They say you can’t choose your family… but sometimes you actually can.
Today, we announced that GC is joining forces with La Famiglia, one of Europe’s most successful and well-respected early stage firms. Our decision to come together is first and foremost about our collective desire to have impact on a global scale.
We are constantly searching for exceptional people who share our values and our mission, and Jeannette zu Fürstenberg , La Famiglia’s Founding Partner, is no exception; she is a true force of nature. In less than a decade she and her partner Judith Dada have built a much-admired seed brand and business, especially among next generation founders in Europe. And they have created a highly connective ecosystem between those founders and established industry players, enabling each to build meaningful and valuable ties…perhaps part of the reason they get phenomenal NPS scores from their founders including companies like Deel and Personio.
I’ve known and admired Jeannette for many years (we first met in the early days of her building La Famiglia) and we have been working together for quite a while, having co-hosted events and co-invested in several companies in Europe and the US, including Stripe, Applied Intuition, Maven, Ramp, and most recently Helsing. But this idea of combining forces really came to life during this year's YNOW conference, a singular convening moment that she has been running since 2016. I was blown away by the stunning amount of authentic connectivity that could be activated among the tech community and industry leaders in Europe. In many ways, it was a textbook example of the ‘radical collaboration’ that we have long said is essential to achieve the transformation of key industries like healthcare, defense and intelligence, climate and energy, fintech and crypto and many others.
Global resilience is a key theme for us, and Jeannette has a genuine passion for bringing that thesis to Europe. She has been a steadfast champion for a vital European tech ecosystem and has activated its closer partnership with industrial leaders. We think our global resilience thesis and the execution capability of our Creation strategy can be huge enablers for Jeannette's vision and the reason behind her starting La Famiglia in the first place… to create a stronger, more prosperous Europe, seeing technology as a key driver for sustainable long term GDP growth.
At GC we have been thinking hard about how we serve our founders at the seed stage more effectively and more intentionally. We have always admired the way Jeannette and Judith treat their seed founders as a family, as their name would suggest. We look forward to learning from them and using their model and brand as the foundation for a global seed program we plan to launch in 2024.
This is an important moment for the firm. We have a long history of investing in Europe...set in motion by Adam Valkin almost a decade ago, and accelerated by the work Chris Bischoff and our London team have been doing since that office opened in 2021. Now our European family includes one of the most successful and well-respected seed firms on the continent. We believe in this combined team’s ability to make a true difference in Europe and around the world.
Learn more about La Famiglia here.
