Shamillah Bankiya, the latest partner at Dawn Capital, recently joined the Equity podcast to discuss the European investment landscape and the biggest misconceptions Americans have about the European startup world. Dawn Capital is a marquee firm in the UK with more than two billion dollars in assets under management, 34 exits, and 11 unicorns in its portfolio. This includes notable AI companies like Collibra and Dataiku. The firm focuses on early-stage companies, backing them from seed to Series C, and is currently investing from its six hundred and twenty million dollar Fund V.
Bankiya is one of the few Black women venture partners in Europe. Her investments at the firm include the AI company Qogita and the marketplace Fonoa. She spoke about growing up in a family of entrepreneurs with a strong desire to learn new things, noting that venture capital lends itself to that extremely well. She shared that for the last twenty years she has wanted to be an investor of some sort.
She said the European landscape has been exciting for some time, pointing out that some of the hottest startups in AI and fintech have come from the continent, such as Lovable and Klarna, the latter of which just had a blockbuster IPO in New York. What has changed, she noted, is the significant interest American investors have recently taken in European countries, a shift she believes the pandemic contributed to significantly.
However, she admitted the landscape still has work to do regarding having European founders IPO in their home countries. She stated that one of the biggest advantages of the European landscape is, at times, its biggest determinant. Europe is a collection of large disaggregated exchanges, which creates an imbalance that needs a solution. The other factor is regulation, for which Europe is notoriously known.
Before the conversation ended, they addressed the biggest European stereotype—the extended holiday or “Euro Summer,” which suggests European investors take long breaks unlike their American counterparts. Bankiya wants that stereotype to end, assuring everyone that a lot of work is being done. She acknowledged there is some noise around the issue, but said the outcomes will speak for themselves. She predicts an interesting pattern of amazing European companies emerging and winning globally, as they always have.