Gideon Valkin, previously associated with Monzo, ClearScore, and Entrée Capital, has successfully launched a $12 million fintech venture fund, Adrena Ventures, and has made his inaugural investment in Nustom, an AI startup co-founded by Jonas Templestein, Monzo’s former CTO.
Valkin likens his vision for the European tech landscape to the PayPal Mafia, suggesting that a similar phenomenon is emerging in Europe today. “Europe’s time has arrived,” he asserts. “A new power network of founding teams has emerged from the continent’s first generation of industry-defining companies. These teams are harnessing their experiences to tackle tomorrow’s most critical challenges in fintech, AI, climate tech, and enterprise software. They need investors who not only understand these challenges but also believe in their ambitious visions and possess the expertise to support them.”
Data from Dealroom indicates that Europe is home to 10 fintech unicorns, which have collectively incubated 145 new startups that have attracted approximately $5 billion in funding.
Valkin has a solid track record as both an angel investor and in a formal investment role at Entrée Capital, where he supported various ventures, including e-commerce startup Packfleet, rewards credit card company Yonder, AI-based customer operations agent Gradient Labs, and a cross-border B2B payments network called Moment.
The fund’s initial investment in Nustom exemplifies Valkin’s investment philosophy. Nustom was co-founded by Templestein and Oliver Beattie, who previously served as Monzo’s VP of architecture and left the bank in 2021 after six years. Since then, Beattie has held roles at fintech companies such as Imprint and Pleo.
Joining Nustom is Maria Campbell, a former head of people at Monzo and most recently COO of challenger bank Griffin. The founding team also includes engineering leads Fred Jonsson, a former staff engineer at Monzo, and Eugenio Marchiori, formerly of Google.
Nustom aims to develop SaaS products leveraging foundational models created by industry leaders like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Mistral.