The Exchanges

Q Yeah. Ok, great. Well, let's go back. So let's go back. Let me, let me go back to where I interrupted you. So the, the, the pickup in Excel, uh, what bet, uh, you moved from, uh, Endemol Shine Group, which was corporate, back into Excel. Why did you decide to go back into venture capital after, uh, your corporate experience?

A You know, when I think back on my career, um, I've either been working at traditional companies trying to defend, ah, disruption, or I've worked With, with, or, um, or I've worked with the companies that were doing the disruptor. And that would be broadly how I divide the years that I've spent working. And if I look back, I've always had much more fun, ah, working with the disruptor. Um, and, ah, at my time back, ah, in corporate, especially at Endemol, um, we were very focused on, um, A number of key areas for the business at the time, which included social and mobile gaming, uh, original content creation, um, and, uh, and online gambling, um, all of which were very significant growth areas for the business, um, and I spent a lot of my time interacting with the disrupting companies. And, um, the more time, uh, and I, you know, it was an amazing experience, um, and I learned a lot, uh, working there, but I just kept itching to get back on the other side, and there was actually one company specifically, um, that pushed me over the edge, which was a, um, a company based in London called Playfish, which had been founded by, um, a group of very talented gaming entrepreneurs led by Christian Segastrada, who was a Finnish entrepreneur, And him and I spoke at a conference together, ah, in Cannes, in France. Um, and I was talking about gaming from the perspective of the incumbent, and …

AI assessment note: “I just kept itching to get back on the other side”

Q of this information is wrong, ok, it's just based off research I've done, but, The class pass investment seems to be one that's doing extremely well. You've said extremely, uh, uh, uh, nice things, obviously about the founder and the founding team and kind of her vision. Uh, what did you see early on in the business and what kind of enabled you to, to get into that deal early?

A Um, So, you know, I met, ah, I met Payal, ah, the founder, when she was really in her first month of ClassPass. She had pivoted from another business before that had raised some seed money. And she was, I met her when she was raising a seed round for ClassPass, and I think she was two weeks into experimenting with this subscription-based model. Um, and I was very intrigued, ah, by her and also the early progress that they had. Uh, but we landed up not investing in the seed round and watching the company, uh, for about a year. Um, and we saw, um, her and, um, you know, co-founder and the rest of the team, um, just a really good job executing.

AI assessment note: “I met Payal, ah, the founder, when she was really in her first month”

Q Adam, before we get into some of these investments and what you're doing currently, take us back to the early days. You know, when you left Europe, I think Europe, I mean, they shed some tears over this based off the press associated with, with it. How did you kind of get started in venture capital? Maybe start off maybe with the love film experience in 2003 as interim CEO.

A Yeah, so I came, I, I initially, uh, moved from the U.S. to Europe in 99 as a, uh, twenty-five-year-old, um, for a job as an associate at a venture capital firm, and my thesis then was that I wanted to, um, find a new frontier that was still in the very, very early days of understanding the internet, because I had worked during the very early years of the U.S. kind of internet boom Ah, between 96 and 99. And, um, I landed up in Europe super excited about, um, hopefully being somewhat of a pioneer investor in some of the, ah, first wave of European internet companies. And it was super fun, but the party ended very quickly in 2000 with the burst of the bubble. And the years that followed, ah, were, were largely spent kind of picking up the pieces And, um, cleaning up from the, ah, from the party of, ah, 99, 2000. And, um, ah, but it was also an incredible time to learn and to build great companies. And in 2003, my venture firm, ah, incubated a company called Love Film, which was the, ah, essentially was the Netflix of Europe, ah, at the time, delivering DVDs in the mail, and later, um, over the top, ah, subscription-based VOD. Um, but I, um, as part of that incubation, uh, working with my firm and Thomas Hogue, um, who was the lead guy.

AI assessment note: “moved from the U.S. to Europe in 99 as a twenty-five-year-old for a job as an associate”

Q it out. Adam, let's spend 60 seconds. It deserves so much more time because it's an interesting emotional play, but let's spend 60 seconds on Giphy before we wrap up. February 26th, there was a fifty million dollar round of funding at a three hundred million dollar post-money valuation as reported by TechCrunch. When did you guys get involved in the company and what do you like most about it?

A We got, um, we got involved at the company, in the company at the beginning of 2015. We are so excited to work with the company. The founders are just absolutely awesome guys, super contemporary, um, had over the horizon radar, um, about where the world was going in terms of messaging and communication, and understood early how important the Animated GIFs would be in the sort of future of communication. It just moved really fast to become the driving force and the, um, the driving force in that space, and have created also, you know, a wide range of tools, uh, for consumers and incredible, um, opportunities for, uh, content owners and advertisers to take advantage of, um, the way people are interacting and communicating. So we're just super excited to work with the team. And we think that it's, um, they already have a massive footprint, um, uh, in terms of users, in terms of the amount of gear.

AI assessment note: “We got involved at the company, in the company at the beginning of 2015.”

Q successful businesses right now. So what would your advice be for somebody looking at Netflix as it currently is today, if they were going to launch something right, that, that would be kind of the future, uh, of kind of on-demand video, uh, what is something that somebody could do as a small startup right now that could compete with Netflix that Netflix just can't do because of its size?

A Um, well, I think Netflix is a difficult company to compete with because they're just so phenomenal, um, on so many different levels, and a lot of the competition that they see, uh, is coming from very, very strong companies that can, that can compete on, um, uh, you know, on the front that Netflix, uh, competes, which is, um, you know, massive technology infrastructure, very significant investment in buying content, but also creating content. So that lands up being, ah, more likely to become companies like Google and Amazon than it does, ah, a startup, but I certainly have seen some companies, um, doing interesting things in the market, including, um, aggregating, ah, long tail live content like sports, um, And there's a very, um, impressive company, uh, called Flow Sports that is aggregating, uh, long, um, long tail live sports content that lots of people, um, are very passionate about, but haven't been sort of like mainstream ESPN sports. I think that's super interesting. Um, I've heard of companies aggregating, um, Sports, uh, sports content from all over the world, um, and just making it available, uh, in one place, even if it means linking through to, um, uh, you know, cable providers or freely available stuff. Um, so I think there are ways to, um, To create value. Although, I must say, in the, in the world of content, it's always challenging just given the, uh, strength …

AI assessment note: “aggregating, ah, long tail live content like sports”

Q How do you measure that, Adam, when you say faster growing? Is it downloads? Is it revenue? And app purchases? What's the measurement?

A You can, you can see, you can see that as being shared by the big platform companies, like if you look on Twitch and YouTube, you can see that this is the, um, this is the, um, the mobile game that, that really is becoming an e-sport, meaning hundreds of thousands or millions of people watching live streams, watching on Twitch and YouTube, uh, Having global tournaments with professional players, uh, big prize money, um, you know, so that is typically reserved for, you know, PC games, uh, you know, like League of Legends, and Dota, and Counter-Strike, and this is the, this is one of the real contenders to be the, you know, the next big esport in, uh, in mobile.

AI assessment note: “meaning hundreds of thousands or millions of people watching live streams, watching on Twitch”

Q round, but it was in, in Halo. And the question I have is, I believe based off what I researched, Halo is essentially trying to bring a very old, right? It's basically Uber, but instead of being the disruptor that's trying to replace taxis, it's trying to bring the taxi Kind of current infrastructure around to actually compete with Uber. One, is that true? And two, why make that bet?

A Um, yeah, so no, so Halo was a company that was founded in 2000 and, uh, 10, I believe. Um, they went live in London in 2011, and, um, by early 2012, it already became a phenomenon in London, and we invested right at the beginning of 2012, and, uh, saw the company, um, grow very fast and make a huge footprint in London and some other markets. Um, and, uh, it was overall a, um, you know, a positive experience working with a great team. I think they had some very strong competition, and, um, uh, I think the market, uh, no one ever, you know, when I look back, I don't think we ever expected the market to be that big, but I don't think we, uh, expected the competitors to be that good.

AI assessment note: “became a phenomenon in London, and we invested right at the beginning of 2012”

Q Is the thesis right, though, Adam? The thesis behind the business is, is actually working with the taxi industry instead of trying to just destroy it, which is what, You know, obviously Uber's after.

A Yeah. And, and, you know, I think they've done a really good job in a lot of the cities that they're in. Uh, but there were a lot, you know, if you, if you look back at that time, I mean, you know, that, that, that was one company, but it was a very interesting time in general because, um, it was a period where there was still a lot of questions around whether Europe would become a viable venture capital environment because the last time around the party, um, Ended before, ah, it really got started back in 2002 1001, so, and then there was 2008 and nine, so there was, there were a lot of question marks about what would happen afterwards, and, um, the, ah, there were just a lot of phenomenal companies formed, um, in Europe at that time. Um, you know, there's a, um, as you know, the one from the sort of previous era was Skype, but then there was a whole other generation of companies They came afterwards, and Europe has actually been, you know, really thriving. So it was just a really good personal experience, um, to be meeting with all these companies, um, uh, all over Europe at a time when, you know, there wasn't a lot of venture capital money available, um, but there was, like, a lot of companies that came out of it. And there were a lot of companies that never even put venture money in the end. Like, you know, we spent a lot of time trying to call people at companies like Mine…

AI assessment note: “that was one company, but it was a very interesting time in general because”