Dawn Capital’s Samillah Bankiya breaks down the state of the euroventure market

Dawn Capital’s newest partner, Samillah Bankiya, made a fair stop this week to talk about the biggest misconceptions Americans have about the European landscape and the world of European startups.

Dawn Capital is a British marquee company with over $2 billion with AUM, 34 exits and 11 unicorns. The portfolio names include AI Companies Collibra and Dataiku. It focuses on early stage companies, supporting from seed to Series C. Currently, we are investing from Fund V of $620 million.

Bankiya, meanwhile, is one of the few black female venture partners in Europe. Her investments in the company include AI companies Qogita and Marketplace Fonoa.

She spoke to us about her growing up in an entrepreneurial family and her desire to learn new things.

“The venture lends it out very well,” she said. “So, in a way, yes, like in the last 20 years, I wanted to be a kind of investor.”

She said that the European landscape has been exciting for a while, and in fact, some of the hottest startups, especially in AI and fintech, came from the continent (think Lovable and Klarna). What has changed is the interests that American investors have had in Europe’s countries, and the change she says the pandemic has made a big contribution.

However, she acknowledged that when it comes to placing European founder IPO in her country, there is something to do with the landscape. In fact, one of the greatest advantages of European landscapes is sometimes its biggest determinant.

“Europe is a massive, isolated bunch of exchanges,” she said. “It probably creates an imbalance in which a solution is needed.”

The other part is regulation, something that Europe is known to be famous.

Before the conversation was over, we had to talk about Europe’s biggest stereotype: extended holiday stereotypes, or “Euro Summer,” which touches on the idea of ​​taking a long break in the summer, unlike our American counterparts. Bankiya says that he hopes that the stereotype will end and everyone can feel at ease. There is a lot of work being done.

“It’s a bit of a sound, but again, we’ll see evidence of the outcome from ourselves,” she said. “We’re going to see this interesting pattern of winning globally, just as this interesting European company is always winning.”