Midas List Europe Looks Oddly Familiar | A FoF Clocks A 11x TVPI | $4 Million For Democratizing Philanthropy

By Becca Szkutak

With reporting from Alex Konrad and Kenrick Cai

Howdy! Welcome to Midas Touch. I’m Becca Szkutak and I’m joined by senior editor Alex Konrad and senior reporter Kenrick Cai.

In this edition Alex takes an analytical eye to the recently published Midas List Europe and focuses on how there aren’t many new honorees this year (and why that won’t be the case for future lists), I dive into a startup that democratize philanthropic giving through tech, we look at performance numbers from Franklin Park, an under-the-radar fund of funds, that is hitting it out of the park and Kenrick chats with a VC firm that makes company building feel like a video game. Let’s dive in.

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December 11, 2021

Elevator Pitch



	While there were many familiar faces on this year's Midas List Europe, the tides are set to change in a few years. LocalGlobe, Courtesy of Rahul Mehta, Sequoia, Courtesy of Jan Hammer, Scanderbeg Sauer

Just a few months after the international Midas List for 2021 presented 33 fresh faces and a new No. 1, our annual Midas List Europe launched on Thursday with a more familiar feel. Index Ventures’ Jan Hammer was at the top for the fourth year in a row. And while Sequoia’s Luciana Lixandru made a big jump up to No. 2 due to UiPath’s IPO, only two true newcomers cracked our list of the top venture capitalists in Europe, Israel and the Middle East, along with three returnees who previously fell off.

As in past years, Hammer’s firm Index and Lixandru’s former firm Accel dominated, with four list members and three, respectively (and more if you count former employees). Compared to the relative chaos of the international list, the Midas List Europe feels concentrated at the top. But is that borne out by the data? And will it change? Midas Touch decided to dive in.

Before attempting to answer, it’s important to recalibrate the two lists. What would happen if the international Midas List were only 25 names, too? A same-sized international Midas List this past April would have produced six newcomers and six returnees, including a list No. 1, who wouldn’t have been on the previous year’s list at all, Alfred Lin. High-profile investors Peter Thiel, Reid Hoffman, Joe Lonsdale and Jeremy Liew would be returnees, too. Chris Dixon, Satish Dharmaraj and Jan Hammer, the Midas List Europe’s top-ranked investor, would all be newcomers...

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Deal Dive



	Philanthropi provides tech to help individuals easily create their own philanthropic foundations. Philanthropi.

Philanthropy is big business in the U.S. Americans — including U.S.-based foundations, corporations and individuals — gave more than $471 billion to philanthropic causes in 2020. Who gives the most? Corporations tout charitable projects and billionaires make headlines for their large donations, but 80% of monetary donations are made by everyday people. Yet the philanthropic industry isn’t designed for this dynamic. Dr. Keith Leaphart knows this well, from both his years working on the board of former business tycoon Gerry Lenfest’s foundation and his frustrating ordeal setting up a small foundation in his mother’s name after her death. And he has a pretty good idea why.

“When I looked at my relationship with nonprofits — I’ve met with thousands of them — they never wanted to talk with Keith Leaphart the entrepreneur, or Keith Leaphart, the business owner,” Leaphart tells Midas Touch. “They always wanted to talk to Keith Leaphart, the chair of the foundation. They are designed to go after the largest dollar they can get, so they can only go after the smallest piece of the pie.”

To better connect charities with individual donors and vice versa, Leaphart founded Philanthropi — the “i” representing the impact individuals have in philanthropy — in 2018 to provide better infrastructure for moderate income donors while making it easier for causes to find them. The B2B2C company has garnered 14 corporate customers since its 2019 launch and is now ready to scale with a new round of funding...

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Midas List Europe Looks Oddly Familiar | A FoF Clocks A 11x TVPI | $4 Million For Democratizing Philanthropy

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