Michael Wiatr Aagaard

This transcript was generated automatically (YouTube auto-captions) and then edited for readability: names and obvious mis-hearings corrected, filler words removed, speaker labels added where the speaker is clear. Passages that could not be understood are marked [unclear]; short omitted passages are marked [...]. Timestamps are approximate. The recording is the authoritative version.

Julius Ambrosius 00:00:01

Hello and welcome to the first episode of Campus To Capital in 2026. It's great to be back again. And we're starting things off pretty strong today with a special guest. Today we have the opportunity to talk to Michael Wiatr Aagaard, who is the general partner at Antler here in Copenhagen. Antler is one of the biggest startup accelerators in the world, and yeah, it's great to be here. Thank you so much for hosting us, actually, in your office today.

Michael Wiatr Aagaard 00:00:38

Oh, thanks. Great to be involved. [...]

Julius Ambrosius 00:00:46

Yeah, great. Thanks. And I mean, when Konstantin and I talked in this quite long break we had, we thought, you know, it would be nice to give our guests something back in the future. And so actually we brought a little gift for you.

00:01:04

So you are the first person ever to receive what we call the CTC tombstone.

Michael Wiatr Aagaard 00:01:11

So that's absolutely amazing. I'm just going to hold it up for the camera as well here. A small picture of the tombstone here. That's stellar. Thank you so much, guys. We can put it here.

Host 00:01:21

Yeah. So maybe you find a nice place in your office also.

00:01:26

Yeah. Great. So let's start

Michael Wiatr Aagaard 00:01:29

for sure.

Konstantin Girst 00:01:29

Yeah. I mean, so, yeah, welcome from me as well. Super great to talk to you today, but also to be back on the show. And yeah, actually, I gotta say, I saw that you have the Campus To Capital sticker already on your laptop. So I think we actually are starting off with a great guest today. But yeah, so as Julius said, you're a GP at Antler, and before that you were in real estate finance. You did some management consulting at Boston Consulting, and you also have some other executive and founder experience. And as Julius and I were actually talking a couple days ago, obviously there are some career stepping stones that we want to work in, whether that is M&A or asset management, private equity, but I think we both are very interested to maybe become an investor one day and be a venture scout. So I was curious, was that something that you wanted to do early on in your career as well, or is that just some role that you kind of started to move into gradually?

Michael Wiatr Aagaard 00:02:28

Yeah, I know. Very interesting question. I don't think I saw sort of the end outcome as being a venture capitalist. That's probably sort of happened a little bit by just the choices being made over time, some of them more deliberate than others. You know, obviously starting out with the first choices: back then it was at least a couple of classic choices. Do you want to do investment banking or consulting? And I chose the route of consulting. Saw that as being a great toolbox, and some great people to work with at Boston Consulting Group. And then after that, I was probably more drawn towards the entrepreneurial journey, as opposed to, pardon me, as opposed to the, you could say, large corporates and working in larger structures, with slightly more bureaucracy and stakeholder management etc., where I'm a little bit more drawn to the zero to one chaos, the moving fast and breaking things, and driving that. So after BCG went out and started building companies and businesses, not all in the venture backable area. Some of them were real businesses that just made money, and we bootstrapped them and made some profits. On that journey was lucky enough to make a couple of exits, raised 10 million bucks, also failed with some companies. So took those learnings, and then, when the opportunity came to start Antler in Copenhagen, that was something I was super excited about, because it was like building that platform that I probably never had myself during those years. It was like, when you go back to when I started

00:03:58

after BCG, the startup ecosystem in Copenhagen was quite different, not as elaborate as it is now, and built out, and as much on fire as it is now. So, yeah, I thought it was a great opportunity to build this platform and community for outliers, where they can build and grow much faster out of Copenhagen.

Konstantin Girst 00:04:16

Cool. And I mean, so yeah, you just mentioned that you raised money through your own ventures. You maybe also crashed some cars against the wall. And then you just said, yeah, there's actually a really great platform here. I mean, we've been able to somewhat experience that at the end of last year as well, as Julius and I did a hackathon here at the Antler offices in Copenhagen. But when we talk about this prior experience and you establishing this platform for young founders here in Copenhagen, how would you say does your own experience, and your capabilities that come from your own founder experience, enhance your skill in finding those quote unquote early outliers and early ventures that Antler frequently invests in?

Michael Wiatr Aagaard 00:04:56

Minor correction: it's actually not just for young people. I mean, I think we've invested in numerous PhDs, numerous people who've been part of building great, fantastic unicorns, founders. I think we just backed number 12 at one of the largest companies to come out of Denmark, who ran half of their revenue. So we have loads of very, very senior, very, very experienced people as well. That being said, we are also backing very young people. I've also just backed a 16-year-old, which is maybe the youngest in Antler history ever. So we do have that, right? But in terms of answering your question, and spotting the early outliers, I mean, you do look for that obsession about solving a customer problem, the speed of moving, you know, lots of iterations and trying things fast and moving. And like every time we have weekly... I coach the teams that sit here on a weekly basis, and the teams that we see move fast week over week bring something new, and they actually multiply the input you give them. So when you give them feedback on something, they don't just look at that, but then the next week they come back, they've also looked at, because I looked at this, now I also looked at X, Y and Z. So I actually looked at four things more beyond that. So they multiply the input and move super fast. At the same time, they also do it in a diligent way, right, where it's structured and controlled. So they're doing it in a hypothesis driven way, you know, coming back and solving and testing out things. And then if it doesn't work that way, they don't just run in one direction,

00:06:26

right? Then they iterate, and then they move in another direction. So it's that. And having been there and having seen, and I think having failed, and also having done some things that are right, you know, obviously that helps you see a little bit of the patterns of things that work in terms of building successful companies. And then I think, of course, we also just need to back someone who thinks incredibly large and big, right? I mean, someone who wants to go and change the world. Again, for venture returns you need to have really, really bold, big ideas, and have that mindset and have that drive, right? Yeah, so I think, I mean, we open the doors for founders, but they need to run through them themselves. And the ones that can do that, when you give them a little bit and then they just take that and turn it into 10x, those are the founders that we're super excited about backing and following.

Host 00:07:21

Yeah, definitely. I mean, you guys are doubling down in the Nordics, most specifically Denmark. In 2025 you announced that you want to deploy 4.5 million euros for very early stage Danish ideas. You just closed the Nordic 2 fund with 100 million fund volume, and I think yesterday or the day before yesterday you announced the residency program.

Michael Wiatr Aagaard 00:07:45

Yeah.

Host 00:07:46

So how did the 4.5 million turn out yet? And could you maybe elaborate on the residency program?

Michael Wiatr Aagaard 00:07:55

I mean, very, very cool, right? I mean, so we are investing right now out of a 100 million fund across the four Nordic markets. In 2025, in Denmark specifically, we got a little bit more than 1300 applications, and we ended up investing in nine companies. And for those nine companies, we then have made the initial commitments and also sort of the commitment to the immediate next round. What we like to see with the founders that come in here and build with us is that when they go out, and we have invested... we like to see that, of course, we give them the initial capital to test their ideas and iterate around it, and find the first scratches of some sort of product market fit. But we also know that they need more capital. So we like to see that they within 12 months go out and raise a substantial next round, and then we also support them with those rounds. So we backed those nine companies in 2025, which was roughly according to our plan. Whether it's eight or 10, it's always hard to say. We're more focused on finding the exact outlier talent and backing them. Regarding the residency: we used to have an intake where we took in teams twice a year. We see, at the velocity of people building now, that waiting a couple of months simply doesn't happen, right? I mean, right now we have people sitting in here that in 3 weeks have built what they built in 9 months, 9 years, in their last startup, tech wise. Obviously it's probably, you know, still being vibe coded a bit, and, you know, the enterprise scale of it, it probably needs to go through a couple of iterations before it

00:09:25

gets to that. But still, they have the rough sketches of MVPs for what they built in 9 years in like three or four weeks. So we just had to change our model to something that's much higher pace. So what we have now is, we basically have a community in an office space where people can come and sit and work with us, and we give them weekly sparring. They pitch to each other on a weekly basis, and we support them with whatever we can. Whether that is, if you're a team, then it might be finding customers or whatever it is; if you're an individual, you might need to find a co-founder to start out with. So we tailor the support to the individual, and then, yeah, we invest as soon as possible. We can invest in as little as two weeks. Probably the normal duration is somewhere from four to 10 weeks. And then, yeah, we keep supporting them throughout and afterwards, both with follow on capital but also with introductions to next investors, credits to tech companies, etc., etc. So all of that, and most importantly, probably, the community of outliers sitting around them that they're building together with at the same cohort. So you're not sitting alone. You actually have someone else that is at the rough same stage as you are, that you can spar with, and also get feedback with, and feel like you're building with. Building is, to some extent, super exciting, but it's also a little bit lonely, and it's much more cyclical emotionally than taking sort of a regular

00:10:56

job. So you typically see the highs: like one day you'll come in and you're super excited, you just got a couple of people downloaded your product, you got great feedback, and then the next day you got two nos from someone and you're totally down. So it's very cyclical emotionally, and therefore having someone to cheer you on all the time, when you have that, is also a very, very cool thing.

Host 00:11:16

No, for sure. I mean, I think it's also super important at the early stage to kind of have someone to spar your ideas with, and stress test what makes sense, and maybe what sounds ridiculous or even stupid in someone else's eyes. But as you said, I think it's never been easier to get an MVP out the door at such a great velocity and speed as today. So I'm curious, is there maybe even a mental model that kind of leads you to try to balance quantity and quality when it comes to investing into ideas?

Michael Wiatr Aagaard 00:11:51

I mean, I think, as we also discussed a little earlier, I think that, you know, we're sort of one of the investors who invest the most on a global level. And that obviously then leads you to sort of a... But when we look at it also from that perspective, I mean, as we just said, here in Denmark I got 1300 applications, invested in about, like, that's roughly 0.7% of the applications we invested in. When we look at it on a global scale, I think it's actually even higher, right? I mean, we get in the neighborhood of 200,000 applications a year, and we invest in, coming down to, probably like three or 400 companies a year. So if you do the math on that, it's very selective. So it's looking at large pools of founders and working with them also before we invest in them. I mean, we have this model of working with people sitting in our office, actually looking at the talent and the way the people move fast and do the right things, right, before we invest. So it's, you could say, a very diligent way. Even if we are a high number investor, we do it at a very high quality as well, right? It's not just high quantity.

Host 00:13:05

Yeah, and I could imagine that, you know, the velocity that you mentioned is also very challenging for you, because, I mean, I think end of January, Clawdbot was released, which broke the internet, where this Austrian guy just built, yeah, basically a completely autonomous AI assistant in a weekend. He says vibe coding. I don't know how much of that is true, but definitely fascinating. And I recently read an article by Felix H [unclear], who's the head of design at Lovable, and he mentioned that right now, since everyone can build an okay functional technical product, go to market strategy and marketing is basically key for everything. Would you agree, and what do you advise young founders who just built an awesome product but don't know how to market that to a wide audience?

Michael Wiatr Aagaard

Yeah, I mean, so definitely distribution has... I think distribution has actually always been important, if you look at, like, before the AI bubble, right? I mean, I think even the great founders, they weren't just focused on product, but they're also focused on distribution, because obviously you need to find product love before you then go and get distribution. But now it's beginning to get easier. That being said, I do still think that, even if you can build something super fast, right, it's still finding that where you're actually solving a real problem for someone. It's not just about a product, right? I mean, I can put together a product, but, you know, it's a super nice to have, number 29

00:14:35

on most people's list. People typically have this tendency of only having seven important things to think about, right? So if you're not in the top seven things for people to solve, then I think, you know, it doesn't matter, right? So it's still about finding those... probably not about the product. It's more about the problem you're solving, and how are you then applying technology to solve it, is the key thing. And it has always been and it still is, and now it's just faster to test and get feedback on your product, right? So instead of mocking something up in, I don't know, Figma or whatever you want to do, now you go in and you actually vibe code a product and you go and test it, so you can get a little bit faster through the iteration cycles. But the great founders, they will still find huge problems, solve it in a way, and it's not just about, you know, tying together one or two super simple things. It's also, probably, connecting... Now, I mentioned we've invested in number 12 from one of the larger Danish unicorns, and they're tying together three pieces of technology that they have built, that they are leading in the world on. So first, data: how do we acquire and get the data, and massage the data to make it fit. Secondly, it's this decision engine for the people who need to use it. And then lastly, it's an agent that can sit in a flow with people and only surface whenever it's relevant for that to surface, with the data needed, etc. So they're building three pieces of

00:16:05

unique technology, combining that, putting that to market, right? And that's not just something you can... So even if Claude Cowork is coming out and it's blowing up the internet, that won't just get disrupted overnight, because it can't solve that.

Host

Yeah, I mean, as we are on the topic of AI and data, I mean, I think it's a very common talk of the town that everybody talks about these big AI unicorns and AI backed, venture-backed companies, maybe. I mean, you talked about Lovable, and there's Anthropic in the US, for example. So everybody's jumping on the AI hype train from the founders' side. And actually, before we went on the Christmas break, our last recording was with a founder in Germany who also founded a data and AI based company that does corporate analysis for PE deals, for example, and then deal sourcing. So I mean, I'm sure you guys invest into a lot of AI companies, but is there also an AI and data usage on your side, where it maybe assists you in outsourcing, or maybe establishing valuation principles, or sourcing companies, analyzing companies, for example?

Michael Wiatr Aagaard 00:17:16

I think, first of all, I'm glad that you mentioned Lovable a couple of times, since we're obviously a proud investor. So, fantastic company. I do think, internally, we use technology, of course, for loads of things, like, you know, sourcing founders, selecting founders, and also supporting them in our portfolio. We kind of have a two-prong way of working with tech, or actually doing development across most things in Antler: we're across roughly 30 locations globally, and we have our early stage funds, where I'm representing the Nordic fund, and then we have different for different regions, and then we have our global team sitting together as well. So we have a global tech team that helps select tools and deploy tools in terms of how we do it, and then we also have a local setup where we have the ability to go and test different things and do it. And then, as the global team sees an initiative that works somewhere locally, they sort of adopt it and try to make it a global principle. So that is the way that Antler is an extremely fast learning organization, and that we continuously improve everything we do, which is super exciting, right? Because when we're sitting here in the Nordics, I'm not just getting the feedback from the three other markets we work with, in Finland, Norway and Sweden, but we're actually also getting it from the 16 other early stage funds around the world, and everything they do. So every time we run something or we test something out, right, they are testing out 16 times more, and that's the accumulated knowledge and speed we move at internally in Antler. And that also goes for

00:18:46

AI, and how we take in AI tools and work with them. So, yeah, we're definitely also trying... I mean, in full fairness, it is also a fast moving pace, right? Like, Claude Cowork came out, kind of exploded the internet a little bit, as you said. At least some valuations took a little bit of a hit for some of the software companies around the world. But if you look at it, that also means that we of course just have to be at the forefront of things, testing things out, again, continuously, and we do that. Just as well as, as you said, we quit the program and sort of the two times a year intake, we're also, of course, constantly evaluating how we can be better with the use of technology.

Host 00:19:31

And I mean, you invest as early as possible into founders, into companies, which puts you very much far left on the J curve. So

00:19:41

high risk, but potentially high returns, or high losses.

Host 00:19:46

So when you look at founders, because we talked to Simon Schmincke from... and he also really emphasized that they don't invest into companies, they invest into founders, into ideas, into visions.

00:19:59

What are some... it's very subjective, I guess, but what are some

00:20:04

key factors you look for when you talk to founders?

Michael Wiatr Aagaard

I mean, we do try to find those founders who are outliers in one way, shape or form, right? I mean, so what can we look at? Like, how do we see that you can see the world in a different way, and, you know, have you done anything in other areas to stand behind and prove this? It could be, you know, either that you've won an Olympic medal, or you started coding at the age of six, or it can be won math competitions, or you've been an early part of unicorns and seen that journey from the inside, as an operator. So that obsession, and the ability to see something big and execute, and then of course just the, like, to move fast. And where we're lucky, where I think our model is slightly different, is we get to spend a bit more time with the founders before we invest, right? So we can see that, and see: those early signals that we're looking for when we take people in and start working with them, do they also, over time, when we work with them for two to 10 weeks, do they keep that trajectory of still moving forward fast and doing things that are right? And so, essentially, it's like, hey, are you

00:21:34

looking at solving that really big problem? Are you building fast? Are you going out verifying about the market fast? And then also, do you actually have a path for fundraising afterwards? I mean, since we are the first investors, it's incredibly important also that the founders can go out and raise capital afterwards, and that they have that skill. And it looks extremely easy when there's a post about raising 2 million or 10 million on LinkedIn, but when you look behind the scenes of all the fundraises, typically it's a little bit more difficult for that. Even for the ones where it's easy, it's still a lot of work.

00:22:11

So, yeah, we're trying to look at that: you know, the obsession, the ability to move fast, and then the different skill sets of, you know, can you find a big problem, build a product, sell it, and then fundraise.

Host 00:22:25

Yeah. I mean, you just said that maybe a tell, if someone has the ability or the guts to found something great, is if they've done something extraordinary. And I feel like the people who do something extraordinary and then become successful founders are becoming younger and younger. So in 2024, the average age of an AI unicorn founder was just 29, compared to 40 in 2020. So there's a massive decline here, seeing that more and more young people are very eager to do something. But maybe next to establishing, okay, this person actually has the potential to do something great: could you give us a small deep dive into what is the next step then, after finding someone, to kind of upskill and train them, to pave the way for their future?

Michael Wiatr Aagaard

I actually think, I mean, upskilling is a big word, right? Because these people typically are very, very talented individuals and don't need per se much upskilling. I think it's more about being the sparring partner for them, and sitting down and discussing the different choices that they're making. And then with that, they actually themselves will internalize that and figure out how to move forward, right? So I think it is mainly that we sit down and actually try with the founders, also for the period after we've invested, to have weekly check-ins with them, and just touch base to see, where are

00:23:55

you at? How's it going? Anything you want to touch base on? Sometimes it's not weekly, it's bi-weekly, sometimes it's monthly. It depends on the individual founder, what they want to do. But it's more of that, sort of helping them, you know, when you have two choices: do you go left or do you go right? Giving our perspectives on it, based on what we've seen. And so I typically express it in two ways. One of my main goal, for my main role with the startups we've invested in is twofold. It's to remove roadblocks, so anything that's obstacles, it can be practical stuff or whatever it is. And then it's to sort of add a bit of rocket fuel to the tank. So open doors, give them new opportunities, help them with introductions or whatever. But then again, the great founders, they'll run through those doors when you open them. The ones that sort of stand outside the door and wait for politely getting asked in are typically also not the ones that will go out and build great, category defining companies.

Host 00:24:52

Yeah. Yeah. No, makes a lot of sense. And I mean, we talked a lot about tech and the opportunities of AI, but I mean, when we talk about AI, this is not something that, you know, just exists and only has advantages. I mean, we have some, yeah, ESG responsibilities that come with it. And Antler, actually, I read that on the website, they say that you have over 50% of the portfolio companies that are in the ESG space, that they leverage AI for the broader good, which sounds paradoxical in a way. So could you maybe tell us how they do it, and what your personal take is on the energy consumption and the issues that come with it?

Michael Wiatr Aagaard 00:25:42

Yeah, I think, when it's, yeah, an oxymoron a little bit, with most of the energy going in, like energy shortages because of AI, and data centers being built out alongside AI, with energy production etc. I can see that. But I guess if we also look at it from a broader perspective, a lot of, for instance, if you look at it on a high level: AI has the ability to structure some things that we weren't earlier capable of. That goes for both energy and ESG and everything else,

00:26:17

as in any other industry and business, right? So if you look at it concretely in energy, for instance, we have a company that's optimizing district heating with AI. So essentially they're buying heat sources at the cheapest possible. They're basically sitting in between... so, like, district heating, right, is basically a center. Imagine it as a pot of hot water that's then being distributed around to many, many households. So it's obviously quite a big pot of hot water, and you have to fill that pot of hot water based on the demand from the consumers, right? And it's sort of the unfair role that someone at that district heating plant is sitting in, with an Excel sheet, trying to hold that together and predict the future weather forecast and the consumption by demand on one side, and then the five or six electricity sources, or energy sources, he has to fill up the water tank with hot water on the other side. It's just not doable in an Excel sheet, right? So we have a company that is, with AI, optimized, that can reduce energy consumption 20%, and if you look at energy for heat is roughly 50% of the energy we use. So, I mean, with AI we have a solution that can then take out roughly 10% of the energy consumption as well, right? So that's on one end. And then of course, on the, now we have the, how can we also help doing that: we also have just invested in another company that does physical simulation models and can make them run 10x faster. So essentially that means that you need to use only 10% of the compute to get the same output

00:27:47

as before, right? So there is loads of different things, and that's actually also built on existing simulation ways of doing it in physics, but it's also with the help of AI they have figured out how to move this forward 10x. So we can reduce anything physical being simulated

00:28:05

by a substantial amount, right? So we will get the use of AI, or energy, from running some of these things down, or at least we'll get a lot more output for the input we get. And then lastly, I think, of course, we're also living in a [unclear] where AI is, you know, we need to be a little bit thoughtful and mindful of how we use and how we use it and for what, and so forth, right? And then, on another end of the scale, we've actually invested in a guy who has a PhD in AI and been doing that for 10 years, and trying to fight disinformation for 10 years. Figured out that the way of solving these deepfakes, etc., actually can't do it with an AI, because, as you've probably seen in the news as well, the AIs can't really guess what's right or wrong. So it's like an arms race: as soon as you figure out guessing something, then they will get better and become better at creating content. It's extremely sophisticated on the deepfakes [unclear]. So what they did instead was using cryptography to verify real content, so that they can actually go out and say, let's not worry about detecting what's fake, but let's actually verify what's real. And they have a patented way of doing that. So, different ways that we're seeing our companies use technology, I would say, to both leverage AI for good, but also make sure that we keep some checks and balances on what is being developed.

Host 00:29:31

Okay. So you would say the goal is, for every, let's say, token that's consumed, you can, say, save 10 tokens for everyone else that's using AI.

Michael Wiatr Aagaard

I mean, obviously, this one company was just for the physical simulation. It's also being used for non-physical simulation models. But yes, I mean, the idea is to see how can you actually also get better output from the token usage.

Host 00:29:53

I like this recursive idea, that AI fixes the energy problem that AI created. I think that would be a nice way of going about things. So, yeah, we've talked a little bit about how to find companies to invest in and why to invest in companies, but I think another side of venture capitalism that I think is super interesting is also then exiting a company again, which is a very relevant topic these days. According to JPMorgan, tech companies are almost two times as old now when they IPO, compared to 35 years ago. And Goldman Sachs also just reported, for their 2026 outlook, that over 50% of companies mentioned that they think their M&A activity will be influenced by their access to private capital. But despite that, obviously, IPOs still remain a key liquidity event for both venture funds but also venture-backed companies. So could you maybe give us an insight into how to time and plan an exit strategy in those market dynamics?

Michael Wiatr Aagaard 00:31:01

I mean, obviously, we're in the very, very early end of the curve, right? So what we try to work on with our founders is basically: go out, build fantastic great companies, and don't start thinking about the exit route quite yet. There's multiple ways of exit, and obviously, since more and more is sitting in the private markets these days, obviously there are loads of different... you have to think about it probably slightly differently than you used to. I mean, it's not always the IPO that's the main driver of it, right? I mean, it could be an M&A, or it could be holding it, at least waiting slightly longer, and then it could also be, I mean, partially taking a bit of liquidity on the way. Secondaries are becoming much more used, also not just in the US. But there are lots of different things where you can change your personal risk profile, or even the very early investors', the angels' or whoever's, risk profile, of taking some money off the table. I definitely think, moving forward, that the private markets will start ending up looking closer to the public markets. I know that there's lots of initiatives. We have some founders who are working with ourselves who want to create the infrastructure to ensure that the private markets are tradable like the public markets are.

00:32:32

Obviously it's still going to be in different ways, because I probably won't be holding like 100 bucks of some share and selling that directly. But maybe if you aggregate it in chunks, and get those hundred bucks into chunks of 10 million, then maybe you can actually sit and do some trading in the private markets as well. So I do think that there will be other liquidity mechanisms being developed. As we see more and more, I mean, basically more and more capital is in the private market, more and more people want access to it, right? So it's a problem, but it's something I think being solved. But for our founders, we basically focused on: make sure you build a great business, that you're solving a big problem, and then there will be paths to exit as well, whether that's through M&A, secondary sales, IPOs, or whatever it is.

Host 00:33:25

Okay. I mean, I think it's super interesting. I'm just very curious where this whole financial market scenario will go in the long run, with companies staying private, and then, I mean, neo-brokers offering retail investors to invest into private markets and private equity, obviously with longer lockup periods, but then, yeah, how that's going to balance out with the public market in the long term. I think it's an interesting topic.

Michael Wiatr Aagaard 00:33:49

Yeah. I don't know, but definitely it is something, right? I mean, you do see loads of large companies sitting in the private markets for a long time. But I mean, now it also kind of depends on whether you do it in terms of number of companies weighted, or if you do it in terms of capital locked up, right? I mean, you do see there's speculation in the market about OpenAI going public, etc., right? So, I mean, there will be chunks of stuff unlocked. I also do think in the last couple of years there's been fewer IPOs, but the forecast is that more IPOs will happen and more M&A activity will happen this year. So there's obviously some pent-up cash in the whole private market value chain.

Host 00:34:34

Yeah.

00:34:35

Who knows? Maybe we'll see a trillion dollar IPO this year.

00:34:39

SpaceX. I don't know.

Host

I mean, when we circle things back to Denmark as a startup hub, I mean, the Nordics... we talked about it very briefly in the beginning, with you closing another fund. In the Nordics things are moving fast. We see dynamics especially in Sweden, with the Silicon Valhalla, and we talked about this with two other founders from Denmark, Joakim [unclear] and Kim Rants from Alice.tech, and we also asked them, are there any differences in Sweden versus Denmark, because

00:35:14

the headlines are usually coming from Sweden. I mean, Denmark is following along, with Flatpay being the most recent unicorn now,

00:35:21

but

00:35:23

would you say that there's a difference between Swedish founders and Danish founders?

Michael Wiatr Aagaard 00:35:28

I don't think that there's a difference between the core raw talent of Danish founders and Swedish founders. I do think that there's a difference in fact, of course, at the Swedish ecosystem they managed to keep some of the early unicorns at home, and got the flywheel effects from that, where you see early operators coming out, potentially someone having some warrants in the companies, coming out, realizing a bit of capital, recirculating that into the ecosystem, etc. So I do think that there's something where people have seen

00:36:00

the journey a bit before. So they're probably a bit ahead, mentally, on that, and understanding what a great venture journey looks like. Whereas in Denmark, I think, if you look at the raw talent in Denmark, I think the same. We lost a few of the early unicorns that moved across the pond. So we don't have that group of operators sitting in there that is running around in the ecosystem. What I do think, though, is we're seeing more of them come back, or, even if they still live there, starting to take interest in the Danish ecosystem, investing. I mean, I have one Danish unicorn founder lives in San Francisco that has invested into two of our companies. So we're beginning to see that coming back, and I do think we are beginning to see that flywheel slowly. And then we're also, with, you know, Flatpay, the latest example, I mean, but the Pleos, the Lunars, the loads of others that are sitting here building, where we're beginning to see people come out and build from, and those people have seen the unicorn journey and that trajectory, and will be... So I think we're very well, sort of, the wheels are in motion, the ecosystem is on fire. We're moving. But of course it's just like more people who come out with cash, who invest, who are participating, who've seen what great looks like, and investing into that. So I think that is coming and will come fast, and hopefully something where our platform and community and ability to

00:37:30

help our founders not just look at Danish investors, but also look at Nordic investors and talk to the platform. I mean, nowadays, we had one founder who was from southern Europe, that we invested in recently, who has loads of southern European investors who have seen that journey before as well, and they are now also beginning to take an interest in other companies that we built, because we invested in them. So we're beginning to also, you know, Danes coming back from abroad, the Danes that are here that have seen the journey. And then I think we're also beginning to draw more attention from other regions, to come in and help fund our companies, so we can get them the support they need to go out and build those category defining companies.

Host 00:38:12

That seems like a very positive outlook, and exciting things ahead in 2026.

Michael Wiatr Aagaard 00:38:16

I definitely think so. It feels like that, right? I think, and, you know, we're trying to play our little part in the big machine here. But at least I can definitely see that we are able of attracting some much better,

00:38:32

much more great interest to the companies that we're investing in, and moving forward to building great things.

Host 00:38:41

Well, the nice thing is also that Antler has offices in both Stockholm and Copenhagen. So you can take the best of both worlds, I would guess.

Michael Wiatr Aagaard 00:38:49

We definitely get to see that, right? And it's also a talk, right? I mean, I think also the investment velocity in Sweden has been extremely high lately. You know, let's see how things all pan out. I mean, it's a 10 year-ish game to see, maybe a little shorter now. The average unicorn time is roughly, what, 4.8 something years in the AI era. So it's a little bit... but it's a longer cycle that we have to go through to see what works.

Host 00:39:21

So, yeah, you just briefly tapped into the international network of Antler, with Denmark to SF and then investor activity in southern Europe. And I mean, you guys have 27 offices across major global hubs, ranging from Singapore to New York to Stockholm and Copenhagen. And I wanted to ask, how do you tap into this international network of yours? Do you sometimes connect founders across the globe to share ideas, also to maybe fast-track global investment in deals?

Michael Wiatr Aagaard

I think we of course use it as a global sourcing pool, where people come and just go to the main, pardon me, go to the main Antler website, and then they can, you know, apply to any location globally, and we'll find you there. But again, we also do help each other out as a global team. We're in a global partner team. We meet up a couple of times a year. And so we have very strong relationships across the whole ecosystem. And then it's about, obviously, it can be about sourcing. So recently I invested in someone that came from one of our venture partners in New York, that then came here to Copenhagen from another location in Europe. So that's how we can help on the sourcing aspects of it. When we get into supporting the founders, then we can also support them with, you know, if you're flying into a new city, need a place

00:40:51

to sit and start working from. If you need to talk to an investor, you're going to somewhere... We recently had someone who went to Singapore and was going to talk to an investor, and then we, you know, opened up the doors, and whilst we were there, ended up talking to a bunch of investors instead of just one, and so forth, right? So we do leverage that. I think it's the network that we can expand, and both... we have a global operator network where you can tap into great operators around the world from great companies, to talking to all the outliers around the world that we've invested in, in our own Antler community, to opening up capital markets. Instead of, if you're in Denmark and you want to raise a seed round, I mean, instead of talking to just Danish seed investors, we can open it up so you talk to Nordic investors, even European investors. Take companies from Denmark, or from Europe, the best ones: we have our European founder conference once a year, where we put together roughly 500 investors from Europe and bring our best European founders there. We have a stage in San Francisco where we can take companies, and the best companies around the world we can send to San Francisco and meet with investors in the Valley. So we do leverage the global platform. And as we also talked about earlier, then it's about learning fast, seeing things that our other great partners around the world have tested out and worked with, or we share what we have learned here in the Nordics with the rest of the world. And, yeah, that's sort of

00:42:21

how the whole ecosystem ties together to become much stronger than if we were just an individual node here in Copenhagen.

Host

Sounds like the ideal corporate network effect to me.

Michael Wiatr Aagaard 00:42:32

I think you get the benefits of both, right? I mean, we get to work as an individual local Nordic setup, but still we're tied into a bigger learning entity, where we simply share knowledge and move fast, and, yeah, help each other out with that, right? And I think that is exactly, as you said, the perfect large setup, because we're small enough and flexible enough to maneuver super fast, and we can do our own things, testing our own things, but then, yeah, sharing with the global world, but also giving the entrepreneurs we invest in the opportunity to benefit from a global platform and a global community of amazing people.

Host

So maybe rounding up the very interesting and insightful conversation we had today. [...] So, if you had to give some advice to people like us, early 20s, that want to break either into VC or start their startup, what is the secret sauce?

Michael Wiatr Aagaard

So if you want to break into VC, and how to get in there, I think it's basically just being out there, understanding, you know, talking to...

00:44:04

Like, understand the ropes of how it actually works. So figure out the main literature, read some great books. There's one, Power Law, that's about how the whole venture system is built, [unclear] with basically all the technicalities of how deals are structured, etc. And then going out and just listening to loads of podcasts. That's one thing, acquire some knowledge. But then I think it's also just going out there, doing it. There's loads of events one can sign up for. Be out there, listen to people, connect, network, build the knowledge and understanding of what actually works. And then it's just doing it. Go out there and do some of it. Figure out how you can maneuver your way into becoming a campus venture scout for a fund. Go... I mean, create the path yourself. It's a space where roles aren't abundant. So you have to probably be a little bit creative in how you get there. And you can, of course, get there by having some great skills and going out and doing... I mean, I did the sort of, you know, consulting, started building myself, and then to there. But you could also just try to get straight in there and just work your way in, getting an internship at a venture fund, or the like, and then applying for some of the initial early roles. But it's probably either jumping,

00:45:34

like getting some skills from an established setup, and then still, whilst you're doing that, you have to build the venture mindset on top, because, I mean, if you go into banking or consulting, it's not clear-cut direction to venture, because it's a little bit different. Or you can go out and join and maybe be a founder's associate at a startup, and, you know, help the CEO or the founders there, help them, and see the ropes of what it takes to build and raise capital, and then take that and then move into VC. Or you can go directly and try to get an entrepreneur role in VC. I think it's very entrepreneurial. You have to think about it entrepreneurially, and then basically just keep stacking up knowledge about venture capital, and then pursuing the different opportunities when they arise. Build network in the industry, and then, yeah, that's a path. I'm sorry, that wasn't a clear path. Sorry, I don't think that exists. I think it's more general pieces of input that one can take along and try to build. But it's obviously getting close to an understanding, and seeing what success and great look like from the inside, and building some of that knowledge on top, and some of those skills, into one's...

Konstantin Girst

Yeah. No, I mean, great advice. I think if you listen to that, you can definitely piece together a little step-by-step guide from that. I mean, I especially like that you said people should listen to podcasts. So if you heard that, you're already doing at least something right. So, well done to our audience. But yeah, I

00:47:04

think this was great. It was great to speak to you today, Michael. It was super, super fun to be back in the recording setup with Julius as well. I'm really looking forward to the next couple of months. We have loads of cool stuff prepared for you guys. So make sure to tune in again. So now we'll be back on our normal schedule, Wednesdays every two weeks. So thank you so much for tuning in, and, yeah, hear you in the next episode. Thank you.

00:47:31

Thank you.

Michael Wiatr Aagaard 00:47:32

Thanks so much, guys.