Welcome back to the EUVC Podcast, where we bring you the people and perspectives shaping European venture.

In this pitch episode, Andreas Munk Holm sits down with Pedro Ribeiro Santos, Partner at Armilar, to walk LPs through the story, strategy, and succession plan behind Armilar Fund IV — the firm’s new pan-European early-stage fund.

Armilar is one of Europe’s longest-standing independent tech VCs and Portugal's original venture firm. Born inside a bank 25 years ago, spun out almost a decade ago, and now a multi-generational partnership, the firm has backed some of Portugal’s most important tech companies and quietly built a track record of dragons (fund-returners), not just unicorns.

Fund IV doubles down on what the team knows best: early-stage, tech-intensive companies across data, digitalization, and connectivity, with a strong focus on Portugal & Spain and selective investments across the rest of Europe.

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Here’s what’s covered:

• 01:17 | What is “Armilar”?

• 02:30 | Origins & Spinout

• 03:40 | Why being based in Portugal with almost no local ecosystem

• 04:50 | From US to Europe, Then Back Home

• 07:22 | Fund IV in a Nutshell

• 09:44 | Geography & LP Backbone

• 11:41 | Track Record, DPI & Dragons

• 13:51 | Selected Portfolio & Staying Power

• 16:19 | Team & Generational Design

• 21:38 | Iberia’s State of Play (Portugal & Spain)

• 27:45 | Golden Visa & LP Angle

• 29:29 | Closing & What LPs Should Care About

Welcome to another episode of the EUVC Podcast! Today, we’re diving into How Corporates Might just be able Beat VCs in the AI Race. Or maybe more importantly, how we can collaborate.

Our guest is Alex Dang, co-author of the bestselling book The Venture Mindset: How to Make Smarter Bets and Achieve Extraordinary Growth.

Alex is a seasoned technology executive and innovation advisor with over two decades of experience. He was a product leader at Amazon, where he launched new businesses across e-commerce, supply chain, and AI; a partner at McKinsey, helping Fortune 500 companies build digital ventures; and today advises corporate leaders and investors on AI strategies, venture building, and applying VC principles to large organizations.

In this conversation, Alex shares provocative insights on why the venture mindset is now non-negotiable for corporates in the AI era, where incumbents hold hidden advantages over VCs, and how to avoid “innovation theater” while turning data, distribution, and scale into real venture wins.

Let’s jump in!

Here’s what’s covered:

• 01:56 | The Venture Mindset in one frame with nine principles from 20 years of Stanford VC research: uncertainty → portfolios → outliers

• 03:44 | The post-book update Alex wishes he had added time compression: “days, not weeks,” and the rise of the “one slice team”

• 05:53 | Venture mindset applied to AI

• 07:34 | Why “adding AI” is the wrong framing; start customer-backward, not tech-backward

• 08:43 | “AI theater”, innovation theater and press release strategies vs real product value

• 11:19 | The European corporate trap: regulation, consensus, and downside protection as the enemy of transformation

• 11:56 | The right AI rollout sequence with start in back office to learn and protect trust, then go customer-facing at scale

• 15:21 | Why CVCs die after 3.7 years: incentives, leadership fear, and why corporate venturing fails structurally

• 17:24 | AI is now the world’s most democratized intelligence: everyone has the same tools; the gap is execution

• 18:47 | Where corporates fit in venture + startup ecosystems: strengths: data, distribution, enterprise scale

• 20:38 | When corporates should build in-house, when to partner, and why AI must become an internal muscle

• 25:24 | Incentives drive behavior: why executives won’t take venture-style risks unless failure is structurally safe

• 28:18 | AI-native teams and corporate reskilling among smaller, senior teams + digital workers replacing junior tasks

• 35:24 | What happens to the average corporate employee: tasks disappear, workflows evolve, but people still matter

• 38:50 | If Alex were CEO: how to move a workforce into an AI-safe future and target 25% profit uplift through AI

• 44:01 | Most counterintuitive venture principle — “drop bad ideas fast” and why persistence is sometimes the wrong discipline

• 46:05 | What top CEOs are doing right now: coding with Claude, learning by building, and staying close to users

• 49:00 | The compounding effect: “what was impossible 6 months ago is normal today” and why constant feedback loops win

Europe’s debate about gender equity in venture has moved beyond awareness and intention. The real question now is much sharper: how does capital actually move, where does it get stuck, and what genuinely changes outcomes for women building companies today?

In this episode, Andreas sits down with Debbie Wosskow, a serial founder, investor, and Chair of the UK’s Invest in Women Task Force, to discuss what she has learned from 25 years inside the system. This is a conversation about incentives, power, institutional capital, and why gender equity in venture is not a “nice to have” but a performance strategy.

We move from founder mindset to investor behavior to ecosystem and government-level levers and end with a clear-eyed reflection on DEI, ESG, and feminism. At a moment when many are retreating, but the case for backing women has never been stronger.

Context: the data doesn’t lie, and it isn’t improving fast enough