He might have cold emailed Marc Andreessen 53 times before the US billionaire investor agreed to appear on his podcast but last night Harry Stebbings admitted that he didn’t want his VC firm, 20VC, to be as big as US VC giant Andreessen Horowitz.
Stebbings said: “I want to be the best-performing fund in Europe, that is very clear. I don’t want to have the biggest AUM (Assets Under Management). I don’t actually want to be Andreessen.”
Last year, the VC firm run by the young British podcaster turned investor, 20VC, raised one of Europe’s biggest funds, a $400m fund.
The 28-year-old added another string to his bow this year spearheading Project Europe, a €10m fund to boost entrepreneurship across Europe.
However, Stebbings cited that his “irritable” personality was not a good fit for running a giant VC firm encompassing HR, legal, compliance and other departments.
Instead, Stebbings said: “I want a small team of incredibly ambitious, talented people.”
20VC, which currently manages over $600m in assets and is understood to employ less than 20 people, is still a relative minnow compared to Andreessen Horowitz, which manages $45bn in AUM, employs hundreds, and is one of the most well-known VC firms in the world.
Last night, Stebbings also spoke about the long-standing challenges of Europe's startup ecosystem lagging behind the US in terms of investment, access to capital and talent.
Stebbings said it was the European “mindset on entry” that was the issue, with young people in the US “encouraged earlier to do startups”.
He said: “In Europe, you go to Austria, you go to Sweden, any of these great countries, they are not encouraged when they are 15,16,17, to start a business. They are encouraged to go and work for Volkswagen. But you are not encouraged to take that first step.”
Stebbings was speaking at an event hosted by OneSixOne Ventures, the US early-stage investment fund.
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