Venture Lab with Luis

Inside Wonder Studio: Building the Y Combinator of Hollywood

Xavier grew up moving countries five times. That instability drilled into him one obsession: control your own destiny. That mission carried him from law school in Sydney, through three unicorns, Uber, Deliveroo, and Turo, to an encounter over rosé at the Cannes Film Festival.An Alice in Wonderland trailer created with AI was the lightning bolt that led him to co-found Wanda Studios, an AI-native studio for films and music videos. In under a year, he raised $15M from Atomico and LocalGlobe, worked with Lewis Capaldi, built a team across London, New York and LA, and assembled a four-pillar flywheel designed to democratize access to Hollywood-grade film production.In this episode, Xavier shares:- What three unicorn marketplaces taught him about quality supply and why it's the first thing a founder should obsess over- Why following your instinct can be the best way to make decisions - Why product-market fit matters more than hard work and how to find that signal - The one thing he'd challenge you to do this week if you're still waiting to start

From Poetry to Deep Tech: How Europe Builds the Next Tesla I Will Wells, Speedinvest

Will grew up in a family of shipbuilders, naturalists, and war heroes, a family legacy that, drilled into him one simple principle: have a go, do something that helps people. That mission carried him from a poetry degree to a hedge fund, through a cancer diagnosis at 29, to become a deep tech founder and then deep tech investor with one obsession: swing the bat on something that actually matters. Then at Lightspeed and Firstminute Capital, he worked with teams that invested in SpaceX, Anthropic, Wayve and Mistral before he became a partner at Speedinvest.  In this episode, Will shares: * Why being diagnosed with cancer at 29 was the pivot that forced him to swing the bat  * What he learned about courage from Lightspeed's billion-dollar bet on Anthropic * Why the most interesting deep tech opportunities in Europe exist between the verticals of energy, space, and compute * Why Europe's next Tesla or SpaceX won't start in a lab, and why you need to raise $100M before you've solved the science * The founder profile that actually builds generational companies in 2026

How General Catalyst’s $43B Venture Strategy Actually Works I Zeynep Yavuz

Zeynep grew up in Turkey in an entrepreneurial family and from an early age absorbed their persistence, bias for action, and an understanding of what it really takes to build a business. That observation became her mission: not to start a company, but to be a partner to the founders. Her path to General Catalyst was not a straight line, investment banking, private equity at TA Associates, and a split-second decision to turn down a VC offer to go into operating instead. Today she is a Partner at one of the world's most influential venture firms, with $43 billion under management and early investments in Stripe, Airbnb, In this episode, Zeynep shares:- Why turning down a VC offer mid-career was the best decision she ever made- How General Catalyst backed Stripe across 14 rounds - Why AI's biggest opportunity isn't in software. It's in services industries that haven’t seen innovation - Margins from 12% to 40%: the AI rollup playbook transforming real estate & accounting, - The only superpower that matters in venture and why your 5-year career plan is already out of date

How I built a Venture Fund from Scratch at 27 I Bastian Larsen I E13

Bastian Larsen went from co-leading product strategy for a $10B hedge fund at BlackRock to building his own venture capital firm with zero VC experience. Learn how he: - Raised $25M from 65 LPs without a network. - Pitched a non-existent fund and closed deals. - Used persistence over credentials to break into VC. - Applied "Keep It Simple" to avoid years of overthinking. For aspiring VCs, founders, and anyone thinking about leaving corporate to start something.Topics: venture capital career, VC fundraising strategy, leaving BlackRock, startup investing, first-time fund manager, LP relationships, founder resilience.

Building Yonder: The 10-Year Founder Journey Nobody Talks About I Tim Chong, Yonder

Tim Chong, founder and CEO of Yonder, reveals how he went from a Single room apartment in London during COVID lockdown to building one of Europe's fastest-growing consumer fintechs competing against billion-dollar incumbents like American Express, Visa, and Mastercard. We cover the hidden cost of the founder journey, surviving Silicon Valley Bank's collapse with £12M trapped, and why "foodies in London" beat big TAM thinking.In this episode, Tim shares:- The real price of startup life that nobody talks about. - Silicon Valley Bank collapsed with £12M in their account right after closing Series A- The sticky tape to scaling framework: how to sequence startup problems correctly- Being Optimist AND Paranoid: the leadership paradox every founder must embrace- Finding product-market fit is like giving birth: you can't fast-track it with capital- Risk assessment: go for capped downside, uncapped upside- Founder vs CEO: why they're different jobs and how to learn bothThis is for founders building consumer products, raising pre-seed/seed, battling incumbent competitors, struggling with work-life balance, or questioning the 10-year commitment.Tim Chong | Founder & CEO, Yonder Previous: Media background, worked on M-Pesa in Kenya, management consultant Yonder: Consumer fintech credit card with city discovery, launched 2021, tens of thousands of customers