Scouting for Growth

Gregor Gimmy: Pioneer of the Venture Client Model

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Gregor Gimmy, founder of 27pilots, a company dedicated to helping companies build and scale Venture Client units, and allows them to benefit from startup innovations faster at a large scale and significantly lower cost and risk than traditional corporate venturing methods.
On this episode we will explore how this Venture Client model is shaping corporate innovation, the strategic benefits it offers, and how companies can adopt this game-changing approach to stay ahead in a competitive world.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
When I joined BMW in 2012, I was surprised to find that it was leveraging only a small number of startups to improve its technology landscape across its value chain. I told them that CVCs were investing in 2.8 startups per year. This is not nearly enough to solve all the technology challenges we have; we need more like 100. My initial idea was not to invent a new model but to improve the current one.
I was told that if they invested in 50 startups per year, they would have around 250 startups in 5 years, whose equity state we would have to manage, which is impossible. I concluded that VC isn’t scalable, but it didn’t solve BMW's problem either: accessing, adopting, and transferring cutting-edge technology quickly, because it’s about investment, not technology transfer. These are two totally different business processes. We needed to look for a new approach: becoming a Venture Client.
Accelerators and CVCs are indirect models – like using a third party’s battery technology in the cars you produce – you first make the investment and then adopt the technology. The difference in the Venture Client model is cutting out the middleman.
If you want to be good at somethin,g you need a dedicated unit. If you do it part-time, it will only work partly. If you make it a department, you can dedicate more time to it, secure a dedicated budget, and build a more robust KPI structure.
BEST MOMENTS
‘More than getting into the world of Venture Client Modelling, I invented the world.’
‘A Venture Client is a company that adopts startup technologies through procurement and M&A.’
‘A corporation cannot compete against a good startup like Palantir or Oracle when they were startups.’
‘The Venture Client model will displace Corporate Venture Capital to become the standard of corporate venturing.’
ABOUT THE GUEST
As captain of the 27pilots endeavour, and the visionary behind the Venture Client model, Gregor GImmy focuses on advancing Venture Client knowledge and growing the global community through 27pilots’ corporate clients and academic allies. Gregor is deeply engaged in researching, publishing, and lecturing on the Venture Client model through leading business schools and top business engagements. Gregor is also a frequent speaker at startup-relevant conferences such as Slush, Web Summit, 4YFN, and DLD.
ABOUT THE HOST
Sabine VanderLinden is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur and the CEO of Alchemy Crew Ventures. She leads venture-client labs that help Fortune 500 companies adopt and scale cutting-edge technologies from global tech ventures. A builder of accelerators, investor, and co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, Sabine is known for asking the uncomfortable questions—about AI governance, risk, and trust. On Scouting for Growth, she decodes how real growth happens—where capital, collaboration, and courage meet.
If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights.
And if you’re interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at hello@alchemycrew.ventures

Let’s Kickoff The Venture Client Series

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL discusses the launch of a new series exploring the Venture Client Model, which is turning corporate innovation on its head.
Instead of merely investing in startups and crossing fingers, big companies buy from startups to drive innovation – today, not years from now.
Imagine a world where a major Fortune 500, an automotive manufacturer, an insurance giant, or a bank can plug in a cutting-edge startup solution as easily as adding a new app to your phone.
The questions Sabine tackles include: What if your company’s next breakthrough isn’t built in-house, but bought from a startup in an early pilot? And what if being a startup’s customer is more powerful than being its investor?
KEY TAKEAWAYS
At its core, a venture client is a corporation that purchases and uses a startup’s solution to gain strategic benefit. No equity stakes, no controlling shares – just buying the solution early, when the startup is still a venture. The company becomes the startup’s client (often the first or an early client), providing the startup with revenue and feedback, while the corporation solves a problem with a cutting-edge product.
Insurance is traditionally conservative – heavy on compliance, cautious with new tech – slow, one might say. But that’s exactly why venture clienting is so powerful here: it creates a safe sandbox for insurers to experiment with startups.
Zurich has no corporate VC arm at the group level, so everything they do with startups ends up as a venture client relationship or partnership. That means all the effort goes into tangible pilots and deployments, not minority stakes in startups that might not align with the business. It’s a bold approach, but clearly paying off.
Imagine car insurance: traditionally, if you buy a policy in many countries, an agent might physically inspect your car, or if you have an accident, an adjuster needs to assess damage. CamCom replaces a lot of that with a DIY solution – the customer can just take a video of the car, and the AI will spot scratches, dents, cracked windshields, you name it, and even estimate repair costs. That means faster claims, smoother policy underwriting, and less hassle.
BEST MOMENTS
‘The Venture Client Model flips the usual script: instead of investing in ten startups and hoping one succeeds, you pay a startup to solve a problem and start benefiting immediately.’
‘This isn’t just theory. It’s happening now.’
‘The model turns the corporation into what I like to call an innovation magnet – attracting the best startups because the word is out: “This company loves to buy new tech”.’
‘By the end of this series, you’ll know the ins and outs of the model, from big-picture strategy down to on-the-ground tips, like why having a one-page startup contract can save you months of headaches, or why “impossible” should be banished from your vocabulary.’
ABOUT THE HOST
Sabine VanderLinden is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur and the CEO of Alchemy Crew Ventures. She leads venture-client labs that help Fortune 500 companies adopt and scale cutting-edge technologies from global tech ventures. A builder of accelerators, investor, and co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, Sabine is known for asking the uncomfortable questions—about AI governance, risk, and trust. On Scouting for Growth, she decodes how real growth happens—where capital, collaboration, and courage meet.
If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights.
And if you’re interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at hello@alchemycrew.ventures

Lou Smith: Transforming Insurance with Neuron by WTW

Sabine VdL talks to Lou Smith, a true trailblazer in financial services and insurance.
In today’s episode, we’ll dive into Lou’s incredible journey, explore the vision behind Neuron, and discuss the key takeaways from the latest report that insurance providers need to consider. 
KEY TAKEAWAYS
We all have moments in life where the last thing we want to look at is our credit rating and history, but those things can affect how you access financial services in the future.
Lou was part of the team that delivered the first end-to-end mortgage renewal online, began breaking down investments, and got it into the hands of the many rather than the few.
Everybody says insurance is behind the rest of the financial services industry, and it’s a funny statement. It doesn’t matter. What I’m seeing in insurance over the last 5-6 years is that this conversation has circled around: what do we do? But in the last 12-18 months, I’ve seen a passion for how we now think about using digital distribution models, digital analytics, and AI, and thinking of all of those things together and delivering distribution models that start to move the industry forward.
The challenge is always in leadership, culture, and change adoption. This is because it’s really difficult to step into the unknown and think it’s going to be better than what you’re doing today.
You want to empower people with the data and capabilities so they can do what they’re brilliant at: focusing on the best product and position for their client. Neuron and others enable brokers to do that. You also want to attract a new generation into the brokering sector, but rather than have them focus on the admin, they should be having great conversations with clients. All the work we’re doing enables brokers to do that.
BEST MOMENTS
‘When starting my career, I had a real passion for how to make the services we were offering more successful for clients and customers.’‘We care about the customer and making financial data accessible to you through the narratives we use.’‘I’d love to say this was all planned out, we didn’t call it anything or know what it looked like, we just started to bring data and technologies together to build ‘workflow, " and that’s now cool.’‘We want to be the easiest, most predictable and consistent broker to work with.’
ABOUT THE GUEST
Louise (or Lou) Smith is a trailblazer in the financial services and insurance industries, with a career spanning leadership roles across digital transformation, data, product innovation, distribution, technology, and operations. 
Her journey has been marked by groundbreaking achievements, including delivering the UK's first steps into digital distribution at Barclays, leading the digital transformation of the Royal Bank of Scotland (including NatWest) during its turnaround to profitability, and becoming the first-ever Chief Digital Officer at Lloyd’s of London. 
Currently, Louise is at the helm of Neuron, a transformative initiative aimed at redefining the insurance and financial services landscape. Through Neuron, she is driving innovation, collaboration, and growth, focusing on creating a more connected and customer-centric industry.
WTWCO
LinkedIn
ABOUT THE HOST
Sabine VanderLinden is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur and the CEO of Alchemy Crew Ventures. She leads venture-client labs that help Fortune 500 companies adopt and scale cutting-edge technologies from global tech ventures. A builder of accelerators, investor, and co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, Sabine is known for asking the uncomfortable questions—about AI governance, risk, and trust. On Scouting for Growth, she decodes how real growth happens—where capital, collaboration, and courage meet.
If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights.
And if you’re interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at hello@alchemycrew.ventures

James Birch: Ki Insurance’s Algorithmic Underwriting Revolution

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to James Birch, Director of Strategic Technology Solutions at Ki Insurance—the first fully algorithmic syndicate in the history of Lloyd’s of London.
In today’s conversation, we’ll explore: James’s journey from VC to algorithmic-underwriting pioneer, what a “director of strategic technology solutions” actually does day-to-day inside a digital syndicate, the partnerships, cloud architecture and data streams that let Ki quote in seconds, the biggest trends shaping Algorithmic Underwriting 2.0—and what they mean for brokers, capacity partners and the wider market, and practical take-aways for anyone who wants to thrive as the next wave of automation rolls through speciality insurance
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Ki is a growth-stage business, not an incumbent; we’re trying to fight our way to win business and ultimately to grow. We have to do something different from everyone else to try to position ourselves differently and find a competitive advantage where we can. That’s something I’ve carried over from the VC space.
We started out looking at what the digital model of the traditional model, where was the toil in the value chain and the broker’s work plan process and how can we simplifying it and make it more efficient using digital capabilities that we saw in the VC space, in FinTech and other financial service industries. 
Lloyd's of London is a heavily regulated market, so we need to abide by all the regulations that apply to any carrier or underwriter in that market. Our approach from day 1 was to engage with the regulator early, explain what we’re trying to do, be transparent, open, and honest about where the gaps are if we haven’t reached a certain level of maturity, and not overstate the algorithm. We take regulation very seriously, which has helped because Lloyds has been highly supportive of us and our growth, and has allowed us to grow alongside the market.
The main cost-saving of the algorithmic underwriting for brokers is that they don’t have to have loads of brokers running around the Lloyds of London building to find 2% on a slip or something; the broker negotiates with the lead underwriter, comes onto the Ki platform for the follow-up, and then spends their time on new business and client opportunities.
BEST MOMENTS
‘Any business should evolve as the market evolves and the marketing dynamics change, you’ve got to react to those and be thinking 2-5 years ahead.’
‘We still trip up on ourselves, even now, because we sometimes try to over-complicate things.’
‘Speak to the customer, hear their problems, understand what’s not working for them, try to make it a simple transaction for them, and then they’ll use your products.’
‘I’m a big advocate of the partner model because if you get 2, 3, or 4 like-minded companies as partners, you can build something great together because you’re all strategically aligned.’
ABOUT THE GUEST
James Birch is the Director of Strategic Technology Solutions at Ki Insurance, the market-leading algorithmic syndicate that’s redefining how Lloyd’s of London does business. 
Blending a venture-capital mindset with hands-on operating rigor, James has spent the past decade helping innovative companies move from bright idea to breakout scale.
Passionate about demystifying insurance for the next generation, James is a sought-after speaker on topics such as data-driven risk selection, the future of algorithmic capacity, and what it really takes to scale a regulated tech business. 
Whether mentoring founders or road-testing the latest ML models with his engineers, he’s driven by one simple goal: use technology to make risk transfer faster, fairer, and radically more efficient.
LinkedIn
ABOUT THE HOST
Sabine VanderLinden is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur and the CEO of Alchemy Crew Ventures. She leads venture-client labs that help Fortune 500 companies adopt and scale cutting-edge technologies from global tech ventures. A builder of accelerators, investor, and co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, Sabine is known for asking the uncomfortable questions—about AI governance, risk, and trust. On Scouting for Growth, she decodes how real growth happens—where capital, collaboration, and courage meet.
If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights.
And if you’re interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at hello@alchemycrew.ventures

Mark Stern: Transforming Customer Journeys with Physical-Digital Experience Design for Growth

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Mark Stern, founder and CEO of Custom Box Agency, an award-winning boutique specializing in bringing digital offers to life through innovative offline ‘box experiences.’
Today, he’ll share how he made the leap from corporate to startup life, offer practical tips for integrating physical touchpoints into a digital world, and discuss the secret sauce behind building high-impact customer journeys. I can’t wait to dive into his wealth of knowledge.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
When I mixed physical and digital together with my publication called ‘Entrepreneur Elements’ I people started posting unboxing videos, which a digital-only product can do. Everyone who received the product became an ambassador and lots of organic traffic was being created as a result.
During Covid the virtual event game became bloody red, in terms of competition, because everyone became a virtual event expert overnight. But the boxes, and how we were approaching this to get results faster, was an unknown, exciting realm which  I went 100% in on and the business skyrocketed from zero to a million in the first year just by pivoting and focussing on this opportunity.
What we include inside our boxes is a welcome note, a getting started guide – which, for me is the most powerful sales pieces to orient people on the journey that they’re about to start and see your universe, a journey map – a visual depiction of the recipe that’s going to get you the result, then all the tools and resources.
This isn’t SWAG (Stuff Without A Goal), think of it a product development and who we can truly get into your programme and give people the incentive structure to want to take one step at a time. I love data, so I can engineer feedback loops to say, once you’ve hit a certain milestone, how can I get you to provide me with the information I need so 1, I can celebrate you, but 2, it also gives me good intel to make the product you’re making better.
BEST MOMENTS
‘In the online space done beats perfect. I approach the standards of the online realm in a corporate way; the client’s either ready or not ready at all.’
‘If you have a digital product, you have to compliment it with something physical because physical can tap into other modalities and senses that digital can’t.’
‘It’s not about you, it’s truly about your customers and their needs.’
‘Boxes can be a tool to take what you’re already talking about/teaching, or the service you’re providing, making it easier for people to have the breakthrough in a tangible way that a digital-only product just can’t.’
ABOUT THE GUEST
Mark Stern is an accomplished serial entrepreneur and the visionary behind Custom Box Agency, an award-winning experience design firm headquartered in Austin, Texas. Leveraging his background as a top-ranked strategy consultant at Deloitte, Mark has guided major retail and lifestyle brands through transformative growth initiatives. He holds an MBA from Duke University and has been recognized as a Forbes Next 1,000 Entrepreneur, as well as featured in Joey Coleman’s bestselling book Never Lose an Employee Again. Mark’s passion for merging the physical with the digital underpins his signature approach of crafting “offline-meets-online” experiences. By moving beyond standard swag and focusing on strategic box campaigns, Mark’s team has successfully launched 100+ direct mail initiatives—boosting conversions, slashing churn, and extending customer lifetime value. As a mentor at SXSW, sought-after keynote speaker, and champion for innovative entrepreneurship, Mark remains dedicated to helping businesses of all sizes adopt experience design as a powerful lever for growth.
ABOUT THE HOST
Sabine VanderLinden is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur and the CEO of Alchemy Crew Ventures. She leads venture-client labs that help Fortune 500 companies adopt and scale cutting-edge technologies from global tech ventures. A builder of accelerators, investor, and co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, Sabine is known for asking the uncomfortable questions—about AI governance, risk, and trust. On Scouting for Growth, she decodes how real growth happens—where capital, collaboration, and courage meet.
If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights.
And if you’re interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at hello@alchemycrew.ventures

Colin Hirdman: LinkedIn Growth Hacks, AI and Ethical Automation (Ethical Automation)

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Colin Hirdman, the antidote to automated mediocrity. As a lifelong entrepreneur and co-founder of Monkey Island Ventures, he has spent two decades scaling SaaS tools, digital agencies, and now Rainmaker – a ‘white-glove’ service that ethically automates LinkedIn outreach to turn connections into revenue.
Colin discusses Rainmaker’s ‘Authentic Engine’ framework: 10-30% connection rates, campaigns tailored to micro-audiences, and why human-driven strategies still dominate AI in B2B growth. As well as why he targets 25 people/day — and how even solo founders can replicate this, the ‘criminal justice grad’ who turned entrepreneur, accidently and sold his first startup days after college, and LinkedIn’s automation guardrails: What’s ‘ethical’ vs. what gets you banned.
KEY TAKEAWAYS         
I’ve done a lot of growth hacking through email and LinkedIn, but I got better results through LinkedIn and ended up building out a software and process for myself. Rainmaker was born through me making it available to other businesses. But, you don’t need me or rainmaker to do any of the things we discuss on this podcast, you can do it manually.
You have to be authentic on LinkedIn, both as yourself as well as the brands you represent. You should also have an educational mindset – no one wants to be sold to on LinkedIn, but almost everyone is willing to be educated – and an experimentation mindset, trying different features and functions of LinkedIn, stack the things that work and set aside the things that don’t. Understand the pains an barriers that you prospects are trying to overcome and know what it is that you can teach them.
Growth hacks: LinkedIn Events – if you have a direct competitor, industry or organisation putting on a LinkedIn Event that your business solves for, if you attend that event you can see everyone else who attended that event and create a prospects list. Use people who are big in your area as proxies – use people’s open connections to see all first connections to her, second connections to you and is in your area, and begin connecting to them
Building out your first connections is critical. I reach out to 15 people per day Monday-Friday during normal working hours. That gives you 500 people per month, which is below LinkedIn’s limits. Typically, you’ll get a 20% connection rate. Within 30 days of sending an invite, and they haven’t connected, withdraw the invite. It’s good hygiene, but after 3 weeks you can reach out to them again. Everything you do after that only gets better and has stronger possibilities as your audience grows.
BEST MOMENTS
‘There are lots of opportunities to engage with your prospects on LinkedIn in ways that are valuable for relationship building and set you up as a thought leader.’‘People undervalue the value of being a first connection, when you’re a first connection you can see all kids of information about them, direct message them, and use other features and functions to engage with them.’‘I typically build my audience through Sales Navigator – a tool within LinkedIn that allows you to hone in on audiences..’‘If you’re using automation that is in any way inauthentic, it won’t work; you wouldn’t immediately set up a meeting with someone you just met. I wish people would stop; it’s lazy.’
ABOUT THE GUEST
Colin Hirdman is a lifelong entrepreneur, startup advocate, and visionary behind Rainmaker, a platform revolutionizing LinkedIn’s growth strategies through its "Authentic Engine." As co-founder of Monkey Island Ventures, a venture studio launched in 2007 with childhood friends, Colin has spent nearly two decades fostering tech innovation and scaling ventures like SaaS tools, digital marketing agencies, and software development firms. His passion lies in unlocking the power of authentic relationship-building, as evidenced by Rainmaker’s mission to help founders, coaches, and sales teams expand their networks, generate leads, and close deals ethically on LinkedIn.
A Minnesota native, Colin’s journey began with selling his first startup (launched just days after college) and evolved into mentoring entrepreneurs through actionable strategies like LinkedIn automation, audience targeting via Sales Navigator, and educational outreach. His philosophy blends authenticity, experimentation, and a focus on solving audience pain points—principles he shares as a board member of MNblockchain and a sought-after voice in B2B growth.
When not advising startups or hosting LinkedIn livestreams, Colin champions the entrepreneurial spirit, proving that even a criminal justice graduate-turned-accidental-founder can redefine 21st-century scaling. Catch his insights on turning connections into revenue—no bots or spam required.
LinkedIn
ABOUT THE HOST
Sabine VanderLinden is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur and the CEO of Alchemy Crew Ventures. She leads venture-client labs that help Fortune 500 companies adopt and scale cutting-edge technologies from global tech ventures. A builder of accelerators, investor, and co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, Sabine is known for asking the uncomfortable questions—about AI governance, risk, and trust. On Scouting for Growth, she decodes how real growth happens—where capital, collaboration, and courage meet.
If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights.
And if you’re interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at hello@alchemycrew.ventures

Gia Laudi: Why B2B SaaS Leaders Must “Forget The Funnel” and Embrace Customer-Led Growth

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Georgiana ‘Gia’ Laudi, a strategic advisor, keynote speaker, and co-founder of Forget The Funnel, a consultancy focused on helping B2B SaaS companies drive predictable, recurring revenue through a truly customer-led approach.
In this episode, Gia and I will explore why so many companies get stuck throwing “spaghetti at the wall,” instead of researching who their best customers really are. We’ll look at the common pitfalls teams face when relying solely on funnel-based thinking—plus the steps any organization can take to cultivate a thriving, customer-centric culture. Gia will also share highlights from the remarkable work she’s done with various SaaS brands, as well as tips you can put into practice right away.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Two years after drafting up a customer experience map for our company, through the lens of the customer, we grew revenue by 900%. We’d aligned the team and the company, and it facilitated more streamlined conversation, more alignment, more understanding cross-departmentally making things much easier. It gave us a tool and a shared language for operationalising around customer experience.
A big reason for forgetting the funnel and leveraging a more customer-led approach is through the lens of recurring revenue businesses. Even if you don’t have a recurring revenue business model most businesses agree that customer retention, expanding existing accounts vs finding new customers contains a lot of value. This serves all kinds of businesses very well.
Customer research is often equated with long, drawn-out projects that are very costly and leave you with more questions than answers. There’s a lot of resistance when we use the term ‘customer research’, we tend to use the term ‘customer insights’. We use targeted, streamlined and intentional research via ‘jobs to be done’ which reveal meaningful patterns from as little as 10-12 people which can identify what leads people to seek your business out.
Not all customers are created equally, you shouldn’t try to serve every customer, narrow your focus on who really, really cares about the problem that you solve, has a high willingness to pay, deeply understands the value in what you provide and would sing your praises from the mountain tops.
BEST MOMENTS
‘If you orient your operations around the customer experience it becomes easy to make all kinds of decisions.’
‘Existing customers are worth more and are less costly to us as a business vs finding new customers.’
‘Your relationship with your customer does not end with the purchase, it begins with the purchase.’
‘Early stage companies should focus on one customer and do a really good job, later stage companies shouldn’t conflate all customers into a homogenous group but think of segmentation in a meaningful way so you can still provide high-converting and resonating experiences even for multiple segments.’
ABOUT THE GUEST
Georgiana (“Gia”) Laudi is a strategic advisor, keynote speaker, and co-founder of Forget The Funnel, a consultancy specializing in customer-led growth for B2B SaaS companies. With over 20 years of experience in marketing and product strategy, she’s helped high-growth businesses such as Unbounce, Calendly, and Sprout Social deepen customer insights, align teams around customer value, and drive predictable, recurring revenue. As co-author of the book “Forget The Funnel,” Gia advocates a practical, step-by-step approach to uncovering why the best customers buy—and how to ensure more of them succeed post-purchase. 
Based in Montreal, Gia is passionate about turning real customer needs into clear messaging, frictionless onboarding, and expansion strategies that empower businesses to scale sustainably. She joins Scouting for Growth to share her journey, discuss common growth pitfalls, and offer actionable tactics any organization can use to become truly customer-led.
LinkedIn
ABOUT THE HOST
Sabine VanderLinden is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur and the CEO of Alchemy Crew Ventures. She leads venture-client labs that help Fortune 500 companies adopt and scale cutting-edge technologies from global tech ventures. A builder of accelerators, investor, and co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, Sabine is known for asking the uncomfortable questions—about AI governance, risk, and trust. On Scouting for Growth, she decodes how real growth happens—where capital, collaboration, and courage meet.
If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights.
And if you’re interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at hello@alchemycrew.ventures

Ron Rock: Why Ohio is the Ultimate Launchpad for International Startups

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Ron Rock, Managing Director for the Financial Services Sector at JobsOhio.
When you think "FinTech hub," your mind might automatically jump to Silicon Valley or New York. But there’s a powerhouse in the heartland that's giving these coastal giants a run for their money: Ohio.
In our conversation today, we'll unpack why Ohio – a state that puts you within a two-hour flight of 75% of the U.S. and Canadian financial services industry – might just be the strategic move your startup needs to make.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Ohio has the 4th-largest financial services economy in the US, so if you’re looking for partnerships, a market, and people who’ll have a conversation with you, the operating costs will be much lower than on the coasts in New York and California.
If you’re a graduate in IT, thinking about going into an IT profession, maybe it’s time to think about financial services. If you can do that kind of development, programming, or coding, there are a lot of opportunities in InsurTech and FinTech. 
There are a few pillars you need for growth. The first is the state's economy, which we do. Then you need the ecosystem of players – investors, large companies, startups that have found a footing- and the talent in that ecosystem as well. When we look at the talent needed to fill jobs of the future in financial services, we have to ensure curricula are up to par, including AI and low-code environments.
We’re not a one-size-fits-all; we have programmes that didn’t fit earlier-stage companies. We looked at that and how we could support formally and informally, and now we have 3 innovations across the state. These provide support, whether that’s proximity to other innovators or incentives like JobsOhio's Growth Cap for early-stage companies.
BEST MOMENTS
London and the Midwestern states share similar mindsets and amicable relationships. We find a way to make something happen.’
‘Startups have found footing in Ohio because of the climate we’re in; we don’t have large catastrophes or losses, so if you’re testing a new product or company, you have that in your favour.’
‘Ohio is a microcosm of a larger market, almost like a sandbox in which you can pay before you launch.’
‘I call myself a connector, or facilitator, it’s the core of my job. I have to know the industry, but I’ll never get deep into knowing exactly what the industry is doing. So I stay in my lane and make connections to the right individuals, listen to companies, and introduce people.’
ABOUT THE GUEST
Ron Rock is a forward-thinking business management executive and Managing Director of JobsOhio’s Financial Services Sector. With over two decades of experience spanning financial services, insurance, economic development, and process improvement, Ron is renowned for creating and executing strategic growth plans that boost market share, elevate customer loyalty, and broaden service offerings.
A dynamic leader, innovator, strategist, and connector, Ron bridges the gap between traditional institutions and emerging technology ventures. He regularly partners with founders, investors, and corporate stakeholders to identify opportunities for expansion into Ohio, home to the nation’s fourth-largest financial services economy. Under Ron’s guidance, JobsOhio provides tailored incentives and support, empowering promising fintech and insurtech startups to flourish while meeting the needs of major banks and insurers throughout the state.
Known for his collaborative style and commitment to continuous innovation, Ron’s work centers on connecting bright ideas with meaningful partnerships, ultimately creating jobs and sparking economic growth. His deep understanding of market dynamics, coupled with his emphasis on data-driven strategy, has positioned him at the forefront of Ohio’s rise as a nationwide hub for financial technology and insurance innovation.
LinkedIn
ABOUT THE HOST
Sabine VanderLinden is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur and the CEO of Alchemy Crew Ventures. She leads venture-client labs that help Fortune 500 companies adopt and scale cutting-edge technologies from global tech ventures. A builder of accelerators, investor, and co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, Sabine is known for asking the uncomfortable questions—about AI governance, risk, and trust. On Scouting for Growth, she decodes how real growth happens—where capital, collaboration, and courage meet.
If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights.
And if you’re interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at hello@alchemycrew.ventures

Alon Kaufman: Unlocking the Future of Privacy Preserving Data Collaboration

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Alon Kaufman, CEO and Co-Founder of Duality Technologies, a company that is revolutionising the way organisations collaborate on data while preserving privacy and security.
During today’s conversation, we’ll explore the vision behind Duality Technologies, the real-world problems it is solving, and how organisations can future-proof themselves against risks by adopting privacy-preserving technologies. We’ll also dive into Alon’s inspiring journey as a technology leader and his perspective on the ethical and strategic aspects of data collaboration in the age of AI and Big Data.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Combining and enhancing data sets is becoming more and more challenging in a world where privacy, security, regulations and data protection are becoming more critical. This is a good thing. What inspires us at Duality is to find a way to allow organisations to unlock the challenges around working together on data in a way that both protects the data and allows you to get the utility out of it.
At the source of Duality is: How can we work on data sets without leaking or sharing the data. That’s where homomorphic encryption comes in. This allows us to work on and analyse data while it remains protected or encrypted.
Two companies each have a list of customers and they both want to understand how many customers they have in intersection. The way you did this before is for company A to disclose it’s list of customers to company B which does the analysis and fins the intersection or go to a trusted third party. With duality, the two companies can use our software platform to run a computation that comes up with the intersection without either company seeing each other’s data.
We all want our governments and law enforcement to be able to do their work, but we don’t want them to pull in every data point that we leave outside. Duality allows law enforcement investigations to run queries and analytics only on data that is allowed and only giving the insights that are needed. Government and healthcare – where data sets are large an sensitive – are big places where Duality has been successful.
BEST MOMENTS
‘In order to get the most value out of data, the more you can bring data sets together and enhance them the better off you are.’
‘Duality’s mission is to run AI data science analytics on data sets that cannot simply be centralised, and doing it where ethe data is  while making sure the data isn’t exposed, privacy isn’t leaked or challenges of data localisation and regulation are not violated.’
‘Companies that already know to work on their own data, and control it, can now go to the next step and do it in a collaborative way.’
‘Insurance companies need to work together around fraud because the fraudsters utilise the fact different companies don’t talk and will attack one and then the other because they know the level of data shared between them is limited.’
ABOUT THE GUEST
Alon Kaufman is the CEO and Co-Founder of Duality Technologies, a pioneering company at the forefront of data encryption and privacy technologies. With over 20 years of experience in technology leadership, Alon has a rich background spanning Big Data, Data Science, Machine Learning, and Cybersecurity.
As a thought leader, Alon frequently speaks on Big Data, Cybersecurity, and Innovation. He is committed to advancing the conversation around data privacy and security.
LinkedIn
ABOUT THE HOST
Sabine VanderLinden is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur and the CEO of Alchemy Crew Ventures. She leads venture-client labs that help Fortune 500 companies adopt and scale cutting-edge technologies from global tech ventures. A builder of accelerators, investor, and co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, Sabine is known for asking the uncomfortable questions—about AI governance, risk, and trust. On Scouting for Growth, she decodes how real growth happens—where capital, collaboration, and courage meet.
If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights.
And if you’re interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at hello@alchemycrew.ventures

Sara Simeone: NoCodeLab Vibe Coding or Launching AI Startups with No-Code

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Sara Simeone, an award-winning entrepreneur behind NoCodeLab.ai, the First Vibe Coding Launchpad that helps non-technical dreamers ship AI-powered products in just five weeks—no keyboard sorcery required.
Whether you’re a Gen Z founder sketching ideas on a dorm whiteboard, an investor scouting the next scalable platform, or a corporate leader hunting for fresh growth engines, Sara’s story is your front-row seat to how Vibe Coding is about to change the way we build.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Vibe coding is defined as creating something using your natural language and vibe with the code to try to understand how the product in front of you is changing as you add more prompts/features. It’s an evolution of the drag-and-drop of no-code platforms but allows you to express yourself in a clear, specific and tangible way to translate visions into products.
When I stepped into the startup founder world, I realised that there was a very big problem: There are a lot of subject matter experts who had a lot of dreams, but they couldn’t make these into tangible products. A lot of accelerator programmes only teach you how to launch a product rather than create one because they take for granted that you have a technical co-founder or you can create it yourself, this excludes non-technical founders from a big portion of the entrepreneurial world. Founders don’t need to become techies, but they need a new process to make tch work for them. That’s when I realised AI can help.
My goal is to give non-technical founders the creative freedom to move fast but with the discipline of the corporate world. We guide them to develop something new, that wouldn’t have been able to have been developed before. It’s now possible to create, realise and build that idea, it’s a mindset shift where we can become our own CPOs, CEOs, CMO, COOs, etc, we just need the right community around us.
I want founders to be aware that they can solve their own problems and they can build something in plain English. When you’re building something, ask yourself who are the customers? What do they need? How much am I going to charge for this? Once there you can start generating technical foundations and product requirements – front/back end, database, APIs, etc in order to create that product.
BEST MOMENTS
‘Vibe coding was coined in 2025, so it’s brand new, but I’d been doing it before the term was created.’
‘AI gives us a lot of tools but we need to know how to use them.’
‘The beauty of AI platforms is that if you see that something is going wrong you can question the code, understand what’s wrong and ask the AI to fix it for you.’
‘With vibe coding and NoCodeLab you can build your ideas in days, weeks, or months depending on your technical expertise or background.’
ABOUT THE GUEST
Sara Simeone is a multi-award-winning entrepreneur and product strategist who has spent the past two decades turning frontier technologies into real-world growth engines. Today she wears several cutting-edge hats: Founder of NoCodeLab.ai, the first vibe-driven coding accelerator for non-technical founders; CEO & Co-founder of Niftyz.io, the Web3 token-factory that lets brands transform data and IP into tradable digital assets; and lecturer in Blockchain For Business at the MedieInstitutet in Sweden. 
ABOUT THE HOST
Sabine VanderLinden is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur and the CEO of Alchemy Crew Ventures. She leads venture-client labs that help Fortune 500 companies adopt and scale cutting-edge technologies from global tech ventures. A builder of accelerators, investor, and co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, Sabine is known for asking the uncomfortable questions—about AI governance, risk, and trust. On Scouting for Growth, she decodes how real growth happens—where capital, collaboration, and courage meet.
If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights.
And if you’re interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at hello@alchemycrew.ventures

Ivan and Olha Pylypchuk: Unlocking the Power of Agentic AI

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Ivan Pylypchuk, the CEO of Softblues, and Olha Pylypchuk, the company’s COO.
In today’s discussion, we’ll explore: What Agentic AI is and why it’s poised to disrupt traditional business processes, how Ivan and Olha are leveraging multi-agent systems to solve domain-specific challenges and deliver business transformation, and the future of AI agents and their role in shaping the workplace of tomorrow.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
If you talk about traditional AI systems, they can handle one simple, specific task, such as image recognition, data classification, or content generation. Agentic AI is more autonomous and capable of complex decision-making across multiple steps. Our approach is focused on controlled, multi-agent systems. 
The biggest challenge companies face is collecting and integrating data. Often, companies have their valuable data spread across different systems and departments, like customer databases, email records, and business software. These don’t always talk to each other. To ensure an effective AI implementation, you must ensure that all this data is collected neatly and accurately.
Surprisingly, some companies don’t know how their people work. When you observe their processes, you sometimes see that they miss important details about their daily operations, which can lead to significant wasted investment when we rectify these mistakes afterwards. That’s why we invest a lot of time working with and talking to the businesses about how their workflows move from point A to B. Then, we can enhance them with AI.
How team members embrace this technology is very important. Even a perfect solution will fail if teams don’t use it. We create simple interfaces and make sure our systems explain their recommendations in plain language. This approach dramatically improves understanding of how AI works and builds trust.
BEST MOMENTS
‘Agentic AI gives us scalability in different domains, explainability to understand what it’s doing, so we can provide the exact information that is needed across an organisation.’
‘It’s important to start very small, on a piece of a project, so the AI can show clearly its quick results. After the goal has been demonstrated, then we scale the solution.’
‘Our recruitment solution helps reduce time to hire by 60% and provides an increase in the quality of hires by 40%.’
‘It gives you more time to do strategic work that brings more value to the business than managing this data.’
ABOUT THE GUEST
Ivan Pylypchuk is the CEO and AI Solution Architect at Softblues, a company specializing in building multi-agent AI systems to tackle real-world business challenges.
LinkedIn
Olha Pylypchuk is the Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Softblues, where she drives operational excellence and spearheads AI-driven business automation initiatives.
LinkedIn
ABOUT THE HOST
Sabine VanderLinden is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur and the CEO of Alchemy Crew Ventures. She leads venture-client labs that help Fortune 500 companies adopt and scale cutting-edge technologies from global tech ventures. A builder of accelerators, investor, and co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, Sabine is known for asking the uncomfortable questions—about AI governance, risk, and trust. On Scouting for Growth, she decodes how real growth happens—where capital, collaboration, and courage meet.
If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights.
And if you’re interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at hello@alchemycrew.ventures

Areiel Wolanow On Unleashing AI, Quantum, and Emerging Tech

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine meets Areiel Wolanow, the managing director of Finserv Experts, who discusses his journey from IBM to founding FinServ Experts, emphasising the importance of focusing on business models enabled by technology rather than the technology itself.
Areiel delves into the challenges and opportunities presented by artificial intelligence, responsible AI practices, and the implications of quantum computing for data security, highlighting the need for organisations to adapt their approaches to digital transformation, advocating for a migration strategy over traditional transformation methods
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Emerging tech should be leveraged to create new business models rather than just re-engineering existing ones. Understanding the business implications of technology is crucial for delivering value.
When harnessing artificial intelligence, it's essential to identify the real underlying problems within an organisation, assess its maturity, and build self-awareness before applying maturity models and gap analyses.
The EU AI Act serves as a comprehensive guideline for responsible AI use, offering risk categories and controls that can benefit companies outside the EU by providing a framework for ethical AI practices without the burden of compliance.
Organisations should prepare for the future of quantum computing by ensuring their data is protected against potential vulnerabilities. This involves adopting quantum-resilient algorithms and planning for the transition well in advance.
Leaders should place significant responsibility on younger team members who are more familiar with emerging technologies. Providing them with autonomy and support can lead to innovative solutions and successful business outcomes.
BEST MOMENTS
'We focus not on the technology itself, but on the business models the tech enables.'
'The first thing you have to do... is to say, OK, is the proximate cause the real problem?'
'The best AI regulations out there is the EU AI Act... it actually benefits AI companies outside the EU more than it benefits within.'
'Digital transformations have two things in common. One is they're expensive, and two is they always fail.'
ABOUT THE GUEST
Areiel Wolanow is the managing director of Finserv Experts. He is an experienced business leader with over 25 years of experience in business transformation solutioning, sales, and execution. He served as one of IBM’s key thought leaders in blockchain, machine learning, and financial inclusion. Areiel has deep experience leading large, globally distributed teams; he has led programs of over 100 people through the full delivery life cycle, and has managed budgets in the tens of millions of dollars.
In addition to his delivery experience, Areiel also serves as a senior advisor on blockchain, machine learning, and technology adoption. He has worked with central banks and financial regulators around the world and is currently serving as the insurance industry advisor for the UK Parliament’s working group on blockchain.
LinkedIn
ABOUT THE HOST
Sabine VanderLinden is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur and the CEO of Alchemy Crew Ventures. She leads venture-client labs that help Fortune 500 companies adopt and scale cutting-edge technologies from global tech ventures. A builder of accelerators, investor, and co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, Sabine is known for asking the uncomfortable questions—about AI governance, risk, and trust. On Scouting for Growth, she decodes how real growth happens—where capital, collaboration, and courage meet.
If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights.
And if you’re interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at hello@alchemycrew.ventures