My Big Idea: trade infrastructure VC Verb Ventures

Hi Alex! What's your elevator pitch?

Verb Ventures was founded in 2023, with one simple belief: global trade still runs on outdated infrastructure — and the next generation of founders will rebuild it. We back the teams modernising how goods, parts, and services move through the world’s most complex supply chains, bringing transparency, resilience, be they aviation parts, construction equipment, manufacturing supply chains, or even industrial salvage.

Working from both London and Luxembourg, we've already partnered with more than 10 companies reshaping how global trade actually works. We're analytical by nature, operational by experience, and back founders who are bold enough to reengineer how the real economy works.

What does the market need it?

Everyone wants to get in on the ground floor of the next State of the Art AI breakthrough or deep tech unicorn. But this fails to take into account the fact that many key sectors of the global economy remain painfully analogue. So many markets still rely on spreadsheets, PDFs, and middlemen to get things done.

Founders building in supply chains, procurement, or industrial markets have to deal with longer sales cycles, harder product-market fit, integration with legacy systems, regulatory complexity, and operational intensity. They need investors who've actually lived in these markets and understand why B2B is a different beast entirely.

Verb exists to give these founders specialist knowledge, real understanding, and hands-on operational support. These industries deserve investors who understand their plumbing.

Where is the business today? ‍

We're managing two funds with 13 remarkable portfolio companies transforming how global B2B trade works. Fund II closed at €25 million this year, and we're actively deploying into another 10 to 15 companies over the next few years. The pipeline is strong, the thesis is proving out, and honestly, we're just getting started.‍

What made you think there was money in this?‍

I started in VC almost a decade ago when everyone was obsessed with SaaS, big data, and Uberization. But coming from an operational background, I kept seeing something else: massive B2B industries running entirely on emails, spreadsheets, and personal relationships. No transparency, no infrastructure, just intermediaries.‍‍

The insight was simple. These industries won't adopt a full SaaS suite, for various reasons. They’re too complex, too entrenched. But they will absolutely embrace platforms that bring them more business. That's where the money was: digital infrastructure that creates liquidity, not nice-to-have productivity tools.

My conviction came from seeing it up close. I was fortunate enough to see rise and falls of companies in different setups and in different countries Machinio’s acquisition by Liquidity Services showed how powerful platforms can be in fragmented markets, while eMoov reminded me that timing matters. And in these deals, I was meeting stakeholders you’d never expect: like Ritchie Bros, the world’s largest auctioneer, who was suddenly interested in investing in digital marketplaces. Their interest said more than any pitch deck.

Then COVID hit, and suddenly those "stable" global supply chains simply broke. New trade routes appeared overnight, old assumptions broke, and industries that were up until then "not ready" for digital platforms suddenly had no choice. The acceleration has only continued. Today, with AI enabling real-time data and transparency, the momentum is faster than ever.

There is very little competition at our level of focus, thanks to our specialisation. There’s maybe a handful of firms worldwide who dedicate an entire fund to this infrastructure. Most thinks it’s too hard; many think it’s too boring; that’s why we’re here.

What's your biggest strength?

I'm an entrepreneur first, investor second. I built this fund the way founders build companies – obsessively. I focused on solving one specific problem: the lack of digital infrastructure in complex B2B markets.

My operational background means I see how value actually moves in these industries, not just how it looks in a pitch deck. That gives me the conviction to invest early, before it's obvious, and the empathy to support founders through the messy reality of hard markets. I'll challenge your thinking, but I'm standing next to you while we figure it out.

What is the secret to making the business work?

If you look at a fund as a business, it has two engines: raising capital and backing the best entrepreneurs. Most firms struggle with one or the other; either they can't attract the right investors, or they deploy too slowly. The overwhelming hurdle for most is fundraising. It's essentially a decade-long enterprise sale with limited liquidity. You're asking people to lock up capital for ten years and trust you completely. That's an incredibly hard pitch.

For an emerging manager, the challenge is doing both at once. You need to build a portfolio while building your investor base. There's no shortcut. You go through hundreds of conversations, hear endless no’s, face constant doubts, and push through painfully slow progress. There's a quote I like: "If you get tired, learn to rest, not to quit."

Perseverance isn't just a value for us, it's the operating system. Our team's secret is simple: we don't roll over. We move forward, especially when it's difficult. That mindset extends to how we support founders too. We don't abandon portfolio companies when things get hard. We stay close, stay committed, and keep pushing alongside them no matter what.

That's why we don't have portfolio orphans, and today we have a zero percent write-off rate. Not because we're lucky, but because we refuse to give up on the companies we back.

How do you market the company?

First, the disclaimer: as a regulated fund, I have to say this isn't investment advice or a recommendation to invest. Marketing a fund is a heavily regulated process, and anyone looking to raise capital needs proper licensing or professional advice in their jurisdiction.

That said, there are two audiences for any fund. First, entrepreneurs. I believe it's always a seller's market. In other words, the best founders choose their investors, regardless of market conditions, not the other way around. That means we need to be crystal clear about the value we bring, and back it with real examples and testimony, not just slogans.

The story of Verb is told by the companies we've backed and the founders who'll vouch for us.

Second, investors. LPs look for three core competencies: can you find and invest in the best companies, can you support and nurture your portfolio, and can you exit profitably. Not all exits are equal, so that last one matters. If you can demonstrate those three clearly, then there's more to discuss. But without them, you don't have a business.

What funding do you have? Is it enough?

We have just over €30 million in assets under management across two funds. And frankly, it's never enough. There are far too many exceptional opportunities we'd love to back but have to pass on.

That's the sad reality of venture capital. You're always choosing between great companies, and capital is the constraint. It keeps us disciplined, but it also means we're always hungry.

Tell us about the business model

At its core, a venture fund is a capital partnership. A group of investors—limited partners, or LPs—commit money to the fund for a fixed period, usually ten years, and the fund's job is to invest that money into early-stage companies, help them grow, and return more capital than it received.

The economics are simple on paper. The fund earns a management fee to run operations—the team, sourcing, analysis, governance—usually around two percent of assets under management. And it earns a performance fee, called carry, on the profits it generates for investors, typically twenty percent of the upside. If the fund doesn't create value, there is no upside. The model rewards performance.

The cash cycle is long. You invest in years one to three, build in years two to seven, and exits often come in years six to ten. That's why discipline matters—you don't get monthly P&L feedback. You get one score close to the end.

From a business perspective, a fund isn't a trading strategy, it's a long-term partnership with delayed liquidity. You're asking people to join you for a decade, through market cycles, failures, surprises, and hopefully a few great outcomes that cover the entire portfolio.

In short: a venture fund makes money by backing great companies early, helping them scale, and sharing in the upside when they succeed.

What were you doing before?

I'm a career VC. I started as an analyst learning from the bottom up, moved into investment roles at various firms, and then built a corporate venture arm that did quite well. So I've seen the industry from every angle: from being the analyst in the trenches to running a strategic investment platform, and now building my own fund. This is the work I've always been doing, just now with full conviction behind a specific thesis.

What is the future vision?

Our vision is to modernise the infrastructure of global trade.

Marketplaces are a fundamental and necessary part of that. They create transparency, liquidity, and a common source of trust in industries that sorely need it. But they're not the whole story. We're equally focused on the platforms, workflow tools, and intelligent systems that digitise how trade actually happens: sourcing, procurement, logistics, risk, financing.

What makes this moment exciting is what comes after. When these systems standardise workflows and transactions, they generate unique, new data that you couldn’t model from the outside. That's the real unlock for agentic AI in B2B. Systems will evolve from facilitating decisions to making them: routing supply, negotiating terms, anticipating risk, optimizing the entire chain.

So the future of Verb is straightforward. Back the digital infrastructure that powers global trade today, and help it become the intelligent infrastructure that runs it tomorrow. And if we do our job right, we might even create a few new verbs along the way.