SeedBlink Blog

Hi Robbin, thank you very much for this interview. What drives you? Why do you work in the startup investing world?

Thank you for inviting me to this interview, it's a pleasure. My drive comes from my passion for startups and scaleups. I have always supported entrepreneurship throughout my professional career, and it started early on when I decided not to work for a boss while in university, but to start my own car polishing business. I love the enthusiasm and firm belief of start-up and scale-up owners in growing their business. It is a privilege for me to listen to their pitches, learn about the innovative things they are building, and help them realise their dream. It's hard for a business founder to find the right investments. With my current job, I can help them do that so they can focus on what they do best: being entrepreneurial!

You joined Symbid as a Round Manager during your Master's studies and worked your way up to Head of Sales and finally Commercial/Managing Director. What were the biggest challenges you faced during your roles at Symbid?

That's a good question. When I started at Symbid during my Master's degree, I was one of the few of my friends/classmates who went to work for a startup (because that's what Symbid was at the time). I truly believed in the services Symbid offered and wanted to be a part of helping ambitious entrepreneurs achieve their dreams. Working for a startup (but also for a scaleup, which we gradually became) is not always easy. You have to believe strongly in the things you do, be committed to a bigger goal (BHAG, Big Hairy Audacious Goal) and be persistent. My friends and family did not always understand that and sometimes asked me why I was not working for a more stable company. Sometimes you have to accept that things will take longer than expected as long as you still believe in the overall goal and keep up your motivation and belief.

As a round manager, the biggest challenge was keeping the entrepreneurs involved throughout the fundraising process while they were still running their business. As an entrepreneur, you never have enough time and you want to focus on the things that really bring results. Sometimes it was hard to convince them that the funding round they were raising was a priority as well, because who you involve (and who you do not) in your future growth depends on it.

As a sales leader, I would say that the biggest challenge was really convincing entrepreneurs of the power and benefits of using a platform to raise your capital. Since we were one of the first in the market, we really had to educate about the opportunities, but that was also a lot of fun.

As a Commercial & Managing director, I would say the biggest challenge was figuring out where we wanted to go with Symbid. We were no longer the only platform, the market started growing and you really want to provide a valuable service to your startups and investors. This led us (me and our shareholders) to believe that we need to join forces with other believers, also because of the upcoming European legislation. That's why we decided to find the right partners to talk to, which led to the acquisition by SeedBlink.

Pain is knowledge rushing in to fill a gap. Would you call that a highlight? Were there many 'painful' moments?

Interesting quote, and true. I would not call it a highlight, but you definitely learn a lot from the painful moments. We have had our ups and downs at Symbid, but it's brought the team closer together and made us realise that we really need to reflect, learn and move on.

With SeedBlink's acquisition of Symbid, your expertise makes you the perfect fit for the Benelux manager. What are your strategic goals for SeedBlink in the Benelux?

Benelux currently has a really attractive technology market in Europe. There is still a lack of funding, especially for these tech startups and scaleups at this point. By expanding the SeedBlink platform to the Benelux, I want to give Dutch startups and scaleups access to a broad network of funders from all over Europe, alongside well-known VCs, and offer 'smaller' investors the opportunity to participate in these rounds that they would not have had access to otherwise.

In our acquisition announcement, Ionut Patrahau (Corporate Dev at SeedBlink) stated that our consolidation brings together reasonable Eastern European valuations with Western European investment potential and secondly creates a Western market for Eastern European startups. What is your opinion on this?

I think the time is ripe to encourage investors to invest across borders. We are not there yet. Traditionally, retail investors prefer to invest close to home, but by offering them top deals alongside VC they know, helping them track portfolio performance, and guiding the startup or scale-up to exit, we can provide them with everything they need to feel confident about investing in the next European unicorns.

How can investors and startups in the Benelux get the most out of SeedBlink?

By investing through the SeedBlink platform, investors get the opportunity to access vetted deals from across Europe that they would otherwise not have access to. They can benefit from the fact that SeedBlink has a rigorous process in place for vetting potential deals, in addition to the due diligence performed by a lead VC.

For startups, SeedBlink offers the opportunity to syndicate some of their existing investors, offer them a well-structured deal with clear legal terms and, last but not least, benefit from a large network that provides not only money but also knowledge, network and marketing.

What excites you personally about the work and business model of SeedBlink?

The most exciting thing for me is the fact that SeedBlink is built for the long term. SeedBlink is not only involved at the time of the first capital raise, but also to help the company grow and succeed by bringing in its network and knowledge and helping with follow-on rounds and structuring. This is very valuable for both the companies and the investors who invest alongside renowned VCs.

What European industry trends will impact your role as a manager? How do you think the Benelux market will develop in the coming years and how does SeedBlink fit into this context?

Currently, we see that funding for tech startups and scaleups is becoming a bit more difficult due to all the macroeconomic developments (this is already evident in the US). In my opinion, we should be able to tackle this 'tech winter' in the Netherlands because we are more realistic in our forecasts (Dutch people are modest people) and therefore still offer great opportunities with reasonable unit economics. If you present good deals with great unit costs, there will always be interest from investors to participate, especially if they can spread their risks over multiple opportunities by investing through the SeedBlink platform.

What has been one of your best or most impactful investments to date?

I think my best or most impactful investment is yet to come. I am only 32 years old and I expect that I still have a lot ahead of me. So far, I am very pleased with my personal investment in Symbid and what I have learned from it. Getting the company to where we are now, being acquired by SeedBlink, feels like a really good success that I have been hoping for since Symbid's inception. Now I think things are really starting to take off, let us achieve great things together!

You can reach out to Robbin here.

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