E331 | Sion Evans, VenCap: Big vs. small funds, manager selection, performance & portfolio concentration

In this episode of the EUVC podcast, Andreas discusses with Sion Evans, Senior Investment Manager at VenCap, currently investing out of a $340M fund with $2.0bn in total AUM.VenCap was founded in 1987 and is one of the longest-established FoFs around. They are headquartered in the UK and are backing the leading Tier 1 firms from globally — with just 12 core relationships! They count 47 underlying unicorns with notable mentions being the likes of Google, Facebook, Airbnb, Coinbase, ByteDance, and Stripe.In today’s discussion, we're talking about manager selection and big versus small funds, a topic we're constantly debating on LinkedIn, as well as how Sion and Andreas thinks about fund sizing in Europe.Sion emphasizes that good funds outperform, regardless of their size, and whatever the strategy, manager selection is the most important factor in venture.Go to eu.vc for our core learnings and the full video interview 👀Chapters00:11 Overview of VenCap's Investment Strategy03:13 Debating Big vs. Small Funds04:50 The Importance of Manager Selection05:42 Analyzing Fund Performance Data09:39 Fund Sizing in Europe14:46 VenCap's Global Investment Approach26:40 Fund Size and Investment Strategy27:58 Fund Sizes and Portfolio Construction28:35 Early Stage vs. Growth Stage Strategies29:02 Global Investment Approach30:08 Performance Consistency Across Strategies31:21 Risk and Return in Venture Capital32:31 Building and Maintaining Relationships35:14 Performance Dispersion in Venture Capital44:11 Secondary Investments and Strategy49:17 Reflections and Personal Insights

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