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COSS VC Panel

Alexander (Sasha) Vidiborskiy is a Principal at Atomico based in London. He is a quantum physicist by background and specialises in enterprise software including developer tools, cloud infrastructure, and AI/ML applications among others. He has worked on Atomico’s investments in arculus and Qatalog.

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Amit Karp is a partner in Bessemer’s Israel office where he focuses on investments in the region and throughout Europe.

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Konstantin Vinogradov works on behalf of Runa Capital, a $420M+ global venture fund founded by tech entrepreneurs. βš™οΈ His favourite topics are enterprise software, open source, machine intelligence, cloud infrastructure and fintech. At Runa, the team is fond of B2B SaaS, deep tech and software for regulated industries (fintech, edutech, e-health). πŸ“₯ Looking for a Series A round? Send me a quick summary to kv@runacap.com

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Andrei Brasoveanu is a venture capital investor at Accel looking to meet outstanding entrepreneurs. Particular interest in backing teams in the areas of enterprise software, developer-oriented software, open-source, security, and financial services. Partnered with the founders of companies such as Rasa, Humio, dashdash, Celonis, Personio, UiPath, Instana, Monzo, Checkly, Tessian, Carto, and JobToday among others.

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Alexander Vidiborskiy, Amit Karp, Konstantin Vinogradov, and Andrei Brasoveanu!

Introduction to session and speakers - 0:00

Konstantin introduces himself and firm β€” focused on B2B software, deep tech (e.g. cloud, infrastructure, security), and software solutions for large regulated industries (e.g. financial services, education, healthcare) - 1:05

Alexander (a.k.a. Sasha) introduces himself and firm. Focused on Series A in Europe, as well as growth investments (B, C, D) in US and Europe. Not focused on open-source only, focused on anything that is tech enabled (software and hardware). - 2:13

Amit introduces himself and firm. Deep believers in developer tools (e.g. Twilio, Sendgrid) and more recently in open-source. - 3:23

Andrei introduces himself and firm. Supporting early-stage founders across US, Europe, and Asia, from seed to pre-IPO. Early backers of companies like Atlassian and Cloudera. Long history and success in investing in open-source. - 4:12

JJ: Each of your firms, and each of you individually, have made some awesome contributions in sharing how you look at open-source and the startup ecosystem. - 5:07

Sasha’s pieces: Atomico’s take on Open Source: 5 reasons to build an OS company in Europe now and Atomico’s OS risk framework. What drove you to write this piece, across everything you’re working on and all the areas you’re investing in? What motivated these and the thought process? - 6:45

Amit’s piece: Roadmap: Open Source. Amit, can you talk about Bessemer’s history and legacy here? You have a massive brand in SaaS with the cloud index work. How did Bessemer start to get into open-source? And it looks like you have this framework, starting with history, going through origins, adoption, project control, governance, monetization, community building. Talk about some of the work and the team. - 12:10

Andrei’s piece: The Future of Open Source: Launching the Open100. Andrei, how has Accel’s point of view evolved here across different partners investigating open-source? And introduce us to the Open100 and how that’s shaping your strategy here. - 15:51

Konstantin’s piece: ROSS Index: the fastest-growing open-source startups, every quarter. Konstantin, talk to us about the new index you put together. What are your criteria, and what’s your vision for that? - 19:55

First general panel question: How do each of you think about quantitative and qualitative valuation criteria? When you come close to conviction on an investment, how do you get to conviction? What needs to jump out to you as really positive signals? How do you measure the value of a company when these are pre-revenue? What’s the state of the art in thinking here currently? - 22:22

What are your points of view on disruption? Creating better, cheaper, faster alternatives for things that already exist, as opposed to innovation and category creation? I’d love to get your observations in both areas. How do you think about open source as it relates to category creation vs category disruption? - 32:50

How big do you think open-source as a category will be 10 years from now? For some quick numbers, the category today is worth about $200 billion. This is the aggregate value of every large and small company in the space. Back in 2010, most of those companies didn’t exist. What is your Nostradamus view into the future, of how big you think this category will be in 2030? - 41:40

Discussion of ETF for open-source companies and closing thoughts - 49:30


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