This month, we brought together over 50 founders and CEOs from across Europe for our 2019 people leadership summit. People are at the centre of all successful businesses, so our aim was to create a forum for an open and frank discussion about the tough challenges and hard-earned lessons in leading teams.

Our speakers included Olympic gold medallists, leadership experts, HR leaders and CEOs of startups in the people space. They challenged our preconceptions on leadership, HR and employee engagement and brought us new insights on how the way we work is changing.

We will be publishing some of the content from the day over the next few months — but you can already read Kiana's view on what stood out here.

General Magic Movie – Private Screening

We were honoured to host a private screening of the multi-award winning feature documentary General Magic, followed by a Q&A with directors, Sarah Kerruish and Matt Maude.

This poignant documentary tells the story of a secretive Silicon Valley startup which spun out of Apple in 1990 and became known as the 'greatest dead company' in the Valley. The General Magic team shipped the world's first “smartphone” in 1994, and while the company was commercially unsuccessful, it inspired many of the technologies that dominate our lives today.

We highly recommend watching this movie, to see an honest and compelling story told by, and about, a team of unique and visionary dreamers who truly embodied the Silicon Valley spirit.

You can pre-order the film here.

This month, we were delighted to welcome founders to Balderton HQ this month for a series of one-to-one advice sessions in partnership with DiversityVC.

Thank you to everyone who joined us, and to Sasha at Felix Capital and Irina at Atomico for participating

You can find more details about Founder Office Hours here. Please check back in a couple of weeks for the Q4 date.

Catch the Balderton team at the following events

16th Aug - Magda will be speaking at Reykjavik Demo Day
7th Sep - you can also catch Magda at Stockholm Tech Fest
12th Sep - Caye is speaking at B2B Rocks at Station F in Paris, attending alongside Maxime
15th Sep - Daniel will be speaking at World Agri-Tech Innovation Summit in London
18th Sep - Magda will be attending TechBBQ in Copenhagen
2nd Oct - Rob and Caye will be in Madrid for South Summit
10th Oct - Laura and James will be speaking at BVCA Summit, London
14th Oct - Catch Caye on stage at SaaStock Dublin
17th Oct - Magda will be in Stockholm for Sting

Build with Balderton

On Build this month, Suranga explores the ever changing role of the CEO, answering some of the questions most commonly asked by our portfolio CEOs about the journey:

How does my role as CEO evolve as the company grows?
How do I build a strong working relationship with my executive team?
How much autonomy do I give my team?

Read the full piece here. The article first appeared in VentureBeat.

Also on Build, in his article You can't get there on your own, Bernard explains how to build a highly functional executive team, advising that when you build a great team they will push you up, make you a better and more successful CEO. Read the full piece here.

News highlights this month

Our portfolio companies

The Sunday Times profiled Matt Moulding, CEO of The Hut Group, reporting the firm has stealthily become a global retail success story.

Sifted spoke to Revolut CEO, Nikolay Storonsky, on why he believes Europe is beating the US in fintech innovation

CEO Maria Raga spoke to the Evening Standard about how Depop is changing the way Gen Z shops.

Handelsbatt reported Furhat Robotics and Merck have created a medical robot to help with pre-screenings for hypothyroidism.

Azmat Yusuf, Citymapper CEO, spoke to Sifted about why the firm the ready for takeoff.

Vestiaire Collective CEO Max Bittner spoke to CNBC about how technology aids the company in tackling the challenges surrounding the authentication of products. Max was also quoted in The Financial Times on the rise of the designer resale market.

The Times spoke to VOI Technology's founder Fredrik Hjelm about on the rise of the micro-mobility and the importance of regulation.

The Balderton team

Kiana wrote an article for Sifted examining why Europe needs a more deliberate focus on building great teams, raising the performance bar, and developing great people leaders.

Suranga spoke to the Financial Times on DiversityVC's latest report, which highlighted some of diversity issues within the Venture Capital sector, focusing on background, education, gender and ethnicity.

Business Insider named Bernard as one of the European VCs all tech founders should know. The magazine also chose Laura as one of the most trailblazing female VCs in London.

TechWorld spoke to Laura about the rise of secondary funds in Europe.

We are hiring

Want to join the Balderton team? We have positions open. Apply on our Workable portal here.

🌞 We are away for August 🌞

As we do every year, our newsletter will be taking a summer break for August. We'll be back in September with all the latest Balderton news! Have a wonderful August, everyone!

Back catalogue

We have new subscribers joining us all the time, so if this is your first newsletter, you can catch up on previous issues here:

Jun 19 | May 19 (Recorded Future acquisition) | May 19 (Wagestream) | Apr 19 | Mar 19 | Feb 19 | Jan 19 (Kaia Health) | Dec 18 (Wooga acquisition): Nov 18 | Oct 18 (Liquidity I)