Who this is
Dr. Andre Retterath is a partner at the venture capital firm Earlybird in Munich, where he leads software infrastructure and frontier AI models. He trained as an engineer with a computer science focus, worked on process automation at Thyssen and moved via anomaly detection into venture capital, which is also about finding outliers. His PhD research looked at how AI can be used in investing. Since summer 2022 he has written the weekly newsletter Data Driven VC, which now has just over 40,000 active readers, alongside a Slack community and the annual "State of Data-Driven VC" report. He was nominated as Investor of the Year at the German Startup Awards.
Episodes
Numbers from the episode
FAQ
How big does a company need to be able to get for a VC like Earlybird?
Every investment has to have the potential to return the entire fund once. With Earlybird's 360 million euro fund and roughly a 10 percent stake at exit, that means an exit valuation of about 3.6 billion, or 4 to 5 billion with a slightly smaller stake. As a rule of thumb for early-stage lead investors, your company should realistically be able to become 10 to 15 times the size of the fund. To the episode →
How does Earlybird use AI in its investment process?
Earlybird's platform Eagle Eye scrapes company registers across Europe, among other sources, and now sees around 50,000 pitch decks a year and 96 percent of startups at least six weeks before their funding round. Internal and external data sit in a layered "data onion" behind an MCP connector the team uses in Claude, and a score from 0 to 100 helps with prioritizing. A human always makes the final call, though. To the episode →
Quotes
„Siehst du, dass etwa einer von drei Co-Foundern innerhalb der ersten fünf Jahre das Unternehmen verlässt?““You see that roughly one in three co-founders leaves the company within the first five years.”
„… du hast irgendwie 10% der Wagniskapitalfinanzierten Companies, die 90% des Kapitals eingesammelt haben im Markt.““You've got 10 percent of venture-funded companies raising 90 percent of the capital in the market.”
„Also Serienunternehmer sind 41 Prozent wahrscheinlicher als First-Time-Founder ein Unicorn zu erreichen.““Serial founders are 41 percent more likely than first-time founders to reach unicorn status.”
„… am Ende deinem Bauchgefühl zu vertrauen, dafür brauchst du einfach Sample Size.““In the end, to trust your gut you simply need sample size.”
„… lass dich nicht verrückt machen, mach am besten mal LinkedIn, Twitter für ein paar Wochen aus.““Don't let it drive you crazy. Best thing is to switch off LinkedIn and Twitter for a few weeks.”