Best Startup
At Best Startup UK we track over 130,000 UK startups and over 500,000 people who hold key positions in these companies. We use this directory of startups to highlight top employees, founders and board members we think deserve more appreciation than they are currently getting.
This list showcases the top United Kingdom based Partner operating in the Finance space. If you think a Partner is missing from this list, feel free to contact our editor on editor@beststartup.co.uk.
The individuals on this list have been included because of exceptional performance in one of the following categories:
- Innovation – Operating as a key part in an extremely innovative business or startup.
- Growth – Operating as a key figure in the growth and upscale of a market leading business or startup.
- Management – Showing exceptional management skills.
- Societal impact – Putting their business on the map for their positive societal or environmental impact.
Our Data – We source our data from OSINT (open source intelligence) and public directories such as Companies House UK, Crunchbase, SemRush and many more. The data from these sources should be treated with a degree of caution and verified yourself.
Frederic Court
Founder and Managing Partner of Felix Capital
Frederic is the Founder and Managing Partner of Felix Capital. He has worked in the technology industry for the past 20 years, prior to Felix as General Partner with Advent Ventures in London, and previously as an entrepreneur. At Felix, Frederic works closely with Farfetch (NYSE:FTCH), goop, Mejuri, Yoobic, The Business of Fashion, Highsnobiety and Mirakl. He led the growth investments in Deliveroo and Peloton. While at Advent, Frederic led investments in Farfetch, Zong (sold to eBay), Vitrue (Oracle), Dailymotion (Orange), Qype (Yelp), Fizzback (Nice Systems) and Ubiquisys (Cisco). Frederic was named “Investor of the Year” in Europe by his peers at the 2012 Investor All Stars event. He was on the Midas List Europe 2017 and 2018. Previously he was an entrepreneur in France, building a VC-backed online marketplace for the textile industry, and before that a technology banker in London and New York with Lazard. A graduate of ESSEC in Paris and Bocconi University in Milan, Frederic is fluent in English, French, Italian and Spanish.
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About Adverity, Deliveroo, Felix Capital, Forter, La Ruche qui dit Oui, Moonbug, Oatly, Peloton: Felix Capital is a venture fund that focuses on digital commerce, digital media, and information technology companies.
Les Gabb
Finance Partner of Felix Capital
Les Gabb is the Founder & Finance Partner of Advent Venture Partners.He attend to the University of Oxford.
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About Advent Venture Partners, Felix Capital: Felix Capital is a venture fund that focuses on digital commerce, digital media, and information technology companies.
Ian Ellis
Head of Strategic Vendor Partnerships of Deutsche Bank
Ian Ellis (Co-Organizer) is a Vice President in the Technology Business Development at a major US bulge bracket bank. In this role, he is responsible for leveraging the insights & expertise of their world class Technology division to assist with client business development. In addition, Ian focuses on growing strategic partnerships with key technology partners, venture capital firms and innovative emerging technology companies. He is based in London, but works globally with the team, having previously worked in New York from mid 2010 to mid 2012 and also run the Firm’s Technology Business Development practice in Europe. He holds a BA in Economics & Information Studies from University College Dublin and an MSc in Analysis, Design & Management of Information Systems (with distinction) from the London School of Economics, where he now serves as an Associate of the Department of Management.
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About Deutsche Bank, NY Enterprise Technology Meetup: Deutsche Bank, a Frankfurt-based global investment bank, offers financial products and services to corporate and institutional clients.
Luca Bocchio
Partner of Accel
Luca Bocchio joined Accel in 2018 and focuses on consumer internet, fintech, and software businesses. Luca led Accel’s investment in Luko, Bryter, Brumbrum and Trade Republic. Luca also helped lead Accel’s investment and ongoing work in Sennder, among others. He is also on the board of Vinted. Prior to Accel, Luca was with H14, where he invested in global early and growth stage opportunities, such as Deliveroo, GetYourGuide, Flixbus, SumUp, and SecretEscapes. Luca previously advised technology, industrial, and consumer companies on strategy with Bain & Co. in Europe and Asia. Luca is from Italy and graduated from LIUC University.
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About Accel: Accel is an early and growth-stage venture capital firm that helps a global community of entrepreneurs.
Seth Pierrepont
Partner of Accel
Seth Pierrepont joined Accel in 2013 and focuses on enterprise software, cybersecurity, and data infrastructure. Seth helped lead Accel’s investments and ongoing work in Kry, PillPack (acquired by Amazon), Deliveroo, WorldRemit, Soldo, Anyfin, Privitar, Snyk, Tines, Shift Technology, CallSign, Chainalysis, Carwow, and FRVR. Prior to Accel, Seth invested in European companies with Vision Capital. He previously advised technology and media companies on strategy with Oliver Wyman in San Francisco. Seth is from Chicago, IL and attended Dartmouth.
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About Accel: Accel is an early and growth-stage venture capital firm that helps a global community of entrepreneurs.
Bruce Golden
Partner of Accel
Bruce Golden is the Partner at Accel.
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About Accel: Accel is an early and growth-stage venture capital firm that helps a global community of entrepreneurs.
Philippe Botteri
Partner of Accel
Philippe Botteri joined Accel in 2011 and focuses on Cloud applications and Security. He led Accel’s investments in DocuSign (NASDAQ: DOCU), Algolia, Doctolib, Blablacar, PeopleDoc (acquired by Ultimate Software), UiPath and more recently Snyk and Chainalysis. He is also on the board of Fiverr (NASDAQ: FVRR) and worked closely with the team at Crowdstrike. Prior to Accel, Philippe was with Bessemer, based in Menlo Park, where he helped build the firm’s cloud practice, working on investments including Cornerstone OnDemand (NASDAQ: CSOD), Eloqua (NASDAQ: ELOQ) and Criteo (NASDAQ: CRTO). He started his career with McKinsey&Co. Philippe is from Paris and graduated from Ecole Polytechnique, where he is a member of the Entrepreneurship Advisory Board, and Ecole des Mines.
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About Accel, CrowdStrike, FREE NOW: Accel is an early and growth-stage venture capital firm that helps a global community of entrepreneurs.
Sonali De Rycker
Partner of Accel
Sonali De Rycker joined Accel in 2008. Sonali led Accel’s investments in Avito (acquired by Naspers), Lyst, Spotify (NYSE: SPOT), Wallapop, Calastone, Monzo, Shift Technology, Letgo (acquired by Naspers), Kry/Livi, Soldo, Hopin, and Sennder. Prior to Accel, Sonali was with Atlas Venture (now Accomplice). She also previously served on the board of Match.com (NASDAQ: MTCH).
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About Accel, Lyst, Spotify: Accel is an early and growth-stage venture capital firm that helps a global community of entrepreneurs.
Andrei Brasoveanu
Partner of Accel
Andrei Brasoveanu joined Accel in 2014 and works with teams in the areas of enterprise software, developer-oriented products, cloud infrastructure, security, and financial services. Andrei helped lead Accel’s investments and ongoing work in Rasa, Humio, dashdash, Tessian, Checkly, Celonis, Personio, UiPath, Instana, Monzo, Carto, JobToday, and Ermetic among others. Prior to Accel, Andrei spent a decade in the US and worked with Foundation Capital and KCG/Virtu, the largest equities high-frequency trading firm in the US. Previously, he helped build an algorithmic trading startup on Wall Street focused on commodity futures. Andrei hails from Romania. He holds an AB summa cum laude in Mathematics from Princeton and an MBA with Distinction from Harvard Business School.
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About Accel: Accel is an early and growth-stage venture capital firm that helps a global community of entrepreneurs.
Harry Nelis
Partner of Accel
Harry Nelis joined Accel in 2004 and focuses on software, fintech and consumer internet companies. Harry led Accel’s investments in KAYAK (NASDAQ: KYAK; acquired by Priceline), Showroomprive (EPA: SRP), Funding Circle (LON: FCH), Callsign, Celonis, CHECK24, Instana, Miro, and WorldRemit. Harry started his career in Silicon Valley as an engineer at Hewlett-Packard before founding a venture-backed software company. Harry is from the Netherlands and graduated from Harvard Business School and Delft University of Technology.
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About Accel, Faregames: Accel is an early and growth-stage venture capital firm that helps a global community of entrepreneurs.
Martin Gibson
Venture Partner of Accel
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About Accel, Accel: Accel is an early and growth-stage venture capital firm that helps a global community of entrepreneurs.
Kevin Comolli
Managing General Partner of Accel
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About Accel: Accel is an early and growth-stage venture capital firm that helps a global community of entrepreneurs.
Adrian Colyer
Venture Partner of Accel
Advisor at Weaveworks & ClusterHQ. Board Member at Skipjaq.
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About Accel, Accel: Accel is an early and growth-stage venture capital firm that helps a global community of entrepreneurs.
David Thevenon
Partner of SoftBank Vision Fund
Before joining SoftBank in 2014, David had a 10-year tenure at Google, where he last led global partnerships for the Android platform and was in charge of product related partnerships and business development activities across Asia, Europe, Middle-East, Africa and Latin America. Prior to Google, David was leading strategic partnerships at T-Mobile International, and worked as a finance executive at Dell, ICL-Fujitsu and Elf-Atochem. David received a Master in Management from ESCEM.
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About Balderton, SoftBank Vision Fund: SoftBank Vision Fund specializes in growth capital and social impact investments.
Munish Varma
Partner, EMEA, Asia of SoftBank Vision Fund
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About SoftBank Vision Fund: SoftBank Vision Fund specializes in growth capital and social impact investments.
Saleh Romeih
Managing Partner, Investment Committee Member, SBIA, EMEA of SoftBank Vision Fund
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About SoftBank Vision Fund: SoftBank Vision Fund specializes in growth capital and social impact investments.
Catherine Lenson
Partner, Global Head of HR of SoftBank Vision Fund
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About SoftBank Vision Fund: SoftBank Vision Fund specializes in growth capital and social impact investments.
Yosuke Sasaki
Partner, Head of CEO Office of SoftBank Vision Fund
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About SoftBank Vision Fund: SoftBank Vision Fund specializes in growth capital and social impact investments.
Ruwan Weerasekera
Managing Partner, COO of SoftBank Vision Fund
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About SoftBank Vision Fund: SoftBank Vision Fund specializes in growth capital and social impact investments.
Shivani Lala
Partner, Head of Tax of SoftBank Vision Fund
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About SoftBank Vision Fund: SoftBank Vision Fund specializes in growth capital and social impact investments.
Jan Hammer
Investor & Partner of Index Ventures
Jan joined Index in 2010, and is a London-based partner, focusing on fintech and information/data services across all stages of growth. He is one of Index Ventures’ leading fintech investors, working with the founders of Adyen, Credit Benchmark, Robinhood and TransferWise. In all, Index has backed more than two dozen fintech companies, with more than $400 million. Jan has also led Index investments and is on the boards of Beamery, Collibra, SafetyCulture and Silverfin. Before he joined Index, Jan was at General Atlantic in London, where he worked on investments in Kaspersky Lab, Northgate Information Solutions and Torex Retail. He also worked in the M&A, TMT and Capital Markets divisions at Morgan Stanley. Jan is a graduate of Oxford University, and holds an MBA with Distinction from INSEAD.
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About Index Ventures, Productboard, Sofía, The Prince’s Trust, Wise: Index Ventures is a venture capital firm that helps the entrepreneurs turn bold ideas into global businesses.
Carlos Gonzalez- Cadenas
Partner of Index Ventures
Carlos Gonzalez-Cadenas is Chief Product and Technology Officer (CPO/CTO) at GoCardless.
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About GoCardless, Index Ventures: Index Ventures is a venture capital firm that helps the entrepreneurs turn bold ideas into global businesses.
Danny Rimer
Partner of Index Ventures
Danny joined Index in 2002 and established the firm’s London office. He later opened the San Francisco office with Mike Volpi. His current investments include 1stdibs, Discord, Farfetch, Figma, Glossier, GOAT, Good Eggs, Grailed, Humu, Patreon and Scoop. Prior to Index, Danny was a General Partner at The Barksdale Group, where he invested in over a dozen companies. Earlier in his career, he was at Hambrecht & Quist (now owned by JP Morgan), where he began the Internet sector equity research group. He was managing director and underwriting analyst and took Amazon, Netscape and Verisign public among others. Previously, Danny was a director of Betfair, Dropbox, Etsy, Sky, Last.fm, Lovefilm, MySQL, and Skype; and formerly on the Board of Trustees at SFMOMA and MAGGIE’S Centres. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2017 New Year Honours for services to business and charity.
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About Index Ventures: Index Ventures is a venture capital firm that helps the entrepreneurs turn bold ideas into global businesses.
Martin Mignot
Partner of Index Ventures
Martin Mignot is the Partner at Index Ventures.
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About Algolia, Bird, Bulb, Index Ventures, La Ruche qui dit Oui, Maven Clinic, Revolut, Seedcamp, The Family: Index Ventures is a venture capital firm that helps the entrepreneurs turn bold ideas into global businesses.
Hermann Hauser
Co-founder, Director, and Venture Partner of Amadeus Capital Partners
Hermann Hauser co-founded Amadeus Capital Partners in 1997 with Anne Glover and Peter Wynn. In his long and successful history as an entrepreneur and venture capitalist, Hermann has founded or co-founded companies in a wide range of technology sectors. These include Acorn Computers (where he helped spin out ARM), Active Book Company, Virata, Net Products, NetChannel and Cambridge Network Limited. He was a founder director of IQ (Bio), IXI Limited, Vocalis, SynGenix, Advanced Displays Limited (acquired by Cambridge Display Technology), Electronic Share Information Limited, E*Trade UK and has supported many other start-ups. Hermann’s successes at Amadeus include: CSR plc (LON: CSR); Entropic Research Laboratory (acquired by Microsoft in 1999); Solexa (acquired by Illumina in 2007); and Icera (acquired by Nvidia in 2011). He is currently a non-executive director of XMOS, a company that is revolutionising re-configurable silicon chips; Intune Networks, a pioneer in the field of Optical Packet Switch & Transport; Tobii, the world leader in eye tracking and gaze detection; Plastic Logic, the first company to commercialize flexible plastic transistors (currently used in computer displays); and Cambridge Broadband Networks, a leader in point-to-multipoint wireless backhaul products. Hermann holds an MA in Physics from Vienna University and a PhD in Physics from the University of Cambridge. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics and of the Royal Academy of Engineering, and an Honorary Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge. Hermann holds honorary doctorates from the Universities of Bath, Loughborough and from Anglia Ruskin University and was awarded an Honorary CBE for ‘innovative service to the UK enterprise sector’ in 2001. In 2004, he was made a member of the Government’s Council for Science & Technology. In 2012 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society in recognition of his contribution to the translation of science into business, and in 2013 a Distinguished Fellow of BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT. Austrian by birth, Hermann speaks German, English and conversational Italian and French.
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About Amadeus Capital Partners, Intune Networks, XMOS: Amadeus Capital Partners caters to the technology sector with seed, early, and later stage venture, and private equity investments.
Nick Kingsbury
Partner of Amadeus Capital Partners
Nick Kingsbury has 30 years experience in business, of which 12 was in the role of CEO for two software companies, and 7 was as Sector Partner for the international venture capital company 3i. Nick is an experienced international software entrepreneur and venture capitalist. He started his career with one of the leading UK software houses before founding his own company, Software Support Limited, in the mid 1980s which grew to become a leading systems integration company for Workflow applications. In 1996 this business merged with Staffware plc which then IPO’d on the London market. With Staffware Nick was Senior VP for International Business Development and Marketing. In 1999 Nick joined the international venture capitalist, 3i plc, for which he was Sector Partner for the software and internet sector. 3i invested over $500m in 150 software companies across Europe, the US and Asia, of which Nick was personally involved in many. His role was to develop 3i’s investment strategy and to advise on new investments. He also worked with existing investee companies with their strategic development, notably through partnership with the leading IT players worldwide. He served on the board of three 3i companies, Propero, the virtualisation company, sold to VMWare, Metastorm, the leading Business Process Management company (as observer) and the security software company Chronicle Solutions where he was also interim CEO. Nick left 3i in 2007 and now advises a number of companies on their corporate and funding strategies. He currently serves on the boards of several private and public companies. See engagements for more information. Kingsbury Ventures has access to a network of specialist associates covering media, electronics and other industries.
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About Amadeus Capital Partners, GrowthPoint Technology Partners, Objective Corporation: Amadeus Capital Partners caters to the technology sector with seed, early, and later stage venture, and private equity investments.
Volker Hirsch
Partner of Amadeus Capital Partners
Volker Hirsch joined Amadeus Capital Partners as Partner in 2018.
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About Amadeus Capital Partners, Curioso Games, Digital Hive, Tech North Advocates: Amadeus Capital Partners caters to the technology sector with seed, early, and later stage venture, and private equity investments.
Alex van Someren
Managing Partner of Amadeus Capital Partners
Alex van Someren is a serial IT entrepreneur and CEO with two exits through IPO, nCipher pls (acquired by Thales SA), and ANT plc (acquired by Espial plc). He grew up near Cambridge, UK and worked at Acorn Computer on the BBC Microcomputer and its successor the Acorn Electron. With his brother, Dr. Nicko van Someren, he co-founded nCipher with venture capital backing to develop internet security products using advanced cryptography. The company became a world leader in IT security, counting major banking, finance and governments among its customers. He subsequently raised a total of £14 million in VC before he led the company as CEO to an IPO listing on the London Stock Exchange in 2000 (LSE:NCH) at a £350 million valuation. nCipher plc was sold to Thales SA in 2008. Alex lives in Cambridge, UK and is married with three children. He was appointed an Entrepreneur in Residence at the Judge Business School, University of Cambridge in 2005. He has authored several books on computer applications and microprocessors, including the first published book on the ARM RISC chips, which was also pirated in Japanese. During 2019, Alex will be the Visiting Clore Innovation Professor at the Royal College of Art, London.
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About Amadeus Capital Partners, Creative Destruction Lab (CDL), CyLon, Seldon: Amadeus Capital Partners caters to the technology sector with seed, early, and later stage venture, and private equity investments.
Rytis Vitkauskas
Partner of Lightspeed Venture Partners
Rytis joined Lightspeed Venture Partners in 2019 and is responsible for Europe. Prior to joining Lightspeed, Rytis was a Venture Partner with Target Global and co-founder and CEO of YPlan, the world’s first mobile-only event booking app that evolved into a comprehensive event discovery and booking platform. Backed by General Catalyst, Octopus Ventures, Wellington Partners, Amex, Ashton Kutcher and others, YPlan was acquired by the Time Out Group in October 2016. Before YPlan, Rytis was Vice President at a growth equity fund Summit Partners, responsible for software and consumer internet investments in Central and Eastern Europe, Scandinavia and the UK. Rytis helped source and co-led investments in AVAST Software (a multi-billion $ business and the world’s largest freemium consumer anti-virus company with 400m active users) and Acturis Software (Europe’s largest insurance Software as a Service). As angel investor and advisor, Rytis has backed and supported founders of innovative startups including City Pantry (acquired by Just Eat), Trafi, Roli, Student.com and others. His previous experience includes positions at BofA Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank, and SEB VB Asset Management. Rytis holds a bachelor’s degree with distinction from Jacobs University Bremen (Bremen, Germany) and an MBA from Harvard Business School (Boston, MA). Rytis is also a co-author of two educational books, and founder of several youth mentorship projects.
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About Lightspeed Venture Partners: Lightspeed Venture Partners is a venture capital firm that engages in consumer, enterprise, technology, and cleantech markets.
Paul Murphy
Partner of Lightspeed Venture Partners
Paul joined Northzone in 2018 and is based in the London office. His areas of interest are consumer applications and entertainment, and enterprise. He has invested in Klang, Thirty Madison and TIER. Prior to Northzone, Paul worked at mobile games company Dots, behind successes Dots and TwoDots, where he was Co-Founder & CEO. He’s also not new to the investment scene, having been an active seed and angel investor in the New York and West Coast ecosystems, with a dozen investments across consumer and B2B SaaS. Paul has a BS in Computer Engineering at Virginia Tech, and an MBA from the IE Business School in Spain, where he is an adjunct Professor.
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About Activate, Blend.io, katch, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Rushmore.fm, Telecast: Lightspeed Venture Partners is a venture capital firm that engages in consumer, enterprise, technology, and cleantech markets.
Shelley Chu
Partner of Lightspeed Venture Partners
Shelley joined Abingworth in 2015 and invests across a broad range of therapeutic areas and stages of development from start-ups to late-stage. She serves on the Board of Directors for Tizona Therapeutics, SFJ Pharmaceuticals and VenatoRx, and co-led Abingworth’s investments in IFM Therapeutics, Inc (acquired by Bristol-Myers Squibb), IFM Therapeutics LLC and IFM Tre. Shelley has over 15 years of operating and investment experience in the biopharmaceutical industry, including most recently Gilead where she led R&D Strategy and Business Development in Oncology, Immunotherapy and Hepatitis B. Previously Shelley invested and co-founded biotechnology companies at Frazier Healthcare Ventures. Earlier in her career she was an investment professional at Flagship Ventures and a management consultant to healthcare and biotech companies at McKinsey. Shelley holds an MD and PhD in Biochemistry and Biophysics from UCSF, and received her BA in Molecular Biology from Princeton University. She is a first author of publications in Science and other prominent journals, a Co-Chair of the Princeton Alumni School Committee and a member of the Advisory Committee for BIO’s Investor Forum.
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About Abingworth, Lightspeed Venture Partners: Lightspeed Venture Partners is a venture capital firm that engages in consumer, enterprise, technology, and cleantech markets.
Simon Murdoch
Managing Partner of Episode 1
Simon set up online bookstore Bookpages in 1996 and sold it to Amazon in 1998. As VP Europe for Amazon, he managed huge growth from start-up through to multimillion turnover and hundreds of staff. As an Angel investor, he has invested in Shazam, been chairman of VideoIsland (now merged with and renamed LoveFilm, and purchased in Feb 2011 by Amazon.com), Zoopla! and Shutl (currently chairman). Simon founded and funded FriendsAbroad.com, a social network for developing language skills and contacts abroad which was successfully sold to Lesson Nine GmbH, operators of language learning site Babbel.com. Simon is currently CEO of StormForward, an e-commerce conversion consultancy which helpsonline retailers to increase their online sales and profits.
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About Episode 1, StormForward: Episode1 Ventures is a venture capital fund set up to invest in early-stage technology companies based in London, UK.
Paul McNabb
Venture Partner of Episode 1
Paul has had a highly successful career in high tech as both a senior executive and an entrepreneur. Most recently, he served as the Chief Strategy Officer for Cisco Services, a $12bn division of Cisco, where he led the global strategy and acquisitions team. Previously he had run a series of global businesses for Cisco. As an entrepreneur he founded and exited two businesses in the US, one an innovative consulting firm sold to Cambridge Technology Partners, and the second a B2B Social Network for CIOs sold to Earthweb. His early background was in consulting, working for Accenture and other major international consulting firms, including his own. He has worked in venture capital in the US, and has broad experience in many B2B technologies. He has also worked globally, living in Shanghai, New York, San Francisco and multiple European Countries. With a passion for strategy and marketing, and an extensive network of contacts and experience to draw on, Paul enjoys nothing better than working with entrepreneurs to tease out the goals and priorities they need to operationalize their vision.
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About Episode 1, Opteran: Episode1 Ventures is a venture capital fund set up to invest in early-stage technology companies based in London, UK.
Adrian Lloyd
Partner of Episode 1
Adrian Lloyd is a Partner at Episode 1, an early stage Venture Capital fund focusing on software enabled businesses with the beginnings of customer traction. Adrian has had a career as a management consultant and entrepreneur, with a gap at Stanford Business School in 2008-10 where he earned his MBA. He focuses on customer-centric product and business design as an investor and you can read more of his thoughts at http://www.episode1.com/news-and-blog/blog Adrian has been investing in software businesses since 2008.
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About Episode 1: Episode1 Ventures is a venture capital fund set up to invest in early-stage technology companies based in London, UK.
Damien Lane
Co-Founder & Partner of Episode 1
Damien Lane has spent the last 20 years investing in private companies, both in Private Equity where he was a partner with Electra Partners, then at Octopus Ventures where he was a senior member of the investment team. Having made a number of angel investments, Damien co-founded Episode 1 with Simon and Adrian in 2012. While at Episode 1, Damien has led investments in Carwow, Scurri, Touch Surgery, Attest and Zipcube and loves working with early stage teams of entrepreneurs; helping them develop their early stage startup into a fast growth enterprises capable of raising more funding from later stage investors. When he is not trying to help businesses to implement an optimal approach to growth, Damien can mostly be found running around Hampstead Heath or the Coastal paths of Great Britain. Having trained obsessively to run a 2:52 Marathon in 2015, he is now trying to dip below 2:50, in the spirit of continuous improvement. Damien has an MBA from Cambridge University and a Masters degree in PE from Oxford University.
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About Adludio, Episode 1, Scurri: Episode1 Ventures is a venture capital fund set up to invest in early-stage technology companies based in London, UK.
Pamir Gelenbe
Venture Partner of Hummingbird Ventures
Pamir is a Managing Partner at Libertus Capital and invests on decentralised systems, entreprise blockchain, and digital assets. He is an investor in Kraken, Ledger, Crypto Facilities and Shapeshift. Previously, he served as a Partner at Hummingbird Ventures, and also worked at Morgan Stanley and D.E. Shaw. Pamir graduated from Duke University and Columbia University with a BSc. in Electrical Engineering and MSc. in Operations Research.
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About CryptoFacilities, Gram Games, Hummingbird Ventures, Libertus Capital, On Device Research, ShapeShift: Hummingbird Ventures is a venture capital fund for high-growth digital media and software companies.
Firat Ileri
Partner of Hummingbird Ventures
Firat is a Partner at Hummingbird Ventures. His current portfolio includes Armut, Argent, Aspire, Billiontoone, Brigit, Ciceksepeti, Instacarro, Kernal Biologics and Layer. He previously worked with Frontier Car Group, Gram Games, Peak Games and Merlin prior to their acquisition. He is interested in marketplaces, frontier tech, fintech and gaming. Previously, he worked at J.P. Morgan at the Emerging Markets Structuring and Solutions group. He received B.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Management Science and a Master of Engineering degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT.
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About Hummingbird Ventures, Layer: Hummingbird Ventures is a venture capital fund for high-growth digital media and software companies.
Tom Hulme
General Partner of GV
Tom is a general partner at Google Ventures. Previously, Tom was a design director at IDEO Europe, where he founded OpenIDEO, an open innovation platform that has over 150,000 users from more than 170 countries. Tom also launched OIEngine, an online platform for IDEO clients, including Harvard Business School and the Knight Foundation. Before IDEO, Tom was managing director of Marcos, a British sports car manufacturer. As a serial entrepreneur, Tom also founded Magnom, a magnetic filter startup. Tom’s filter designs have been widely used in Formula One, Superbikes, JCB loaders, and central heating systems. Tom has been recognized as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, and has been featured in WIRED UK’s Top 100 Digital Power Brokers list every year since the list has been published. He has also been included in the Evening Standard list of London’s 1000 Most Influential People. Tom earned a first class bachelor’s degree in physics from the University of Bristol, and an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he received the Baker Scholar Award of high distinction. Tom has also received an honorary doctorate from University Arts London.
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About GV: GV provides venture capital funding to bold new companies.
Lauren Powell
Administrative Business Partner of GV
Prior to joining GV in 2016, Lauren was an executive assistant at Barclays Investment Bank in London. Previously, she lived in Sydney, where she worked as an executive assistant at Gallup Consulting, a behavioral-economics consultancy, and Lidis Group, a boutique private-equity firm specializing in real estate.
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About GV: GV provides venture capital funding to bold new companies.
Vidu Shanmugarajah
Partner of GV
Vidu Shanmugarajah is a Partner at GV.
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About GV: GV provides venture capital funding to bold new companies.
Ophelia Brown
Founder & Partner of Blossom Capital
Ophelia is the founder of Blossom Capital, an early stage venture fund that brings a wholly differentiated approach to investing. Blossom makes a small number of high conviction investments each year, which allows the team to work closely with their companies, helping them achieve their ambitious goals. Fascinated by user behaviour and design, Ophelia loves worked with founders with strong product DNA and design-oriented teams. Previously Ophelia was a GP at LocalGlobe and a principal at Index Ventures where her investments included Typeform and Robinhood. Ophelia is also the founder of ALT “Ambitious Ladies in Tech” – a mentor programme that matches junior women in technology start-ups with senior functional leaders to provide them with valuable coaching, skills development and networking. The network includes executives from some of the world’s leading tech companies like Amazon, Airbnb, Facebook, Google, Uber and many more.
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About Big Health, Blossom Capital: Blossom Capital is a venture capital and private equity firm that invests in consumer, enterprise, internet, and startup sectors.
Imran Ghory
Partner of Blossom Capital
Imran Ghory is a Partner at Blossom Capital focusing on Series A investments in Europe. Before joining Blossom Capital, Imran built his career focused on the data driven analysis of companies, both private and public. This included starting one of the first data-driven deal sourcing practices in venture capital at Index Ventures and leading engineering and data science teams at fintech companies including Bloomberg and MarketInvoice.
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About Blossom Capital: Blossom Capital is a venture capital and private equity firm that invests in consumer, enterprise, internet, and startup sectors.
David Abrams
Partner of Cerberus Capital Management
David Abrams joined Cerberus in 2016 after eight years as the founder and Managing Partner of the Apollo European Principal Finance Funds franchise which acquired distressed debt, real estate and non-performing loans. Previously, David Abrams spent 15 years in Credit Suisse’s Leveraged Finance Group analyzing and investing in corporate credit, distressed assets and European Non-Performing Loan portfolios. David Abrams graduated from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.
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About Cerberus Capital Management: Cerberus Capital Management is a private investment firm that focuses on operational private equity investments.
Saul Klein
Partner & Co-Founder of LocalGlobe
Saul is a Founding Partner at Localglobe, a new seed fund focussed on helping London’s great most ambitious founders build game changing businesses. Previously, Saul was a Partner at Index Ventures from 2007 until May 2015. In 2012 David Cameron appointed Saul to be the UK’s first tech envoy to Israel and a Technology Business Ambassador. Saul is serial entrepreneur with two decades of experience building and exiting companies in the US, Israel and Europe. He has a passion for working with seed and early stage businesses. Most recently Saul co-founded Kano and Seedcamp, as well as a co-founder and original CEO of Lovefilm International (acquired by Amazon). He was also part of the original executive team at Skype (acquired by eBay).
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About Kano, Latitude, LocalGlobe, OpenCoffee Club, Platoon, Seedcamp, The Accelerator Group, Zinc.VC: LocalGlobe is a venture capital firm that focuses on seed and impact investments.
Remus Brett
Partner of LocalGlobe
Remus Brett is an Investment Partner at LocalGlobe.
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About LocalGlobe: LocalGlobe is a venture capital firm that focuses on seed and impact investments.
George Henry
General Partner of LocalGlobe
George Henry is Early-stage investor and Partner at Localglobe.
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About Latitude, LocalGlobe, Sandbox Network: LocalGlobe is a venture capital firm that focuses on seed and impact investments.
Suzanne Ashman Blair
General Partner of LocalGlobe
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About LocalGlobe: LocalGlobe is a venture capital firm that focuses on seed and impact investments.
Emma Phillips
Investment Partner of LocalGlobe
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About Latitude, LocalGlobe, Meals For The NHS, SVB Financial Group: LocalGlobe is a venture capital firm that focuses on seed and impact investments.
Michael Mashkautsan
Partner of LocalGlobe
Mish Mashkautsan is the General Partner at LocalGlobe and Latitude. He also serves as a mentor at Creative Destruction Labs.
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About Creative Destruction Lab (CDL), Latitude, LocalGlobe: LocalGlobe is a venture capital firm that focuses on seed and impact investments.
Julia Hawkins
Partner of LocalGlobe
Julia Hawkins is a Partner at LocalGlobe. Previously, Julia worked at Goldman Sachs, Last.fm, BBC Worldwide and most recently Universal Music where she set up their Corporate Venture arm and led investments in ROLI and Sofar Sounds among others. Julia enjoys working with mission driven founders and has a keen interest in consumer, entertainment, media and health tech from wellness to genomics. She holds a 1st from LSE, is a Kauffman Fellow and Board Trustee of Shwachman Diamond Syndrome UK, a charity dedicated to finding a cure for SDS, a rare genetic disease. https://www.linkedin.com/in/juliahawkins01/
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About Creative Destruction Lab (CDL), LocalGlobe: LocalGlobe is a venture capital firm that focuses on seed and impact investments.
Arnaud van der Wyck
Partner, Strategic Capital and Market Development of Sway Ventures
Arnaud van der Wyck is a specialist in identifying, creating and developing cross-border relationships, investment opportunities and solutions for investors and entrepreneurs across the alternative asset class spectrum. Arnaud has been a Partner of Sway Ventures since its inception, based in London and focusses on: building strategic ecosystems between the US and EMEA, on hands on engagement and commercialisation, revenue and exit pathway efforts and on IT software investing in EMEA. Arnaud gained his first experience as an investment banker within the technology team at UBS and subsequently as an entrepreneur and founder of several businesses and start-ups including Capital Alliance Partners, Voxxcom and Riva Asset Management.
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About Concrete Venture Capital, Sway Ventures: Sway Ventures is a venture capital firm that invests in early to mid-stage technology companies.
Samir Abhyankar
Partner of TPG Growth
Prior to joining TPG Growth in 2015, Mr. Abhyankar was a Partner with Satya Capital where he focused on IT, consumer, financial services and retail investments. Previously Mr. Abhyankar spent 6 years at Citi Venture Capital International where he was responsible for its African investment activities and CDC Group where he was the Director of Strategy. He was formerly a management consultant with Marakon Associates.
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About TPG Growth: TPG Growth specializes in growth equity and middle-market buyout opportunities.
Jide Olanrewaju
Partner of TPG Growth
Prior to joining TPG Growth in 2015, Mr. Olanrewaju was a Partner with Satya Capital, an Africa investment fund, where he worked for 6 years focused on transactions in the Healthcare, Consumer and Financial Services sectors. Previously, Mr. Olanrewaju was at Morgan Stanley for over 6 years where he worked in both the Merchant Banking and Investment Banking Divisions. Before joining Morgan Stanley, he also worked briefly at Goldman Sachs and Shell International in Investment Banking and Gas & Power respectively.
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About Evercare, TPG Growth: TPG Growth specializes in growth equity and middle-market buyout opportunities.
Toby Coppel
Co-Founder & Partner of Mosaic
Toby Coppel is a Co-Founder and Partner at Mosaic Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm based in London. Toby has been in investing and operating roles in the internet sector since 1996. Prior to Mosaic, as a Partner at Virgin and an active angel investor over the past 4 years, Toby has made investments in companies such as Criteo, CreativeLive, Hailo, Pinterest and Transferwise and served on boards including Criteo, Virgin Care, Virgin Galactic, and Virgin Mobile (France). Toby was previously Senior Vice President of Corporate Development and Chief Strategy Officer at Yahoo! from 2001-2007 where he led the team that invested $1 billion into Alibaba for a 40% ownership stake in 2005 and acquired over 30 startups including Flickr, Inktomi, and Overture, for an aggregate of over $4 billion. Toby also ran Yahoo!’s European operations from 2007-2009, a $1 billion division of Yahoo! with over 2,000 employees. Prior to this, Toby was an Internet Investor at Windsor Media and Allen & Company and was a financial analyst at Goldman Sachs. Toby earned his MBA in Entrepreneurship from Harvard Business School and his M.A. in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from University of Oxford.
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About Creative Destruction Lab (CDL), Mosaic: We back founders who are reimagining the world. We invest $1-10m early, in those building daring adventures across Europe.
Simon Levene
Partner & Co-Founder of Mosaic
Simon Levene is a co-founder and partner of London’s Mosaic Ventures, the Series A focused venture capital firm with over $300M under management. He has spent 20+ years in tech on both sides of the Atlantic, in operations and VC. Notable investments include early bets on Etsy and Squarespace, each now worth several billion. Simon founded Mosaic alongside partner Toby Coppel in 2014, in order to bring their strong Silicon Valley networks and top-level experience to help Europe-based entrepreneurs that have global ambition. Simon began his career on the west coast, co-founding the international business of @Home Network (later Excite@Home). From 2001, Simon spent four years as VP Corp Dev for Yahoo!, moving back to Europe as the continent’s tech ecosystem was gaining momentum. As a VC, Simon joined Accel London as a partner in 2006. During his time at Accel, and later as an angel and venture partner at Index, Simon invested at Series A in Squarespace, Myheritage, ResearchGate, Shapeways, Appcard, Knewton, and Enfore; as well as Etsy and Fotolia at Series B. At Mosaic, Simon focuses on platforms, marketplaces, consumer services, consumerized SaaS and crypto/blockchain. He has led investments in Convoy, Nexar, Blockstream, Veriff, Lyvly and Clue.
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About CHECK24, Clue, Convoy, Docker, Etsy, Gameforge, Mosaic, MultiChain, ShipServ: We back founders who are reimagining the world. We invest $1-10m early, in those building daring adventures across Europe.
Ruth Foxe Blader
Partner of Anthemis Group
Ruth Foxe Blader is a Partner at Anthemis. Prior to joining, she led venture investing in Insurtech and Asset Management at Allianz, where she spent more than 5 years bridging the gap between Allianz and the emerging technology ecosystem. Ruth has spent her entire career guiding digital transformation at Fortune 500 companies, previously leading PepsiCo’s global digital and social strategies, and running the European subsidiary of a New York digital agency. Ruth obtained a Masters in Criminology at CUNY-John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, and joint Bachelors in English and German literature at the University of Iowa.wa.
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About Anthemis Group, UniCredit EVO: Anthemis Group is a global platform that cultivates change in the financial system by investing in, growing, and sustaining businesses.
Vica Epifantseva-Manos
Partner of Anthemis Group
One of the original members of the Group, Vica brings a profound understanding of the financial services and fintech space, particularly payments, retail and investment banking. Passionate about catalysing change in the financial services landscape of the Digital Age, she works with large corporates and start-ups alike to formulate strategies that drive growth through innovation. Before joining Anthemis, Vica was an Investment Banker at Credit Suisse, where she focused on leveraged finance. In the Portfolio Management Group, she ran a $1.5bn debt portfolio with a main focus on the media and infrastructure sectors. Prior to that, during her time in the Financial Sponsors Group, Vica executed leveraged buy-out transactions across a variety of industries. Born in St. Petersburg, raised in Athens, educated in Milan and now living in London, Vica has a diverse, international background. She graduated summa cum laude from Bocconi University and is fluent in four languages (and can manage in French too). She has a wicked sense of humour and also serves as our resident fashion advisor!
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About Anthemis Group, Anthemis Group: Anthemis Group is a global platform that cultivates change in the financial system by investing in, growing, and sustaining businesses.
Briana van Strijp
Partner and CEO of Anthemis Group
Briana is a Partner and Chief Operating Officer at Anthemis. Prior to joining Anthemis, she worked at Suncorp in Australia where she served as a member of the business’ strategic innovation practice. Briana holds a bachelor’s in human resource management from Deakin University. An adventurer at heart, Briana travels extensively and enjoys cultural excursions across the globe. Outside the office, you can find her at the museum, watching new cult films or checking out the latest restaurants in the city.
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About Anthemis Group: Anthemis Group is a global platform that cultivates change in the financial system by investing in, growing, and sustaining businesses.
Naoshir Vachha
Partner, General Counsel & Chief Compliance Officer of Anthemis Group
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About Anthemis Group: Anthemis Group is a global platform that cultivates change in the financial system by investing in, growing, and sustaining businesses.
Catherine Macdonald
HR Business Partner of Anthemis Group
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About Anthemis Group: Anthemis Group is a global platform that cultivates change in the financial system by investing in, growing, and sustaining businesses.
Leila Zegna
Founding Partner of Kindred Capital
Leila cofounded Kindred Capital in March 2015. Kindred aligns their ambitions and achievements with their portfolio. In structure and in spirit. Every entrepreneur Kindred invests in becomes a co-owner of the fund – creating a new category called ‘equitable venture’. Kindred backs companies early and works with the community of founders and advisers to help founders get further, faster from the very beginning. Prior to setting up Kindred, Leila helped start, advise, and grow start-ups since leaving Bain & Company back in 2007. She has worked with start-ups across 3 continents – Argentina (through the Endeavor network), the UK, and across both coasts of the United States. After earning her MBA from Harvard Business School, Leila moved to Silicon Valley to work in the beating heart of the tech ecosystem. Leila is passionate about supporting women leaders, and specifically finding ways to enable women to work on their own terms – she followed that passion to Plum District (a Kleiner Perkins and General Catalyst backed daily deals company focusing on the mom space) and joined as the General Manager. Leila left Plum District to join the founding team GenapSys, a groundbreaking genomics start-up based in Menlo Park. As the sole business hire for the first 2+ years, Leila was responsible for building the business and operating plans, creating and refining the financial model, and leading the fundraising efforts, successfully raising $50M in venture capital from top investors in seed, Series A, and Series B rounds of financing. The team grew from just a small few to over 50 people under Leila’s leadership. Leila has angel investments in 18 early stage companies in both Silicon Valley and the UK, where she now resides. She is an active advisor to several others, and always looking for new ways to engage with and support great founders.
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About Grovo, Kindred Capital: Kindred is an early stage venture capital fund based in London that practises equitable venture.
Chrysanthos Chrysanthou
Partner of Kindred Capital
Chrysanthos Chrysanthou is a Partner at Kindred Capital since Sep 2018. Chrys joined Kindred from Notion Capital where he was a partner since 2015. Prior to that he was at Accel Partners as Vice President on the investment team focusing primarily on B2B opportunities, within infrastructure software, cloud computing, IoT/M2M and Big Data technologies. Prior to Accel Partners Chrys was at Amazon Web Services where he led Business Development efforts of the startup ecosystem, across Europe, Middle East and Africa. Before Amazon Web Services Chrys was Chief Operating Officer of Living PlanIT, a B2B startup technology company in the IoT/M2M space, enabling the development of intelligent and sustainable urban-scale environments. Previously, Chrys worked at Cisco for approximately 10 years where he led Services-related investments and acquisitions worldwide. At Cisco Chrys also worked in the IT and Operations departments leading teams across large scale business process re-engineering and enterprise software migration projects. Chrys has lived and worked in Silicon Valley, the UK, Portugal and India and led projects in the Middle East, South Africa, China and Singapore. Chrys holds a B.Sc. in Computer Science from the University of California, San Diego and an MBA from the Judge Business School at Cambridge University.
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About Creative Destruction Lab (CDL), Kindred Capital: Kindred is an early stage venture capital fund based in London that practises equitable venture.
Russell Buckley
Partner of Kindred Capital
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About Ballpark Ventures, Kindred Capital: Kindred is an early stage venture capital fund based in London that practises equitable venture.
Dominic Perks
Partner, Co-Founder of Hambro Perks Ltd.
Dominic Perks graduated from Oxford University and went on to work as an investment banker at Morgan Stanley, and then as a Strategy Consultant at McKinsey. Dominic is a serial entrepreneur and investor with a growing portfolio of fast growth UK tech businesses. Founded by Dominic Perks and Rupert Hambro in 2014, Hambro Perks backs and builds fast-growth start-ups using SEIS (Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme) and EIS (Enterprise Investment Scheme) structures.
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About Hambro Perks Ltd., Takumi, Tootle: Hambro Perks is a London-headquartered international investment firm focused on private technology investing.
Robin Lincoln
Portfolio Operating Partner of Hambro Perks Ltd.
Robin works in the growth capital team with responsibility for portfolio management. He has over 15 years of private equity and venture capital experience across the spectrum of new investments, working with portfolio companies and leading exit processes. Previously Robin worked at HgCapital, where he founded and led the Business Services investment practice, and latterly at Lloyds Bank where he was responsible for portfolio managing and exiting their equity portfolio of over 300 companies. He spent his early career at ISIS Equity Partners and qualified as a chartered accountant with Arthur Andersen. Robin gained a first class degree in Economics and Accounting at Bristol University. Outside of work, he enjoys all outdoor sports and is a keen rock climber.
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About Hambro Perks Ltd., Mercia Asset Management PLC, Oxford Capital Partners: Hambro Perks is a London-headquartered international investment firm focused on private technology investing.
Rupert Hambro
Partner, Co-Founder of Hambro Perks Ltd.
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About Hambro Perks Ltd., ThePresent.Co: Hambro Perks is a London-headquartered international investment firm focused on private technology investing.
Andreas Weiskam
Co-Founder & Partner of Sapphire
Andreas is a co-founder and Partner of Sapphire Ventures. He serves as a board director or observer at Contentful, CurrencyCloud, Matillion, Retail Solutions, and Wandera. Andreas’ previous investments at Sapphire include: Criteo (NASDAQ: CRTO), DocuSign (NASDAQ: DOCU), Iovation (acquired by TransUnion), iTAC (acquired by Durr), Lavante (acquired by PRGX Global), LogLogic (acquired by TIBCO Software), Zend Technologies (acquired by Rogue Wave), and Voxeo (acquired by Aspect Software). Prior to Sapphire Ventures, Andreas held business development roles at SAP, co-developing the SAP enterprise services community and leading reseller partnerships with Virsa Systems and Mercury Interactive among others. Before SAP, he co-founded Zadu, a venture-backed instant messaging startup. Andreas holds a Diplom-Kaufmann (graduate business degree) from the University of Hamburg, Germany and an MLitt with distinction in management, economics and politics from the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. Andreas is a Kauffman Fellow and has lived in Stockholm, Hamburg, Munich and San Francisco. He is based in London.
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About Sapphire: Sapphire is a venture capital firm that partners with visionary teams and venture funds to build companies.
Annalise Dragic
Partner of Sapphire
Annalise is a Partner at Sapphire Ventures where she focuses on analyzing new investments and assisting portfolio companies, primarily in Europe and Israel. Prior to joining Sapphire, Annalise was an investor at Atomico where she invested in European startups covering the UK market and enterprise sector. Previously, Annalise worked at LinkedIn in the San Francisco, London and Dublin offices where she contributed to corporate M&A, business operations, sales strategy and product finance. Early on in her career, she spent time at Morgan Stanley in the Technology Investment Banking Group. Annalise holds a bachelor’s degree in foreign service from Georgetown University, studied abroad at Harbin Institute of Technology in China and earned an MBA from Stanford University, where she was an Arjay Miller Scholar. Her travels started early with a transatlantic flight at just over two months old, and as an adult, she has lived in five countries on three continents and counting.
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About Sapphire: Sapphire is a venture capital firm that partners with visionary teams and venture funds to build companies.
Han Sikkens
Managing Director and Head of Summit Partners Europe of Summit Partners
Han Sikkens joined Summit Partners in 2004. He is a Dutch national and speaks Dutch and English. Prior to Summit, he worked for Scotia Capital and IBM Corporation. Based in Summit’s London office, Han is active in the firm’s investment activities in North America, Europe and Asia. His board directorships and investments include 360T Group, Acturis Limited, AVAST Software, Flow Traders, Multifonds (IGEFI Group), SafeBoot Holdings (acquired by McAfee) and Welltec International. Han holds a BS in business administration from the University of Groningen, an MSc in international business from the University of Groningen, and an MSc in international finance from the CERAM Graduate School of Management & Technology.
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About IBM, Summit Partners: Summit Partners is an investment firm that is currently investing in to growth equity, fixed income, and public equity opportunities.
Kevin Johnson
Co-Founder & Partner of Medicxi Ventures
Prior to co-founding Medicxi Ventures, Kevin was a partner with Index Ventures for 12 years, having joined the firm’s life sciences team in 2003. Kevin spearheaded Index’very first experimental asset-centric investment, in PanGenetics, which was later acquired by Abbott Pharmaceuticals. He was formerly on the board of directors of Versartis (Nasdaq: VSAR) and is currently involved with include Acutus and Levicept among others. Prior to joining Index, Kevin was with Cambridge Antibody Technology (CAT), where he was appointed Head of Research in 1994 and, in 1997, Research Director and Chief Technology Officer. He led the development of CAT’s platform technologies and their application in the discovery of a number of human antibodies, two of which are now on the market: Humira (Abbott Pharmaceuticals) and Benlysta (GlaxoSmithKline). Kevin was part of the management team that floated CAT on the London Stock Exchange; it was subsequently acquired by AstraZeneca.Kevin received a BSc in Molecular Biology from Edinburgh University and a PhD in Pathology from Cambridge University.
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About Medicxi Ventures, PanGenetics: Medicxi is a life sciences-focused investment firm.
Richard Lee
Operating Partner of Medicxi Ventures
Richard Lee is the Operating Partner at Medicxi.
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About Medicxi Ventures, Medicxi Ventures: Medicxi is a life sciences-focused investment firm.
Spencer Crawley
Co-Founder & General Partner of Firstminute Capital
Spencer Crawley is General Partner at firstminute capital. Launched in June 2017 and co-founded with Brent Hoberman, firstminute is a $100m global seed-stage fund, it is proud to count two institutional investors (Atomico and Tencent) and 29 founders of billion dollar technology businesses amongst its investors. Previous roles include Business Development at AppDirect (a San Francisco-based cloud commerce platform provider), Investment Associate at DMC Partners (Goldman Sachs spin-out Special Opportunities fund), and Analyst in the Moscow office of Goldman Sachs (in the Fixed Income, Currencies and Commodities division). Spencer studied History at Oxford University, did his MBA at INSEAD, and speaks fluent Russian and pidgin French.
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About Firstminute Capital: Firstminute Capital is an early-stage venture fund based in London, investing globally. Backed by 30 unicorn founders and global strategics.
Arek Wylegalski
Venture Partner of Firstminute Capital
Arek is a Venture Partner at firstminute capital focusing on Blockchain and FinTech. Prior he was a Partner at an AI-focused seed fund, Fly Ventures, and an investor at Index Ventures. He led or worked on investments into: Wayve, Pyka, Revolut, Bonify, Culture Amp, Dubsmash, Prodigy, Property Partner, Funding Circle and others. He joined Index after Avenue Capital, a $15Bn AUM hedge fund, where he focused on special situations. Arek started his career in investment banking, trading credit for Barclays Capital and then in M&A advisory. He speaks publicly, mostly about blockchain, and is an active contributor to the start-up scene in London. He has been a long-time mentor and an investment committee member at Seedcamp. Arek is currently launching a fund dedicated to opportunities in the blockchain space across both equity and crypto-assets.
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About Firstminute Capital: Firstminute Capital is an early-stage venture fund based in London, investing globally. Backed by 30 unicorn founders and global strategics.
Steve Crossan
Venture Partner of Firstminute Capital
Steve is an Executive-in-Residence (XiR) at Atomico, focused on helping their portfolio company founders with their Product and Go-To-Market strategies. He also works closely with the Engineering team building a platform that allows Atomico to be efficient in discovering and being responsive to great companies & founders and oversees other tech solutions to support the firm’s core business. Prior to joining Atomico he worked at the world’s leading AI research company, DeepMind, in London. At Deepmind, Steve led the Product team responsible for putting DeepMind’s technology into Google – from data centre optimization to Google Assistant and protein folding – and reported directly into Deepmind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman. He joined DeepMind after several years at Google working on the Google Maps, Gmail, and Google Search product teams. In 2011, during the Arab Spring, he launched speak2tweet to open access to social media when the internet was cut off in several countries. Before all this he left a Ph.D. in AI at Sussex unfinished to start a series of startups including Runtime Collective which later became brandwatch.com. He also serves as a Venture Partner at seed investor firstminute capital.
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About Firstminute Capital, GSK: Firstminute Capital is an early-stage venture fund based in London, investing globally. Backed by 30 unicorn founders and global strategics.
Lina Wenner
Associate Partner of Firstminute Capital
Lina joined firstminute from the Boston Consulting Group, where she worked alongside global corporates across Consumer, Energy and Heavy Industrials, advising on digital strategy, restructuring and M&A as a member of the corporate finance team. She gained an MPhil in Management from the University of Cambridge and a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology, Economics and Statistics from the University College Utrecht, the Netherlands, where she graduated with Summa Cum Laude. At firstminute, Lina leads on sourcing for the Nordic and German-speaking regions and has a strong interest in digital health, robotics, direct-to-consumer brands and femtech. She sits as a board observer of Evolution AI.
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About Firstminute Capital: Firstminute Capital is an early-stage venture fund based in London, investing globally. Backed by 30 unicorn founders and global strategics.
Marie Manley
Partner, Head of the UK Life Sciences Practice of Sidley Austin
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About Sidley Austin: Sidley is a law firm providing legal advising services for businesses.
Mateja Maher
Partner of Sidley Austin
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About Sidley Austin: Sidley is a law firm providing legal advising services for businesses.
Stuart Paterson
Partner of Scottish Equity Partners
Stuart, a Partner and co-founder of SEP, specialises in investments in consumer internet and enterprise software. He is currently non-executive director of European online eyewear retailer Mister Spex and Berlin based online language learning business Babbel and has been instrumental in building up SEP’s presence and reputation in Germany. He also sits on the board of LoveCrafts and led the recent £26m investment in the company which creates online crafting communities. Stuart has a strong track record in consumer internet investments having led the original investment in travel search business Skyscanner when it had revenues of less than £1 million. In 2016 the business was sold to leading Chinese travel agency Ctrip for £1.4bn. Other recent investments include legal Software as a Service business Peppermint Technology and SportPursuit, the online flash sales retailer for premium outdoor clothing and sports apparel.
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About Scottish Equity Partners: Scottish Equity Partners is a technology focused growth equity firm operating across the UK and Europe.
Keith Davidson
Partner of Scottish Equity Partners
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About iotec, Scottish Equity Partners: Scottish Equity Partners is a technology focused growth equity firm operating across the UK and Europe.
Calum Paterson
Managing Partner of Scottish Equity Partners
Calum Paterson is SEP’s Managing Partner. He has worked in the venture capital industry since 1991. Calum has led SEP since its formation and is chairman of our investment committee. He plays a key role in assessing all of our new investment opportunities and is closely involved right across our portfolio of investee companies. Calum is also a non-executive director of Skyscanner, the world’s fastest growing travel search company, and TotallyMoney.com, a digital media company focused on financial services. His leadership, commitment and professionalism are reflected in the strong relationships we have built up with our portfolio companies and our key Limited Partners over many years. Calum studied Economics at the University of Strathclyde and has BA and MBA degrees. He is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Calum works from both our London and Glasgow offices.
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About Scottish Equity Partners, The British Private Equity & Venture Capital Association: Scottish Equity Partners is a technology focused growth equity firm operating across the UK and Europe.
Andrew Davison
Partner of Scottish Equity Partners
Andrew is a Partner at SEP. He is deputy head of SEP’s investment team and focuses on growth stage investments across the information and communications technology sectors. Andrew has extensive investment experience and the portfolio companies he works with regard him highly for his positive, professional and commercial approach. Andrew spends the majority of his week in our London office and led the £20m growth funding round in luxury clothing and accessories retailer matchesfashion.com and the £20m investment in cloud-based document collaboration company Workshare. He was also heavily involved in SEP’s funding of Pure 360, the UK based e-mail marketing business and led SEP’s recent investments in digital solutions provider Tryzens and online car finance specialist Car Loan 4U. Prior to joining SEP in 2002, Andrew worked for 3i.
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About Scottish Equity Partners: Scottish Equity Partners is a technology focused growth equity firm operating across the UK and Europe.
Jan Rutherford
Partner of Scottish Equity Partners
Jan Rutherford is a Partner at Scottish Equity Partners (SEP) and leads the firm’s London office and investor relations. With 17 years of technology investment experience and a background in the pharmaceutical industry, Jan oversees SEP’s healthcare investment activities and was heavily involved in SEP’s investment in BioVex, a cancer therapeutics company sold to Amgen in a $1bn deal. She also led SEP’s investment in Exco InTouch and co-led its recent investment in Dotmatics, both providers of innovative software to the life sciences industry
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About National Deaf Children’s Society, Scottish Equity Partners: Scottish Equity Partners is a technology focused growth equity firm operating across the UK and Europe.
David Sneddon
Partner of Scottish Equity Partners
David is a partner at SEP, having joined the firm in 2001. David has invested across most industry sectors and has always had a special affinity with the energy sector, having studied chemical engineering at university. He also has a strong interest in the cleantech sector. David uses his two decades of investment experience, including previous roles with RBS and Bridgepoint Capital, to help portfolio companies consider and manage the challenges of growth and transition. His ability to identify key issues has been of great value to current portfolio companies such as Arkex and ip.access as well as previous investments such as Anesco, CamSemi and MTEM.
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About Scottish Equity Partners: Scottish Equity Partners is a technology focused growth equity firm operating across the UK and Europe.
Tony Robison
Partner of Scottish Equity Partners
Tony is a Partner with SEP and has 20 years’ experience in financial and commercial roles. After training as a Chartered Accountant with KPMG, he held senior management and Board positions with high growth, technology rich companies, notably Rhetorical Group, VIS and Gas2, which develops novel and scalable solutions in the Gas-to-Liquids market. He was the Chief Financial Officer at oilfield technology company MTEM, playing a key role in its sale to Petroleum Geoservices in 2007. Tony has a profound understanding of the importance of developing and implementing appropriate financial controls and systems for early stage and high growth businesses together with considerable fundraising and M&A experience and has worked with numerous entrepreneurs in dynamic environments. Tony is heavily involved in portfolio management and holds board positions with small to medium scale hydro scheme operator Green Highland Renewables and ground source heat pump system developer and installer GIenergy . He is also working closely with digital solutions provider Tryzens.
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About Scottish Equity Partners: Scottish Equity Partners is a technology focused growth equity firm operating across the UK and Europe.
Rob Moffat
Partner of Balderton
Rob joined Balderton Capital in 2009 and was promoted to partner in 2015. He is currently a board director or observer with five portfolio companies: Carwow, Wooga, Nutmeg, Prodigy Finance, and Patients Know Best. Other investments he has worked with at Balderton include Qubit, Citymapper, Housetrip, Scoot and Archify. Rob’s focus sector is fintech, in particular insurance and retail financial services. Marketing is a particular area of interest, and Rob is responsible for best practice sharing in marketing across the portfolio. Prior to joining Balderton, Rob worked for Google in London, as a Manager in the European Strategy and Operations team. He started his career with five years in strategy consulting with Bain, and holds an MBA from INSEAD and a Masters in Statistics from Cambridge.
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About Balderton: Balderton is a venture capital firm focused exclusively on backing European-founded startups.
Suranga Chandratillake
General Partner of Balderton
Suranga joined Balderton as a General Partner in 2014, he was previously an entrepreneur and engineer. Suranga founded blinkx, the intelligent search engine for video and audio content in Cambridge in 2004. He then led the company for eight years as CEO through its journey of moving to San Francisco, building a profitable business and going public in London where it achieved a peak market capitalization in excess of $1Bn. Before founding blinkx, Suranga was an early employee at Autonomy Corporation, where he ultimately served as the company’s US CTO in San Francisco. In 2017, Suranga joined the UK Government’s Council for Science and Technology. Suranga was granted an OBE for services to technology and engineering in the 2018 UK New Year’s Honours.
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About Balderton, RhythmOne: Balderton is a venture capital firm focused exclusively on backing European-founded startups.
Tim Bunting
Partner of Balderton
Tim joined Balderton as a General Partner in 2007. He was previously a partner of Goldman Sachs where he spent 18 years. At Goldman, Tim held various roles including Global Head of Equity Capital Markets (2002 to 2005) and Vice-Chairman of Goldman Sachs International (2005 to 2006). Tim started to work with Balderton and its portfolio of companies in 2005. In 2006 Tim spent a period as non-executive chairman of Betfair. Tim is also a Governor of Wellington College and the Wellington Academy; a Trustee of the Rainbow Trust Children’s Charity and the Paul Hamlyn Foundation.
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About Balderton, Rentify: Balderton is a venture capital firm focused exclusively on backing European-founded startups.
Daniel Waterhouse
Partner of Balderton
Daniel joined Balderton as a General Partner in 2013 and he currently sits on the boards of Revolut, ROLI, Lovecrafts, TrademarkNow, Tictail, Thread, and Workable and also works with Instabridge and Curious.AI. Prior to Balderton, Daniel spent 5 years as a partner at Wellington Partners and invested in a number of fast-growing companies including EyeEm, Hailo, YPlan, Bookatable (also a Balderton portfolio company, sold to Michelin), SumAll, Readmill (sold to Dropbox) and Qype (sold to Yelp). Before Wellington, Daniel was a sector partner at 3i where he worked on all of their venture and private equity investments in the internet sector in North America and Europe. And before that, he was at Yahoo! for six years from 1999, covering strategic development and M&A across the European region. He has a PhD and MA in applied mathematics from Oxford University and a Chartered Diploma in Accounting and Finance.
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About Balderton: Balderton is a venture capital firm focused exclusively on backing European-founded startups.
James Wise
Partner of Balderton
James is a partner at Balderton Capital, formerly working in social impact, tech and policy. Since joining Balderton in 2013, he has led on investments across Europe in sectors such as payments, health and productivity. James works with portfolio companies including Sophia Genetics, GoCardless and Depop, and has worked with companies which have exited to Epic Games, Elastic and Amazon. Before joining Balderton, James helped set up and run one of the UK’s first social impact funds, and previously worked as an advisor to the British Parliament, as well as at McKinsey & Company.
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About Balderton: Balderton is a venture capital firm focused exclusively on backing European-founded startups.
Jerome Misso
Partner of Balderton
Since joining Balderton in 2001, Jerome has been the firm’s Operating Partner. With over 20 years involvement in venture capital, Jerome has a broad range of experience with both public and private companies as well as financial institutions. Prior to Balderton, Jerome was a partner at leading London law firm, Nabarro, where he was head of the Corporate Finance Technology Group. He started his career with Eversheds becoming a partner in 1995. At both firms he received recommendations from adviser directories.
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About Balderton, Eversheds, Nabarro LLP: Balderton is a venture capital firm focused exclusively on backing European-founded startups.
Bernard Liautaud
Managing Partner of Balderton
Bernard Liautaud founded Business Objects in 1990 and was CEO for 15 years then Chairman until January 2008. With 6,700 employees, 45,000 customers and $1.5 billion of revenue in 2007, Business Objects was the world leader in Business Intelligence and one of the 15 largest software companies in the world. Business Objects was the first European software IPO on Nasdaq in 1994. In January 2008, Business Objects was acquired by SAP for $6.8 billion, making it the third largest software acquisition at the time. Bernard is now a member of the Supervisory Board of SAP. He is also a member of the Board of Trustees of Stanford University. He has received a number of distinctions including Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur in 2007 in France, Time Magazine Europe’s Digital Top 25 and BusinessWeek Stars of Europe of 2002, Top 10 CEOs in North America by Chief Executive Magazine in 2001.
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About Balderton: Balderton is a venture capital firm focused exclusively on backing European-founded startups.
Luke Hakes
Partner of Octopus Ventures
Although we come from different professional, industry, and scientific backgrounds, we share a real passion for business. We are committed to our companies. We view our management teams both as partners and customers. We bring considerable experience and expertise to our companies along with no small amount of ambition, energy, resolve and creativity. We also understand just how difficult it is to create and grow a business. It’s not just about having a great idea and a capable team: having a network of contacts and real world experience to draw upon counts for as much. That’s why we have been building both an informal and a formal network for over a decade. The latter, the Octopus Venture Partners, now numbers in excess of 100 businessmen, leaders of commerce, and entrepreneurs. The Venture Partners coinvest with Octopus and is a unique and invaluable resource for our companies to draw upon. This blend of knowledge and skill has allowed us to help more than 60 UK companies thrive in recent years. We are generalists preferring to back exceptional entrepreneurial teams rather than specific sectors. We look for businesses which can create, transform or dominate an industry. We are focused on the UK and can invest up to £5m. We have £150m to invest in the next three years.
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About Octopus Ventures: Octopus is a multi stage European venture capital investor specializing in health, money, deep tech, and consumer.
Howard Bell
Venture Partner of Octopus Ventures
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About Barclaycard, Clearswift, A HelpSystems Company, JustGiving, Octopus Ventures, Octopus Ventures: Octopus is a multi stage European venture capital investor specializing in health, money, deep tech, and consumer.
Marvin Ma
Venture Partner of Octopus Ventures
Marvin Ma joined as Octopus Venture Partner in March 2016. He is actively helping Octopus as well as its portfolios on China strategy and relationship building. Marvin is also Founder of Longhill Investments, an alternative investment firm based in Shanghai, helping Chinese institutions and family office for outbound investments and deal makings. Before that Marvin was a venture investor in HSBC Strategic Innovation Investment team covering Fintech Investments and ex Investment Banker in Torch Partners, a tech focus corporate finance advisory firm.
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About Octopus Ventures, Sumscope: Octopus is a multi stage European venture capital investor specializing in health, money, deep tech, and consumer.
Anthony Collinson
Venture Partner of Octopus Ventures
Anthony was a co-founder of Katalyst Ventures, which was launched in 2000. As Chairman of the company he helped build its private angel network to over 100 people, as well as raising over £18 million to fund a portfolio of 25 companies before Katalyst Ventures was sold to Octopus in 2007. Now a consultant, he acts as a director and observer to a number of investee companies within the team’s portfolio. He has a manufacturing, operational and general management background as well as extensive small business experience. He was a director of Porvair PLC and Managing Director of Porvair International Ltd. Previously Anthony was managing director of Scotfresh Limited, Irish Leathers Group Plc and Holmes Hall Tanners Limited.
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About Octopus Ventures: Octopus is a multi stage European venture capital investor specializing in health, money, deep tech, and consumer.
Tim Lebus
Venture Partner of Octopus Ventures
Tim Lebus has spent over 30 years in private equity and banking. He is currently Senior Adviser to Duke Street, the mid-market private equity group, having previously been a Partner from 2001 to 2012. Prior to joining Duke Street, Tim worked for more than 20 years as an investment banker, most recently as a Managing Director in the Financial Sponsor group at Deutsche Bank. He also works with Octopus Ventures, the venture capital arm of Octopus Investments. He is as an observer to a number of Octopus Ventures investee companies and is a director of Octopus Titan VCT 3 plc. In addition, he is a director of Bibby Line Group Limited. Tim qualified a lawyer and practised as a barrister in London and subsequently as a corporate lawyer in New York. He holds a degree in law from Cambridge University.
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About Octopus Ventures: Octopus is a multi stage European venture capital investor specializing in health, money, deep tech, and consumer.
George Whitehead
Venture Partner Manager of Octopus Ventures
Partner at ACF Investors.
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About ACF Investors, Clean Growth Fund, Octopus Ventures: Octopus is a multi stage European venture capital investor specializing in health, money, deep tech, and consumer.
Philip Lay
Venture Partner of Octopus Ventures
Philip has been a partner at the Chasm Group, a Silicon Valley based strategy consulting firm founded by Geoffrey Moore, for the past 24 years. He joined Octopus Ventures as a Venture Partner in January 2018, after moving from San Francisco back to the UK. Earlier Philip had a successful entrepreneurial career, co-founding and leading a successful security and communications software company, TGR Software, before it was acquired, and before that he was a sales executive at IBM in the UK. Philip focuses mainly on B2B software/Saas. He has advised dozens of companies ranging from major tech companies such as Autodesk, HP, NetApp, Netsuite, SAP, Rackspace and Salesforce.com, to mid-sized players and startups entering their scale-up growth phase. Among the key themes of his work are: playing for power, land & expand business strategy and enterprise customer engagement. Philip has also delivered keynotes and moderated panels at industry and company conferences around the world; he teaches full-time MBA students at IESE in Barcelona
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About Octopus Ventures: Octopus is a multi stage European venture capital investor specializing in health, money, deep tech, and consumer.
Pooja Sikka
Partner of Octopus Ventures
Pooja Sikka currently works as the Partner for Octopus Ventures. She previously worked at EY as the Management Consultant and Ventures Team.
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About Octopus Ventures: Octopus is a multi stage European venture capital investor specializing in health, money, deep tech, and consumer.
Joe Stringer
Partner of Octopus Ventures
Joe Stringer currently works as the Partner for Octopus Ventures. He previously worked at Google as the Market lead.
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About Octopus Ventures: Octopus is a multi stage European venture capital investor specializing in health, money, deep tech, and consumer.
Ian Perry
Venture Partner of Octopus Ventures
Ian combines over 25 years sales, operations and general management experience in the IT industry with domain experience in the communications industry spanning wireline, wireless and IP service provider markets. Following consistent success in sales and sales management positions at Information Technology Ltd, Ingres and Sybase, Ian went on to join Portal Software as Vice President, EMEA in 1998. Building the EMEA organization from scratch his four year tenure at Portal Software saw the company rapidly achieve a dominant market position in convergent billing and customer care solutions securing the majority of Tier 1 operators across EMEA, and supported a highly successful NASDAQ IPO. Since leaving Portal in 2002, Ian operates an independent consulting business active in supporting and investing in early stage organizations spanning SaaS, direct / enterprise, channel and consumer business models. Ian currently holds non-executive board positions at Cloudmark Inc, Eseye Ltd, Central Europe On-Demand Zrt and Ontology Ltd.
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About Octopus Ventures: Octopus is a multi stage European venture capital investor specializing in health, money, deep tech, and consumer.
