capital Efficient Company? | E1074 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Miles Grimshaw: The 5 Pillars of Venture Capital & Why Co-Pilot is an Incumbent Strategy | E1061 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- every mention in 2023, scene by scene →
2018 1 mention in 1 episode
2017 3 mentions in 2 episodes 2 per episode
- 20VC: Kleiner Perkins' MZ Zaveri on Why Success In Venture Is About The 3 F's, How VCs Can Manage Deal Heat & Is There Too Much Venture Dollars At Seed
- 20VC: Why Strategic Investing Is Slow Motion M&A, Why Valuation Is The Hardest Element of M&A & What Determines Between Cash vs Stock Deals with Chad Richard, SVP of Business & Corporate Development @ Yelp
- every mention in 2017, scene by scene →
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Nico's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20VCLEDGER | Founder & Solo GP, Adjacent | 2 | 49 | 56% 5/9 | full record on 20VC → |