Peter Specht: Spotting Unicorn investments & navigating global markets with Creandum

“We scaled way too fast…and the result was that we mis-hired quite a lot. It was not a sustainable way to scale.” This week’s 40 Minute Mentor is Peter Specht, General Partner at Creandum, one of the leading early stage VCs that have invested in over 120 companies, of which 20 are unicorns today. Following career chapters at Rocket Internet Group, Google and Bain, Peter joined the firm as Investment Manager in 2017, as one of the firm’s first hires in the DACH region, building out its Berlin hub. Now based in London, Peter primarily focuses on investing into SaaS and B2B marketplaces, with notable investments led for Factorial, CarOnSale, cargo.one, Timberhub, to name a few. With such a wealth of experience across markets, there’s lots for us to discuss in this final VC feature episode… Episode Chapters: ➡️ The deal he is most proud of: A Unicorn story [2:03] ➡️ Explore in the early days, specialise later on [6:06] ➡️ Scaling lessons from Lazada [9:01] ➡️ Moving into VC [10:40] ➡️ Creandum’s origin story [12:17] ➡️ Multi-local presence and adapting to global markets [15:52] ➡️ The growing Tech scene in Spain [18:35] ➡️ A Deep dive into the London ecosystem [21:34] ➡️ Rising through the ranks & becoming General Partner [25:18] ➡️ Advice for Founders perfecting their pitch [30:04] ⛳ Helpful links: ➡️ Connect with Peter: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pspecht/ ➡️ Find out more about Creandum: https://creandum.com/ ⭐Enjoyed this episode?⭐️ Keep up to date with all our latest episodes, by hitting the subscribe button on your favourite podcast platform. And for any feedback on what you enjoy the most and ideas on what we can do to make 40 Minute Mentor even better, please leave us a review on https://ratethispodcast.com/40mm Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices