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Nika has worked on Advent’s investments in Shift Technology, and Unit4.
If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got.
Albert Einstein once said that, and it rings true for me. I admire most the people with the courage to be different, who start with a big vision and are not afraid to get off the beaten path and create something new, without relying on a previously written instruction manual. It is the only way to drive deep disruption in an industry and profoundly change the way we go about our lives. I consider myself exceptionally fortunate to be able to meet and work with such people every day as they tackle novel challenges and think about how they are going to drive change in the world.
Being a great place to work is the difference between a good company and an exceptional one.
I used to believe that culture was a bit of cliché and had little reflection on a company’s success. What I found out when I started at Advent is that culture isn’t just part of the game: it is the game. That unique cocktail of ambition, humility, openness, collegiality, and self-criticism is our secret weapon, and it differentiates us from other firms in the fiercely competitive tech investing market. As we try to pick great companies to back, strong customer advocacy is one of our key investment criteria, but customers will never love a company until employees love it first.
Our mandate is very broad and allows us to be real thematic investors.
What I love about working at Advent is that there are few objective criteria for how a company should look in order for us to back it. Our overarching investment goal is to find great businesses we love, irrespective of scale, maturity stage, or funding status. This allows us to go deep on a theme, business model, or industry vertical to understand the holistic landscape. We can act fast in identifying the companies we want to back, but we can also be genuine thought partners to the founders and management teams we end up backing.