Daniel has an engineering degree from the University of Toronto, Canada and a PhD from the University of Bristol, specializing in Materials Chemistry. He started his VC career at one of the early deeptech funds in London, focusing on semiconductor and materials science. He then held senior investing positions at two of the top early-stage deeptech funds in Europe. The first, Seraphim Space Fund, was an industry-focused fund and accelerator, investing across Europe at Series A-C, and subsequently listed on the London Stock Exchange. The fund focused on technologies that were strategically important to space/aerospace/defence. Having sourced deals in 20 European countries and led deals in 6 of those countries, as well as the US, Daniel has achieved 5 unicorns, of which 3 are NASDAQ IPO’s, with a >5x realized return and >60% IRR.

Daniel then worked at IQ Capital, a £0.5bnAUM fund focused on Seed-Series A investments in University spinouts. There, he focused on spinning out breakthrough technologies, always leading syndicates and helping Founders to build management teams and achieve product-market fit. His investments include Opteran (AI for high-speed/GPS-denied platforms), QuadSAT (drones for electronic warfare), and Ionate (grid resilience).

Daniel is now a Partner at Join Capital, a Berlin-headquartered deeptech venture firm, and leads investments in defence and strategic technologies. His investment methodology has always been to invest in breakthrough technologies that give strategic/asymmetric advantage to the West and are traceable to DARPA problems. His interest areas span space, semiconductor, batteries, materials, quantum, AI, climate/grid, robotics, synbio, electronics, etc.