Welcome to At The Cap Table podcast, a new series that shines the spotlight on the investors who are changing the vc industry in Europe. Today your host Savs Tan welcomes Deepali Nangia, Partner at Speedinvest. Speedinvest is a hands-on, pan-European early stage tech investor, partnering with founders from their early stages and helping them to grow game changing businesses. The Speedinvest team is one of the most active investors in Europe and last year announced 500m€ of fresh capital to invest in new ventures, and to continue to back their existing portfolio. The firm manages more than €1 billion in AuM and although it started in Austria, counts a team of over 40 investors based in Berlin, London, Munich, and Paris.
Deepali joined Speedinvest as a Partner with a focus on finding, funding, and supporting investment in underrepresented founders but the majority of her time in venture capital has been as an angel investor, supporting startups from day 1.
In this episode you’ll learn:
– About how Deepali’s thesis in investing in female founders came through her own experiences of being underestimated in the workplace
– How cleaning up the cap table is a myth: angels can continue to add value beyond capital and are a vital support for founders in a way that VCs cannot be, particularly in the early stages
– Demystifying investment for operators could create a better angel ecosystem and is just as important as access to deal flow
– Deepali’s move from independent Angel to Partner at Speedinvest was not planned - she got to know the team and look at deals together before they developed a Venture Partner role for her, and she gradually became more and more involved with the firm before joining full time