E541 | Ties Boukema, Dawn Capital: Building Rolodex: Why Venture Needs Its Own Tech Stack

EUVC

Content provided by The European VC. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by The European VC or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://podcastplayer.com/legal.

1M ago 51:17

MP3•Episode home

Welcome to a new episode of the EUVC Podcast, where we bring you the people and perspectives shaping European venture.

Today, we’re joined by

, Head of Data, Tech & AI at

, one of Europe’s leading B2B SaaS and Fintech investors. With a background spanning law, statistics, Google Health, and five brain surgeries, Ties brings a rare mix of grit, optimism, and technical firepower to Venture and he’s putting it to use by building Rolodex, an internal AI-powered operating system for Dawn.

This is not an AI trends episode. This is an inside look at what it takes to build and deploy technology within a venture firm—and why the industry has been lagging behind.

🎯 This Episode’s Themes:

How a near-death experience shaped Ties’ perspective—and his edge
Why most software in VC is “surprisingly bad” and what to do about it
How Dawn is building Rolodex: AI-powered prep, network graphs, and event intelligence
The myth of “no data in early-stage” and why private markets still need software
What Gawande’s checklist manifesto can teach European venture

Here’s what’s covered:

02:00 | Meet Ties: From New York brain surgery to Google to Dawn
04:00 | Life Before Surgery: Growing up with 200+ hospital stays
09:30 | A Second Life: What changed post-op—and how it shaped his drive
11:00 | From Sales to AI: Ties' journey at Google and pivot into health
12:45 | Why Venture: “These people are smart… but why are they fixing slides at 2 AM?”
14:00 | Perspective as Edge: Handling pressure, breaking rules, and ignoring experts
17:30 | AI vs Experts: The false trust in tradition—and how AI challenges it
20:00 | The Speed Mismatch: We can produce info 100x faster than we can understand it
24:00 | Building Tech for Venture: The reality, the resistance, the rewards
29:00 | Buy vs Build: Why VC firms should think like operators, not tinkerers
32:00 | Rolodex Origins: The deal Dawn lost—and what it taught them
36:00 | Entity Resolution Hell: Why syncing your contacts is harder than you think
40:00 | Rolodex in Action: Deal prep, relationship mapping, board meeting alerts
44:00 | Quantifying Network Power: How Dawn tracks angels & co-investors
46:00 | Strong Opinions, Loosely Held: Why Ties changed his mind on VC’s “human core”
50:00 | The Checklist Revelation: What brain surgeons taught him about process

577 episodes

#Trading #Business #European VC #European Tech