Helena Capital aims to break barriers with its focus on female-led tech companies. Join Daniel Newman as he sits down with Sarah Antor, the powerhouse behind Helena Capital. Sarah isn’t just another VC – she’s leading the charge in a revolution that’s reshaping the future of investment.
💥 Why this is a must-watch:
- AI & Sustainability Collide: Discover how Helena Capital is backing startups that are weaving AI and decarbonization technologies into the very fabric of global supply chains
- Female Founders Take Center Stage: Sarah reveals why investing in women-led businesses isn’t just about social impact, it’s a smart financial strategy
- Davos Decoded: Get an exclusive insider’s look at the key takeaways from WEF25 and how they’ll impact the future of innovation and investment
Stay tuned for more as we continue to decode key takeaways at Davos.
Learn more at Helena Capital.
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Disclaimer: The View From Davos is for information and entertainment purposes only. Over the course of this webcast, we may talk about companies that are publicly traded and we may even reference that fact and their equity share price, but please do not take anything that we say as a recommendation about what you should do with your investment dollars. We are not investment advisors, and we ask that you not treat us as such.
Transcript:
Daniel Newman: Hey everyone. The Six Five is on the road. We are here with a View from Davos. It’s been a great week so far. It is the beginning of the week, but we expect there to be a lot of exciting coverage coming from here. Think about it, we’ve got a massive inflection point, the inauguration of President Trump, number 47, happening this week. And of course that’s going to be a big talk in the town here. And we have major trends going on in the marketplace like AI and of course sustainability is still in focus and all kinds of evolution that’s taking place with agents and whatnot. So I’m excited here because we’ve been having conversations with CEOs, presidents, business leaders, people in government, politics, and so much more. And VCPE is another place. And Sarah, you’ve been in many parts of the business, but you’re here, you’re raising capital, you’re talking tech, you’re empowering women. I don’t know if I’m going to do your whole speech for you, but welcome to the show. Thanks for spending a little time with me.
Sarah Antor: No, thanks so much. It’s absolutely a pleasure to be here. I’m super honored to be part of the magical mountain and really getting the chance… I think Davos is one of the only places on the planet where you can really mix government, private sector, philanthropic, public sector, and I’ve just come from a really interesting roundtable where we talked about something very near and dear to my heart, which is actually encompassing our investment thesis and that is trying to focus on AI enabled software to future-proof our global supply chain, but at the same time embed those decarbonization technologies that we so need.
Daniel Newman: Yeah, it’s really interesting, everything that’s going on with AI enabled software. I’ve been saying the last year, maybe even two, with what’s happened with Nvidia and infrastructure, everybody’s kind of watching the AI data center build out. And of course, we know that the consumption is still that kind of layer that everyone’s like, “How much of it’s really happening? Is software being implemented into the industries, into enterprises, into businesses? Is it being used? Is it bringing value?” And I think we’re starting to see it. We did some research recently with Agentic and we were looking at the $50 trillion labor pool, Sarah, and we’ve gotten to the point where we estimate about 20% of the tasks by white-collar workers now can utilize Agentic or some of the power of AI. And we see about a $4 trillion economic impact that could happen over the next one to two years. So it is really happening, but at the same time, I’m still seeing things locked in POCs. I’m seeing things not really getting to market and figuring out the company. So maybe that’s an interesting point I’d like to get… In your eyes, what does software enabled AI mean? Is that Microsoft Copilot? Is that Salesforce Agent…? What is it and how are you thinking about investing in it?
Sarah Antor: Sure. So I see it a little bit as two buckets, and you’ll remember last year at Davos, AI was sort of the only topic that anyone’s talking about. And I think what we’ve seen over a 12-month period is that we’ve shifted really from this focus on ChatGPT and LLMs and how the future of work is going… What are our future jobs going to look like? And the average kind of white collar worker. And now we’re seeing a fundamental shift, I think, into what are the real applications for corporate strategics and not just getting their workforce kind of using AI on a regular basis, but how are they going to apply them in their actual, again for our purposes, global supply chain technologies?
Daniel Newman: Yeah, it’s a lot. And by the way, a lot of our studies are looking at how AI is being implemented, where are those sort of friction points and those choke points happening inside of organization and what is that sort of takeoff and when is that takeoff moment going to take place? Maybe just a little opportunity to share about Helena Capital. I know you’re raising it. Is it fund one?
Sarah Antor: Yes, we’re raising fund one. We’re emerging manager-
Daniel Newman: This is a big moment. I mean, I know you ran Raymond James… By the way, long time Raymond James client. I don’t know if I get any extra credit for that.
Sarah Antor: Amazing.
Daniel Newman: I know with Germany, I think you ran them there.
Sarah Antor: So I was heading up the German offices and I was COO of the European investment banking division. I stepped back at the end of 2021 when we moved our headquarters from Munich to London. And yeah, I’ve been working on this new fund. We are hoping to raise north of $200 million. It’s a series B fund, so we’re looking really at the missing middle on a couple of different fronts. So one, as three female general partners we’re very interested in female led tech. We’re also very interested in this kind of decarbonization technology piece. Also, again, AI enabled. You see a drop-off at the series B for early stage funding. They’re a little bit too, let’s say, a lot too risky for private equity, but too big for early stage VC. And that’s where we really hope to play.
Daniel Newman: Yeah, you’ve got to always find those white spaces. It’s a great place to take off. Of course, if it was easy, there’d be a lot of people doing it.
Sarah Antor: Correct.
Daniel Newman: So you know that sort of being able to make that assessment of what has real takeoff value versus what’s going to maybe drag, because when you’re in VC, the returns you’re going to expect have to be substantially higher because you’re going to get some of them wrong. That’s just kind of how that goes. I’d love to tell everyone that, “I bet Sarah’s going to get them all right,” but we all know that there’s no VCs in the world that get it right every single time. So maybe just dig in a little bit on the decarbonization. I’ve been, now… This is my second Davos, I’m a wily veteran, but three or four years ago when I tracked what was going on at Davos, it was all about sustainability and DEI. We’re seeing a pretty significant sort of climate change… About climate change.
Sarah Antor: Absolutely.
Daniel Newman: And I don’t think it’s disinterest. I mean, I still think there is very meaningful sustainability, meaningful decarbonization efforts that can be done. AI is sort of a diametrically opposed venture right now. Without fusion, without some sort of super clean tech, we’re taking the grid over.
Sarah Antor: Sure.
Daniel Newman: I mean, how are you thinking about that? Because as far as I’m concerned, if Nvidia keeps scaling like this and the infrastructure keeps scaling like this, we’re going to run out of power. I mean that’s got to be a big topic here by the way.
Sarah Antor: I think it is a big topic and I think it’s a real key point because there is this… You mentioned it yourself. There’s this shift and whether it’s sort of a shift towards apathy in this area or we just are looking constantly at the shiny objects and not sort of remembering what we learned a couple of years ago. What I like to say, and this might sound a little bit controversial, but it’s a little bit like feeding vegetables-
Daniel Newman: It’s fun for the camera, so go for it.
Sarah Antor: Feeding vegetables to your children,. We need to sort of cover up the decarbonization technologies with some returns and future proofing these legacy industries. I think those industries are ready now. They’ve kind of done away with some of their larger R&D over the past decade, and now we’re seeing them hungry again for new technologies post-Covid. And what I hope is that the younger generations are going to embed those new technologies with decarbonization technologies.
Daniel Newman: All right, well, we’ve got just a couple of minutes left. Let’s end a little bit with the female founder things. As an investor myself, I certainly love to see how companies can span that sort of diversity horizon. Let’s be candid. As a white male founder, I can certainly say that I have a certain viewpoint of the world and I think it’s important that diversity is there. Now, you can also get into also the kaleidoscope of the opposite, where you get too far down the path of picking a certain diverse group. How are you balancing, making sure that you lead and think about…? You know what I mean?
Sarah Antor: Yeah, it’s a great question. I think one thing that was… It’s a mission for me. I’m coming out of a very two law… Well, three law, business, and technology backgrounds. So very male-dominated. I think it was very much a mission for me to focus a little bit on female founders and the further along… Less than 5% of female founders make it to series B. So this was a little bit of a mission and purpose. But what’s cool, when we started to hone in on where we were really interested, our investment thesis, because it’s such a complex… In my opinion, it’s such a complex kind of space to play in, I was very happy to find out that sort of eight of 10 of those companies were either female founded, co-founded, or had a woman on the management team leading. And I think what we’re seeing again is women have had less funding. So as we all know, less than 2% of funding worldwide goes to female founders. They’ve had to be lean, they’ve had to be mean. We’re seeing… From our perspective, from an investor’s perspective, this is a real arbitrage opportunity. We can get in it at lower valuations because they’re not valued according to-
Daniel Newman: Traditional.
Sarah Antor: To traditional. And those lower valuations allow us to get in… On a ticket for us, we can get in an eight to $10 million, whereas a male-founded team is right around $12 million for that series B in Europe. And we actually can then exit those companies at a higher valuation than the male-dominated ones because the growth is exponential over a two to three year period.
Daniel Newman: Like a lesson my father taught me when I was young about real estate, you make your money in the buy. So to some extent you’re kind of combining some real personal ambitions and personal beliefs with also being somewhat opportunistic. And I think the word you used was arbitrage, which to some extent, like I said, in every investment you realize in the end it’s the where you bought it, and then of course your ability to identify the right investments, hold them through the right periods of time. Sarah, I want to thank you so much.
Sarah Antor: No, thank you. It was really great.
Daniel Newman: It’s great to spend some time here with you in Davos.
Sarah Antor: Appreciate it.
Daniel Newman: I hope you have a great event. I hope you find all your investors and you raise that fund.
Sarah Antor: So far so good.
Daniel Newman: I hope it’s the first of many. I think the next four years, there can be a lot of debate about the political landscape, but I do think very pro-business. I think-
Sarah Antor: Absolutely.
Daniel Newman: The coffers are going to open up. I think people are feeling optimistic right now. Keep doing what you’re doing.
Sarah Antor: Appreciate it. Thanks for having me.
Daniel Newman: And thank you so much for being part of The Six Five On the Road. We are a View from Davos. It’s been great having so many of these conversat
