In early November, founders from across the Earlybird portfolio filtered into the 180 Strand in the startup hub that is London. Our Annual General Meeting was beginning to percolate. The goal: facilitate meaningful conversations and connections between our founders and our LPs, bringing them together alongside the Earlybird team.

When you spot the pictures, you’ll feel this energy between the innovators themselves and those who back them, especially against the backdrop of Europe’s continued ascent globally as a tech ecosystem!

Earlybird AGM 2025 - setting the tone from the very first step

Kicking off with a Founder Brunch 

This momentous day was rooted in the very foundation of why we do what we do: backing visionary founders before their breakthrough. 

Gathering as many portfolio members as possible included exchanging learnings and insights over an autumn breakfast spread. Our VP People & Community, Jay Harris Theis, organized a curated session in which CEOs, CTOs, COOs, and CFOs could mingle and trade insights.

In an often remote world, bringing entrepreneurs together in person infuses memorable meaning. We saw this in the handshakes and laughter as founders met and compared notes on common challenges. 

In the second half of the brunch, we invited 2 GTM experts to speak: Luke Miller and Samantha Wessels. Both were Catalysts in our ongoing Venture Partner program, though Luke has since gone on to found a new portfolio company, SLNG, which he pitched to the wider audience later in the day.

Guided by a Q&A with Earlybird Principal Akash Bajwa, Luke and Samantha shared candid insights on what makes sales work in founder-led companies touching on hiring, performance management, and customer obsession.

Both experts stressed discipline and focus: find the right customer fit, don’t get stuck chasing small accounts, and make outbound everyone’s responsibility. Once a deal closes, shift the spotlight to customer success to prevent churn. 

Finally, Samantha and Luke highlighted the importance of the customer experience and how to stand out. Early stage startups closing design partners heard about leading authentic conversations around pricing: “ask prospects how much they’d pay, when they’d pay, and even try using a “fake ROI calculator” to provoke real answers, rather than starting from zero and expecting input.”

Samantha Wessels, Luke Miller and Akash Bajwa on what truly drives GTM success

Ready for Launch

To fuel our upcoming AGM sessions, CEO & Co-founder Daniel Metzler of Earlybird portfolio company Isar Aerospace, set the tone: optimistic and driven. He embodies the perfect example of technical and research excellence, channeled into a company, now providing Europe with access to space. 

Europe’s access to space has big ramifications for food, navigation, security, and more, as every company relies on data transmitted via space. With that inspiring start, we charged full speed ahead into the day.

Daniel Metzler on Europe’s race to space and why it matters for every industry

Europe’s Positioning: Teeming with Talent

After a warm welcome from our General Partner, Paul Klemm, we dove into Europe’s positioning in the AI race. There is much reason for optimism: General Partner Dr. Andre Retterath reminded us that Europe has more STEM graduates than the US or China. There is much excitement across modalities that involve 3D models. His panel included experts from SpAItial, Black Forest Labs, and OpenAI. They all noted that Europe is well positioned across the AI stack.

Laura Modiano from OpenAI emphasized hiring for technical skills at every level to reflect a shift: even at the sales and procurement level, buyers are increasingly technical. While Europe excels in applying AI to gaming, photography, there is much more we can build here. A trend they see? Creating entirely European engineering teams. With the access to the talent we have, we can leverage a great network to hire for the foundational models. 

Although Europe is often cited as ‘fragmented’, it’s also teeming with powerful hubs, including cities you might not expect. Beyond London, Munich, Zurich, and Paris, less obvious places like Freiburg, Heidelberg, or Tübingen are well-positioned to breed category-defining AI companies, specifically in the B2B arena.

And speaking of geography, this panel reminded us that IF you choose to go global from the beginning, you are well-positioned to thrive internationally. Champion the builders around you!

Europe’s Position in the AI Race: Andre Retterath in conversation with Laura Modiano, David Novatny, and Robin Rombach

AI is building the Industrial Future

Principal Laura Waldenstrom took the stage with Alexander Schwörer of PERI, Siddharth Khullar of Aris, and Roland Phillippsen of EthonAI. Together, they discussed how to advance the industrial world through AI. 

The conversation quickly moved beyond hype into hard-won reality: Most industrial AI projects fail at the pilot phase because they chase technology rather than solving real problems with measurable impact. Furthermore, the biggest barriers aren't technical; they're organizational. 

In addition, industrial companies need to get their data foundation in order before AI can truly deliver. Europe has the industrial expertise and AI talent to lead, but needs to match technical excellence with bold, fast execution to compete with the US speed of adoption.

When looking to the future, autonomous operations optimize existing processes and create entirely new categories of what's possible in manufacturing; this thought led us directly into the next panel on Physical AI.

Earlybird’s Laura Waldenstrom guiding a discussion on the intersection of AI and industry with experts from Alexander Schwörer, Siddharth Khullar, and Roland Phillippsen

Shaping the World with Physical AI

Earlybird’s Co-Founder & Partner, Dr. Hendrik Brandis, launched into a dynamic chat with Arago’s Nicolas Muller, Conception X’s Riam Kanso, alongside Generative Engineering’s Joe Griston.

They aimed to answer: How can we connect AI with the physical world and harvest new opportunities? AI is continually advancing in speed and the ability to create and optimize processes. Additionally, AI is already shaping the physical world, ‘from the atom up’, says Riam. She shared that this will ‘collapse the time from hypothesis to physical implementation.’

Their conversation not only touched on drug development and accelerated medicine, but also on the impact of AI on hardware and products, including decision-making. However, it’s worth noting that according to Joe, ‘AI doesn’t capture engineering intent, it captures what has happened before.’

And when it comes to the physical AI era, Nicolas points out that he sees a common path: people are overshooting on compute power. With every new phone, more sensors and processors are leading to more data points to be collected. This type of scale is unprecedented.

Exploring how AI meets the physical world: Hendrik Brandis, Nicolas Muller, Riam Kanso, and Joe Griston on innovation from atoms to automation

Europe’s AI-driven Investing Revolution

With Europe as a home to key fintech champions, and London’s reputation for fintech innovation, our AGM was the perfect setting for a panel hosted by our General Partner Tim Rehder. Tim spoke with absolute experts in the industry: Martin Kassing of Upvest, Valentin Stalf of N26, Emily Cheetham of Blackrock, and Jordan Sinclair of Robinhood.

The overarching theme: Lower the bar to investing and reduce complexity for customers. 

Martin relayed Upvest’s amazing adoption in Germany, attributable to changing price points and infrastructure innovation. Jordan shared that he always wanted to be an international player, but acknowledged, ‘the gap is getting started.’ His advice: Make information more available to customers, give them a greater set of tools, not just investment advice but rather empower them to make more informed decisions. In this aspect, Valentin agreed that you should create transparency through AI, offering customers hints and insight from their own data.

Emily offered some variety: ‘Investor confidence is the biggest opportunity, and if you are trying to influence a whole population to invest, ETFs are just one way.’ Her focus: enabling a customized investment strategy that empowers others. ‘Products are the last leg,’  she said. It’s all about ‘providing access to outcomes.’

A powerhouse discussion on the future of fintech: Tim Rehder, Martin Kassing, Emily Cheetham, Valentin Stalf, and Jordan Sinclair on how AI is reshaping investing across Europe

Wrapping up: key takeaways

Our Co-Founder & Partner, Dr. Christian Nagel, closed the day with some key takeaways: 

• AI is not hype; it is everywhere, from pharma to the whole tech development stack. 

• AI is reshaping our physical world: leading to intelligent and automated solutions. They will take time, but they are coming.

• Europe has lost the mobile, cloud, and internet battles so we cannot lose on AI. We have more talent than the US, with 19M students compared to 15M in the US.

• VC performance has developed well, even better than the US.

So thank you to our LPs, amazing founders, and partners who make this all possible!

Ending on a high note: Christian Nagel shares four key takeaways on AI, innovation, and Europe’s opportunity to lead

Networking into the Evening

With all this focus on AI and automation, we brought it back to the personal level. 

Founders, investors, LPs, and VC operators had the chance to relax and share a drink, conversation, and delicious food. 

In the belly of the SOHO House in London, we appreciated this chance to refuel, reconnect, and look ahead into the future. We also heard from Vision Lab Partner Ben Wilkening about the Vision Lab program, supporting founders of migration backgrounds in Germany. 

The pictures say it all! You can find us in London, Berlin and Munich backing tech champions since 1997.  Please feel free to keep up with us on our LinkedIn, Instagram, and X channels as we share stories from the portfolio and other fund news. We appreciate you reading!

Candlelight conversations to wrap up the day - founders, LPs, and partners connecting over dinner

Photos by the one and only Dan Taylor. Thanks for capturing our AGM London. Til next year!