CVC Unplugged

June 12, 2025

Why invest in LatAm

Latin America is one of the fastest growing regions in the world, with a growing number of unicorns, an increasing array of international investors looking to get a foothold, and ever more savvy entrepreneurs. Ahead of next week’s GCV Symposium in London, I wanted to catch up with Bernardita Araya, manager of CMPC Ventures, the corporate VC unit of Chilean pulp and paper company CMPC, who will be speaking at the event about international investment in the region.
Araya talks about how the VC scene has been growing rapidly in recent year, especially in Chile where many new faces are entering the space, as well as how Latin American entrepreneurs, without the same kind of access to grants and other funding as founders in North America or Europe, tend to be incredibly cash efficient. International investors, she says, have been keen to enter the region but mostly with local co-investors.
We also talk about the challenges facing LatAm founders, including the prospects of expanding to other continents, as well as the natural advantages the region has, and about the growing willingness of it’s corporates to innovate and adapt, and much more.

The post Why invest in LatAm appeared first on CVC Unplugged.

May 22, 2025

Getting rid of bias in the investment process

Human decision-making – even when a lot of money is at stake, is not always rational.
A lot of the time it’s based on intangible factors that influence people in ways that can’t be explained or justified by data or analysis – this is after all, the entire basis for the field of behavioural economics, and it’s not new information. So why, in an industry like venture capital, are people still led oftentimes more by their gut than their head? The answer, of course, is human nature. But in an industry that looks for outliers, that tries to go against the grain, why is it not more of a priority to minimise the amount of returns left on the table by counteracting well-known flaws in our thinking?
My guest today is Sharon Vosmek, CEO and managing partner of VC firm Astia, which has, at the core of its thesis, diversity. Not just diversity for its own sake, though Vosmek argues that that would be good enough – but rather as a tangible, strategic way to cast the net as widely as possible, and to eliminate the biases that ultimately end up hurting your return profile.
Astia recently released a white paper on what it calls the Sift – its method of sourcing and screening companies for investment, in a way that tries to filter out the pitfalls that people fall into because of their biases or hunches. Things like not starting the process with introductions, but rather an in-depth assessment of the business before face-to-face meetings, or drawing on the experience of a large diverse group of external advisors to assess each company – thereby also spreading the biases across a wider set of experiences.
At a time when diversity and inclusion initiatives are coming under attack, Vosmek defends this not as some gimmick, but as a way to demonstrably bring in more money – indeed, Astia’s data has shown a far lower failure rate for startups that have made it through the Sift, than the average, and a higher rate not just of survival, but of successful exits, than failures.
We also talk about the biases that still exist and how they may manifest themselves, the potential impact that the perception of being an “inclusive” fund may have on fundraising, and the wider impact of a current climate that is hostile to inclusion initiatives.
But first, I speak to GCV’s Kim Moore about how investors can take advantage of innovation in universities.

The post Getting rid of bias in the investment process appeared first on CVC Unplugged.

May 15, 2025

Economic ruts are a good time to double down

In recent months we’ve seen quite a few corporate VC units either shut down, or get spun off, as their corporate parents grapple with how to deal with a tough macroeconomic environment. That’s not always the case though – we’re also seeing a number of other CVCs get launched, and some existing CVCs launch big new funds.

My guest today is in the latter category – I speak to Ingo Ramesohl, managing director at Robert Bosch Venture Capital, the CVC arm of German engineering and technology company Bosch, which is known as Bosch Ventures for short.

We talk about the brand new €250m sixth fund that the unit just launched, and their plans for it, as well as more broadly, why it is so important for companies to push ahead with innovation even when the going gets tough – and why those that stay the course can benefit from a competitive advantage in the market.

We also talk a lot about Open Bosch, which is Bosch Venture’s in-house venture clienting arm – we touch on how they select companies and allocate resources, why its important to be one of a startup’s early customers in order to be part of the innovation, and what areas the unit is looking at – such as data centres and healthcare – to help position it’s parent company for the massive industrial disruptions on the horizon.

The post Economic ruts are a good time to double down appeared first on CVC Unplugged.

May 08, 2025

Investing in the in-space economy

Space has historically been the domain of governments – as that has changed and it’s becoming a more private sector-based commercial endeavour, something else has been changing too, and that is that whereas before space was a matter of launching things up where they will do something for a while, then they come back down. What’s emerging now is the prospect of an entire economy in space, for space – where things don’t always need to come back down to earth for maintenance, or refuelling, for example, and can continue to operate outside earth.

My guest today is Timur Davis, director at Munich Re Ventures, where much of his focus is trained beyond the atmosphere, in startups who want to operate in orbit.

We talk about how the unit’s thesis of investing in the picks and shovels of space – the enabling technologies that allow for the space economy to operate effectively – things like traffic management and servicing in orbit.  We also talk about the changing business models – how the pendulum has swung back to startups searching for government-based revenues for their stability – as well why mid-stage space startups have trouble getting funded, the development of in-space regulations and norms, how much of space is wide open in terms of the competitive landscape, and much more.

The post Investing in the in-space economy appeared first on CVC Unplugged.

May 01, 2025

Dealing with an unprecedented demand for power

Demand on the power grid is not getting any lower, in fact it’s growing faster than ever, and putting real pressure on the existing infrastructure. As more energy-hungry customers like data centres are coming online, better solutions need to be found to get more capacity through the system.
My guest today is Pradeep Tagare, head of investment at National Grid Partners, the US-based VC arm of National Grid, which is a grid operator active in the UK and the US.
We talk about the challenges facing grid operators at a time when the growth in demand for power is unprecedented, not least because of the phenomenal growth in data centres in the age of AI. We touch on how people are thinking about providing to these large demand customers like data centres, and what solutions exist to increase grid capacity even without a wholescale upgrade of the grid infrastructure itself.
We also talk about the progress being made in the area of distributed energy resources, and how the challenge of interoperability of those diverse energy sources is largely solved, and how AI can be used from anything from finding out where best to place data centres, to figuring out how to best reduce the problem of vegetation overgrowth which can bring networks down, and more.
But first, I speak to Kim Moore about the growth of the space startup ecosystem in Europe.

The post Dealing with an unprecedented demand for power appeared first on CVC Unplugged.