Is FOMO the best way to convince a VC?
Plus: Tricks to make your CTAs more effective
· 791 words
Melanie Gabriel & Christian Woese
November 19, 2024 • Read time: 4 minutes
Dear hustlers, founders, operators and visionaries,
Winter has arrived and we were wondering if all this heat from the data centres powering AI models could be used to warm some of those freezing train platforms out there. More heat is probably the opposite of what is needed in the boardroom of fallen battery star Northvolt, which is reportedly close to bankruptcy within the next days. With the year drawing to a close, the stage is set for intense final weeks. Follow the Gradient and stay tuned.
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Your talk track for this week’s cocktail party
Klarna files for an IPO
Swedish buy now, pay later unicorn Klarna is preparing an IPO. It is the second time in three years the company is seeking a public listing, despite its valuation being battered. Klarna is one of the few unicorns on the European fintech horizon besides Revolut (and rumors go they will also list next year). It will use the US as its IPO base - a further slap in the face of European capital markets.
Building up Europe’s resilience through Tech investing
Tech investor and founder of venture firm Lakestar Klaus Hommels announced a new fund to back European defence startups to increase the continents resilience. Certainly impressive is that he pledged a private sum of at least €100m to supply the fund. While these dynamics are specific to Europe, Defence Tech as a whole has been gaining sympathy with venture capitalists: only in August, Y Combinator committed its first funding with defence aviation firm Ares Industries.
Big bags for a space star
Munich-based space company The Exploration Company secured a $160m Series B funding round. Developing its own space capsule in direct competition to the one of SpaceX, the firm was able to commit these funds in one of the largest recent financing rounds on the continent - outside the AI domain. Their funding track record is impressive for both being outside the US, and mostly coming from private investors: SpaceX’s capsule was funded mostly by NASA.
What do you meme?
Say no more!
Food for thought
Ownership, not FOMO?
The startup world teaches us to generate FOMO as a key pillar to create traction in a funding round. As Chris Neumann outlines, the right level of ownership a fund secures may be more important than any type of FOMO. Ownership in a 100x venture will return the fund and a supposedly oversubscribed opportunity may rather generate the impression that appropriate ownership levels are hard to achieve. Next time, rather not do an outreach à la “Pre-Seed — Proven Founder — Round Almost Full — AI, Robotics”?
AI on a fight against vertical SaaS
The story of a Claude-powered expense receipt bot built in 15min and handling 1.2k invoices in a month made waves on LinkedIn last week. LLM-based architectures, enhanced with “agents” who allow an “AI to orchestrate an AI” fundamentally question the right to exist for many SaaS solutions. Will AI indeed eat software?
What happens when robots don’t need us anymore
Looking for a thought-provoking documentary? Check out Bloomberg Originals series “Posthuman” and let us know how you feel about the future. 🤖
Mark your calendar
Austria
TechDay in Vienna, 21 November [Program]
Finnland
Are you going there? We just arrived yesterday night, reply to this email and let’s meet up!
Germany
Insurance Summit in Düsseldorf, 19 November [Program]
KI Summit in Munich, 20-21 November [Program]
Switzerland
Open-i in Zurich, 21-22 November [Program]
Founders Dinner: Basel, 19 November [Register]
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Smart hack
Most CTAs are too generic and hurt conversion. To change this, design expert Joumana Eloumar advices these simple tricks:
✅ Add in social proof to create FOMO: Join 70,000+ creators instead of Get started
✅ Address objections to reduce friction: Try X in 5mins instead of Sign-up
✅ Give something away to reduce friction: Get first chapter free instead of Buy it now
✅ Make the value clear in each action: Get a free 15mins consult instead of Contact us
✅ Make it clear what happens: Take a 2min tour instead of Explore