Dinika Mahtani
Partner, Cherry Ventures
10 Jun 2026Live from Cherry Ventures Summit
Filip Dames & Dinika Mahtani (Cherry Ventures): Why Now for Europe
Cherry Ventures' Filip Dames and Dinika Mahtani join mid-AGM to explain why now is Europe's moment: global founder ambition, top engineering talent, and a closing capital gap (with growth-stage funding still lagging). They describe backing founders with a unique edge and unfettered ambition, from repeat entrepreneurs to young university research teams, and how they separate real enterprise signal from innovation-budget experiments while weighing durability. They note rising Series A bars (companies approaching $10M revenue in year one) and argue Europe must build in sovereignty, defense, energy and AI infrastructure this decade, citing portfolio companies like Zaro and their first defense investment.
Varun Anand (Clay): Audiences & Go-To-Market Engineering
Clay co-founder Varun Anand previews Clay's new 'audiences' concept: a dynamic place combining first-party data with world signals, where agents take autonomous actions and humans build creative workflows, with examples like reactivating closed-lost accounts. He argues the best go-to-market teams are importing engineering practices such as CI/CD, observability and the 'GTM engineer' role, and points to SDR/BDR as among the fastest-growing LinkedIn job categories. He also outlines Clay's roadmap (agent-based architecture beyond the spreadsheet, MCP access for reps and marketers) and its culture of psychological safety paired with high performance.
Break / Interlude
After Varun's segment the hosts tease the next guest (Jill Ellis) and cut to a break. The remainder of Part 1 is hold music and interstitials with no further discussion.