Practica Capital

Lingotto’s Innovation Fund is a new $600mm+ AUM crossover (public & private) fund focused on making concentrated and long-term investments in companies operating at the cutting edge of technological and business-model innovation. Core to our investment thesis is the fact that market returns are dominated by extreme structural winners – we seek to identify decades-long secular trends and the management teams best positioned to capitalize on them in the early years. The senior team has a notable history of private investments including: OpenAI, SpaceX, Alibaba, Coupang, Stripe, Databricks, Spotify, Airbnb, Tempus, Recursion, Ginkgo Bioworks, Palantir, Epic Games, Joby Aviation, Indigo, Aira, Humane, H2 Green Steel. The Innovation Fund is co-managed by James Anderson (CIO & Managing Partner) and Morgan Samet (Co-Head & Managing Partner). James has over 40 years of investment experience – most recently as a Partner at Baillie Gifford, where he managed over £100bn in AUM throughout his tenure. As head of the firm’s flagship fund, the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust, he delivered a +1,555% return vs. +354% for the FTSE all-world benchmark (between April 2000 and March 2022). He was instrumental in the firm’s move into private investing starting with Alibaba in 2012. Morgan has over 19 years of experience in private and public market investing. She has previously worked at Belfer Management, Pzena Investment Management, Thomas H. Lee Partners, and Goldman Sachs. She received her MBA from Harvard Business School. The Innovation Fund is a part of Lingotto, a $4.5bn+ investment management company supported with permanent capital from Exor and additional external LPs. Exor is one of Europe’s largest publicly traded holding companies. Its assets include companies like Stellantis (Fiat, Chrysler, Citroen), Ferrari, Philips, Juventus Football Club, the Economist and Christian Louboutin. Exor’s CEO is John Elkann (Chairman of Ferrari); its Chairman is Nitin Nohria (Executive Chairman of Thrive Capital and former Dean of Harvard Business School). Lingotto’s Chairman is George Osborne, former UK chancellor.

Muse Capital is an early stage venture fund investing in consumer tech, with a focus on large underserved markets poised for disruption. They focus on investing in products, services and solutions to meet the needs of tomorrow’s increasingly diverse society across how we care (women’s health, digital health, and childcare), how we live (wellness and sustainability), and how we play (gaming, entertainment, web3, and sports tech). Muse Capital’s expertise is sourcing and executing on business development opportunities for their entrepreneurs, leveraging the partners 20+ years of accelerating and operating businesses in both private and public sectors, with their global network of decision makers across F500's, entertainment, sports teams/owners, global investors, and world class tech entrepreneurs. Given their highly strategic value add, they are able to access oversubscribed deals and invest before or alongside some of the top funds in the valley including Andreessen Horowitz, Google Ventures, Forerunner, and Lightspeed to name just a few. Muse Capital’s current fund is a $45m platform dedicated to doubling down on their established track record across the consumer space, and a knack for spotting super-trends and talent early on. Their portfolio of 40+ investments includes Clarity Money (sold to Goldman Sachs), Mahmee (telehealth for new mothers, series A lead by Goldman Sachs), Midi (disrupting the $50B menopause space), Kinside (digitizing the $150B childcare industry), and Beekeeper’s Naturals (replacing the modern medicine cabinet with natural products). The team has also gained exclusive access for their strategic LPs to direct investments into prestigious later stage deals including Robinhood and Byju’s. As a female lead team of conscious capitalists, Muse Capital is a staunch advocate for diversity as better business, and proud to have a portfolio which is 50% minority/female.

Dream Capital (DreamCap) is the Corporate Venture Capital and M&A arm of Dream Sports, India’s leading Sports Technology company. DreamCap is a multi-stage investor, with cheque sizes ranging from $1 - $100M+ depending on the stage of the company, including larger ticket size global M&A deals. The core investment areas for DreamCap are sports and sports-tech, gaming, Web3, fintech and fitness-tech. The DreamCap portfolio includes Dream Sports incubated businesses FanCode and DreamSetGo, along with DreamGameStudios (formerly known as Rolocule), Rario, SoStronk, Fittr, Elevar, KheloMore and MarketWolf.

Chamaeleon is a new early-stage venture capital firm that brings together 3 partners that have long collaborated as investors, operators and entrepreneurs that will focus on investing in truly transformative companies. We have learnt from our experience to see near and far, to be global and local, to be strategic and pragmatic, all at the same time. Our “superpowers” have helped numerous entrepreneurs craft breakout successes and with Chamaeleon, we will take it to the next level. For an industry that is fueled by technology, its innovations and the sometimes stratospheric returns on its investments, venture capital - in particular in early-stage - is an industry surprisingly lacking in technology, at its core. Although the operating models and playbooks used to source and do due diligence on start-ups - in our opinion, the two most core activities in VC - have evolved over time, there are very few impactful innovations around the core technology stacks that VC firms actually develop or bring together. Therefore, we are bringing a full-stack approach to VC investing with our own early-stage investing technology stack at the center of everything we do. We will also use these platforms to create value to portfolio companies and our own investors/LPs. This partnership has invested in companies like App Annie, DraftKings, Gusto, Kakao, Outsystems, Robinhood, Rubrik, Virta Health, Cloudflare, Ometria, among many other “household” names. We have led and managed 5 VC funds between us with enviable returns, including top 2 to 5 percentile funds. We have created verifiable impact at-scale as operators in such household names as NCSOFT, McKinsey & Co, GSM Association, SK Telecom, Sonae. We have jumped off a cliff before and started our own companies… and we are doing it all over again, because we don’t rest on our laurels, because we have a fundamental new way of looking and executing in this space, because we love and feel blessed by being in venture capital… and because, deep down, we just want to do this, together. Last, but most certainly not the least, we are big believers that as much as technology will augment us… as much as our insights and instincts will support our decisions, people are still at the center of all of this. We have built unique networks of truly astonishing and generous people, not just in the geographies where we will have our offices, but around the world, where we will operate. All of us have worked in at least 3 different continents and will continue bringing to entrepreneurs all the resources that we have access to as individuals, as a firm, but also from our broader ecosystem of investors/LPs, advisors, friends. We will continue bringing a humanistic values-based approach to this profession (we don’t call it a job, around here): we will continue treating entrepreneurs’ start-ups as their babies… because they are; when we are tough, we will continue being thoughtful, fair and charitable.

CCV Capital is a global venture capital firm with a Silicon Valley pedigree, specializing in early-stage investments while inheriting the legacy of KPCB. Founded by Wei Zhou, the former managing partner of KPCB China, together with the original technology investment team, we seamlessly blend Silicon Valley DNA with unparalleled global reach and deep Asia resources. Drawing from extensive entrepreneurial experience, our founding team has proven exceptional in identifying and nurturing high-potential startups, achieving a 35% unicorn formation rate within our first decade. We have taken the lead in 80% of Series A funding rounds, guiding many to become sector pioneers in going public. What sets CCV Capital apart is our global approach. As globalization evolves, CCV Capital embraces Globalization 2.0 principles, supporting a decentralized, multi-centric approach to global expansion. We enable startups to establish a global presence through strategic regional offices, localized market involvement, and intelligent use of international resources.We empower startups on their strong competitive advantage, fast business growth, international footprint expansion by leveraging the synergies, such as supply chain, talent resource, and proven business model, among East Asia, Southeast Asia and America. Our globally diversified portfolio exemplifies our collaboration with visionary founders propelling innovations across industries. It spans the Americas, Asia, Africa and Oceania, featuring prominent enterprises like Perfect Corp. (NYSE: PERF), MetaApp, Multiway Robots, U Power, Newrizon, Palmpay, Realchar, Aventurier, Pebble, as well as sector leaders including JD.com (NASDAQ:JD), VenusTech (002439), CreditEase (NYSE:YRD), Rong360 (NYSE:JT), Arrail Dental (HKSE:06639), KJY water (301372), TanTan (acquired by NASDAQ:MOMO), Ximalaya FM, and Shukun Technology, underscoring our steadfast commitment to nurturing transformative global leaders.

We are an early-stage venture capital firm investing in companies that jumpstart new industries in the emerging markets of Europe. Investment thesis Infrastructure for innovation We invest in startups that build the infrastructure for innovation and jumpstart new industries by breaking vicious cycles. The root of all evil Vicious cycles are endemic in emerging ecosystems - they are the byproduct of systemic deficiencies and make it difficult or even impossible for the emerging ecosystem to grow and develop. Example of such a vicious cycle at work in Central and Eastern Europe: the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) is slowed down by the lack of the charging infrastructure; conversely, the charging infrastructure is not being built because of the lack of the EVs to use it. Because of their systemic origin, breaking such vicious cycles is a capital-intensive and a long-term endeavor - the kind of task a VC fund is both qualified and responsible to assume. On a high note - the root of all evil is where the promise of venture returns lies. A (technological) leap of faith Emerging ecosystems are strong enough to leapfrog existing technologies and adopt the solutions of the future. It happened in the past (see LTE adoption in Africa/India leapfrogging classical landlines) giving birth to a breed of companies that created their own markets. These startups are the backbone of the future ecosystem populated by dependent/client third parties. Opportunities A brave new world B2C - The rising billions In 2000, 6% of the world population was connected to the internet. In 2010, online adoption increased to 23% or 2 billion people connected. In 2020, more than 66% of all people will have online access. That’s an additional 3 billion people that will get access to the internet, raising the total number of connected population to 5.5 billion. B2B - The unicorn of one It is now possible to start a company valued at $1BN from your garage, with no assets and basically no employees. And this company may serve the giants of the corporate world. Fortune 500 companies already acknowledged that innovations come from small companies agile enough to disrupt industries. Today, the business development and strategy VPs turned into innovation scouters actively seeking emerging technologies and valuable teams to acquire or hire. Let’s talk money How we do it Our philosophy Our philosophy is quite straightforward: we invest at the earliest stages in companies whose founders have skin in the game, are coachable and address big markets. If the opportunity is real, we prefer to be the first institutional investor in such startups. Geography Our firm recruits regionally (in CEE) and invests locally (in Romania) to take advantage of country’s great technical talent, low labor costs, low operating costs and high-speed Internet access. Equity Because of our active engagement with our companies, we typically will take a correspondingly substantial equity ownership position (5% to 15%) in our investments and will join as a member of the company’s board of directors (Series A). Accelerator Stage At the Accelerator stage - we invest anywhere between €50,000 and €200,000 in exchange for 5% to 15% common stock. Series A At the Seed stage - our sweet spot is €500,000 but, if the opportunity is real, we can invest up to €4,500,000 in one company. Timing We are fast to say NO – won’t waste your time. Saying YES takes a bit longer: 4 to 6 weeks on average, but that depends on you too.