Quite often, the rumor has it that VCs don’t totally get founders. This is apparently more accentuated in CEE, where some VC people have never funded a startup and don’t truly understand the journey.
But do founders get VCs? For a special series of articles, we wanted to flip the script and challenge founders to step into the shoes of a VC investor. Like in a TV show, we give them another life – that of a VC investor – for like one hour while they answer our questions.
This week, we’re sharing the results of this experiment with Emil Muthu, a Romanian serial tech entrepreneur who, according to his LinkedIn, is now on his ninth venture, Neurony.
(Spoiler – looks like he’s quite serios about BioTech.)
Neurony is a software development company specializing in complex web solutions. They are behind several Romanian startups you might know:
- Yarooms: a workspace management solution for hybrid work,
- ialoc: an online restaurant booking platform, and
- Jobful: a gamified talent recruitment platform.
Thanks to the development team of Neurony, these startups have launched products that have grown and secured funding rounds.
The most recent product launched by Muthu and his team is a platform that uses artificial intelligence to automate the invoice approval process, whose name translates from Romanian to Invoice Approval (Aprobare-facturi.ro).
Don’t forget to also check last week’s edition featuring Hubert Palán, founder and CEO of Productboard.
“Founders with deep technical expertise and the entrepreneurial grit to navigate complex regulatory and market environments would be prioritized.”
If you were handed a VC fund today, what would your investment thesis be? (e.g., specific industries, stages, or types of founders you’d focus on)
If I were to establish an investment thesis as a venture capitalist, my focus would center on deep technology, AI and energy transition.
For DeepTech, the key areas of interest would include synthetic biology and CRISPR (is a groundbreaking genetic editing technology that allows scientists to precisely modify DNA sequences in living organisms). For AI, I would focus on industrial automation as there is a potential to modernize manufacturing, logistics, and energy production. For energy transition, I’d go for technologies such as carbon capture, battery innovation, and the electrification of transportation, essential to meeting global climate goals.
From an operational perspective, I would concentrate on early-stage investments, particularly in Seed to Series A funding rounds, as these stages often face a gap in capital. Founders with deep technical expertise and the entrepreneurial grit to navigate complex regulatory and market environments, particularly in sectors like biotech and energy, would be prioritized. These qualities are critical to overcoming the structural and operational hurdles that characterize cutting-edge industries.
What’s one startup idea or sector you’ve always believed in but never had the resources to explore? Would you fund it if you were a VC?
One idea I have always found compelling is cell-free synthetic biology, a breakthrough approach in biotechnology that could fundamentally reshape how biological materials are produced. Traditional biotechnology relies on living organisms, such as bacteria or yeast, to manufacture proteins, enzymes, and other critical compounds. While effective, this method is inherently inefficient, resource-intensive, and difficult to control. By contrast, cell-free synthetic biology operates outside the constraints of living cells, enabling faster, more precise, and highly scalable production processes.
In manufacturing, it could allow for the production of biofuels, specialty chemicals, and pharmaceuticals without the inefficiencies associated with maintaining live organisms. It also opens the door to solutions in extreme or remote environments. Consider space exploration, astronauts could one day synthesize medicines or biological materials on-demand, without needing to store fragile, perishable supplies. On Earth, cell-free systems could serve as powerful educational tools, offering affordable and accessible biotech kits that bring cutting-edge science to students, researchers, and innovators in underserved regions.
“I would seriously consider a marketplace for human biological data.”
What’s the craziest or most unconventional idea you’d back?
I would seriously consider a marketplace for human biological data, where individuals could securely sell their genomic, microbiome, and health information to research institutions or biotech companies. Such a platform should rely on advanced technologies like blockchain to ensure privacy, transparency, and control over how the data is used. This would represent a significant shift in how biological data is handled, moving ownership from corporations and institutions directly to individuals.
The concept is not without its challenges. Privacy concerns would need to be addressed with rigorous safeguards to ensure that data is not misused, and managing consent would be complex in practice. If successful, however, the implications could be transformative. A marketplace of this kind would accelerate drug discovery by providing researchers with access to large, diverse datasets that are critical for developing new treatments.
Imagine you could create your dream portfolio as a VC. Which three startups—anywhere in the world—would you include and why?
If I were building a dream investment portfolio, I would include companies that have the potential to reshape industries and create entirely new markets. SpaceX, though not an early-stage startup, exemplifies transformative innovation in space exploration and logistics. Its Starship program has implications far beyond launching satellites or transporting humans to Mars. It could redefine global supply chains, enable space-based solar power, and open the door to asteroid mining for rare materials. Recursion Pharmaceuticals would also make the cut. This company leverages artificial intelligence to accelerate the drug discovery process, a notoriously slow and costly undertaking. By combining biology and data science, Recursion is demonstrating how automation and machine learning can dramatically reduce the time and expense required to identify and develop new treatments.
If a founder pitched to you with an idea similar to your own business, what would you look for to decide whether to invest?
If pitched an idea similar to my own, my evaluation would focus on execution and differentiation. Equally important is the founder’s resilience. Startups inevitably encounter setbacks, and a founder’s ability to handle failure, adapt to feedback, and navigate unforeseen challenges often determines the venture’s ultimate success. While the product itself is important, I would also pay close attention to the go-to-market strategy. Many strong ideas fail not because of technical flaws but because of poor execution in reaching customers. A brilliant innovation is only as impactful as its ability to find adoption in the marketplace.
Which industries or niches in CEE, in your opinion, are currently overlooked but deserve more investment?
The Central and Eastern European region has exceptional technical talent, yet several promising sectors remain overlooked and underfunded. In cybersecurity, for instance, countries like Poland and Romania produce world-class developers but lack globally dominant firms in the field. With the rise of digital threats, investing in AI-driven tools for threat detection and prevention could unlock substantial potential in the region.
Another untapped opportunity lies in gaming and immersive platforms. Central and Eastern Europe already boasts an established gaming ecosystem, exemplified by companies like Poland’s CD Projekt Red, the developer of global hits such as The Witcher series and Cyberpunk 2077. Romania, too, has made significant contributions to the industry, serving as a development hub for major international studios like Ubisoft, which operates one of its largest offices in Bucharest. Local Romanian companies such as Amber Studio, a growing game development and outsourcing firm, also demonstrate the region’s technical and creative capabilities.
Are there regional startups or founders you admire that you would have loved to back if you were a VC? Why?
Druid, a Romanian startup specialising in conversational AI, stands out as an example of how technical innovation from Central and Eastern Europe can achieve global impact. The company has developed advanced chatbot and virtual assistant technology to help businesses automate customer interactions and internal workflows. Druid showcases Romania’s potential to produce world-class business-to-business software solutions while staying rooted in local talent and innovation. Poland’s Brainly, an education technology platform, has shown the global potential of leveraging user-generated content. By helping students worldwide connect and share knowledge, Brainly highlights how regional talent can develop platforms that scale internationally.
“I would advocate for a shift toward long-term patient capital, particularly in industries like biotech and energy.”
What’s one thing you’d do differently as a VC to support founders better?
I would place a strong emphasis on founder education and ecosystem development. Many great founders fail not because their ideas lack merit but because they lack access to practical guidance on critical skills like fundraising, achieving product-market fit, and scaling their businesses. Also, I would advocate for a shift toward long-term patient capital, particularly in industries like biotech and energy, where timelines for returns often exceed the typical seven-year horizon of most VC funds. Structuring funds with 10- to 15-year timelines would allow for sustained support and better alignment with the realities of building transformative companies in complex sectors.
