Elena Lavezzi
CEO of ZNEXT and LP @ProjectEurope_
1 Apr 2026KitKat Heist, Data Centres In Space, Mistral Raise $830M, UK Chips
Elena Lavezzi on Zed Next's Venture Builder + M&A Model
Elena Lavezzi recounts 15 years as an operator: early Uber scaling Europe from ~100 to 15,000 people, go-to-market roles at Circle (USDC), and building Revolut's South Europe region across eight markets. She explains her firm's hybrid model — co-founding companies and running operations for the first 12 months, plus majority-stake M&A that keeps existing leadership teams — backed by 160-year-old Italian educational publisher Zanichelli, targeting learning tech, future of work and well-being. The segment ends mid-discussion of the ~$10 trillion learning market thesis.
Arda on edtech, upskilling & well-being investing
Continuing his interview, guest Arda explains the technologies his firm looks for: tools that expand human potential, particularly edtech, learning tech and future-of-work products for upskilling, onboarding and daily corporate training. He adds that they also watch the well-being industry, though they stay out of healthcare, medtech and biotech, focusing instead on personal knowledge, education and self-improvement.
Arda on Revolut: Nick, data culture & global growth
Asked about his time at Revolut, Arda says he met the best talent of his career there and describes founder Nick as incredibly driven, with a vision strong enough to work through fintech regulation. He recalls an obsession with data across every department, a customer-first product approach inspired by gaming rather than traditional finance, and local teams empowered to set their own market strategies. The hosts thank him and close the interview.
Softer's AI-native platform launch with Mariam
Mariam, co-founder and CEO of Softer, joins just after launching the company's biggest update, making Softer an AI-native platform where business users type a prompt and get working full-stack business apps like internal portals, CRMs and inventory tools. She argues it is less a pivot than the same five-year-old vision pursued with better means, and pushes back on the idea that SaaS is dying, noting 90% of the world's companies are non-technical and still on pen and paper. She points listeners to the freshly updated website, where she says an app can be built and deployed within five minutes.