YouSaid · the spoken record

Torsten Reil

lines on the record: 111
first: 2024-12-11
most recent: 2024-12-11
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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2024-12-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Future of War: Are We Ready & What Needs to Be Done | China, Russia and Trump: What Happens Now | Raising $828M to Build the Defence Champion of Europe | Torsten Reil, Co-Founder @ Helsing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
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2024-12-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Future of War: Are We Ready & What Needs to Be Done | China, Russia and Trump: What Happens Now | Raising $828M to Build the Defence Champion of Europe | Torsten Reil, Co-Founder @ Helsing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Way I boil it down is mutual respect. Chemistry and everything else is important as well. But if you truly respect the quality of your co-founders and what they contribute and the job that they do and that there are 10 out of 10 people, then everyone finds their role. And the roles are shifting sometimes too, right? Like it's not like to your point of specialization earlier. It's not like one person has this role, the other person has that role. We have our different emphases, but we tend to chip in and be involved in all kinds of things, including obviously in the management of the company and the scaling, we all do that together.”
2024-12-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Future of War: Are We Ready & What Needs to Be Done | China, Russia and Trump: What Happens Now | Raising $828M to Build the Defence Champion of Europe | Torsten Reil, Co-Founder @ Helsing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“One question I have asked myself the other day, which I don't get asked that often is how does a founder group work together that's equal? How do you make it work? Because as a founder almost, by definition, you all have to be ambitious. Everyone is different. Everyone will always have a bit of an ego as well. How do you make it work that actually it works together? And it worked well for us naturally, but it's quite interesting to think about what are the reasons that it works.”
2024-12-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Future of War: Are We Ready & What Needs to Be Done | China, Russia and Trump: What Happens Now | Raising $828M to Build the Defence Champion of Europe | Torsten Reil, Co-Founder @ Helsing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We would have focused all of our efforts on specific systems to deal with the problems in hand, which are now the ones that I talked about earlier. It's electronic warfare resistance, GPS independence, being resilient to comms jamming. And we were working on those systems, but not just, we work on other systems too. And we were building a technology foundation that we're now using, obviously, in the company. It's good that we have it. But had we known that this conflict was imminent, I think we would have shifted priorities. And I think we could have done more right at the beginning. In the end, I think we were able to contribute, but we needed to spoil up all of these systems and a lot of knowledge.”
2024-12-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Future of War: Are We Ready & What Needs to Be Done | China, Russia and Trump: What Happens Now | Raising $828M to Build the Defence Champion of Europe | Torsten Reil, Co-Founder @ Helsing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There are different people on there now. I think other people have left. You know, maybe you get a broader spectrum of views. It's hard to tell. I think the jury is out on that. But it does feel different.”
2024-12-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Future of War: Are We Ready & What Needs to Be Done | China, Russia and Trump: What Happens Now | Raising $828M to Build the Defence Champion of Europe | Torsten Reil, Co-Founder @ Helsing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Because it has just the right combination of timing, the flick, the content that immediately comes up. It's perfectly tuned. And obviously they have all the metrics to know what content to show you. It is super addictive. It's incredibly dangerous. It also obviously becomes a potential tool for manipulation, political manipulation, whether that's happening or not. But it is extremely powerful if you wanted to use it. And then thirdly, it has the same problem as all social media. The content that works the best is the content that's the most extreme. And so we have a problem of basically radicalizing political views where just almost by definition, radical content will just work better.”
2024-12-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Future of War: Are We Ready & What Needs to Be Done | China, Russia and Trump: What Happens Now | Raising $828M to Build the Defence Champion of Europe | Torsten Reil, Co-Founder @ Helsing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Same with food. I think food can be dangerous too, but I think TikTok is a lot more dangerous than hamburgers. Large parts of society are wasting so much of their time on something that has been highly tuned. I mean, I'm saying this to someone who used to make games. And we know what dopamine loops look like. TikTok loop is the best. And you cannot get out of it.”
2024-12-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Future of War: Are We Ready & What Needs to Be Done | China, Russia and Trump: What Happens Now | Raising $828M to Build the Defence Champion of Europe | Torsten Reil, Co-Founder @ Helsing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But if it is very compelling, which yours is, it becomes a it becomes something that people will consume too much. I think.”
2024-12-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Future of War: Are We Ready & What Needs to Be Done | China, Russia and Trump: What Happens Now | Raising $828M to Build the Defence Champion of Europe | Torsten Reil, Co-Founder @ Helsing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Probably by dance, and I would shut down TikTok immediately. It's crack cocaine for basically our societies. It is respectfully.”
2024-12-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Future of War: Are We Ready & What Needs to Be Done | China, Russia and Trump: What Happens Now | Raising $828M to Build the Defence Champion of Europe | Torsten Reil, Co-Founder @ Helsing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I used to think that you needed to make sure that there was always a degree of process when teams worked together on something, including something new. I have now learned that it's possible with exceptional people, just let them get on with the job without any stand-ups, any predictions on deadlines, nothing. You just let them get on with the job in a fast-changing environment that we had to deal with, for example, over the last few months. It is probably the most efficient way of actually making progress rather than being structured about it. And then eventually you have to move to structure, obviously, but I probably wouldn't have thought that two years ago.”
2024-12-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Future of War: Are We Ready & What Needs to Be Done | China, Russia and Trump: What Happens Now | Raising $828M to Build the Defence Champion of Europe | Torsten Reil, Co-Founder @ Helsing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You need to lead a company and you should not be afraid to say that. If you're the founder of a company, we made the decision for Helsing as well that we are a founder-led company and we are all here to basically serve the company, to make the company successful. That's what we do. And the founders provide the vision and the direction. And if you like it, great. If you don't like it, you have to work there.”
2024-12-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Future of War: Are We Ready & What Needs to Be Done | China, Russia and Trump: What Happens Now | Raising $828M to Build the Defence Champion of Europe | Torsten Reil, Co-Founder @ Helsing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Because you need to do both, clearly. You're always out competed by someone who works smart and hard if you work smart not hard person.”
2024-12-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Future of War: Are We Ready & What Needs to Be Done | China, Russia and Trump: What Happens Now | Raising $828M to Build the Defence Champion of Europe | Torsten Reil, Co-Founder @ Helsing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, this is the thing. If you make a conscious decision not to decide on something because you don't have the information right now that you require to make it, I think it's totally fine. And I think people should make much more use of that rather than randomly going, I'm going to go for this one. This is one of the many things that LinkedIn screwed up. There are so many pieces of wisdom on LinkedIn that are wrong.”
2024-12-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Future of War: Are We Ready & What Needs to Be Done | China, Russia and Trump: What Happens Now | Raising $828M to Build the Defence Champion of Europe | Torsten Reil, Co-Founder @ Helsing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I actually, I'm not sure I agree with even with the statement. I think it's perfectly, there's this trope that any decision is better than no decision. And I've never believed that. I think there sometimes there, you have to make a lot of decisions as a founder all the time.”
2024-12-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Future of War: Are We Ready & What Needs to Be Done | China, Russia and Trump: What Happens Now | Raising $828M to Build the Defence Champion of Europe | Torsten Reil, Co-Founder @ Helsing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The biggest unlock for us was to have these quarterly founder off sites where we basically reflect and think about what's working and what isn't working and how do we change it. Never did that previously. And stuff just gets warmer and warmer until it's too hot.”
2024-12-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Future of War: Are We Ready & What Needs to Be Done | China, Russia and Trump: What Happens Now | Raising $828M to Build the Defence Champion of Europe | Torsten Reil, Co-Founder @ Helsing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's the fact that the company needs to shed its skin every 12 to 18 months because it's progressing at such a pace that you just have to think about the org structure again repeatedly. You have to think about whether your processes are the right ones, whether you're talking to the right people.”
2024-12-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Future of War: Are We Ready & What Needs to Be Done | China, Russia and Trump: What Happens Now | Raising $828M to Build the Defence Champion of Europe | Torsten Reil, Co-Founder @ Helsing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Most people believe that the environment in terms of taxation, regulation, et cetera, has a big impact on whether you can build successful startups in the country. I don't think it does. It's minor compared to attracting the right founders. So I think the discussions that people have around how can we make a particular country a better place for entrepreneurs who are already there, I just don't think it makes a difference.”
2024-12-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Future of War: Are We Ready & What Needs to Be Done | China, Russia and Trump: What Happens Now | Raising $828M to Build the Defence Champion of Europe | Torsten Reil, Co-Founder @ Helsing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I think money can give you security to me. That's by far the most important thing. So not having to worry about money makes a big difference in terms of how I think your life in general, but also what risks you take with, let's say, your next company. In order to build a successful company, you have to take risks being safe on the money side makes it easier. I don't think it's not the only thing that you require, but it does contribute to it.”
2024-12-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Future of War: Are We Ready & What Needs to Be Done | China, Russia and Trump: What Happens Now | Raising $828M to Build the Defence Champion of Europe | Torsten Reil, Co-Founder @ Helsing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We are not sufficiently alerted to the danger of conflict. We've lived in conflict forever, basically, and then had a period of time where there wasn't one. And I think I'm worried that we don't take it seriously because we don't want to think about it. And by the way, I don't want to think about it either. It's not nice to think about conflict, but we're not taking it seriously.”
2024-12-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Future of War: Are We Ready & What Needs to Be Done | China, Russia and Trump: What Happens Now | Raising $828M to Build the Defence Champion of Europe | Torsten Reil, Co-Founder @ Helsing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Because we were in a new conflict that was moving extremely fast. We were in uncharted territory in terms of Western support for Ukraine, in terms of what weapons should or should not be used, what would be the reaction on the other side. It was hard to predict. And everyone was kind of feeling their way into the situation. I think those are situations that are fast-moving and also where there's limited information where things can escalate quickly accidentally, even though neither party wants it. That is very hard to predict. These are very non-linear events when they happen. And so that's why it's hard to predict whether a conflict is going to happen under a particular administration or not.”
2024-12-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Future of War: Are We Ready & What Needs to Be Done | China, Russia and Trump: What Happens Now | Raising $828M to Build the Defence Champion of Europe | Torsten Reil, Co-Founder @ Helsing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“As people have stated, there was no new conflict under Trump's last administration. And so if you go by that, then it would reduce it. But there are other players obviously involved as well. We don't know what kind of capabilities are being developed in North Korea, how someone feels on a particular day. The danger that we have, and I think something that is hard to control is, is accidental escalation. For example, at the beginning of the Ukraine war, I think there was a danger of escalation, potentially even at nuclear escalation. I think that eventually settled. The situation became more readable for everyone involved.”
2024-12-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Future of War: Are We Ready & What Needs to Be Done | China, Russia and Trump: What Happens Now | Raising $828M to Build the Defence Champion of Europe | Torsten Reil, Co-Founder @ Helsing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Again, I think it's plausible that there will be a conflict. I don't think it's 10 years away if it happens. It's probably quite a lot sooner than that. But it depends on how the next, again, few months and years are going to pan out. Again, I think there is a danger. And it's obviously clearly stated goal of China to reunite as they put it.”
2024-12-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Future of War: Are We Ready & What Needs to Be Done | China, Russia and Trump: What Happens Now | Raising $828M to Build the Defence Champion of Europe | Torsten Reil, Co-Founder @ Helsing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It is very hard to predict. We just don't know how things are going to pan out over the next few months and a couple of years, but I think we do have to take the threat to the NATO Eastern Flag seriously. I think we have to take it much more seriously than we are doing it right now in the UK and in Germany and other countries. I think Scandinavia countries take it a lot more seriously as do the Baltics, take it extremely seriously. And I think we should listen to them. I think the threat is extremely plausible in the next few years.”
2024-12-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Future of War: Are We Ready & What Needs to Be Done | China, Russia and Trump: What Happens Now | Raising $828M to Build the Defence Champion of Europe | Torsten Reil, Co-Founder @ Helsing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Certainly, companies in energy. Energy sovereignty is a huge issue. Some of that may be in convention technology. Some of it may be in future technologies like fusion. We need sovereignty ideally around semiconductors. It's going to be very hard to achieve unless there are big changes in technology and various other areas. Obviously, defense is another one and a few others. I'm not sure whether they will be able to create those companies kind of in the next two or three years to a point where they provide sufficient sovereignty, but I'm very sure we can do it over the next five to ten years.”
2024-12-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Future of War: Are We Ready & What Needs to Be Done | China, Russia and Trump: What Happens Now | Raising $828M to Build the Defence Champion of Europe | Torsten Reil, Co-Founder @ Helsing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, it's interesting. I also think that people over index on the environment and about having the right regulatory settings and tax and everything else around it. I actually think none of the stuff really matters that much. I think what really matters is founder quality and founder ambition for country to be successful, they should attract the most aggressive founders and everything else is a lot less important.”
2024-12-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Future of War: Are We Ready & What Needs to Be Done | China, Russia and Trump: What Happens Now | Raising $828M to Build the Defence Champion of Europe | Torsten Reil, Co-Founder @ Helsing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That is a trend right now. Even three and a half years ago when we started the company, that trend was already there. The question with all of these situations is, what can we do to change it? What are you doing to change it? We felt we had agency by looking at, for example, the problem of European sovereignty and specifically around defense. And we felt as founders you have the privilege of having a massive lever, which is we can build a successful company in this space, you can actually make a difference. I'm pretty sick of people just commenting. I mean, there's a whole LinkedIn economy built around just complaining. Same is true on X. And just commenting. And those comments, they're worth nothing. None of the commentary is worth anything. The only thing that matters is if people actually do something. That is start a company, build a company. It's going to politics, start a new party, whatever it is. But the current attitude of just complaining drives me crazy.”
2024-12-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Future of War: Are We Ready & What Needs to Be Done | China, Russia and Trump: What Happens Now | Raising $828M to Build the Defence Champion of Europe | Torsten Reil, Co-Founder @ Helsing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it's pretty clear that the current narrative is a caricature of Europe. There are some elements of truth in it, but they've been extremely exaggerated, particularly over the last six to 12 months. I think if you go on X.”
2024-12-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Future of War: Are We Ready & What Needs to Be Done | China, Russia and Trump: What Happens Now | Raising $828M to Build the Defence Champion of Europe | Torsten Reil, Co-Founder @ Helsing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It plays an important role, I think, later on, the ability for European investors to provide growth capital. That's lower than it is in the US. But I don't think that's a problem. In fact, in many ways, I think that's probably a feature, not a bug, because I think exposure to US culture, but also investors is extremely useful. I was lucky to have it. Natural motion benchmark is one of our investors with Mitch Lasky as our partner. Part of the reason why we eventually took off what was also Mitch and the way he thought about how big this company could be, how should I think about portfolio, not think too small, that was extremely helpful. And so I think that injection of US mentality to European companies at the right point is extremely helpful. And the cap table, true for housing as well, is still Europe dominated. We did our seed round entirely from European investors. Then Daniel and Prima Matera came in. Again, European.”
2024-12-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Future of War: Are We Ready & What Needs to Be Done | China, Russia and Trump: What Happens Now | Raising $828M to Build the Defence Champion of Europe | Torsten Reil, Co-Founder @ Helsing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, I think we are falling behind, but that trend is new. That already started a few years ago. And part of the reason we wanted to build Helsink was to show that you can build a company in Europe fast to scale in deep tech and just provide a shortcut. Actually, this is doable. And we wanted to show that it's doable, including the fundraising. So I think Europe is falling behind, but it doesn't have to be that way. So the things that we have in Europe are in particular talent. We have incredibly good talent, including on the engineering side. We hire almost exclusively from Europe at the moment. And the talent is amazing. The talent pool is amazing. People's attitudes are amazing. There's none of this 9 to 5 mentality. People really want to make a difference, and they work hard and they work intensely wherever that's required. So I think that's a myth.”
2024-12-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Future of War: Are We Ready & What Needs to Be Done | China, Russia and Trump: What Happens Now | Raising $828M to Build the Defence Champion of Europe | Torsten Reil, Co-Founder @ Helsing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The founder community needs to talk about it more. It's a mindset thing. I personally think we all have a contribution to make and a contribution to make the society as founders. I think we have a responsibility to actually contribute. Some of that contribution is to help Europe become sovereign, in particular around key technologies.”
2024-12-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Future of War: Are We Ready & What Needs to Be Done | China, Russia and Trump: What Happens Now | Raising $828M to Build the Defence Champion of Europe | Torsten Reil, Co-Founder @ Helsing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This, we've already learned a lot and go back and do it one more time because quite often you're actually much faster the second time around.”
2024-12-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Future of War: Are We Ready & What Needs to Be Done | China, Russia and Trump: What Happens Now | Raising $828M to Build the Defence Champion of Europe | Torsten Reil, Co-Founder @ Helsing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I think people complain about all kinds of things about Europe and general startup environments. I don't think that there is a lack of capital in Europe. Certainly not seed series A, sometimes even Series B. You could even argue there's too much. What's missing is to some extent operational knowledge because we haven't had as many startups that became big as the US, specifically Silicon Valley has had. But I think more important is ambition. It's ambition specifically on the side of a ambition combined with aggressiveness. And that aggression, that lack of aggression, that lack of ambition holds almost everyone back. And it's still acceptable to build companies and sell them at a value of 100 million. And I understand why, because it's life-changing for everyone. But it's actually not what Europe needs. We need much bigger companies that actually create sovereignty around some of the key areas in ways that just currently don't exist. And for that, you need to have founders that have that ambition, first-term founders, or you need founders that are second time or third time founders.”
2024-12-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Future of War: Are We Ready & What Needs to Be Done | China, Russia and Trump: What Happens Now | Raising $828M to Build the Defence Champion of Europe | Torsten Reil, Co-Founder @ Helsing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Engineers can make crazy things happen. And I was convinced this wasn't going to work out. And they made it happen. Like to this day, I have so much respect for great software engineers. The best software engineers, they make all of us look good.”
2024-12-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Future of War: Are We Ready & What Needs to Be Done | China, Russia and Trump: What Happens Now | Raising $828M to Build the Defence Champion of Europe | Torsten Reil, Co-Founder @ Helsing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“One was when we did our integration into GTA4 with our technology Euphora, which was an animation runtime engine. We had already optimized the hell out of it. And we had great optimization people for gaming consoles. But GTA 4 was an amazing game and really pushed the consoles to its limits. And I felt the technology was great, but there was a point where we got a call from Rockstar saying we don't have the performance budget for your engine anymore. So you either runs another 10 times faster or we can't use it. And I remember putting the phone down and thinking, we are fucked. And like I was sure we are fucked. Because we'd already optimized everything. This was one of those moments where a number of our engineers eventually went to Edinburgh to work directly with a team there until they somehow managed to get that performance gain. And the engine stayed in there and it was the beginning kind of of natural motion proper because it was such an important game and it made everyone proud. It also taught me about how acceptable”
2024-12-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Future of War: Are We Ready & What Needs to Be Done | China, Russia and Trump: What Happens Now | Raising $828M to Build the Defence Champion of Europe | Torsten Reil, Co-Founder @ Helsing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Natural motion, we got out of it eventually, even out of some situations that were very hard to get out of. We still managed to do it. And it wasn't some kind of...”
2024-12-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Future of War: Are We Ready & What Needs to Be Done | China, Russia and Trump: What Happens Now | Raising $828M to Build the Defence Champion of Europe | Torsten Reil, Co-Founder @ Helsing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We've been through hard moments throughout the company, but really difficult times where over the last few weeks when we had to will into existence a hardware platform, having come into it, not knowing much about it, having to do it in record time, having to think about supply chains and everything else around it. I mean, that's difficult. And you do it while there's lots of noise in the market and all kinds of other things. And you still have to build a company. And it's time consuming. There are lots of setbacks. And it is much easier to do it if you have several shoulders rather than just one to get through all of this stuff. And there'll be more setbacks happening. Like with every startups, you just don't know what's going to happen. And you know what it's like with a startup. That's what I experienced at natural motion. You're already on the floor. You've already been punched in the face several times. And then another one comes. And then another one comes, which you didn't expect. Those are the worst is when you kind of already, I'm done and it's relentless. The only thing I would say is that with”
2024-12-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Future of War: Are We Ready & What Needs to Be Done | China, Russia and Trump: What Happens Now | Raising $828M to Build the Defence Champion of Europe | Torsten Reil, Co-Founder @ Helsing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Several reasons, but the main reason now is that three founders, it's easier to build a company even when you go through really difficult times because you have each other to rely on. You have each other as a sounding board. It sounds a bit Kumbaya, but it's very important.”
2024-12-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Future of War: Are We Ready & What Needs to Be Done | China, Russia and Trump: What Happens Now | Raising $828M to Build the Defence Champion of Europe | Torsten Reil, Co-Founder @ Helsing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Need to build the teams around it, and this is where one of the problems lies. There's a scarcity of talent around go-to-market government relations, even compliance and other things, even security, to be honest, in defense. So all of these companies would be competing for a very small pool of people. It's just impossible to turn them all into primes. It was just not going to happen. Coming back to the innovation side, you end up with something that looks like product market fit and you think it's great technology, you've shown it, and you can do something, maybe take a drone down or something. But I had to learn that that is just a very small part of building a prime. It's like one eighth maybe or something. It's product market fit. Then you have to do all the rest. And for that, you need to build the infrastructure to build a prime. Which Andrew has done, for example. It's a good example. We've done it too. We're certainly in the process of doing it. And there's still a ways to go. But I think that's what's underappreciated. And it's not underappreciated with VCs that know about defense, but with, I think, VCs that are maybe as distant as I was when I was pre-”
2024-12-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Future of War: Are We Ready & What Needs to Be Done | China, Russia and Trump: What Happens Now | Raising $828M to Build the Defence Champion of Europe | Torsten Reil, Co-Founder @ Helsing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of teams have a feeling I've now taken the first step. Now the next step is a program of record, not realizing it's a completely different kettle of fish. And again, I had to learn all of this because for me it was natural developers.”
2024-12-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Future of War: Are We Ready & What Needs to Be Done | China, Russia and Trump: What Happens Now | Raising $828M to Build the Defence Champion of Europe | Torsten Reil, Co-Founder @ Helsing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's an official program by a government that has a certain size rather than, and I mentioned the Eurofight Electronic Warfare upgrade. That was officially awarded. Companies pitch for it, and eventually consortia pitch for it, and eventually consortia won it, which is SAP and us in the end. Those happen regularly, and they tend to be quite large. They run over several years. By contrast, there are innovation projects, which is quite often almost a parallel track to all of this, where there are smaller pots of money to prove that certain forces or nations can do innovation and defense. The problem is you may kind of get 500K from one of these projects and you win it and you show to your VC, we've made revenues. The jump from there to actually program of record is huge because all of the apparatus that's required to pitch for these programs, to have, again, the government relationships, some of the lobbying that's required, compliance, again, export law, I mentioned it earlier, that isn't required for these innovation projects.”
2024-12-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Future of War: Are We Ready & What Needs to Be Done | China, Russia and Trump: What Happens Now | Raising $828M to Build the Defence Champion of Europe | Torsten Reil, Co-Founder @ Helsing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, I'm biased, but I think it is around those companies that have got to scale and have programs of record and that are basically active in a conflict. The difference between a company that, first of all, maybe R&D contracts and has a program of record, that is already a big difference because getting over that hump of getting a program of record is huge.”
2024-12-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Future of War: Are We Ready & What Needs to Be Done | China, Russia and Trump: What Happens Now | Raising $828M to Build the Defence Champion of Europe | Torsten Reil, Co-Founder @ Helsing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It is defense is so complex. Having built a games company, which I thought was pretty hard, defense is just on a different level. Impossible, I think, if you don't have a founder team that already has experience in some of the areas.”
2024-12-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Future of War: Are We Ready & What Needs to Be Done | China, Russia and Trump: What Happens Now | Raising $828M to Build the Defence Champion of Europe | Torsten Reil, Co-Founder @ Helsing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, but we can't buy all of those companies. And also, the question is whether we would buy them at VC valuations. I mean, the”
2024-12-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Future of War: Are We Ready & What Needs to Be Done | China, Russia and Trump: What Happens Now | Raising $828M to Build the Defence Champion of Europe | Torsten Reil, Co-Founder @ Helsing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, I think what happened is that the VCs that really get defense, and there are a number, have already kind of made their bets on defense companies, there is now kind of a second or third wave of VCs that go into defense and fund technology teams, which is fine in a way. But my question to those VCs would be like, what is the exit route for those companies? Who's going to buy them?”
2024-12-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Future of War: Are We Ready & What Needs to Be Done | China, Russia and Trump: What Happens Now | Raising $828M to Build the Defence Champion of Europe | Torsten Reil, Co-Founder @ Helsing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, well, first of all, I think you simplify the processes, but you also make sure that you actually set deadlines that are quite tight in terms of when do you actually produce something. And then you try to work with companies that want to work very hard and fast and you incentivize other companies that maybe have a different way of working to do the same. Primes and hardware need to work together with software to be really effective for future conflicts.”
2024-12-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Future of War: Are We Ready & What Needs to Be Done | China, Russia and Trump: What Happens Now | Raising $828M to Build the Defence Champion of Europe | Torsten Reil, Co-Founder @ Helsing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think again, procurement needs to be reformed. Everyone knows that. The reason we don't talk about it that much is because it will take a long time to do it. It needs to be obviously faster, probably less constrained, and the incentives need to be aligned more again towards speed, which are not right now, which makes it harder for the individuals there to do what's right for that particular.”
2024-12-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Future of War: Are We Ready & What Needs to Be Done | China, Russia and Trump: What Happens Now | Raising $828M to Build the Defence Champion of Europe | Torsten Reil, Co-Founder @ Helsing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Probably do take too long. I think they incentivized in different ways. The US is different to other countries. Every country is different and the various primes are different as well. In general, they're not incentivized to spend a lot of their own money on R&D. It's probably less than 5% or so for a company like Helsinki. It's almost all of it. I mean, we pre-finance almost everything. That's why we raised quite a bit of money because we need to be able to spend on developments before we actually, because first of all, we have to prove that it works. And we can't wait for governments to eventually get it and then fund it. And then in eight years, we have a system. We need a system in eight months, basically. Let's make it a year or two years.”
2024-12-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Future of War: Are We Ready & What Needs to Be Done | China, Russia and Trump: What Happens Now | Raising $828M to Build the Defence Champion of Europe | Torsten Reil, Co-Founder @ Helsing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And 20% of new defense. It sounds self serving, but it's absolutely required. If we just keep buying the same kind of equipment that we've bought before, if we don't network it, if we don't give it AI, if we don't produce precision mass, we won't be able to deter and we won't be able to defend ourselves in the conflict.”
2024-12-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Future of War: Are We Ready & What Needs to Be Done | China, Russia and Trump: What Happens Now | Raising $828M to Build the Defence Champion of Europe | Torsten Reil, Co-Founder @ Helsing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think so. So if I look at polls now, I think for most countries, population agrees that more needs to be spent on defense. I think when it then comes to looking at what is going to be cut, I think people probably will differ. And being very concrete will make, I think that kind of view a little bit harder. I think overall populations get it. Whether politicians currently have the courage to actually implement it is a different matter. I think in some countries probably that's going to happen. We talked about Poland earlier. In others, it's taking longer.”
2024-12-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Future of War: Are We Ready & What Needs to Be Done | China, Russia and Trump: What Happens Now | Raising $828M to Build the Defence Champion of Europe | Torsten Reil, Co-Founder @ Helsing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source