Suggestions
Fred Destin
Founder at Stride.VC. Endlessly curious.
Fred Destin is a seasoned entrepreneur and investor, best known as the founder of Stride.VC and artisan capital, headquartered in London. He has an extensive background in building and investing in companies, with a focus on seed-stage investments. Fred has a strong track record of generating substantial value for investors in the tech and startup space.
Before establishing Stride.VC, Fred held key roles as a General Partner at prominent venture capital firms like Accel and Accomplice (formerly Atlas Venture). Throughout his career, he has served on the boards of various successful ventures, including Collective Benefits, Silverbird, Hofy, Unibuddy, Cord, SEDNA, and more.
Fred's investment portfolio boasts an impressive total enterprise value exceeding $20 billion. He has been instrumental in delivering over $1.4 billion in value to investors, achieving a remarkable blended multiple of over 7X. Some of his notable investments span across diverse sectors such as digital media, e-commerce, SaaS, adtech, and fintech.
Apart from his investment endeavors, Fred Destin is recognized for his insightful blogging, participation in conferences as a keynote speaker, and his role as a founding investor at Seedcamp. His contributions have earned him a spot on Forbes' coveted 'European Midas List'. Fred's educational background includes studies at the Solvay Business School, University of Brussels, and a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from HKUST Business School.
Over the years, Fred has been associated with several organizations, serving on boards and as a lead investor in notable companies like Cazoo, Zoopla, Deliveroo, Pillpack, Integral Ads, and Secret Escapes. His diverse expertise encompasses industries ranging from digital media and e-commerce to SaaS, adtech, and fintech.
Fred Destin's professional journey reflects a deep-rooted passion for entrepreneurship, investment, and fostering growth in the startup ecosystem. His contributions and achievements have solidified his reputation as a visionary leader in the venture capital landscape.
Highlights
Back to School! Back to Running! The next Seed Run is Wednesday Sep 11 starting as usual at 5.30PM. Sign up below :-). Come enjoy Regent's Park and the company of fellow founders.
Made with love by Henry Yates and yours truly Stride.VC. We run in gratitude.
https://lu.ma/eh20cqu8
Fundraising founders get told so many times to declare their own greatness - "this is going to be huge!" or "this is a massive market / opportunity!" or such. This is not great advice and akin to punching someone in the face right before asking them for money. Why?
Well, if you make grandiose statements you're going to have equal and opposing force thrown right back at you by people literally trained to take ideas and facts apart. It's physics.
INSTEAD ... Create SPACE to let the person sitting in front of you come to the slow and gradual realisation that this is a big opportunity.
Present your business calmly, confidently and enthusiastically and watch their eyes light up as they piece together how exciting your plan is and gradually start to see a glimmer of greatness. When they look at you with intent and say "wow this could really be big", you've won.
You've now allowed your hopefully intelligent counterpart to come to exactly the conclusion you wanted them to reach on their own and all you need to say is "yes, that's right, and that's why I want to commit the next ten years to this".
You've got them hooked, and they're really paying attention.
The art of creating spaciousness for the other person to form their own analysis and join you in recognising the potential for greatness will take you a lot further than overselling, trust me.
Think of it as Aiko Do or the Dao of Fundraising. Unifying harmony 😉 .
