European tech scaleup executives have backed a new venture firm based on the idea that those who have scaled billion-dollar companies know which founders can repeat the success.
A new fund aims to tackle Europe’s venture capital issue: a lack of operational experience. Operator Circle, a venture firm, launches with support from senior executives who have scaled European tech companies, including Enzo Wälchli, former chief commercial officer at ANYbotics, as general partner.
The fund believes that operators who have experienced the growth from Series B to exit are better at identifying founders capable of reaching decacorn scale than traditional VCs.
The fund size remains undisclosed. The operator-to-VC model, though common in the US, is newer in Europe due to its younger exit ecosystem. Europe’s first decacorns have only emerged recently.
Operator Circle believes Europe’s experienced executives from companies that tackled multilingual sales, compliance, and a still-maturing talent ecosystem now form a significant group. While the success of operators as investors is debated, the model offers pattern recognition, identifying challenges at different growth stages.
Operator Circle bets on guidance from those who’ve climbed the scale, rather than traditional investors.