Nadine Schimroszik

Beyond the Check: What VCs Actually Add

The core message of the panel is that venture capital “value add” only matters when it is specific, founder-led, and economically useful; otherwise, it risks becoming noise or even harm. The session opens by confronting VCs with unusually sharp criticism from experienced operators and investors: Travis, the Uber founder, is cited as saying the “super high bar” for VCs is simply to “do no harm,” with only a small minority actually helpful, while Vinod Khosla is referenced as saying most VCs add no value and many subtract it. Against that backdrop, the moderator frames the discussion around what happens after the money arrives: what investors can contribute beyond capital, when they can shape a company’s trajectory, and which forms of support founders actually need, such as contacts, network access, and founder perspective. Enrico explains that he separates being a useful sounding board from claiming broad investor value add. His own useful contribution comes from matching each investment with people whose backgrounds fit the founder’s needs. He gives a concrete example from Animal: a celebrity investor in a B2B fintech unexpectedly helped founders stuck with Deutsche Bank by calling someone senior enough to open a real door. For Enrico, the equation is explicit: founders should compare the value of that access with the dilution it costs. A narrowly useful door-opener on the cap table for a relatively small amount of dilution can be valuable, but that is different from giving up a much larger stake for vague promises. Florian describes Project A’s value creation team across recruiting, marketing, sales, and related areas, but emphasizes that founders should not be forced to use it. He argues that value add must be driven by the founder team and that many forms of help are deeply context-specific. Warm introductions can make investors or corporates take a careful look, but they do not guarantee follow-on funding, customers, or partnerships. He uses examples such as Sequoia and Otto Group to underline that even strong investor relationships only create attention; commercial outcomes still need a real win-win economic case. Christian focuses on the founder-investor relationship as a long-term trust-building exercise. He says he wants to earn the right to be the founder’s first call when something happens, which requires genuine, responsive, and careful help rather than performative VC support. The panel then identifies practical moments when investors can be most useful: responding quickly on WhatsApp, reducing information asymmetry, making targeted introductions, mediating founder conflicts, and solving very specific operational blockers such as helping a candidate secure a working permit within seven days. The provided transcript ends as the discussion turns to follow-on investments and how investors maintain a viable network for future financing rounds.