Innovation and Private Capital x aulium

Conversations with the people shaping private capital.Jump into the world of Private Markets.Your front-row seat into the world of private capital. We’ll be sitting down with top investors and industry-leading executives across sectors, unpacking the strategies, stories, and mindsets that drive private equity and beyond.Whether you’re an entrepreneur, dealmaker, or just curious about how capital really moves, this is your chance to listen in on the conversations shaping the future of business.

Innovation and Private Capital x aulium is a business podcast hosted by Thomas Viguier, with 67 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Thomas Viguier hosts Innovation and Private Capital x aulium, a business show with 67 episodes published.

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  Innovation and Private Capital x aulium

  AI Is Collapsing the Vulnerability Lifecycle - Marco Riccardi (QuoIntelligence)

  Aug 11, 20261h 11m

  AI has collapsed the vulnerability lifecycle — from discovery to mass exploitation — into a matter of hours, fundamentally disrupting how organizations must think about cybersecurity. What was once a 60-90 day patching window is now obsolete, and the barrier to finding critical vulnerabilities has dropped so low that anyone with access to AI can do it. Marco Riccardi breaks down how geopolitics directly drives cyber attacks, often within hours of major political statements. When Germany pledged additional weapons funding for Ukraine at the Ankara NATO summit, Russian-affiliated hacktivist groups launched coordinated DDoS attacks against German public institutions almost immediately — a predictable pattern that threat intelligence can anticipate. The conversation explores how regulations like NIS2 are forcing mid-sized European companies to step up their security posture, why sovereignty in cybersecurity is becoming a procurement requirement in specific cases, and how the industry is shifting from purely tactical threat feeds to strategic, board-ready intelligence that informs budget allocation and risk prioritization. **Key Discussion Points:** The vulnerability lifecycle has been entirely disrupted — AI enables discovery, exploitation, and mass deployment in hours, not months Geopolitical events directly trigger cyber attacks within hours; understanding governance and geopolitics is now inseparable from cyber defense ⚖️ NIS2 regulation shifts personal liability to management, making cybersecurity non-negotiable for European mid-market companies European sovereignty in cyber is growing as a procurement factor, though product quality and pricing still dominate most buying decisions Threat intelligence is evolving from technical feeds for SOC teams to strategic, accessible insights for boards and risk management Subscribe to Aulium for more conversations on innovation and private capital. About Marco Riccardi [Founder & CEO of QuoIntelligence]:Founder and CEO of QuoIntelligence, a European threat intelligence company focused on delivering finished intelligence to clients. Before founding the company, he served in a psychological warfare unit in the army, an experience that continues to shape his approach to threat analysis. He has led QuoIntelligence from its first private equity backing through a Series A round, building a team positioned to become what he describes as the intelligence provider of Europe.About Aulium:Aulium is a video show exploring Innovation and Private Capital, hosted by Thomas Viguier.Connect with us:➡ Aulium on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aulium➡ Thomas Viguier: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tviguier/

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  Innovation and Private Capital x aulium

  Companies Don't Get Sold, They Get Acquired - James Codling (Volution VC)

  Aug 4, 20261h 8m

  Companies don't get sold—they get acquired. That distinction, according to James Codling, defines the difference between a forced exit and a strategic one. For UK tech companies navigating the so-called "valley of death" between Series A and Series B, understanding who might acquire you isn't just helpful—it's essential to survival. Codling argues that the UK's venture ecosystem suffers from a structural flaw: it excels at starting companies and funding early stages, but undercapitalizes them at Series A, leaving founders stranded when growth demands more runway than their existing investors can provide. The rigid "Seed-A-B-C" funding model exacerbates the problem, forcing companies into arbitrary stage definitions rather than matching capital to actual needs. Volution's strategy targets this gap, investing in companies generating £5–20 million in revenue—past product-market fit, but before traditional Series B investors arrive. The thesis: back businesses that have identified their ideal customer and go-to-market strategy, then fuel execution. Six exits from Fund I—to buyers including Moody's, Sage, and nCino—validate the approach. Most were acquired by US partners already embedded in the company's infrastructure. The ABCDEFG funding model is "completely flawed" outside the US and creates artificial capital gaps Blockchain infrastructure and tokenized assets are driving the next wave of productivity in financial markets—Ownera's repo-market product exemplifies instant settlement at scale Government money funds 2/3 of UK early-stage VC, yet there's no coherent strategy to move companies from seed to scale AI implementation requires clean data and robust systems—"garbage in, garbage billions of times worse out" SBI's co-GP model opens APAC markets for portfolio companies; 90% of Volution's portfolio now operates in Asia Subscribe to Aulium for more conversations on innovation and private capital. About James Codling [Managing Partner at Volution VC]:Managing Partner at Volution VC, a mid-stage investor in financial-infrastructure software, where he leads investments in companies between Series A and B that have real revenue and track records. He began his career as an engineer before moving into banking during the dot-com bubble, financing 3G rollouts, and later spent years in private equity before transitioning to venture. Volution operates as a co-general-partner arrangement with SBI, one of Japan's largest financial groups, and he has built a decade-long track record backing UK fintech scale-ups.About Aulium:Aulium is a video show exploring Innovation and Private Capital, hosted by Thomas Viguier.Connect with us:➡ Aulium on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aulium➡ Thomas Viguier: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tviguier/

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  Innovation and Private Capital x aulium

  Why Electric Trucks Are Cheaper Than Diesel—Casper Norden (DECADE Energy)

  Jul 30, 20261h 2m

  Electric trucks are fundamentally superior to diesel—simpler design, zero emissions, lower maintenance, cheaper fuel—yet Europe's transition lags while China hit 50% electric truck sales by the end of 2024. The bottleneck isn't the vehicles; it's the power infrastructure needed to charge commercial fleets at scale. Casper Norden, co-founder of DECADE Energy, explains how his company solves the chicken-and-egg problem holding back fleet electrification. DECADE designs, deploys, and operates power infrastructure in logistics depots—the home base where trucks load, unload, and idle overnight. By upgrading grid connections now and coupling them with battery storage that generates revenue through grid services, DECADE enables depot owners to prepare for full electrification without waiting for perfect visibility on fleet adoption timelines. The model unlocks private infrastructure capital to finance the energy transition while making depots competitive in a market where access to power is becoming a scarce, strategic asset. **Key discussion points:** ⚡ Why depot charging beats highway charging—80% of fleet electricity consumption will happen where trucks are parked overnight, not on the road How battery storage bridges the gap—overcapacity on upgraded grid connections creates revenue through balancing services and arbitrage before trucks arrive What Europe can learn from China—once electric trucks hit cost parity with diesel on total cost of ownership, adoption accelerates from 15% to 50% in a single year The infrastructure financing challenge—Europe's reluctance to back physical manufacturing has left the continent vulnerable as Chinese OEMs prepare European production facilities Why grid access is the new competitive moat—securing power connections today creates a multi-year advantage in logistics areas where substations won't expand for years Subscribe to Aulium for more conversations on innovation and private capital.

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  Innovation and Private Capital x aulium

  Why Revenue-Based Lending Beats Banks for SaaS - Jannis Koehn (Float)

  Jul 28, 20261h 16m

  Recurring revenue may look stable on paper, but traditional banks either don't understand it or take ten months to lend against it. Float's Jannis Koehn explains why that gap exists—and how revenue-based financing is filling it for European tech companies that are too early for banks but don't want to dilute equity. The conversation unpacks the mechanics of revenue-based lending: term loans sized as a percentage of ARR, underwritten on metrics like net retention and churn, and structured as flexible credit facilities rather than lump-sum drawdowns. Koehn contrasts this with venture debt (later-stage, warrant-heavy, slower) and traditional bank loans (cheap but restrictive, often blocked by Basel III capital requirements for loss-making businesses). He also reveals how Float tokenized its mezzanine tranche on-chain to solve a growth constraint when equity markets dried up in 2023. Key discussion points: Why banks can't finance recurring-revenue businesses: regulatory capital requirements make loss-making companies prohibitively expensive to underwrite, even when cash flows are predictable Revenue quality trumps revenue size: Float assesses net dollar retention, customer concentration, churn, and CAC payback to size credit lines at 30–40% of ARR ⚖️ The equity vs. debt trade-off: equity makes sense for winner-takes-all markets with huge TAMs; debt suits capital-efficient businesses where founders want to retain control and avoid liquidation preferences Tokenized private debt as a capital solution: Float issued blockchain-based mezzanine notes through a Swiss bank to reduce its equity requirement from 18% to 5% per loan When Float says no: businesses burning more than 50% of MRR per month are "still an equity case," regardless of product quality Subscribe to Aulium for more conversations on innovation and private capital. About Jannis Koehn [co-Founder of FLOAT]:Co-founder of FLOAT, a company that provides revenue-based financing to European software businesses as an alternative to traditional bank loans and equity raises. Before founding FLOAT, he ran a different kind of company, an experience that gave him firsthand insight into how banks fund growing software companies. He built FLOAT with a co-founder and has since scaled the business to fund companies across Europe, competing with players like Capchase and re:cap in a market where non-dilutive capital has grown from a niche idea into a category worth billions.About Aulium:Aulium is a video show exploring Innovation and Private Capital, hosted by Thomas Viguier.Connect with us:➡ Aulium on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aulium➡ Thomas Viguier: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tviguier/

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  Innovation and Private Capital x aulium

  Why 80% of Branded Swag Gets Thrown Away - Conor McKenna (GoSwag)

  Jul 24, 202654 min

  Most corporate swag ends up in the bin or as pajamas — over 80% of branded gifts are thrown away or given away within months. Conor McKenna and his co-founder built Go Swag to fix that staggering waste by flipping the merchandising model on its head: premium quality, global logistics, and a tech layer that turns brand chaos into seamless gifting at scale. The conversation traces Go Swag's journey from a 180-pound bootstrap in a Glasgow co-working cupboard to powering swag for Netflix, Amazon, Spotify, and ElevenLabs. McKenna explains how fragmented suppliers, procurement bottlenecks, and terrible recipient experiences created a trillion-dollar sleeping giant that tech founders ignored because it felt unglamorous. Go Swag's answer: white-glove service powered by software, warehouses in three regions, and a design team that refuses stress balls. The company recently raised $5 million, doubled headcount projections, and launched an AI tool called Sonny to recommend the right product for the right moment — no catalogue overwhelm, no two-foot logos turning employees into billboards. **Key Discussion Points:** Premium doesn't scale — unless software does the heavy lifting across customs, taxes, branding, and global fulfilment Early traction meant big companies bending procurement rules to pay a tiny startup because the industry couldn't match the service AI is refining thousands of SKUs and branding methods into tight recommendations in seconds, not years of experience Being Scottish-founded in a small economy forced immediate global expansion — a defensive advantage through volatility The "stress ball rule": Go Swag turns away requests for cheap plastic tat and pushes clients toward fewer, better, useful items Subscribe to Aulium for more conversations on innovation and private capital. About Conor McKenna [CEO and co-founder of GoSwag]:Co-founder and CEO of GoSwag, a corporate gifting platform built from Glasgow that uses AI to manage sizing, product selection, and fulfilment for enterprise clients. Before starting GoSwag, he spent about a decade building software with his co-founder before walking into the corporate gifting industry as an outsider. He bootstrapped the company for years, growing it to a 30-person team, before raising outside funding and launching a major expansion into the US market.About Aulium:Aulium is a video show exploring Innovation and Private Capital, hosted by Thomas Viguier.Connect with us:➡ Aulium on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aulium➡ Thomas Viguier: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tviguier/

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