Serial fintech founder (NoviCap , Horizon65). Currently building deeptech.
Joined July 2008
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Nicolas Overloop retweeted
‘failed state’ Belgians watching the French torch their place for a fourth century in a row.
#BlocusLycées
Nicolas Overloop retweeted
Every once in a while I am reminded that because of how unintuitive a decoupling strategy is very few people have actually thought past the first order effects and have had a chance to appreciate why there are profound benefits to the broader West beyond the obvious fortification of American hegemony.
Chinese hyper-competition in industrial exports has done more collective damage to the European manufacturing base than a decade of WW2 bombing runs and therefore the reshoring of supply chains has the potential to unlock the mother of all investment booms that would drive unprecedented job opportunities for radically disenchanted youth across the continent.
But this only works if there is certainty that Chinese supply will not be brought back to compete at some later date.
What we are seeing now is the slow but certain sales pitch to European leaders “look at Volkswagen”, “enjoy the cold winter”, “worry about Putin” …. Or “take some pain with the hegemon there to buffer you from the worst of it with full access to American capital markets and swaplines for the mother of all capital cycles that needs to come after we excise China from western markets”
We are still early.
You don’t fix four decades of retardation overnight and you don’t do so linearly.
🫡
Nicolas Overloop retweeted
DEMAND DESTRUCTION: Ineos will idle three of its chemical plants in northern England due to high energy costs🇬🇧 ⚠️
“With gas prices now 12 times the level in the US and eight times that of China, we just cannot compete,” said Chairman Ratcliffe
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Nicolas Overloop retweeted
Palmer Luckey, founder of Anduril, on why America needs to protect its innovations from China 🇺🇸🇨🇳
“We cannot beat China with 500 million Americans. It will never happen. Our only hope for some kind of systematic advantage against China is in innovation.
Patents are Chinese instruction manuals. You’re taking your most valuable stuff. The Founders never predicted a world where you would have a globalized economy, where the entire patent office could be downloaded every single morning and then ripped off and used to fight a war against you.
Western companies think that you can trade temporary exclusivity on an idea in exchange for eventually entering the public domain.
All that really means in practice is that for 20 years, somebody can rip it off right away, and Western companies can only rip it off after 20 years. Then you repeat this cycle over and over again for every single generation, and it’s killing us.
We need to really fundamentally revisit the patent system.
I think, for example, a lot of things around artificial intelligence are of national-security importance. They should be allowed to get a patent, and it should absolutely not be disclosed publicly.”
Nicolas Overloop retweeted
"Germany has the least-funded pension system of any major advanced economy...German household wealth sits mostly in deposits."
apollo.com/wealth/insights-n…
Nicolas Overloop retweeted
Must read - Real reason why Fedorov was fired is that he worked with huge procurement reform
Менше двох тижнів тому я з побратимом були остатончо переведені з бойового ударно-розвідувального підрозділу в Міністерство Оборони.
Робити реформу якості. Державного гарантування якості.
В травні заступник міністра оборони @mstyslavbanik почав хантити мене очолити цю реформу.
Вперше виїхав з ним на каву в Запоріжжя з позицій наших екіпажів.
Згодом я таки погодився і влився в команду "реформи закупівель" тільки тому, що зрозумів, що це справді вікно можливостей для змін в найскладнішому та найкорупційнішому міністерстві і що ці люди тут «не про гроші», а про цінності і бажання змінити систему.
І пропрацювавши з командою Мстислава та Михайла півтора місяці - я ще більше зараз в цьому впевнений.
Десь близько місяця, ще не будучи переведеними, за сприяння командирів моєї попередньої в\ч, ми в МОУ займались підготовчими етапами до запуску реформи.
Реформа мала полягати в трансформації існуючого ГУ ДГЯ (орган в структурі МО чисельністю в 1000+ осіб переважно військових, переважно полковників-підполковників)) в цивільну агенцію Q1 з військовими посадами і ринковими зарплатами та data-driven підходами, зниженням людського фактору при перевірках та вцілому у відході від радянської спадщини «воєнпредів», яка особливо досі нікуди не поділась.
З аналізом та аудитом процесів та функцій в існуючій структурі, які з самого початку наражались на нормальний такий спротив справжніх (переважно правда паркетних) полковників. З зляганням керівників «на больнічку», саботажем та блокуванням.
Але ми працювали. Нормативка, концепція, аудит штатної структури, бюджетування, старт розробки ризик-орієнтованої моделі оцінки контрактів та постачальників, пошук людей в core team з цивільного сектору для заведення іх в структуру МО та проектних офісів та переведенням-прикомандируванням фахівців з військ.
Активно-реактивний хантінг дата-аналітиків, проджектів-напрямківців, аудиторів, ризик-менеджерів, айтішних продакт-овнерів, юристів, фінансистів, бухгалтерів.
Когось завели-перевели, когось не встигли.
Робота з міжнародниками та антикором.
Пошук міжнародного фінансування реформи (знайшлось і дуже швидко, бо партнери у реформі були зацікавлені на 101%).
У тому числі було ініційовано початок вибіркового контролю якості дронів, бо це зараз ніяк не перевіряється, попри те шо ми на них тратимо на це ледь не третину оборонного бюджету. І при цьому в кожній бригаді є "паяльні" та майстерні, щоб допилювати закуплені БпЛА.
Я це до чого.
Ми то переведемось якось з МО в бойовий підрозділ, різати логістику і палить окупантів, ми це вмієм робити непогано.
Але впевнений, що вікно можливостей з докорінними реформами в МО сьогодні було свідомо закрите. Розходимось)
p.s.Враховуючи, що «реформа якості» була лише частиною «реформ закупівель» - я був на десятках нарад та синків де за день ламались мільярдні схеми. Чиїсь схеми, які там існували подекуди ще з часів Кузьмука)
p.s.s. Дякую крутій невеликій команді, які цілодобово тягнули усе це на собі.
Це було недовго, але круто і багато чого вдалось зробити.
Nicolas Overloop retweeted
There is absolutely NO Boom in Europe Defence Tech fundraising - there is only boom investing in Helsing+Quantum Systems+Stark - as these 3 companies alone have 50%+ from ALL fundraising in the last few years!
By Dealroom info - real defence tech companies fundraised ca $1B in 2024, ca 2.5B in 2025 in Europe. So German megarounds have taken even ca 60% from it.
And let's be super clear - we are facing an absolutely opposite situation. Real Defence Tech with a lethal component, having very difficulty fundraising A & B rounds. Especially if they are from Ukraine. As far as I can count, all Ukraine's defence tech companies have fundraised ca $150M in the last few years. That is roughly what Quantum raised in a single round extension.
There are a lot of empty talks, but in reality, Europe capital have been moving way too slowly. So if you have heard anyone talking about boom - then ask them real numbers - reality is very different.
Nicolas Overloop retweeted
The EU chose to prioritize decarbonization without ensuring competitive industrial conditions for energy-intensive sectors long ago, and now it must face the consequences of its strategy. Electricity prices remain structurally higher than in the US, Gulf states, China & India.
👇
BREAKING EU plans 15% tax on aluminium scrap exports in new fight over raw materials . believed to be first time that the bloc has put charges on exports as.ft.com/r/9b5bf805-eeb3-42… via @financialtimes
Nicolas Overloop retweeted
Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale just went on CNBC and said something that is hard to argue with, "It's crazy to think he's not going to win" (Save this).
@JTLonsdale is talking about Elon Musk, SpaceX and the single most consequential infrastructure race happening in the world right now.
His core argument is that, Musk is the best hardware builder in the world at exactly the moment when trillions of dollars are flowing into hardware.
SpaceX's S-1 IPO filing which dropped last month revealed the company spent approximately $20 billion on its AI division in 2025 alone, representing roughly 60% of total capital expenditure.
The filing claims SpaceX has identified the largest actionable total addressable market in human history at $28.5 trillion, with $22.7 trillion of that attributed to enterprise AI applications.
But the part of Lonsdale's argument that most people missed is the regulatory angle.
Every regulation making it harder to build data centers on Earth, every zoning fight, every environmental objection, every piece of legislation used to slow down AI infrastructure directly benefits Musk because his answer to all of it is to build in space, where those rules simply do not apply.
Every obstacle that slows down a terrestrial data center is, in practice, an argument for the orbital alternative that only SpaceX is currently positioned to deliver at scale.
Bullish on Space.
Nicolas Overloop retweeted
International Dealmaker: Sam Zell
Great fundamentals don’t matter if you can’t exit.
Sam Zell's Rules for Emerging Markets
1) Demographics with built-in demand.
Zell wanted young populations, growing middle classes, urbanization still in progress. Mexico, Colombia, Brazil.
2) Investment-grade inflection point
There is no moment in a country's life when its government is more disciplined and more transparent than in the twelve to twenty-four months before it achieves investment-grade sovereign debt status.
Zell invested in Mexico, Brazil and Colombia each at this exact moment.
3) A partner who cannot afford to lose.
In emerging markets you trade the rule of law for growth. Courts do not work the way you expect annd regulation changes overnight.
The only protection you have is a local partner whose interests are so tightly aligned with yours that betrayal costs them more than cooperation. Zell spent as much time evaluating partners as he did evaluating assets.
4) Scale or nothing.
Zell passed on Africa despite individual countries checking every other box. Without scale you cannot exit and without an exit you do not have an investment.
Nicolas Overloop retweeted
Wharton MBAs who bought a small business when they realize that building a 2x2 BCG matrix doesn’t solve any real problems in your company
Nicolas Overloop retweeted
Morgan Stanley published this chart about massive disruptions in industries across the board
Nicolas Overloop retweeted
Ukraine has allocated $5 million to develop the NIKA, a cutting-edge hypersonic cruise missile system. Powered by a combined engine and hydrogen fuel, the NIKA is designed to maneuver at altitudes of 20–50 km and reach speeds of up to 8,680 km/h. inventure.com.ua/en/news/wor…
Nicolas Overloop retweeted
This week the upcoming proposal on "EU Inc." by the European Commission was leaked. We looked into the details.
It contains a lot of improvements but yet fails on the actual main goal: Creating one true standard across Europe that creates legal certainty for our startups.
Nicolas Overloop retweeted
“As soon as they have their first contract with the defence department, even if just €10M, with [that] €10M they can go to the market and get €100M. That is the signal they need”. Again, governments need to be customers of first resort. Not subsidizers.
ft.com/content/a7efa8a2-ce31…
Nicolas Overloop retweeted
This news screams China...
Rare earth shortages worsen in US aerospace, chips despite trade truce
Suppliers to U.S. aerospace and semiconductor firms face worsening rare earth shortages, with two turning away some clients, industry insiders said, weeks before U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to meet his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping for a summit in Beijing.
The shortages center on rare earths such as yttrium and scandium, niche members of the family of 17 elements, which play tiny but vital roles in defence technology, aerospace and semiconductors and are almost entirely produced in China.
While Beijing has allowed many rare earth exports to resume since it imposed restrictions in April, shipments of these materials still rarely make it to the U.S. despite the October detente with Washington, Chinese customs data show. (Reuters)
Nicolas Overloop retweeted
INTERVIEW: Ukrainian drone manufacturer on Western hubris and the defence industry dlvr.it/TQlGKN
