EUVC #265: Simon Lohman on building the Cavalry Platform

Today we have Simon Lohmann, Head of Platform & Investor Relations at Cavalry Ventures, an early-stage generalist venture fund in Germany to back European Software companies with a huge LP network and a sizeable platform team in place.

Cavalry is investing out of Fund 3 with a total of 250m AUM and an established portfolio of 50+ companies and notable investments including Usercentrics (Consent Management), Planradar (Real-Estate Construction Management), Forto (Digital Freight Forwarder), and Aleph Alpha (Generative Enterprise AI), which just raised an enormous Series B.

At Cavalry, Simon focuses on Fundraising and Investor Relations now and built up the platform before.

Go to eu.vc for a full write up of our learnings from this episode 🧠

Chapters:
00:00:00 - Introduction and Sponsor Message
00:03:30 - Investment Announcement with German Corporates
00:06:58 - From Sales to VC: My Journey in the Industry
00:10:15 - The Importance of Education and Learning
00:13:47 - Investing in Talent and Consolidation in the VC Space
00:17:29 - The Challenges in the VC Industry
00:21:09 - Adjusting Valuations and Interacting with LPs
00:24:35 - The Beginning of Cavalry and the Platform Activities
00:28:11 - Structured Approach to Platform Development
00:31:40 - Using an App for Communication
00:35:04 - Using Affinity as our CRM
00:38:30 - Tracking the Success of Introductions
00:41:59 - The Value of a Platform Team in Venture Capital
00:45:28 - Importance of Value Add and Trust
00:48:45 - Supporting Portfolio Companies
00:52:14 - Shoutouts to Christian Du and Hannah from Don Capital
00:55:49 - Strategic Work and Scalability
00:59:20 - Capacity Management and Scalability Techniques
01:02:53 - Advice for First-Time Founders and Long-Term Thinking
01:06:27 - Communicating Clearly with LPs in Venture Capital
01:10:15 - European Unity and Values