Werner Valeur: AI can supercharge starting multiple startups

Werner Valeur is a Danish entrepreneur who has founded the accounting software company Billy and currently oversees a portfolio of about 30 startups through his company Mad House. He typically bypasses the traditional startup advice of finding an uncompetitive blue ocean market. Instead, he intentionally enters red ocean markets dominated by large, established players, arguing that incumbents eventually become expensive, heavy, and focused on increasing profits from existing customers. This dynamic creates an opening for smaller challengers offering simpler products, lower prices, and less friction for users, such as his new accounting venture Appelsin.

Valeur personally provides the initial ideas, starting capital, and strategic direction for his businesses, then brings in a team, appoints a CEO, and gives employees equity. By making his own startup-building role reproducible, he manages around 30 companies without being overworked by connecting his portfolio CEOs to share knowledge, technology, and solve problems together. He also believes that avoiding external venture funding often leads to greater success, as fewer financial resources combined with lower salaries and more employee equity drive better results.

Artificial intelligence serves as a major accelerator for this business model. Valeur views generative intelligence not just as a time-saver, but as a powerful leverage tool that enables a small organization to rapidly produce and scale its strengths. With AI, he expects to increase his startup output from one or two companies per year to as many as ten.