Harry Stebbings
Founder & Solo GP, 20VC Fund; Host, The Twenty Minute VC
Reviewed Updated Jun 22, 2026This profile is AI-generated. If you spot an error, please help us fix it by sharing a URL to the correct information.
Background
Harry Stebbings is a British venture capitalist and podcaster, born June 22, 1996, in London 1. He dropped out of King’s College London after four weeks of studying law and launched The Twenty Minute VC podcast in January 2015 at age 18, with no industry contacts and roughly $50 in startup capital 12. The inaugural episode featured Guy Kawasaki 1.
Stebbings briefly worked at Atomico for six months, departing in May 2017 1. In 2018, he co-founded Stride.VC, a London-based seed firm, alongside former Accel partner Fred Destin, with an initial £40M first close (eventually £100M) 3. He stepped down as a partner at Stride in February 2021 to focus on his own vehicle, 20VC, though he remained a partner in Stride’s Fund I 4.
He launched the 20VC Fund in 2020, initially with an ~$8.3M early-stage vehicle 5. In June 2021 he closed two additional funds totaling $140M — a $33M early-stage fund and a $107M growth fund — operating as a solo general partner 6. In October 2024 he announced 20VC Fund III at $400M, split between a $125M seed vehicle and a $275M Series A vehicle, bringing total AUM above $600M 78. He was named to Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe (Finance) in 2019 1.
Stated Thesis
Stebbings publicly describes his approach as founder-first rather than thesis-first. In a TechCrunch interview announcing the $400M Fund III, he said: “I follow great entrepreneurs…my job is to simply find the best founders before anyone else.” 7 He has also explicitly positioned the fund around European startups, telling TechCrunch: “I’m really fed up of everyone shitting on Europe. We have unbelievable companies, and we have incredible people.” and “We need to make Europe great again. MEGA!” 7
Fund III is structured to provide operational support through three sub-funds focused on sales, growth, and product, run by operators who source deals and advise portfolio companies 7.
Inferred Thesis
Based on the 16 verified portfolio companies enumerated below from the 20VC Fund portfolio page (plus additional named investments from press coverage), the following patterns emerge:
- Sector: AI is the dominant category — 9 of 16 sampled companies on the public portfolio page are tagged “Artificial Intelligence” (56%): Altertable, Ami Labs, AskLio, Bottlecap, Cadensys, Cognition, Comstruct, CourtCorrect, Datalane 9. Fintech is the next most common category (Airwallex, allO, Buena, CryptoTax Calculator — 4 of 16, 25%) 9. Consumer and exits make up the remainder. Press-named companies (Linear, Merge, Linktree, Sorare, Pachama, NexHealth, Captions.ai, Peec AI, Lovable, ScorePlay, Tripledot, Taxdoo) extend this pattern but skew further toward AI-native software 171010.
- Stage: The fund explicitly allocates $125M of $400M to seed and $275M to Series A 7, i.e., a ~31%/69% split toward Series A by dollars. Recent led rounds include the Peec AI seed (July 2025) and the $13M ScorePlay Series A (February 2025) 1010.
- Geography: Fund III is explicitly positioned to back European founders, though the LP base and prior portfolio span both Europe and the US 7. London is the firm’s HQ 1.
- Founder profile: Stebbings’ public statements emphasize backing exceptional individuals over thematic bets 7. Public portfolio companies skew toward technical, product-led founding teams (Cognition, Linear, Lovable, Captions.ai).
- Co-investors / LP relationships: 20VC Fund III LPs include 40 founders from Atlassian, Candy Crush, Canva, Datadog, Deliveroo, Spotify, and Vinted, and GPs from Accel, Benchmark, Coatue, Founders Fund, Khosla, NEA, and TCV 7 — an unusual signal that he sources deal flow through other top-tier funds and founders rather than competing for it.
- Unicorns: At least four reported portfolio unicorns: Linktree, Linear, Tripledot (~$1.4B post-2022 round), and Lovable (became a unicorn in 2025) 1710.
Sample size caveat: this analysis is based on 16 publicly-listed portfolio companies and an additional ~12 named in press, against Tracxn’s reported ~62 investments 10. The portfolio page truncates with a “Load More” button not captured in the fetch. Percentages should be read as directional, not definitive.
Portfolio
| Company | Year | Stage | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tripledot Studios | 2020 | Growth | 7 |
| Linear | ~2020 | Early | 1 |
| Linktree | ~2020 | Growth | 1 |
| Sorare | ~2021 | Growth | 1 |
| Pachama | ~2021 | Series A | 1 |
| NexHealth | ~2021 | Series A | 1 |
| Captions.ai | ~2022 | Seed/Series A | 1 |
| Merge | ~2021 | Series A | 1 |
| Taxdoo | ~2021 | Series A | 1 |
| BeReal | ~2021 | Early | 2 |
| Clubhouse | ~2021 | Early | 2 |
| Hopin | ~2021 | Growth | 2 |
| Poolside AI | ~2023 | Series A | 2 |
| Cognition | ~2024 | Series A | 9 |
| Lovable | 2025 | Series A | 8 |
| ScorePlay | 2025-02 | Series A (led, $13M) | 10 |
| Peec AI | 2025-07 | Seed (led) | 10 |
| Airwallex | 2025 | Angel ($7M; decided during 20VC podcast recording with Jack Zhang, ep. aired 2025-05-26; publicly disclosed 2025-11-04) | 91112 |
| ~unknown | Altertable | (n/a) | Early |
| ~unknown | Ami Labs | (n/a) | Early |
| ~unknown | Amo | (n/a) | Early |
| ~unknown | AskLio | (n/a) | Early |
| ~unknown | Bonnet | (n/a) | Exit |
| ~unknown | Bottlecap | (n/a) | Early |
| ~unknown | Buena | (n/a) | Early |
| ~unknown | Cadensys | (n/a) | Early |
| ~unknown | Comstruct | (n/a) | Early |
| ~unknown | Context | (n/a) | Exit |
| ~unknown | CourtCorrect | (n/a) | Early |
| ~unknown | CryptoTax Calculator | (n/a) | Early |
| ~unknown | Datalane | (n/a) | Early |
In Their Own Words
On founder selection (TechCrunch, October 2024):
“I follow great entrepreneurs…my job is to simply find the best founders before anyone else.” 7
On Europe (TechCrunch, October 2024):
“I’m really fed up of everyone shitting on Europe. We have unbelievable companies, and we have incredible people.” 7
“We need to make Europe great again. MEGA!” 7
On the future of venture returns (TechCrunch, October 2024):
“Venture returns on the whole will go down, [but] for 1% of firms, they will be much, much bigger than ever.” 7
On the Lovable investment (X, February 2025):
“Venture Capital is simple. Find generational defining founders. Give them money. Help where possible. 20VC + Lovable.” 8
What Founders Say
No independently sourced founder testimonials found at time of research. Founder reviews from Stebbings’ portfolio companies were not surfaced through public search; future research passes should look for Product Hunt launch posts, Twenty Minute VC guest episodes featuring portfolio founders, and Stride/20VC founder quotes in Sifted and TechCrunch announcement coverage.
Sources
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“Harry Stebbings,” Wikipedia, accessed June 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Stebbings↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩
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“20VC,” Wikipedia, accessed June 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20VC↩↩↩↩↩
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“Stride.VC, a new seed fund founded by Fred Destin and Harry Stebbings, sees first £40M closing,” TechCrunch, June 2018, accessed June 2026. https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/04/stride-vc/↩
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“Harry Stebbings is leaving Stride, the VC firm he founded with Fred Destin,” TechCrunch, February 2021, accessed June 2026. https://techcrunch.com/2021/02/07/harry-stebbings-is-leaving-stride-the-vc-firm-he-founded-with-fred-destin/↩
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“How Harry Stebbings Scaled 20VC Fund from $5M to $100M+,” Francesca Tabor, February 2025, accessed June 2026. https://www.francescatabor.com/articles/2025/2/24/how-harry-stebbings-scaled-20vc-fund-from-5m-to-100m↩
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“Podcaster-turned-VC Harry Stebbings raises two funds totalling $140m,” Sifted, June 2021, accessed June 2026. https://sifted.eu/articles/harry-stebbings-140m-funds↩
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“20VC closes new $400M fund to ‘make Europe great again,’ says Harry Stebbings,” TechCrunch, October 15, 2024, accessed June 2026. https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/15/20vc-closes-new-400m-fund-to-make-europe-great-again-says-harry-stebbings/↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩
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Harry Stebbings, X post on 20VC + Lovable investment, February 2025, accessed June 2026. https://x.com/HarryStebbings/status/1894526304344494309↩↩↩
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20VC Fund portfolio page, accessed June 2026. https://20vc.fund/portfolio↩↩↩↩
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“Peec AI raises $21M Series A led by Singular following 20VC-led seed,” summarized via Tracxn investor coverage, accessed June 2026. https://tracxn.com/d/venture-capital/20vc-fund/__jRcqc4XV96uunAHcNXV87XMGYzXBn2qkhMvELwTGF9Y↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩
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Harry Stebbings, LinkedIn post: “28 mins into my 20VC with Jack Zhang at Airwallex I decided to invest $7M,” published November 4, 2025. Accessed June 2026. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/harrystebbings_founder-funding-business-activity-7391489138585280512-AV8F — Stebbings publicly disclosed his personal $7M investment in Airwallex made during the 20VC podcast recording with Jack Zhang. Investment decision made roughly 7 months prior to the post (i.e. April/May 2025); was not part of the formally-announced May 21, 2025 Series F (in which 20VC/Stebbings is not named, per the Airwallex press release). ↩
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The Twenty Minute VC, “Airwallex CEO & Co-Founder, Jack Zhang: The Angel That Turned $1M into $1BN,” episode landing page, published May 26, 2025. Accessed June 2026. https://www.thetwentyminutevc.com/jack-zhang — 20VC podcast episode that Stebbings references as the moment of his investment decision; episode publication date confirms 2025 timing for the $7M Stebbings investment in Airwallex. ↩