1.In your opinion, how has the Startups Industry evolved over the years? What are some of the advantages of the current technological evolution?
Lorrain de Silva
The European startup ecosystem has evolved magnificently over the past decade. While a few years ago European VC funds were looking for more capital to participate on critical later-stage investments to compete with U.S. investors in the long run, today we lack the skilled talent to meet the high demand of Europe's tech scene. Meanwhile, European startups are playing on a truly global scale, setting cutting-edge standards and inspiring founders around the world. The great thing is that several technological features and standards, for example from the FinTech industry, are now making their way into the culture and entertainment sector, making the customer journey even smoother. For example, our portfolio startup Woov from Amsterdam, which now provides the essential technological infrastructure at the most famous festivals of this time, delighting both organizers and visitors with smart ticketing, community-messaging, and payment features. The approach of our LA Based portfolio company Flickplay, which recently received an investment from Lightspeed Venture Partners, seems a bit more futuristic, in which it enables real-life interactions in the metaverse.The founders of Soundboks, our portfolio company from Denmark, are focusing on even more autonomy and have developed the most powerful Bluetooth speaker with which they now leverage independent micro parties all over the world.
"Those who remain open to experimentation and try out technological trends such as Crypto, NFT and Metaverse will always remain at the cutting edge and thus innovative"
2. What according to you are some of the challenges plaguing the Startups Industry and how can they be effectively mitigated?
The Nightlife and cultural event industry is still highly affected by COVID. Nonetheless, we at Best Nights VC remain optimistic for the future and areextremely proud of the incredible achievements of ourPortfolio companies. Because even though we've become familiar with the sight of unicorns these days, not all founders have the same access to high volume funding rounds for their business model. Nor do all startups aspire to raise at seed round with a valuation of 50 million. Accordingly, we at Best Nights VC are committed to founders, focusing on an industry that at first sight is not associated with highly scalable and capital-intensive super apps, but instead makes an extremely important contribution to overall well-being and social interaction within society. In addition, the culture and events sector, with its many freelance artists and lively events, has been particularly hard hit by the Covid pandemic and needs even more financial investment to improve the overall situation. Our mission is to shape the future of nightlife by strategically investing in visionary founders and their business models that will shape the Nightlife not only more contemporary but in its best case also more sustainable, social, and safer whilst creating many Best Nights!
3.Which are a few technological trends influencing the Startups Industry today? What are some of the best practice’s businesses should adopt today to steer ahead of competitors?
One thing is certain: never had revolutionary concepts such a high potential for implementation as they do have today, because never has technology been able to achieve what the visionaries of past decades had in mind. When we talk about tech at Best Nights VC, we mean consumer tech and address approaches that leverage the good life but especially social instead of virtual interactions, that make nightlife safer or address new and unprecedented avenues in the metaverse. Such a highly developed and comprehensive technologization of our society holds many potentials but also risks which we try to consider carefully in accordance with the high manufacturer responsibility of our corporate group Jägermeister. Current discussions with founders and investors are accordingly controversial. In the end, it probably doesn't hurt any business model these days to focus very carefully on the collection, structuring and evaluation of customer data from the beginning in order to optimize one's own product and service proposition. Those who remain open to experimentation and try out technological trends such as Crypto, NFT and Metaverse will always remain at the cutting edge and thus innovative.
4. Do you have any advice for industry veterans or budding entrepreneurs from the Startups Industry?
Nowadays, it seems as if most of it already exists and that much of it is not very sustainable and not necessarily in the interest of people and the environment due to the fast pace of life. Therefore, we try to invest in business models that create real and memorable moments in the lives of our consumers. In the end, we believe quality always beats quantity and convenience beats price. That's why our advice is always to listen to the intrinsic needs of customers and create something meaningful and sustainable that people love.
About Best Nights VC
Best Nights VC, the corporate Venture Capital Investment Unit of J¤germeister, has an enormously strong reputation in the cultural and nightlife sector, which, combined with the network and know-how of an internationally operating VC team and a multi-faceted portfolio, represents the best companion for founders from the targeted industries.
