Similar to how the PayPal Mafia built the largest tech companies in the world by leveraging lessons learned from the world's first online payment company, Valkin thinks a similar flywheel is currently in motion throughout Europe.

"This is Europe's time," declares Valkin. From Europe's first generation of enterprises that defined their industries, a new power network of founding teams has developed. These teams are applying the knowledge and skills they have gained to address the most significant and urgent issues in corporate software, finance, artificial intelligence, and climate change. They should have investors who are aware of these issues, share their aspirational vision, and possess the skills and resources necessary to provide them with genuine assistance.

Based on statistics from Dealroom, ten fintech unicorns in Europe have spawned 145 new businesses that have raised approximately $5 billion.

Having backed companies like e-commerce enabling firm Packfleet, rewards credit card business Yonder, autonomous customer operations agent Gradient Labs AI, and cross-border B2B payments network Moment, Valkin has expertise both as an angel and as an investor at Entrée Capital.

One of the best examples of Valkin's investment philosophy is the fund's initial investment in Nustom.

Monzo CTO Jonas Templestein and Oliver Beattie, who was Monzo's vice president of architecture before leaving the bank in 2021 after six years, launched Nustom. Beattie has since held positions at fintechs such as Pleo and Imprint.

Chief operating officer Maria Campbell, a former Monzo head of people and most recently COO of rival bank Griffin, is another Monzo alumna that Nustom hired. Two engineering leads, Eugenio Marchiori of Google and Fred Jonsson, a former staff engineer at Monzo, complete the founding team.

Initially, Nustom plans to develop SaaS products based on foundation models developed by companies such as Mistral, Anthropic, and OpenAI.