Sten Tamkivi, co-founder of Plural
“In the U.S,, 60 percent of VCs have run companies themselves,” says Sten Tamkivi. “In Europe, that figure is just 8 percent.”
Tamkivi is a co-founder of Plural Platform, a VC fund leveraging the experience and knowledge of those who have already built and run successful businesses to create a value-added finance option for (mainly) European startups. A key goal is to create a scaleable VC platform.
So what does that mean in practice? Well, Tamkivi himself was a member of Skype’s executive team in the early days – he joined about 18 months into the company’s journey – and went on to co-found relocation software venture, Teleport. Since then he has held a number of boardroom and advisory roles while also being an active investor and a prominent figure in Estonia’s innovation ecosystem.
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In June of this year, Tamkivi, Ian Hogarth, Taavet Hinrikus and Khaled Helioui – all seasoned tech industry founders and executives – launched Plural as an early-stage fund. Beginning from that base, they hope to encourage more entrepreneurs to come on board as investors as the project grows.
Making Itself Useful
Now it has to be said that Europe is increasingly awash with local and regional VCs, so what, if anything makes Plural different?
“We’ve spoken to a lot of startup founders and asked them to tell us who were their most useful investors,” says Tamkivi. “Often it is the investor that can provide the right help at the right time.”
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As such, the Plural’s investors intend to be on hand when practical, hands-on help is required. As an example, Tamkivi says a Plural investor might assist founders to navigate the legal complexities of doing a deal over IP when a project is spun out from a university. This is not something a VC without a background in starting a company would necessarily get involved with. Although it has to be said, they might use their contact book to source the expert help from elsewhere.
The March Of The Unemployables
Plural’s team of entrepreneur investors will be expected to back four to five deals a year, with individuals within the group taking a lead on the projects they are particularly passionate about or engaged with. Given that a high degree of commitment is required, Tamkivi acknowledges that Plural is probably not for everyone. But he does see a certain type of entrepreneur who will seize the chance of rolling up his or her sleeves and getting involved.
He likes to characterize Plural’s entrepreneur investors as “the unemployables.” Or to put it another way, people who would not necessarily be inclined to take corporate jobs or even long-term positions within startups, but who nonetheless enjoy a practical involvement with the process of helping to build young companies.
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As he sees it, some will join Plural on a full-time basis. Others are likely to proceed more cautiously, perhaps, in the first instance, becoming involved in a few deals to see if the concept aligns with their own inclinations and ambitions.
It is the ability of Plural to attract investors that will help the fund deliver on its ambition to deliver a scalable VC platform. One that will grow as more investors join, bringing their experience and knowledge with them,
Investment Strategy
But what will that mean in terms of investment strategy? At the risk of stereotyping, entrepreneurs can be opinionated. So it is possible to create a platform with a coherent strategy around a group of people who may have widely differing – and clearly expressed views – of what constitutes a good company or investment. According to Tamkivi, Plural is quite flexible on that front.
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“We don’t really have a thesis,” says Tamkivi. Instead, the investment is likely to reflect the interests of the partners. Tamkivi himself has a particular focus on Web3 and has taken the lead on investments in Ready Player Me (metaverse-ready avatars), NFTPort and Koos. AI, society and climate are among the interests of the other partners.
The European focus is also important, particularly as the online world evolves from Web2 to Web3 and a whole new world of blockchain-enabled sites, non-fungible tokens, decentralised ownership and, of course, the metaverse emerges from the fog.
Tamkivi says there is an opportunity to develop a European model, somewhere between the big-tech dominated internet as characterised by mainly US companies such as Meta and Google, and the Chinese model in which there is a high degree of state involvement, and thus concern about individual privacy.
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But there is a huge amount of work to do not only in building the infrastructure for Web3, but also in understanding how the newly constituted internet will serve its users.
That’s a challenge for investors and entrepreneurs in the months and years ahead.
