Staffan Helgesson is a venture capital investor at Creandum who built the firm as a flat, partner-driven franchise modeled on Benchmark and deliberately expanded first to Silicon Valley rather than London to create what he calls a pincer movement on the traditional European VC hub. He focuses exclusively on backing the 3-5 companies per year that can return 50-200x rather than safer investments, using forced portfolio rankings by all investment professionals and avoiding mechanical investing checklists in favor of backing founders strong enough that his own involvement can remain marginal. Staffan Helgesson is a venture capital investor at Creandum who built the firm as a flat, partner-driven franchise modeled on Benchmark and deliberately expanded first to Silicon Valley rather than London to create what he calls a pincer movement on the traditional European VC hub. He focuses exclusively on backing the 3-5 companies per year that can return 50-200x rather than safer investments, using forced portfolio rankings by all investment professionals and avoiding mechanical investing checklists in favor of backing founders strong enough that his own involvement can remain marginal.