The latest guest on Now, Then, Ten – the podcast that champions the communities of today and tomorrow, is Luciana Lixandru.
The series is hosted by Nicola Mendelsohn, Facebook’s Vice President for Europe, the Middle East and Africa and one of the most influential people in tech, serial entrepreneur Brent Hoberman, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Founders Forum, Founders Factory & firstminute capital.
Following a string of top interviews with founders and visionary leaders, in this week’s episode, Brent speaks with Luciana, who was newly appointed to be the first European partner at the world-class venture capital firm Sequoia Capital in 2020.
Sequoia Capital has backed some of the top community-driven companies such as Airbnb, Uber, YouTube, Reddit, and Instagram.
Luciana shares how Sequoia Capital is “more focused in Europe than ever before” as well as her personal experience of witnessing the evolution of European talent emerging on the startup scene: “I’ve been in the European ecosystem for a decade. And I remember how things were even five years ago and the sheer number of high quality opportunities has increased a lot, which is fantastic. So many talented people are joining startups in Europe. The beauty about Europe is that there is a lot of technical talent,” she says.
With over a decade’s worth of experience as an investor in European Venture, and described by the firm as “one of the brightest rising stars in the European VC ecosystem”, Luciana has been listed on the MIDAS list many times over. She was previously a partner at Accel, where she was known for early investments food delivery startup Deliveroo and virtual events platform Hopin.
Brent and Luciana also discuss the importance of the founder/investor relationship in growing and nurturing organisations that stand the test of time: “It’s all about forming a human connection and talking about how you could work together to build something great,” says Luciana.
When asked about what community means to Sequoia Capital, Luciana reinforces the importance of building a strong community of inspiring founders: “We’ve always thought very carefully about the communities we want to build. The obvious one and the thing that gets us excited every day is delighting our founders and building a founder community where they can thrive and where they can learn from each other.”
Throughout the interview, Luciana reinforces that she’s passionate about building partnerships that have longevity, with founders who are willing to invest in the long game: “These entrepreneurial journeys take a long time. We like to partner with founders who build companies that will be around in 10 years in 20 years.” She continues: “It takes a long time to create a category or to dominate a category.”
Now, Then, Ten is available on Apple, Spotify and all major podcast platforms.
