The AR Show: Dave Haynes (FOV Ventures) on the Early Days of Digital Music and the Importance of Market Timing in Emerging Tech

5:46PM Aug 15, 2022

Speakers:

Jason McDowall

Keywords:

metaverse

vr

people

companies

building

investing

fund

ar

soundcloud

music industry

business

investors

area

music

ventures

investment

called

big

industry

startups

Welcome to the AR show where I dive deep into augmented reality with a focus on the technology, the use cases and the people behind them. I'm your host Jason McDowall. Today's conversation is with Dave Haines. Dave is a founding partner at F ov ventures and investment from backing the founders who are building the metaverse fop Ventures is a new fund with a focus on European based startups at the pre seed and seed stage. They've previously led HTC is $100 million vive X fund in EMEA and was part of the investment team at seed camp, prior to investing day founded two startups in the music industry and was part of the founding team of SoundCloud. In this conversation, Dave talks about his front row seat to the evolution of the music industry, and the parallels to the current AR VR ecosystem. He describes his new fund areas of investment focus and how they think about current investment market conditions. He also talks about the risk of market timing,

what we have to think about is, you know, the time horizon that we're investing in, and the kind of the timeframes that those companies are getting funded for as well. So we need to be really clear as investors, you know, we're funding this company now. Like, where are these markets? Where are these headsets going to be in 18 months time not thinking about where it's going to be in five years time. But then when you're starting to think about, you know, kind of exits, and, you know, we have a 10 year fund period, you know, we're hoping to be returning money to investors from year five or six. So, you know, we need to think about where those cycles are and where the companies are, in that part as well. So So on

a pitch deck, you see, shows this slide that says the AR market is going to be massive. We have all these prognosticators who believe that the market would be Mass Effect. I heard you on this podcast say AR is gonna be you say? Uh huh. And why now? Why is your business relevant today, given where they are market is today?

Yeah, definitely. And the other key question is like, you know, if the market doesn't move as you expect it like, what do you do them?

Dave goes on to share some advice for pre seen startups as well as his perspective on the evolution of the market and the risks ahead. As a reminder, you can find the show notes for this and other episodes at our website, the AR show.com. Let's dive in. Well, before we get started, there's one more thing. After three and a half years of running this podcast and turning down some advertising offers, I've decided to open a patreon to fund ongoing maintenance and improvements, the podcast. If you've enjoyed episodes in the past, please consider joining@patreon.com slash the AR show. Th e AR sh O W, I'm still figuring out what's valuable for upper tier subscribers, but it may include periodic small group conversations with me or a popular guest, getting a heads up about upcoming guests and the opportunity to submit suggested topics and or some exclusive content. That's patreon.com/the AR show. Now let's get into it with Dave. Dave, I know you have a deep passion for music. Where did that passion originate?

Yeah, so I guess the passion really goes back to when I was maybe 1415. I had two older siblings, they were all always listening to music. And, and I think for me at an early age, music was one of those things that I could go and you know, kind of look up things or find interesting things that nobody else was kind of listening into. So I was always like digging into the kind of the more interesting genres or more electronic music. Actually my first job when I was 16, I pretty much took the job just so that I could save up and pay for a pair of good old fashioned turntables. So I still have them sitting on the deck desk next to me. And it's kind of something like 25 years later, but it was really kind of born of a love of kind of vinyl turntables. I was that guy who kind of whenever there was a party at school, I would take my decks along and try and entertain the room. And I guess that's kind of stuck with me ever since.

That's pretty amazing. Just because you've spent so much time in this industry around VR and AR What do you think of tribe XR in this using VR to teach people about turntables about how to be a DJ?

Yeah, I think tribe XR is really great. I have to confess, I haven't used it for a long time. So I'm sure the software has evolved. I think what's interesting is tribe XR was very much trying to kind of bring the real into virtual so is is a proper simulation of being on turntables, whereas there's also been a lot of interesting things like and I'm sure we'll get into this later, but companies like wave where you're kind of in a more of a kind of, you know, fantasy nightclub where you've got a pair of decks in front of you. And so yeah, I think it's an interesting one, because you can really see the difference between simulating something that is real versus using VR to do something that is maybe hyper real or kind of, you know, surreal, but I think both are great. And you know, I love what they've done the tribe itself.

Yeah. So this passion that you had when you were young, you just part of it was exploring this exploration and being on the cutting edge and in knowing something maybe that others didn't know, but it's also this deep desire to entertain and to enjoy the music itself. How did this passion for you kind of lead to some of those early entrepreneurial experiences of yours?

Yeah, it's a great question. So, you know, I kept on doing the music through through my university years, I studied Business Studies, you know, to try and make a bit of extra money to buy more records. I would I would kind of you know, throw events and things like that. During university this was 1999 or around that So that was really the first year that Napster came out. And I think, you know that that was maybe the first time I'd seen a new, completely new technology come up and completely changed the way I was kind of consuming music or experiencing music. And it was certainly disrupting the music industry. After I actually did my dissertation on mp3 and the music industry. So I went fairly deep on that topic, and actually came up with my dissertation concluded that actually, you know, downloads would replace CDs, and then subscription was just the more optimal kind of economic model for the kind of access versus ownership of music. And it was funny, I actually got a really bad mark for my dissertation, because my tutor was just like, oh, no, that's never gonna happen. But sure enough, five years later, it you know, I think it was proved out. But after university, I actually my first job or my first business was straight out of university. And my brother was also into music. He was doing music production. And so we actually said, Well, why don't we set up a business together. So we set up a company called in spirit music. And we found a premise that was not too far from our home, where it was, it was a record shop that was just closing down. So we took over the building, I ran the record shop downstairs. And then my brother ran a music studio upstairs. One of my remits was really to try and take the business digital, so we were selling, you know, the music that we loved, but we were in a small town. So we actually thought, well, you know, to continue selling the music we love when now we have the internet, we can actually go online and you know, do mail order. So that was our first use of use of the Internet. And then meanwhile, we were signing artists, you know, from all over the globe, some of them are now quite big artists like cascade and Trent Mahler bringing them over from the US and touring them in Europe. So yeah, so that was quite a wild journey, we really didn't know anything about you know, this was our first business, you know, we were doing what we loved, we somehow made some money out of it. But, you know, going back to the Napster thing, it was, you know, this was, you know, the years 2000 to 2004, we were literally kind of in a shop trying to sell vinyl and CDs. And first phase of the internet really wiped that business out. So we actually had to shutter the physical side of the business. And then I went alone and started my own mp3 downloads store. And actually, at the time, we were lucky enough to be in contact with one of the first employees iTunes. So we managed to get one of the first contracts, you know, there weren't many other independent labels who had contracts. So I accidentally set up my next business because all of those people said, Hey, Dave, can you rip my CDs, upload them, upload them to iTunes, and I'll give you a cut of what we sell. So I accidentally became a digital music distributor. And yeah, so it was funny, I think if if, you know, I'd known about venture capital at the time, maybe I could have actually raised raised some external investment and really accelerated that business. In the end, what happened, I ended up rolling those businesses up into other companies. So you know, acquisition of sorts, but it was really just me getting a job at bigger companies. Yeah. And that's that was kind of, you know, my first kind of, you know, five years of business was was running my own music businesses.

So really that thesis that you had, when you're in school, you began to live it to this kind of this transition from the physical media to digital downloads. And you take it that far, and then eventually, we're gonna get to subscriptions as well. When you were one of the first contracts in iTunes, was that before or after Apple had made that acquisition?

That was afterwards? Yeah. So it was a it was an apple business at that point. Yeah. So this would have been maybe, oh, crikey. I probably shouldn't guess at this on a podcast, but it feels like it was probably 2002 2003.

Very nice. And so now, here, you've taken these earlier entrepreneurial experiences, and maybe you didn't appreciate that the world of venture in which you now are a firm and invoke a resident, and you went through these early experiences, and now you've rolled them up, and part of another larger entity fine tunes, right? Is this the next entity that you rolled up and became kind of part of this larger company?

Yeah, exactly. So I was then So after doing my own thing, there was some fine tunes was I took the labels that I was distributing, and then basically brought them over to fine tunes as a company, they ended up getting acquired by a company called the orchard, which is now one of the biggest kind of independent digital music aggregators, I think they're, they're now owned by Sony, actually. So so that was a really exciting time. And that was going around to lots of record labels, and trying to convince them that digital music was going to be a thing. And you know, as you know, the music industry was very resistant, you know, they wanted to keep their their CD sales and the vinyl sales. So, again, I think this has been a pattern of my career where I've spent a lot of my time, or at least the kind of the first couple of years, or whatever I'm doing is trying to convince people like, No, this is the future this, this will be the way like digital music that you need to embrace this technology. Because, you know, this will displace your business in three, four or five years. So a large part of the job was just to convince labels that they needed to embrace digital and then actually get, you know, get all of their digital assets ready and things like that. And then I guess, you know, that was very kind of web one music I guess, when web two came along in 2008. That was the next big shift for me where I was kind of looking for the next big thing. There was a lot happening in the music, tech space, a lot of innovation. If you think about 2007 2008 You had some companies that At Last fm you had companies like Acronis, you had companies like Spotify were just starting and, and I ended up finding that there was two Swedish guys, Alex and Eric, who were building a company out in Berlin called SoundCloud. I knew the guys just before they launched the company. So I said, Hey, look, you know, I really, really excited about what you're doing at SoundCloud. I'd love to, you know, I know the music business, you know, product, I'd love to come and join the company. So that was, I guess that was the start of the my kind of web two career as part of SoundCloud.

Yeah, so they're, you're part of the pre launch founding team, at SoundCloud. And whether for many years, you can notice that there's this constant dichotomy, it seems in the music industry, which I'm sure is a function of economics. But on the one hand, you have an industry that is dragging its heels into this coming age of digital, they're really holding on to what they had previously with the physical media. But on the other hand, historically, there's this music as an area in which there's constant disruption in innovation. It's an area where we see a lot of newness and exploration. How do you kind of fit both of those, as you kind of think about the history of music over time? Yeah, I

think it's a good question. It's a good observation. You know, for me, music, the music industry is always one of those industries that gets hit by technology first. So you know, back in the days, it was, you know, going all the way back to the, you know, the player piano, but then moving to, you know, radio, and then CDs, like, each time, we've had this format change, or this kind of shift in what we can do, technically, but the music has kind of felt it first, we've learned the lessons, and then it's moved to kind of gaming and film and then, you know, like other kind of verticals. So that's definitely a big thing. And then I think the music industry is a really special place, because you have people that are, you know, they're there, because they're innovative, they're there, because they're creative, you know, especially, you know, with the talent that's in the industry, but then, you know, what we saw in back in 2008, there was just a lot of people who are into tech that wanted to apply that into the music industry. And so you've got this situation where you've got creative people, you've got innovation with the technology, but then you've got the industry that's like desperately trying to cling on to the economics, because usually, when there's a technology shift, there's also an economic shift. And there is usually a couple of painful years where people just have to adjust, you know, people that have to learn how to do new roles, they need to learn, like new ways of doing things. I think, ultimately, the music industry then does evolve. And I think they've done that pretty well. And then usually, they come out of that kind of thriving, you know, out of the other side, I'd say the music industry is in a fairly healthy position at the moment. But obviously, that comes with, you know, there's the drawbacks. I think a lot of individual artists, and a lot of individual musicians are now saying, hey, like, how do I live in this new world of, you know, the new kind of Spotify economics? So, yeah, it's an interesting time. But I think the other great thing about the music industry, and I'd say this is maybe analogous to the XR industry where it's such a great place to be because the people in it, like who are working in it, first of all, they are very creative. So they're just great people to be around. But second of all, like, you know, if you work in the music industry, it's probably because you're very passionate about the music itself, like you're very passionate about the artists that you're trying to promote or sell, sell their music. So, you know, it's just a melting pot of talent who were there when, you know, they probably could be in other sectors making a lot more money, but they have a lot of passion. I think that's the same in the XR industry where there's a really kind of, you know, small but growing community of people. And we've really kind of stuck with it, because we're very passionate about whether the industry is going as a whole.

Yeah, sometimes that passion is an absolutely essential ingredient to get over these early days, these highs and lows of the of the hype cycle and the realities of the industry. Indeed. So one of the things going back to this thesis work that you've done at school, you've kind of recognized or anticipated that we could go through these phases of, of paying for digital downloads, and then paying for the sorts of subscriptions. And in along the notion that music is an area of experimentation in those experiments, the successes of those experiments ends up getting rolled out into other related areas like gaming, and others. What was kind of some of the early insights you had into people being willing to pay for digital downloads. Because one of the great things about Napster was that you didn't pay for anything, right? You're able to go and access all this digital content and download it and become familiar with the format of mp3. But there was still this evolution to getting people to recognize the value and being willing to put forth money to acquire that value.

It's interesting. And now we're kind of we're almost going up the other side of that loop where you know, I think we moved from this kind of ownership model to this access model. Now, actually, with things like web three and NF T's, we're almost moving back into that ownership and people are maybe rejecting some of those models that came in with web two. What was really interesting for me, you know, with my purchase SoundCloud, actually, we were building a platform that wasn't necessarily about monetizing music, like you had Spotify that said, Look, you know, hear it hear all the catalogs like you know, this is, this is the best way to consume it, you will pay us this amount of money. SoundCloud was really a platform that was kind of built web to native with the Creator at heart. So it was all about, you know, first of all user generated content. Second of all, we tried to make that content as social as possible. So we actually had, you know, we would display the waveforms and you could comment inside the waveform. We also had kind of open API is to add development so people could build their creation tools and then have SoundCloud as an endpoint or you, people could build apps on top of SoundCloud that would then use our API and bring their music into other environments. So, so what we tried to do was very different from Spotify. Spotify was more than kind of the Netflix of music, whereas SoundCloud was more than the YouTube or the the flicker of music and audio. And we really kind of it wasn't just about the big artists, we weren't there just to kind of license you know, kind of large music catalogs that that's something that happened later. But it was really about trying to get individual creators on board and having them use SoundCloud as a tool in its own right. And I think he's been really interesting, because, you know, a lot of those creators, they came onto the platform. And the reward wasn't even really necessarily money, the reward was, if I'd made a, you know, I played the piano. So if I'd made a piano track, I could upload it to my piano group, and then maybe 10 People would come in. And that would give me a good enough feeling that I'd want to go and then create another tracks. So there was this kind of, there was this feedback loop that wasn't necessarily around the money, but it was about this kind of, you know, feedback on the creators and wanting them to create more. And hopefully we did that. I think we kind of proved out you know, there was many different genres that were born on SoundCloud. So there were SoundCloud, native like SoundCloud. Rap, for example, was was something that was really kind of built natively to SoundCloud and didn't exist in the industry before.

Yeah, that's an interesting in good point. And the this kind of notion around willingness to pay, and it was noted, we kind of maybe kind of coming back around to this idea that maybe having the individual asset, even if it's purely digital, is valuable to us that we ascribe value to that the thing that we may be rejecting it seems society is at least reevaluating what is our relationship to advertising? And what are we willing to give up in order to receive the benefits of free that we're paying for with our attention. And certainly, that aspect of it brings back this idea that paying out of pocket for things does rely on the incentives and maybe a positive way for overall benefit. But NFT is an interesting space, we will see this kind of second coming of subscription is released NF T at some point. So we'll be experimenting with that I'm sure. As we go along here.

Yeah, exactly. And, you know, just a plug for one of our portfolio companies. So as as FOB ventures, and I'm sure we'll come on to this later. But we invested in a company called temple that is actually people have worked for companies like SoundCloud, and Mixcloud and Kickstarter in the past, what they're trying to do is actually look at what how do you how do you reinvent the kind of the the fan loyalty through tokens and NF T's, you know, if you can actually get those people, your your top 1000 fans actually closer to you and rewarding them for certain behaviors. And I think that's something that we're going to see more of in web three.

Yeah. Along those lines, this shift that you went from being very focused on the music industry, and being a very active operator entrepreneur within the music industry. And he made the shift towards the venture side of things. What was the draw for you into venture capital and investing?

Yeah, so I think two things really one, I mean, at SoundCloud, we were venture backed, we had some great investors like Union Square Ventures and index and many others. So there, I really saw the power of, you know, having not raised capital from my previous businesses, I really saw like, wow, okay, actually, if you can raise venture capital, you can, you can really do something that you know, has a kind of, you know, a large impact. So, I think that was the first thing, just seeing the power of what venture capital could do and wanting to be kind of, you know, on the other side of that, and then second was to really diversify my interests, I'd been in the music industry for at least 15 years. And for me, it was, you know, I like to kind of continue my own learnings like if I'm, if I'm in a place where I don't feel like I'm continuously learning, then you know, maybe it's time to move on to kind of a new area. So for me the the opportunity a C camp really was to go and, you know, deploy venture capital, but you know, most importantly, was actually to go and, you know, see many different industries. And, you know, the four years I was at sea cam, we, you know, we invested in everything from fintech. So we had companies like revolute, which is, you know, now close to a $40 billion company, like, going from kind of being the first check in the company like that, and then seeing the results is kind of crazy. But then we're also in, you know, inshore tech companies, we were in, we were in b2b SaaS, we were doing companies like UiPath, which again, another have close to $40 billion company. So for me, it was just such a great learning experience. And there's no better place to learn or know people better to learn from the the founders who are actually building these companies, they have some unique insight into the world and how it should change that nobody else has. And to be able to meet those people at the beginning of their journey is just such a privilege. You know, it's just, it's just amazing to be able to learn from those people. And you have to learn quickly, right? You can never get that deep on any one particular topic, which is maybe one of the drawbacks, but you have to cover a fairly large surface area and get up to speed with those so that you can make the right investments.

What was hinted at this one already, but what was one of the first investments you head into the VR AR sort of space?

Yeah, we made a couple actually. So I guess VR, for us really became a topic maybe 2015 2016 And I joined C camp in 2014 and I remember I think my the time I went to a conference called slosh. It was a firm that was really focused on that area. That was the first time I actually had my first kind of, you know, well, not my first experience of VR because that was back in 92. That was nightmare or something. But my first experience of modern VR. And I remember just I very vividly remember coming out of that evening, it was a dinner, they had a bunch of headsets there. And I was like, wow, this is like, this is just such an amazing blank canvas for all sorts of creativity and all sorts of Canvas. I think a lot of people are seeing that in the VR industry, there was one point where we had that aha moment, and just kind of, I remember thinking the next week about what could you do like, now I've seen this technology, what are the different applications of it. And because of my music industry background, the first thing that I thought of was like, wow, this is you know, the music industry should be embracing this, this is like, really, you can do anything in this medium. So I spent the next kind of three to four months, basically scaring usually at sea camp investments came to us, and then we would evaluate them. But in this case, I just went out and I was trying to find like, who is who is the company that is doing the most interesting thing in music in VR. And I stumbled across a company called wave, they were called the wave VR back then. And they were doing these kind of insane, like almost kind of virtual raves in VR. And they also had this kind of music creation tool that they pivoted out of, and I was, yeah, just I just, I had to invest in CCAP, didn't even usually invest in US companies. But I found the founder, Adam managed to convince him that the C camp should invest in that round. So and I think wave, I mean, they pivoted out of VR since our original investment, but you know, that they're doing great. And I very vividly again, remember going to investment committee and saying, Hey, look, I found this company called wave. They're doing virtual music concerts in VR. And pretty much well, there was one person in the Investment Committee who just looked at me and said, Dave, like, you know, what drugs or smoking like nobody is, nobody is ever going to want to go to a music concert in VR. And I think actually now, you know, again, you know, five, five or six years later, I think we've seen that actually, people, you know, really do want to go to music concerts in these virtual environments. And actually, you know, in actual fact, during the pandemic, that was the only way they could attend those concerts. So yeah, it was an early bet into VR. But hopefully, it turned out to be a good one.

Yeah, absolutely. And how does it that experience with exploration led you to HTC Vive in the in 5x?

Yeah. So as I mentioned, I mean, it's C camp, we were a generalist, investor, and you had to kind of get up to speed in lots of different areas. But again, when I had that kind of aha moment in kind of VR, and we also made an investment in in AR. And having seen those companies, I just found myself wanting to find more of those types of companies, and, you know, maybe to the detriment of looking into other areas. So, so for me, the opportunity to go to HTC meant that I could really focus full time just in these areas. So HTC was just in the process of selling part of its smartphone business to Google, and was heavily investment investing in its kind of new business units. So obviously, Vive, who was doing VR, but also Exodus that was just about to launch one of the first blockchain phones, also as a company that had a division called DQ that was looking at a lot of AI in healthcare. So for me to go over there meant that I could really focus just on this kind of, you know, one set of technologies and really kind of be there and have a kind of strategic view on that area. And I think that was important as well, because, you know, this was around 2017 2018, just as the the initial kind of investment hype from the investment community into VR, and AR was, you know, there was a lot of dollars that went into this area 2015 through 2017. But things definitely died down, you know, a little bit, as most of us most people listening to this podcast will know. So we actually, you know, for me, it was a great place to be to continue my focus on those areas,

as you had an opportunity to really focus on those areas. What were some of the key learnings or takeaways that you had about investing specifically in this space?

Yeah, so I think I mean, one thing as as HTC, you know, we were, it was great, we were able to kind of really help those companies with strategic topics, it was a an interesting insight into just I've never worked for a company that large before. So just being at a kind of large corporate, you get to see the kind of the pros and the cons of doing various things in those organizations also got to kind of feel the pain of, you know, some of those startups, you know, actually navigating large organizations, if, you know, if you're doing a b2b VR company, or an enterprise VR, like, you know, a lot of times you're selling into organizations that look very much like HTC. So that was just a great learning just from being inside there. I think the second thing was just seeing that the kind of the waves, like only looking at this one area, you you really see the kind of the trends come in, like there'll be certain themes that, you know, suddenly a set of opportunities emerge. And then there's all of a sudden rush of different companies. And because vive X was very kind of specifically focused on those that was part of the task is to kind of, first of all to understand what those particular trends are, but then actually, to really then figure out what, which is the best company, you know, amongst that amongst that group of people, so, I would say, you know, early on, one of the areas that we were looking at was VR training. You know, training was just such an obvious kind of, you know, place to build a startup in VR, because, you know, there was like proven or it's now proved out its ROI. You know, you had a customer that was willing to spend money on headsets, it was just a natural place to build a business. But as a result, we saw a lot of companies come into that space, right?

And what for you, then as you had an opportunity to really dive deep, and kind of understand the trends and understand the process that vive X was going through in order to pick the best of that set? What was the motivation for you to start your own fund?

Yeah, good question. I think the motivation for me to start my own fund was really a couple of different things. So one, I wanted to be investing at the very earliest stage, sometimes, you know, when you're at a corporate or a CVC, actually, a lot of the value that the CVC can add is maybe kind of when the company is a little bit more mature, not necessarily right at the beginning of the journey. So that was one thing. Second of all, you know, the sector had really evolved. So you know, there was definitely room in Europe for an independent investor that was just focused on this space. When we revive x, we're co investing alongside some some really great funds. I think the US has, you know, especially there's some great funds focused on this space already. So you've got people like, you know, Gregor anorak, you've got tippet, at Marco at the VR fund, and you know, some other great investors that you've had on this show, actually. But in Europe, actually, there was I was finding that like founders, for founders, there was just no go to fund in Europe, like you could go to a generalist, investor. But But actually, you know, a lot of the funds here were very kind of reserved, or maybe a bit kind of skeptical on some of the areas that that we wanted to focus on. So yeah, it just felt like there was a gap and somebody needed to fill it. So really, that is what FOB Ventures is. Now we want to be that go to fund for, for founders building companies in this space. In Europe, in particular. Yeah, in Europe. Yeah.

And how do you when you think about the ways that you've seen investors engage with the companies in which they're investing? How do you imagine how do you aspire to engage in in support and add value to your investments?

Yeah, great question. And I think I mean, the great thing is, as well, and one of the reasons for kind of setting up FOB as a specialist fund is, I think, you know, in today's venture environment, you either need to be one of the big brand names, you need to be in Andreessen Horowitz or Union Square, like somebody who, you know, maybe as a generalist, but you're kind of, you know, tier one, or you can really get an edge by being a specialist. And therefore, you if you do then kind of by default, add a lot of value. So that the ways that we do it is one, you know, myself. So I've set up a fund with a guy called Petra homemade. He was actually he's been investing in this space for a long time as well, he was investing through Nordic XR startups who had a number of really great companies in the VR and AR space. So the both of us, you know, there's probably not many people in Europe that have been investing in this space, or 100%. Focus on this space for as long as we have. So hopefully, just individually, we add some value there because of our experiences and network. But the fund is just the two of us as partners. So we also have built, taking a bit of the playbook that we had at C campus C camp, we really strive to build out this kind of community and network that the founders could kind of go to when they needed something. So it might be somebody who was a, but these are all very kind of horizontal kind of value ads, right. So it was we would have people who really understood branding, or somebody who really was really great at hiring, or we had people that really understood go to market and paid acquisition, where we kind of taken the same playbook but verticalized it. So we say right, we've got a group of people around the fund, there's actually 25 to 30 people who signed up to what we call our edge network. And these are people who have kind of built companies in the space, or they're people who've been doing Dev Rel at some of the larger companies, or they're people who are very kind of technically specialized in a specific area. And so we build those people really to kind of like add that vertical value add for any company that's building in this space. And that network, they help us to source deals, which is great. They also help us to evaluate and you know, provide technical due diligence, but you know, one of the best functions of those is then they're there to kind of you know, they will promise time to actually help those companies once we've invested.

Yeah, that's fantastic edge network. I like it when you are evaluating the sort of the scope of this type of companies that you are eager to invest in support. How is it you think about this this term? metaverse? How do you find that?

Yeah, very good question. I think first thing to say is when we were raising the fund, in because of our background in VR, and AR people just thought we were kind of a VR and AR fund. And we'd been very kind of careful to say, Well, no, actually, we you know, there's a lot of other things besides so, for us, we were looking for a kind of a term that really gave the kind of the broader view on, you know, our thesis around, you know, the big technology shifts that were happening. We actually went when we started raising, we were talking about spatial computing, we were talking about, you know, this transition from, from atoms into bits, we, you know, we, we were kind of coming up with all these kinds of ways of describing this set of technologies. I think it just became very clear, you know, halfway through the race, actually, people were converging on this word as Metaverse is kind of being this umbrella term for all these different sets of technologies underneath So, so we tried to keep the term Metaverse quite broad. I think there's lots of squabbles and lots of arguments about what the definition actually is. We think that's going to change. We think that probably in 10 years time, just like, you know, nobody speaks about the internet and calls it the information superhighway. You know, I think Metaverse will become a term like that, where it kind of, you know, it mean lots, it means lots of things. But actually, you know, really it is, is an umbrella. The way we think about it is there is this brand new set of building blocks that founders have to build, you have to go and build very valuable company. So if you think about everything that's happening with real time 3d In game engine technology, you know, a lot more software and a lot more businesses are going to be built in those game engines where you can all of a sudden do lots of different things. You know, we have things like computer vision, we have things like 5g, we have VR and AR we have all these kind of like technical primitives, which people can now go and rethink these businesses or build completely new things on. I would say one thing, which is maybe not giving a definition of the metaverse, but just to say a lot of people also talk about web three. So we think the metaverse is different to web three. But there is definitely maybe a 30% overlap in the companies that we look at very high level. We think Metaverse is simply the evolution of the Internet. You know, we say it's a multi trillion dollar opportunity. And we think it's probably where most of the talent is looking to build a business at the moment. I think if you're a young entrepreneur trying to change the world, you're probably looking at things like sustainability, you're looking at things like biotech, but you're also looking at, you know, kind of these wide open spaces like the metaverse in

Within this broad umbrella that you paint with the metaverse. What are the specific areas that you're most interested in investing in? Over the next 612 18 months?

Yeah, great question. So we split it up in a couple of different ways. So first of all, and this is really just to help people understand where we are investing in first of all, the biggest area that we're looking at at the moment is what we call the kind of tools and infrastructure layer. So this is the the picks and shovels of the metaverse. The analogy is that, you know, in the Gold Rush, the people making the money first were the people that were actually you know, building the picks and shovels to help people go and prospect the gold. So you know that that's kind of the analogy we use here. A great example of that would be something like a company like Ready Player me that we're investors in. If you're building a virtual world, you're going to need an avatar, and you know, like ready play me or build a fantastic solution for developers to be able to go and use that. Or we're looking at companies that are doing things like you know, the the kind of the rails for payments in the metaverse or tools that help you organize events or take payments in the metaverse. So it's it's those kinds of building blocks created tools, developer tools that people can build off of. After that we have been looking a lot at the consumer side. So these are kind of the applications like what are the things that people are going to do in the metaverse whether that's kind of virtual worlds or more kind of game like environments. And they're you know, there's lots of people that have built very kind of generic Okay, with here's a virtual world you can do what you like in it. One thing we're very interested in there is kind of what are the kinds of more vertical specific activities that you might be doing. So, you know, there's a great company that I met at Awa a few months ago, they were thinking about wellness and mental health in the metaverse, so a company called inner world. It's the same set of technologies that you would go and use to kind of, you know, fight with somebody in fortnight, but they're just using it in a very different way or thinking about like dating in the metaverse. So we're looking for those very kind of specific activities. And then we're also looking at what are the what are the kinds of tools that you can build, like we already have, you know, virtual worlds like Roblox, like fortnight we have sandbox, we have decentraland. Now that you have all of these endpoints, like what are the what are the things that people need to kind of go and build on top of those like, so in the same way you had, you know, YouTube grew into a very large business. And then you had companies and startups that were just built off the back of the YouTube economy, like, we're trying to think of the same here, like what are the things that are getting built on top of these platforms? So that leads us to things like virtual fashion, you know, once you've got an avatar in these spaces, you want to go make yourself look good. So that's kind of one big area. And digital commerce is huge. I think the interesting thing about digital commerce is you have the physical side of commerce. So this is, you know, I bought a bed from Ikea the other day, I was able to go to the app and actually kind of overlay that bed into my bedroom. So you know, that's a good example of how, you know, these technologies are disrupting, like physical commerce. But then digital commerce is an even bigger opportunity, like what are the new types of or the new classes of digital assets that are going to get sold? Like if you look at Roblox and you look at fortnight, you know, just in those, you know, billions are being sent spent on kind of skins and accessories and items. So there's this whole new economy and I think with with NF T's and web three, that just suddenly got larger, so anything around kind of digital commerce and asset creation and the management of that is super interesting. But then last of all, we're also very keen to point out that we do look at Enterprise so you know, if you think about the way that Satya Nadella or Jensen, Nvidia would talk about the metaverse, you know, like, we're also looking at those spaces as well. So I think a lot when a lot of people think about Metaverse, they think about the consumer vision. But actually, there's there's very interesting things around future of work productivity, simulation, design, construction, you know, these are all huge areas that we're looking at as well. This is

a really broad mandate, you've set for yourself, and in an opportunity to really think very deeply about not only where has the industry, Ben, but very deeply about where it's going, and what's needed in order for all of us to get there. And placing those bets accordingly. Along the way, the FOP ventures itself is a startup, it is a brand new fund, you're a first time fund manager going into this and you yourself, have your investors, you have to go out and raise money in order to be able to execute and support your portfolio companies in the way that you want to. For you what have been the challenges in raising money for a fund as a first time manager?

I think first of all, the biggest challenge that we had, and you know, this was back in 2021, you know, before the metaverse became become mainstream, you know, the challenge was really kind of painting the opportunity to investors like investors, if you say that you're investing in FinTech or artificial intelligence or enterprise SAS, like, you know, these are very well established areas that people just understand, as you know, being sectors in their own right. So, you know, the first challenge was, you know, if you're talking to somebody who's allocating capital, you know, an endowment or a pension fund, they're probably not kind of, you know, living through the nuances of what the metaverse is and why you should invest in it. So I think that was a big part of raising was just telling that story and kind of painting a picture of how large that opportunity could be. And again, I think, you know, for there's lots of pros and cons to this. But you know, the metaverse, you know, q3, q4, you know, all of a sudden, you know, Mark Zuckerberg was talking about how they were becoming a Metaverse company, not a social media company. But you also had a lot of kind of mainstream publications writing about this space. So So I think, you know, the that kind of hype and Buzz has been in some way, kind of not helpful, but in other ways, it has made this concept a lot more mainstream, and will bring with it a lot of capital and kind of talent along with it. So that was the first challenge. The second, of course, is, you know, just as any kind of, you know, emerging manager, really, really kind of being able to explain to an LP why you like, Okay, if we believe in what the opportunity is, why do we be believed that that you're the person to actually go and invest, generate alpha in that space. And I think, you know, for there, we were able to get people very comfortable, because myself and Petrie have, you know, we've worked together for a long time, we've invested in this space for a long time. So once you get people past the hurdle of believing that this is about big opportunity, then, you know, hopefully, with the natural people to go and execute on that,

in terms of the funding metrics and target metrics, what's the target font size? How much have you raised to date so far? And when you think about pulling that money, what sort of the cheque size that you intend to write? Yep, so

we've raised that we did a first close in March of 16, and a half million euros, similar amount in dollars just above that in dollars, we will do a second close probably towards the end of the year, you know, our target fund size is 20 million. That might sound like a lot of money. From a venture perspective, that's actually a relatively small fund. We think that makes sense because of our focus, you know, on this on this area, and the geography that we have, we also think it's the right size, just for the kind of where we're at in this cycle. So you know, a lot of the companies that we're investing in, you know, there may be early acquisitions from bigger companies, or, you know, there's still a long way to go in this Metaverse journey. So we think 20 million is the right size for this particular fund. And then out of that, we will probably build a portfolio of between 25 to 30. Companies, cheque sizes are pre seed and seed. So we do we like to put in a 250 K check precede there, we're happy to lead the rounds, but very collaborative. So we want to bring in other other value add angels or other pre seed funds, and then a seed. We don't need rounds, but we follow with a check of 500k. So again, very collaborative, you know, we're happy for a generalist VC to lead the round, and then hopefully, that we can, we can come along and be great co investors on the cap table, you know, delivering value add that maybe the generalist cancer we're very complementary. And also being very collaborative. We have a lot of funds. You know, I mentioned a few earlier, but in Europe, we have some great gaming funds that are now also focused on the metaverse. So, you know, I think it's a good time because there's now when we started raising the fund, there was you know, there probably wasn't many people kind of looking at deploying capital here. Now, there's quite a lot so we can be very collaborative with them.

Speaking about the broader market, in CO investors, there has definitely been a broader market downturn. And we look generally at the statistics of investments from VCs, those numbers are going down. At least they have been over the last handful of months. What have you seen with regards to valuations or expectations around how much attractions traction that startups need to show particularly as it relates to the metaverse areas that you're focused on?

I think there definitely has been a few market factors. Recently, which has really changed things in Europe, we have, you know, lots of interesting geopolitical things happening. That's kind of, you know, still a topic of conversation here. Of course, we also have the public markets and the downturn in VC generally. And also, I think because Metaverse does have some overlap with web three, there was also the kind of the the knock on effects to the crypto market. So that has taken a lot of heat out of the market. I actually think in many ways that will prove to be a healthy thing overall. Like if I think back to where we were at SoundCloud in 2008, that was, you know, we were building that company off the back of a downturn. But actually, that vintage of companies, you know, there were some very valuable companies built, you know, we, we raised our Series A, you know, and it was a very small amount, it meant we had to be kind of in a more efficient and meant we had to be pretty lean, we were able to just really focus on building and I think that's going to happen here, we were seeing a lot of valuations that are just not sure could be justified. And there was also a lot of kind of opportunist has come coming into the market and saying, Hey, look, we need to build something while this while this hype is up. So we've definitely seen a small decrease in valuations. I would say there's still some great companies, though. So I think the great companies are still able to sustain the valuations, maybe they were before the downtime. But I think overall, yeah, it's it's a great time, because people have, you know, they're kind of focused on building the right people are getting funded it this will prove to be a great time to start a business, I think.

So you've noted that one of the benefits is that there's a bit of a culling, there's a bit of a focus on efficiency, on behalf of the startups themselves, for you has the bar moved, in terms of where you're willing to invest, like, as a bar moved in terms of how much traction needs to be shown before you're willing to invest?

So for us as a precede investor, like we're happy if we, if we know the teams, if we're confident in what they're building, if we share the vision, we're still very happy to invest from day zero, that won't be all of our investments. But we have just done one where, you know, I've invested in the companies previously, you know, they then work to some great companies, and now they're doing their new things. So, so they're, it's more of a kind of a talent bet. And we share the vision and will really kind of dig in to help the company build it out, I think the bar has definitely gone up just in terms of we are being a bit more hesitant when it comes to if something does look like it, it has a very high valuation that maybe can't be justified. But for us, you know, we're in new fund, there are also a lot of other funds that have just come into existence. So there is still a lot of capital out there. So I think for us, you know, it's business as usual, the one big area that we do need to think about is just, you know, other investors, though, and what, what's the kind of the downstream market like, so, if we fund someone, were we before, we might have said, hey, look, we'll fund you for, you know, nine to 12 months, and then we'll get you back out and raise, maybe we're saying, well, actually, you know, maybe we need to give you a little bit more money or bring some other co investors to give you, you know, more runway to build things out. Because actually your seed investor or your series, A investor is going to want to see that traction. So even if we're not looking for that we are being very mindful, because you know, because of the larger environment around us, and I would say I mean, we are maybe a little bit protected the valuations coming down, you know, the, I think it has been the later stages that have been affected more. I think also in this area around Metaverse like, yes, some of the kind of the hype has come out, which is a good thing. But actually, it's still an area that is fast growing, there's still a lot of innovation to be done. So yeah, I think we're still super excited.

For the portfolio companies, you already have you noted that the advice that you might give to a startup that they're raising, maybe instead of for nine to 12 months, they need to raise for a little bit longer to be able to survive whatever this period is, especially if you think about the follow on investors and their appetite for continued investment. Is there other advice that you're giving to your portfolio companies right now to help prepare them mentally for this kind of coming? 1218 months?

Yeah, it's a good question. I think, you know, a lot of funds have gone out there and really kind of issued, you know, long lists of, you know, their advice. I think a lot of those are just kind of natural, obvious things to do, you know, kind of make sure you're looking at salaries, you know, don't be spending money in areas where where you shouldn't be spending money. I think for us again, you know, because it's a precede I think, you know, there isn't as long list, I think it really is just making sure you've got as much runway as possible. And there are some other opportunistic things to look at, you know, in this market, where there are some big companies or well funded companies that may be laying off staff. This is also a good time to attract new talent. Or certainly there might be talent in other areas that are saying, hey, actually, you know, we're really interested in Metaverse and web three, you know, we want to do something there. And again, because this this is an area where I think a lot of people have passion for it was the same, you know, to go back to SoundCloud, you know, we were able to hire a lot of people because they wanted to join because they just believed in the business and they were willing to give up you know, kind of jobs in slightly, slightly more stable industries to come and join something that like it was moving a bit quicker. So I think we are seeing a kind of influx of talent into this space as well which which should be positive for the young companies.

Now, as you look back and reflect you've been investing in VR for five plus years now. VR and AR right with the voice of VR, you notice one of the first, how is your perspective on this market changed or evolved over the last five or so years?

Yeah, I think with with VR, specifically, I think one of the great things is if you were building a VR company back in 2016, you were just having to learn so many things, you were having to learn what a great experience was, like what a good user interface look like, you had to understand, you know, what is PC VR versus this, like, there was, there was so much friction or things like new things that had to be learned. I think, if you fast forward to now, like most of those things are kind of known, like, you don't have to solve those things. So it means you can iterate a lot more quickly. I think the second obvious thing is the install base for VR specifically has grown a lot, like in consumer, like, there is I think, you know, Quest has really question and meta have really led the way on this, but then there is now a healthy install base, you know, there's a big enough addressable market, that you can go and make a meaningful business, and certainly kind of lean on some of the social stuff like, you know, with Wave VR, it was a social platform, you know, we were getting, you know, 1000s of people into these virtual concepts, but it was, you know, still maybe wasn't enough when we were going and talking to downstream investors. But now, you know, I'm talking to indie devs, you know, I spoke to somebody, you know, indie dev from Germany, they've just built a game, it's, you know, they've been able to release it on site quest, and throughout Blab, you know, they're already getting hundreds of 1000s of monthly active users. And that just was not possible in 2016 2017. So I think that's very health healthy. And at the same time, you know, we're still in the part of the cycle where there is that install base, but there's maybe not the competition coming in from from bigger players. So, you know, if you're releasing a new mobile app, or a mobile game, you know, that market is so saturated, you're having to put all of your money into, you know, user acquisition and marketing, whereas in BI, you're not having to do that yet. So. So I think that's very healthy in enterprise. You know, that's also looking good, because you have, you know, I think there's, there's been enough people go through that challenge in 2016 to 2019. And building out the case studies proving the ROI of different methods. You know, there's now you know, instead of being at the innovation lab, you're talking to the procurement team, you know, it's a very different landscape, where where I think enterprises, you know, they've gone through their own learning journey, they've understood how to kind of deploy this technology properly. Don't get me wrong, there's still a lot of friction, there's still a lot of companies that haven't adopted it. So it will still take a bit of time. But yeah, it means that as an entrepreneur, you can go and raise cash, and really focus on building the business rather than trying to solve these challenges that just, you know, no matter what business you were starting, you'd have to have to go and do it. I think with AR that has obviously evolved as well. I think there you know, we we've certainly at 5x, we were investing a lot more in kind of VR and a lot more in enterprise VR, just because of where we're at in the cycle. I think that's the same with FOB ventures, where I think when we look at AR, we have to really ask ourselves, you know, what is the timing of this market? Like? Is this a business that really only thrives when consumer headsets are more mainstream? Or is this something where if you're targeting the enterprise, you know, are they the right devices they are? So I think where they are, there is just a lot more questions that we have to ask because of market timing. Whereas I think br Even though we're at a certain part of the cycle, it feels more predictable when those things are gonna happen.

When you think about where we are in the cycle for those, you know, we are, we're further along. And so maybe we can do a better job of anticipating where it's going to end up. But there's been lots of talk over the years, lots of opinions about which one's bigger AR versus VR. When we think about VR, just on its own, is there a comparable that you imagine that VR will be similar in terms of potential device sales, like related to game console size, you know, which is like 40 million or so a year are external displays, which is over 100 million a year, or PCs, which is a few 100 million a year, or mobile phones, which is over a billion, where we're in that range? Do you think the VR device sales side will fall, which kind of informs the rest of the software and experiences that are going to be built around those devices as well?

Yeah, I really love the way you frame the question, because I think that that is a that is a good set of benchmarks to kind of think about where we're at. I think, with VR at the moment, we're definitely in that kind of game game console region. Right. And actually, I think there was a stat I need to kind of look it up and make sure this is actually correct. But I believe that quest was out shipping the Xbox. I've read that recently. Now, obviously, you know, there's that's a great step to put forward. But you know, obviously, Xbox, you know, there might be chip shortages, or there's already an install base there. But I think just being able to say that, like we've spoken to some potential investments, Oh, yeah. VR, just you know, it's not a thing yet. And when you actually point out where they are shipping, as many as exports are, then they can make some take a step back and rethink it. But yeah, I would definitely say, you know, right now, where we're at with the current set of technology, to be really kind of shooting for that game console. So 4040 to 50 million units. I think we get up to the external display mark in the next kind of five or six years. But I think what moves the needle there is really This next generation of passthru devices, so, you know, mixed reality devices where I can be in VR mode, but then, you know, move instantly to AR mode. And I think, you know, the the experiments that meta have around that. And then the rumored Apple headset, but then also kind of innovative, you know, startups like people like Lynx coming out of Paris, you know, innovating with that form factor, I think that then gets you to a place where I can really imagine doing longer periods of work and other type of kind of productivity like day to day things that I would do, I'm actually starting to replace my kind of work display with one of these Pathri headsets. And I think the other thing that we've only just glimpse that like I, just after I left HTC, they launched the I think it was the Vive flow, which was the first to have these kind of much thinner pancake lenses. And I think that form factor probably has still a few iterations to go. But that was the first glimpse of like, oh, yeah, that feels more like putting on a pair of VR glasses rather than this kind of clunky headset. And I think when you get the ability just to put this kind of, you know, pair of VR glasses on your face, that's when it starts to feel more like a display where I can be in it for longer periods of time, do more kind of day to day work in it. So and then I think to get to the kind of the PC or mobile phone install basis, I think that's when you're leaning more on AR, I think that's when AR form factors start to take over and kind of get us to that place. I think VR headsets won't likely be as common as mobile phones anytime soon.

And so on the AR side, you anticipate that the ceiling is higher, that maybe we're talking about the PC sort of levels, which is 300 million or so, or even potentially over time getting to the over a billion per year sales.

As investors, you know, what we have to be mindful of, I think, you know, we can talk about these numbers. But I think what we have to think about is, you know, the time horizon that we're investing in, and the kind of the timeframes that those companies are getting funded for as well. So we need to be really clear as investors, you know, we're funding this company now, like, where are these markets? Where are these headsets going to be in 18 months time not thinking about where it's going to be in five years time. But then when you're starting to think about, you know, kind of exits, and, you know, we have a 10 year fund period, you know, we're hoping to be returning money to investors from year five or six. So, you know, we need to think about where those cycles are and where the companies are, in that part as well. So

So on a pitch deck, you see, shows this slide, it says the AR market is going to be massive. Look, we have all these prognosticators who believe that the market would be Mass Effect. I heard you on this podcast AR is gonna be you say? Uh huh. And why now? Why is your business relevant today, given where they are marketers today?

Yeah, definitely. And the other key question is, like, you know, if if the market doesn't move, as you expect it, like, what do you do, then? And I should say, again, you know, we're not just an AR VR fund. So you know, we think about other devices, I think a lot of the stuff that we're investing in now, like, actually, if you look at all of our companies, there's probably only one that's very specifically related to kind of, you know, like AR or VR, it's a company called port six. But we've invested in Port six, actually, because they're a building block in helping the AR market, like come on support CICs. And looking at the problem of AR input. So at the moment in AR, you know, if I want to do input, I need to have a controller like I would have had on the magically one, or I would need to use kind of hand tracking. So have my hands in front of my face. And you know, for it to be picking up what I'm doing. Now, obviously, for AR headsets to be able to go mainstream, you need a better or a kind of alternative input method, right. So that's why you know, Facebook and Metro had invested in control labs to kind of start to think about what you could do with brain computer interface. And that's why snap just bought a brain computer interface company, because they need these more subtle kind of, you know, what's the last mile about AR input. So we've invested in a company called Pulse six that is, you know, trying to solve that through, you know, data from the wrist that would allow you to do these kind of micro gestures or, you know, instead of waving your hand in front, you could just tap or like run your finger across your trousers. If I'm on a busy subway, or you know, the London Underground, the last thing I want to be doing is waving my hands in front of my face, I just want to be tapping it so. So I think where we look to invest in in there is like if we can invest in companies that helped to accelerate that cycle. But that seems like a better bet now than investing in a kind of a consumer application that relies on those things to have happened already.

Yeah, yep. Great example. Let's wrap with a few in lightning round questions. What commonly held belief about AR VR spatial computing? Do you disagree with?

Yeah, this is a tricky one. And I always, always think about this question. The one that I was thinking of earlier was it's more specific to kind of like gaming or VR experiences, but I think there was a big push certainly HTC Vive because we had you know, like amazing kind of room track six staff, you know, you could like the experiences that really worked best like the experiences that like really made people kind of like the wow moments in VR, were the ones where you do you do need full body movements. So you know, kind of dancing in a space or you know, kind of, you know, your your hand to hand melee or you you're doing something like beat Sabre again, it's a very fun is a cool thing to do in VR, the challenge of very physical things is it means the session time for any particular user is probably only kind of, you know, between 20 minutes and an hour max, if you have to kind of stand up and walk around, even if I'm just in, you know, like VR chat or some kind of virtual space, I'll typically tend to sit down after a while, because it's just kind of, you know, like, you can't be in VR for a long time and be walking around. So, so I, I've always wanted us to find a kind of a level of applications that are just more lean back, or just kind of more, okay, I can actually sit on my couch and do this in gaming, a great example would be something like moss or Astro bots, like, those are games that they take the best of everything that VR does, like you could not do astral bots on mass, like in any other kind of format, like it really shines in VR. But I can get back home from work, you know, when I'm exhausted, and I can just sit on the sofa and play it because it's, you know, it's this, you know, first and third person view that you have, it's the same with, you know, I always thought one of the killer apps of VR was just being able to kind of sit on your sofa and have a massive movie screen in front of you. And there's, there's all these little things like why can't we augment websites just to be much better to be consumed when I'm lying down with it with a headset on so? So I'd kind of I think that's the one thing, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying you know, we should make the best of you know, this full embodied experience that we have in VR. But I think in order to kind of keep the engagement and kind of daily active users in VR, like we need this kind of, you know, other other set of applications that I would do every day for, you know, 3030 minutes to an hour.

Yeah, yeah, I like that. So it's not just about the stand up experiences, thoughts about the Leanback experiences in either the full spectrum to engage people more completely? Yeah, exactly. Of the potential uses of VR or AR or the metaverse, which one are you most excited about?

I have to say, I mean, as an investor, we see so many different use cases. So I, I typically tend to like the ones where like, it's something that's novel, you know, I mentioned in a while before, they were kind of, you know, using these virtual spaces to kind of connect people and, you know, help them to talk about their emotions, or different things like that. So I think I'm still I really liked the use cases, that surprised me, I think the best ones that we have in VR are the ones that are social, the ones that connect us with other people globally, we do our own podcast called viewpoints that and that allows us to actually kind of, you know, sit on the same virtual sofa with somebody and like, be in front of an audience of people. And like, that's just, you know, you couldn't have done that on Zoom, you really have to be in VR, in that experience. You know, my dad over Christmas, we had a, we have a wave of COVID. So a lot of families were a part of Christmas. And so my dad, actually, you know, he's 7475, he went out and bought a quest headset, we actually had a real blast, like, we went into apps like Wonder, wonder is like Google Streetview. But but in virtual reality, and, and we just jumped in there, it's very social as well. So we were, first of all, we started off, you know, just going around to our old houses and revisiting them in kind of full 360. But then actually, some, like other people came in and started giving us tours of all these places in the world. So it was like, this guy gave us a tour of Elvis Presley's house and where Michael Jackson was born, and where JFK was shot. And it was just this amazing kind of, you know, almost like time time travel experience that was fully social and very engaging. So I think the ones that the VR experiences that bring us closer together, and kind of really help us to connect people over distances, there are things that I get very excited about.

Nice. What book have you read recently that you found to be deeply insightful or profound?

Yeah, that's a tricky one, I was thinking about this, I actually feel bad because I don't read that many books, I find myself reading a lot of blog posts, a lot of articles, a lot of, you know, Twitter and things like that. So I probably don't read as much as I should. I think if I was going to read a lot more, I would actually like to read a lot more fiction. But the last book I read a couple of weeks ago, somebody bought it for my birthday was a book called 4000 weeks by Oliver Bergman. And this is kind of you read a lot of productivity books, like get things done, and you know how to optimize this and how to optimize that. But this book was very enlightening, because it talks about time management in a very different way. Like, if the average person lives to 80, they will have around 4000 weeks on the planet. And most people are like, right, I only have 4000 weeks. Therefore I need to get everything on my to do list, I need to rush through this, I need to rush through that. And, and all of it takes the other side of that argument and actually says we only have 4000 weeks, just accept that you have a finite time and just kind of you know, like carve out different pieces. And you know, it's kind of like the antidote every time management or productivity but you've ever had, I wouldn't say it's the best book. But I would definitely, if you're like me, if you're somebody who is constantly making to do lists, constantly getting to the end of the day and feeling feeling like you need to do a bit more work. I would just recommend sitting down with this book and it kind of will hopefully, hopefully slow you down a little bit.

If you could sit down and have coffee with your 25 year old self. What advice would you share with 25 year old Dave?

Yeah, I love that question. It's a great one. Yeah, I guess I guess a few things. I mean, first of all, hopefully things that I kind of start to but first is to, you know, for me it's really important to you know, we spend Again, thinking about those 4000 weeks, you know, we spend a lot of those 4000 weeks working, it's, it's a disproportionate amount of time. And so I think it's really important if you can, and obviously, this is impossible for everyone, but like, you know, to really think about how you can spend that time of working things that are important to you, or that you really just enjoy doing things that don't feel like work. And again, I know, that's, that's not always easy to achieve, but I feel like you know, at SoundCloud, you know, I'd wake up and I'd be like, you know, it did just didn't feel like work. Or if I had to put in extra time on a Saturday or Sunday, you know, it was just something that I kind of, you know, wanted to be able to do so. So yeah, so I think when looking at your career, I think a lot of people get stuck on that, you know, I need to go and you know, climb the corporate ladder, or put a few more years in here to get to the next salary level. And I'll just say that, you know, don't optimize for salary and status and things like that, like, actually, if you can optimize for things you would like to work on, even if that you know, ends up, it means you have to take a slightly lower salary, or you have to take a bit more risk or not take the obvious path. So yeah, hopefully I've stuck to that, you know, and that's certainly what I would kind of, you know, the advice I would give my two young sons, but I guess on the on the counterpoint to that is, you know, I think the challenge is if you do work on something that you love, you know, especially in this area, you know, when you're investing in tech, you can get so close to it, you've got to be in all these discord channels, you've got to keep up with this, you've got to go to these virtual events, like there's so many things that we can do. I think, you know, if you're doing something that you love, you need to remember to take time just to do something else, or you know, be healthy, and it can be all consuming. So, you know, I wish I'd said to myself in 2025 years ago, just everyday, put some time on your calendar that's just about you, and kind of you know, and your loved ones and helping other people don't just get fixated on your work. So I think that would be the yet the other one,

two great ones. I love this idea of, of not optimizing for salary. And perhaps that resonates with me, because I also made a similar choice early in my career, that my optimization was always around learning and creating and supporting those who are creating and learning. Yeah, yeah. And it has not led us down the most optimal revenue path, income path for sure. But it has been incredibly enjoyable. And it's good enough. I have the built the life financially that Yeah, exactly. Any closing thoughts you'd like to share?

Yeah, I think one thing that I've been thinking a lot about, and you know, maybe this is seeing my, my two sons grow up and maybe getting a bit older. But I think it is really important to you know, as we build things in this industry, just I tend to take the very optimistic view of technology. So you know, we'll have this technology here, all the good things that we can do with it. And I think sometimes we will need to take a step back and say, well, actually, what are some of the negative outcomes of that? And I think we saw that in web two, where, you know, when we were building SoundCloud, it was like, yes, there's all these things we can do. We can share all this knowledge we can create together, you know that there was all these positive things that came out of social media. And I think we maybe as an industry didn't think until it was too late. Well, actually, you know, what are the consequences of that? What are the downsides. So I think we have this unique kind of window of opportunity in time, because we are at the beginning of this new kind of Metaverse era or the web three era where we're thinking about building these things. And as a venture capitalist, obviously, I have to kind of, you know, take positive view and really be optimistic about things we're investing in. But But I think it's it is important for all of us to think well actually, these are some pretty serious technological shifts, like if we're all spending time in these virtual worlds, or if we're spending more time with screens on our faces, like, what are the things that are the positives, but then what are the kind of the negatives that we need to kind of mitigate for now. So that sounds fairly obvious. But I think it needs to be at the forefront of our mind as we as we kind of start this new era of compute in this new era of the internet. And I think the second thing that goes hand in hand with that is, you know, thinking about who will build the metaverse like who are the people, whoever is building it now that it's going to have an impact on how we interact with it. So that means, you know, number one, you know, we should have a much more diverse set of founders than we do. Like if if all the people building the metaverse don't like me, or they're all kind of, you know, white males from a certain, you know, economic background, or they've all grown up playing first person shooters or, you know, whatever it is, we will kind of, you know, live with the result of that. So I think, you know, as a fund as if a VI Ventures we are starting to look at, well, how do we build the pipeline of more diverse founders, especially in Europe, we made five investments now deployed just over 2 million euros in capital. And actually none of our founding teams, yeah, have a have a female founder, just as one example. So so we will be announcing a couple of initiatives to really kind of look at changing that. And you've had Amy from the WX R fund on the podcast as well. So there is already a lot of people thinking about this, but I think everybody is an industry, we should take a step back and think about that and think about what we can do to affect the outcomes.

Yeah, I really like that. I think especially as white males, it is incumbent upon us, given the position the opportunity to make sure that we're pulling everybody else along. So thank you for, for that initiative that focus. Where can people go to learn more about you and your efforts there FOB ventures?

Yep. So if you want to learn more about FOB ventures, you just go to fob dot ventures as a website. If people want to get in touch, we do have a forum where you can just kind of put in the details of the company, usually best to get an intro, if you are looking investment. You can also just tweet me at Haynes underscore Dave. You can also look up my partner in the fund, Petra Hall may just google him on LinkedIn. And we are kind of actively looking to invest in founders in this space, not just VRL. But you know, across any one building towards the metaverse. So yeah, look forward to hearing you. We do do a podcast called viewpoints. We do it in VR at the moment, we may be making some some video podcasts as well. So keep an eye out for that. And yeah, if any of you is building an interesting company in this space, then please do come and find us. mazing Dave, thank

you very much for the conversation. Yeah,

thank you and it's been a real honor to come on the show.

Before you go, I have two quick things for you. The first is about the next episode. In it. I speak with Mike Wimmer, CTO and co founder of mojo vision company enabling invisible computing with an AR contact lenses. Mike is a brilliant and accomplished technologist who is unafraid of tackling hard problems. And he and his team have sold many on their way to successfully demonstrating their wearable contact lens working inside of somebody's eye earlier this summer. Thank you really enjoyed the conversation. And please consider contributing to this podcast@patreon.com slash the AR show. Th e AR sh O W. Thanks so much for listening.