Investment Climate Podcast

Episode 107: Cardumen Capital: Alberto Criado on Why Execution-First Models Beat Capex-Heavy Tech and the Rise of "Coffee-as-a-Service"
In this episode, I sit down with Alberto Criado, Principal at Cardumen Capital, an elite European venture capital firm that has rapidly scaled its assets under management from €50M to nearly €400M. Alberto walks us through Cardumen's highly opportunistic and execution-driven approach to the AgriFoodTech sector. He reveals the math behind their recent investment in Barcelona-based Incapto, explaining how they are completely dismantling the single-use coffee capsule market through an innovative "Coffee-as-a-Service" subscription model. Alberto also pulls back the curtain on portfolio risk management in a capital-scarce environment, discussing why clear exit viability, predictable recurrence, and fast tracks to profitability rule the market today over purely binary technology risks.
🎧 Listen to the full episode to hear Alberto break down why Starbucks isn’t specialty coffee, how they reverse-engineer target exit valuations between €250M and €500M, and how Cardumen uses its dedicated M&A and value-creation teams to act as a true service company for its entrepreneurs.
Key Facts: Cardumen Capital
Alberto Criado: https://www.linkedin.com/in/albertocriadom/?locale=en
Website: cardumencapital.com
Headquarters: Madrid, Spain and Tel Aviv, Israel.
Goal: Investing in deep tech, cybersecurity, AI, and AgriFoodTech pioneers across Europe and Israel, actively managing a high-performing portfolio of over 40 companies (including alternative protein leaders like Oshi).
Ticket Size & Strategy: Deploying €500k to €1M initial tickets across Europe and the entire food value chain. Structurally flexible, acting primarily as an intensely supportive follow-on investor that strives to be the most active partner on the cap table..
Blurb
CARDUMEN CAPITAL is an active, cross-border European venture capital firm that avoids rigid, immovable investment theses in favor of agile, opportunistic execution. Recognizing the harsh funding climate facing capital-intensive food tech sectors like precision fermentation, Cardumen strategically balances its portfolio with high-margin, highly recurrent, and low-capex businesses that solve concrete bottleneck inefficiencies for modern enterprises.

Episode 106: Capnamic: Nils Eiteneyer on Spotting "Unsexy" Multi-Decade Themes and Why Vertical SaaS Still Rules in the Era of AI
In this episode, I sit down with Nils Eiteneyer, Partner at Capnamic, a premier early-stage venture capital firm based in Germany. Nils brings his background as an ex-operator and McKinsey advisor to explain Capnamic's rigorous approach to early-stage investing through their fourth fund. He shares a masterclass on navigating the intersection of deep tech and structural pressure, explaining why "unsexy" agricultural problems offer the biggest market opportunities, how to build a defensible data moat against big tech, and why the current AgriFood funding winter is actually creating the highest-quality, economically resilient companies we've seen in years.
🎧 Listen to the full episode to hear Nils break down the mechanics of vertical software integrations, why horizontal SaaS is exposed to AI democratization, and how Capnamic collaborates intensely with a select handful of founders each year to build the next generation of category leaders.
Key Facts: Capnamic
Nils Eiteneyer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-nils-eiteneyer/
Website: capnamic.com
Headquarters: Cologne, Berlin, and Munich, Germany.
Goal: Backing category-defining B2B tech, deep tech, and early-stage infrastructure startups from the German-speaking region (DACH) and broader Europe.
Investment Profile: Investing out of their fourth fund (~$215M / €190M+). They enter early as a lead or co-lead investor, moving deliberately and selectively by backing only 4 to 6 new companies per year to maintain intense, close partnerships.
Ticket Size & Ownership: Typically €2M–€3M initially (ranging from €500k for pre-seed up to €5M–€6M for late Series A). They structurally target ~15% ownership to satisfy fund-return mathematics across generations.
Blurb
CAPNAMIC is a powerhouse European early-stage venture capital firm designed around hyper-selective concentration and hands-on operational support. Rather than spreading capital thinly, Capnamic purposefully caps its new annual investments to ensure its partners can act as embedded allies to founders.

Episode 105: Navus: Jaap Zijlstra on Why "Process Tech" is the Missing Link in Scaling AgriFood and Why Family Offices Beat VCs in the Hard-Tech Winter
In this episode, I sit down with Jaap Zijlstra, representing Navus, a Dutch family office-backed venture firm. Unlike traditional VCs, Navus leverages the technical heritage of a world-leading dairy robotics family to build clusters of sustainable food and energy companies. Jaap explains why the "AgriFood winter" is not a death knell for innovation, but a necessary maturation phase that favors patient capital over hyper-speed software models. We deep-dive into why Navus doubles down on process technology and hardware-enabled IP (like their investment in Cosaic), and why agriculture will always follow the laws of physics, not the speed of software deployment.
🎧 Listen to the full episode to hear Jaap’s candid take on why family offices are the natural home for hardware-heavy biotech, how they leverage in-house patent offices to vet deep-tech, and why they prioritize "real-world" adoption cycles over "get-rich-quick" exit timelines.
Key Facts: Navus
Jaap Zijlstra: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaap-zijlstra-48b69319/
Website: https://navusholding.com/
Headquarters: Netherlands
Goal: To build clusters of successful tech companies in sustainable food and energy, leveraging the family's deep-rooted experience in global machinery and robotics.
Investment Profile: Roughly 25 portfolio companies. Invests from the family office balance sheet (not a traditional fund), allowing for multi-stage, multi-year holding periods. Ticket sizes vary from $1M–$2M (Seed/Series A) to significantly more for private equity-style deals.
Blurb
NAVUS is a Dutch family office-backed investment vehicle specializing in controlled environment agriculture, robotics, automation, and alternative ingredient production technology. By operating outside the constraints of a standard 7-to-10-year fund cycle, they provide the "patient capital" required to navigate the harsh realities of physical-world agriculture and energy hardware.

Episode 103: Opalia: Jennifer Côté on Navigating a 14-Month Biotech Seed Round and Making Whole Milk from Mammary Cells
In this episode, I sit down with Jennifer Côté, CEO and Co-Founder of Opalia, a Montreal-based biotechnology company pioneering animal-free dairy by producing real whole milk from bovine mammary cells. Jennifer shares a transparent, reality-check account of what it takes to close a $3.2M CAD Seed round in the challenging 2026 funding climate. She breaks down the technical differentiation that separates cellular dairy from the struggling cultivated meat sector, explains how to leverage non-dilutive government grants, and details the grueling process of filtering a pipeline of 400 investors down to a committed, high-quality cap table.
🎧 Listen to the full episode to hear Jennifer’s take on building a "Type A" hyper-transparent data room, how she fields macro environmental objections, and why real transparency beats over-inflated hype when partnering with sector-specific venture capital.
Key Facts: Opalia
Jennifer Côté: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-cote/
Website: opaliafoods.com
Headquarters: Montreal, Canada.
Goal: To eliminate the intensive global reliance on cattle by manufacturing authentic whole milk (with matching functional proteins, fats, and taste) using a highly capital-efficient, mammalian cell-based bioreactor system.
Milestone: Raised $6M CAD total over 6 years (with remarkable capital efficiency compared to peers raising hundreds of millions) and recently closed the first $3.2M CAD tranche of their Seed round.
Blurb
OPALIA is a Canadian cellular agriculture company pioneering a new era of sustainable dairy. Instead of using precision fermentation (yeast/bacteria) or slaughtering animals for cultivated meat, Opalia isolates mammary gland cells from cows just once and initiates lactation continuously inside custom, low-cost bioreactor vessels.

Episode 102: Branch Venture Group: Lauren Abda on the Strength of the Syndicate Model and De-Risking AgriFood Investing
In this episode, I sit down with Lauren Abda, Co-Founder of Branch Venture Group, a Boston-based angel investment network and syndicate deployed heavily into the future of food. Lauren delivers a masterclass on why the syndicate model has outperformed traditional mega-funds during the current "AgriFood winter," explaining how pairing early-stage founders with highly strategic operators creates durable competitive moats. We discuss the shifting macroeconomic landscape, why food infrastructure remains dramatically undercapitalized despite essential demand, and how Lauren leverages a 10-year-old vetting process to filter thousands of inbound deals into 29 high-performing investments.
🎧 Listen to the full episode to hear Lauren’s take on uncovering "unfair advantages" in early-stage startups, the unique acquisition dynamics of top food corporations, and how she manages the psychological grit required to back unconventional innovation before consensus forms.
Key Facts: Branch Venture Group
Lauren Abda: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurenabda/
Website: https://www.branchventuregroup.com/
Headquarters: Boston, Massachusetts.
Goal: To back the brightest founders building the future of the food system, delivering venture-scale returns by combining visionary innovation with strict operational discipline.
Milestone: Over a decade in the space; 29 unique investments made since 2017. The portfolio boasts two unicorns, multiple markups, and nearly half (50%) of the portfolio is currently cash-flow break-even.
Blurb
BRANCH VENTURE GROUP is an angel investment network and syndicate specializing in early-stage food and agriculture innovation. Evolving out of Branch Food—a premier Boston-based innovation platform—the syndicate serves as a bridge between early-stage founders and a powerful network of experienced industry operators, executives, and strategic partners.