Everybody knows that American techies have it way better than those in Europe, right? Look at the huge funding rounds and salaries. Look at all the humongous exits and glitzy success stories. Must be nice. But what’s the minimum legally required number of days of paid leave in the US? Could it be as little as three weeks? Or even two? Nope, it’s zero. As in none. Which means that even the fanciest VC you know takes minimal time off. While they might have billions, they’ve never taken a three-week vacation in their lives and it shows.
But these ingenious investors have their workarounds — and this year, I’m encouraging all you plucky European founders on the hunt for funding to take advantage of them.
Besides the winter holidays, the main time you’ll see American VCs really try to take some kind of break is summer. They’ll cobble together bank holiday weekends, children’s school breaks and the odd conference — and they’re rather partial to doing so in Europe.
So now that the weather is warming up, start thinking about where to find your next round of funding from those workaholic American investors. They’ll be more than willing to write a cheque so that they can expense the yacht they rented for the day.
Where to find ‘em
Kicking things off is Memorial Day in the US which coincides with the spring bank holiday in the UK. Americans tend to see this as a summer start with many of them flooding big cities like Paris and London on a nice long weekend. Some of them may end up extending through to some of the bigger June conferences. Money2020 and TNW in Amsterdam are popular, as is Shoptalk in Barcelona. With London Tech Week and SXSW London is quite a doubleheader this year and then of course all of the tech events all over Paris. Don’t sleep on your Eastern European friends either; Techsylvania tends to punch above its weight too.
American investors also love summer of sport, so expect to find them at Wimbledon and Royal Ascot as well as any F1, regatta and horse race they can get an invite to. Offer to meet them for a drink on the grounds.
Next, the Fourth of July is our Independence Day. Yes, technically Brits that was independence from you, but don’t be sore losers. Look at the mess we’ve gotten ourselves into and feel some sympathy! That’s when you’ll start to see the focus shift from conferences to pure fun as VCs head to always popular party destinations like Mykonos and Ibiza (and for the love of your next round, don’t correct your American VC when they pronounce the Z!).
Because they’re creatures of extremes, you’ll be most likely to find the party VCs doing yoga and breathwork by the ocean all morning, and partying with The Chainsmokers, Kygo and other VC/DJs all night. Extra points if you pitched them your longevity startup that’s really just a hangover cure.
Note: when they tell you that somehow the food just tastes cleaner and that no matter what they eat, they lose weight while in Europe, nod sympathetically and pass them another Pellegrino.
August is when you’ll see them everywhere. Americans don’t understand much about geography or history, so they’ll tend to focus on the countries big enough to see on a map: Italy, Greece, France, Spain, some coolcations in Copenhagen, a little bit of yachting in Croatia.
If there’s a Belmond hotel, the yachts required destroying a bridge to build (pro tip, only certain ports like Portofino have a deep enough harbour to accommodate Jeff Bezos, so make sure to Google in advance), and the locals are protesting Airbnb taking over all available real estate, you can probably find enough Americans to cobble together a seed round. Remember that the US has an early September holiday too, so many people vacation through Labor Day weekend.
How to land the deal
Now that you know where they are, what do you do about it?
Americans love insider access. Fire up Google Maps and make a custom list of juice bars, shakeratos, aperitivos and Instagrammable restaurants and keep it at the ready for sharing.
When they’re speaking at a conference, slide into their DMs or shoot them an email telling them that you’re a huge fan (because of course you are), and that if they need anything while they’re in your city/country/continent please let you know. Share your Google Maps list, and most importantly, tell them that if they have any interest in meeting up with local founders while they’re in the area, you’re happy to pull together a few for a coffee or drinks. They tend to have unlimited expense accounts so if you do the heavy lifting of telling five of your founder friends to show up, they can count it as a workday and take it off of their paltry vacation allowance. Extra points if there’s a local university or ecosystem hub to entice them.
If they’re in the south of France and you nannied there one summer, make sure to tell them about the most brilliant little out of the way village or winery that they just have to try. It can be three cottages and a pub but they’ll find it incredibly charming compared to what they’re used to at home. Most importantly, you’ll stick out in their mind as somebody who is both helpful and hustles.
If you do content, ask them if they’d consider doing a podcast episode or sitting for a quick interview. If you host meetups, ask about a fireside chat. Does it sound like I’m saying appeal to their vanity? Then it sounds like you understand the assignment.
To address the elephant in the room, renting out a yacht for a week in Saint-Tropez in August to try to lure VCs is a terrible use of your angel investors’ dollars. Don’t try to outspend the richest investors on earth. However, the VC doesn’t have to know that you’re doing a one-day trip on Ryanair to come meet them for a quick coffee with an extra change of clothes in your backpack in case they invite you for dinner.
Summer in Europe is a target rich environment when it comes to fundraising. So start paying attention on social media to who is announcing speaking gigs and travel plans and check to see who was in your area last summer. You’ll be almost certain to catch them back again and this time, you’ll have a copy of your pitch deck ready.
