September 2020
By ANDREW BOTT
Event Assistants:
ALEXANDER BICKERT & CHURCHILL ONUMONU
Discover an Inside View on Start-up
Investment
Startup investment or raising finance is often an opaque hidden mystery to
most seeking it. Our elite panels of investment industry insiders will shine a
spotlight on this process. This rare inside view will educate, entertain and give
you solid advice from those who know.
different from the rest? What do they look for? What are the
GET FUNDED challenges and strategies recommended to startups seeking this
September 7th 2020 level of funding? After startups have already gotten multiple
6:00pm - 8:30pm British Summer Time rounds of funding, how do they differentiate themselves to
investors, and what are the biggest mistakes they make?
(10:00am PST, 1:00pm EST)
“What Investors Look for in People”
Learn from industry experts in the investment
The importance of your team when seeking institutional
and startup world. All sessions are recorded,
investors is greater than most startups think. These investors wil
so if you have a ticket to the event you will
discuss what they look for in your founding team, how to fix
have full access!
problems before they happen, and the do’s and don'ts for
6pm-6:30pm building your startup teams.
“Venture Capital and #BlackLivesMatter” 7:30pm-8:30pm
This panel will discuss #BlackLivesMatter in relation to Venture
Capital, and some of the issues surrounding diversity and Video Networking
inclusion in the startup ecosystem. Our software allows attendees to be matched automatically every
5 minutes in 1:1 video chats! Network, make connections, and
“How to Attract Angel Investors” find opportunities through some great conversations.
Current trends in pre-seed Angel investments, mindsets, and
how to work with multiple Angels and Angel groups. How do
startups position their idea to be attractive to Angels, and what
tips and tricks can the panelists offer? PITCH NIGHT
September 8th 2020
“Scouting for Seed Investments” 6:00pm - 8:30pm British Summer Time
Experiences of Seed level investors and their insights to help
startups on the path to their first institutional investment.
(10:00am PST, 1:00pm EST)
Whether you're an investor looking for a deal, a
6:30pm-7pm startup looking for investment, or just wanting
to learn from other teams — hope to see you
“Series A Mindsets” there
How Series A investors think, and what they look for that’s
different from other stages. How to break through the noise of 6pm-7:30pm
many successful companies when seeking Series A
investments. What mistakes do startups typically make at this Start-up Pitches and Feedback from Judges
level of investment? Start-ups pitch to judges for Investment and are given feedback
from our judges who are all currently investors. Investors from
“Insights from Impact Investors” around the world attend and watch the pitches, and
Q&A with experienced impact investors, learning how they startups/investors have the chance to network and build their
assess purpose and profit together, and understanding how to dealflow.
speak their language. What is the future of impact investment,
and what does impact investment really mean? Find out during 7:30pm-8.30pm
this panel how to break through the noise and communicate
with impact investors.
Video Networking
Our software allows attendees to be matched automatically every
7pm-7:30pm 5 minutes in 1:1 video chats! Network, make connections, and
find opportunities through some great conversations.
“Series B and Late Stage”
A panel of VCs and investors who have significant experience
in Series B and Late Stage investments. How are these stages
Pitch Night Startups
SEPT 8TH | 6 PM - 7:30 PM BST
LEADING EDGE ONLY PHARMA SENTINEL
[Link] LTD.
Industry: eCommerce Industry: Healthtech
Industry: E-commerce,
Country: UK Country: UK
Distribution Platform for Unsold
Airline Seats Company LinkedIn link Company LinkedIn link
Country: UK Amount raising: £150,000 - Amount raising: £500,000 - £1M
£250,000
Company LinkedIn link
Amount raising: £400,000 SALESBEAT
NOT IN THE Industry: Enterprise software
FAMILY SECRET GUIDEBOOKS Country: UK & USA
Industry: F&B & Food Tech Industry: Travel Company LinkedIn link
Country: UK Country: UK Amount raising: $750,000
Company LinkedIn link Company LinkedIn link
Amount raising: £400,000 Amount raising: £500,000 WENDY'S TEAM
Industry: Healthcare
HONESTLY GOOD NUMEROUS Country: US
Company LinkedIn link
SMOOTHIE COMPANY Industry: Data, Adtech, Martech
Country: UK (US 2021) Amount raising: $1.5M+
Industry: FoodTech / F&B
Subscription Company LinkedIn link
Country: UK Amount raising: £500,000 WHITELANCE
Company LinkedIn link Industry: SaaS, Martech
Amount raising: £500,000 - £1M NGX Country: UK
Industry: Health, Wellness & Company LinkedIn link
IKNOWA Fitness Amount raising: $250,000
INDUSTRY: BUILDING & Country: UK
RENOVATION Company LinkedIn link ZIO HEALTH
Country: UK Amount raising: £150,000 Industry: Health, Wellness,
Company LinkedIn link Nutrition, Biotechnology,
Amount raising: £1.5M PAYSME Medtech
Industry: FinTech, E-commerce Country: UK (+ China, USA)
Country: UK Company LinkedIn link
Company LinkedIn link Amount raising: £200,000+
Amount raising: £1.5M
“Venture Capital and #BlackLivesMatter”
SEPT 7TH | 6 PM - 6:30 PM BST
Andrew Bott
FOUNDER, M [Link]
Book Recommendation: The Lean Startup by Eric Reis
Andrew Bott is the Founder of [Link] - His core mission is building relationships with
investors like you, helping industry experts to share their knowledge, and assisting great startups
seeking investment.
Camille Dundas
CO-FOUNDER, [Link]
Book Recommendation: So You Want To Talk About Race by Ljeoma Oluo
Camille Dundas is the co-founder and editor in chief of Canada’s leading Black Canadian online
magazine, [Link]. She's been named among the top 100 Black Canadian Accomplished
Women, has led her team to winning two national ethnic media press awards and a commendation
from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Prior to that, Camille spent 10 years as a TV news reporter and
producer, working on national shows for both CTV and CBC.
Alex Batdorf
FOUNDER & CEO, GET S H!T DONE
Book Recommendation: Traction: How Any Startup Can Achieve Rapid Customer Growth by Gabriel
Weinberg
Alex Batdorf is a 3X entrepreneur and the Founder & CEO of Get Sh!t Done, the superpower scaling
sidekick for female entrepreneurs building $1M+ companies. Prior to founding Get Sh!t Done, she
was co-founder & CMO of ZipFit Denim, a venture-backed eCommerce company that was acquired
in 2019. She's been featured in Forbes, Business Insider, and has spoken around the nation at
Harvard, Turner Broadcasting, etc.
“How to Attract Angel Investors”
SEPT 7TH | 6 PM - 6:30 PM BST
Justin Waghray
FOUNDING PARTNER, ÆVUS V ENTURE PARTNERS
Book Recommendation: Angel by Jason Calacanis
AEVUS Venture Partners is a collective of private angel investors based in North America and Europe.
We pool our own capital and look for opportunities to invest in Friends & Family, Pre-Seed, and Seed
fundraising rounds in the sectors we have expertise and see the greatest opportunities in.
Adam Haider
S ENIOR CONSULTANT, TRENDS COUT
Book Recommendation: Shoe Dog, A Memoir by the creator of Nike by Phil Knight
Co-Founder of an innovative investor platform emphasising on meaningful partnerships, Adam comes
from a background in financial, real estate and commodity sectors. Adam’s experience and passion in
the technology space, has made him a subject matter expert across the AI and SaaS sectors. This
includes leading a team in successfully raising for an AI software company that is now on PWC’s scale-
up program. Adam’s recent efforts involve his focus on diverse founders and entrepreneurs.
Herve Cuviliez
M ANAGING PARTNER, ID4 V ENTURES
With 20 years of experience as a serial entrepreneur and investor, He became an expert in
operations, scaling, and monetization. He is currently the lead mentor under the acceleration
program at Euratechnologies, a leading European business incubator. After seven years of business
angeling, he founded id4 ventures in 2017, €15M fund with a pre-seed/seed focus. He established
strong credentials in France that, over three years, created strong credentials in 20 fast-growing
European startups. In 2019, id4 ventures established a fund of fund strategies to expand the
exposure in the best European venture capital
Victoria Kostic-Nola
FOUNDER , V IZ V ENTURES, A NGEL INVESTOR
Book Recommendation: Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
Victoria has been on the front line of international business for 20 years, across Strategy, Finance,
Business Development, Sales & Marketing and Global Talent Management, including building a
Global Employment Company for one of the world’s largest energy service companies from scratch.
Having proved as an ‘intrapreneur’, Victoria set up VIZ VENTURES in 2018, opening up to advisory
projects and housing collaborations with UK tech-startups she has supported as an early-stage angel
investor and advisor including Fintech, future of work, living and wellbeing. Three key pillars are Talent,
Strategy and Ventures, as Victoria is always scouting for exciting opportunities and connecting the dots.
Saloni Bhojwani
INVESTOR AT FOUNDERS FACTORY, A NGEL INVESTOR S UPPORTING FEMALE FOUNDERS
Book Recommendation: Smoke & Mirrors by Gemma Milne
Saloni Bhojwani is an investor at Founders Factory and has been angel investing (primarily focused on
female founders) for 3 years. Her background is in management consulting, and she's operated at
companies like Uber, Expedia, and Zebra Fuel during and following her MBA from London Business
School. She works with and advises pre-seed and seed stage startups on their go-to-market and
fundraising strategies.
“Scouting for Seed Investments”
SEPT 7TH | 6 PM - 6:30 PM BST
Abby Scarborough
CO-FOUNDER, YENA
Book Recommendation: How to Fail by Elizabeth Day
Abby is the Co-Founder & COO of Yena - A global community for founders. Their work to remove the
barriers that startups face when starting out, connects more than 5000 people a year from Melbourne
to Mexico City. Abby is also a scout for Ada Ventures, has featured in the Atomico State of European
Tech Report and is a CMX Community Innovation Awards finalist.
Matthew Stafford
CO-FOUNDER, 9OTHERS & DOT M ATRIX GROUP S YNDICATE
Book Recommendation: Zero to One by Peter Thiel
Matthew has worked with startups since 2010 and is the co-founder of 9others and Dot Matrix
Group. 9others was established in 2011 and is now a global network of 4,000+ entrepreneurs in 45+
cities who meet over dinner to help each other solve the challenges of business and life. Established
in 2016 Dot Matrix Group is an angel syndicate that invests in seed stage technology startups in the
UK. DMG is a patient investor and typically gets to know and contributes to entrepreneurs over many
months and even years before investing. Before all that Matthew worked in technology for RBS, The Bank of
New York and others, studied Software Engineering at Durham University and has an MBA from Imperial College Business School.
David Chreng-Messembourg
FOUNDING PARTNER, EARLY S TAGE INVESTOR, LEADBLOCK PARTNERS
Book Recommendation: Hard things about hard things by Ben Horowitz
David Chreng-Messembourg is a founding partner at LeadBlock Partners, an early-stage venture
capital fund investing in B2B Blockchain start-ups. He graduated in computational chemistry and
financial economics, from Imperial College London and EDHEC. He started his career working in
biophysics research at Imperial College, before moving to the corporate world with Novartis. Prior
to launching the fund, he was an equity analyst at Goldman Sachs covering the Energy sector and
advising global fund managers. I spent the past years working on ESG-related projects, including on
initiatives Big Energy companies could consider to lower carbon emissions.
Toyosi Ogedengbe
VENTURE INVESTOR , THE C REATOR FUND
Book Recommendation: Mastering the VC Game by Jefferey Bussgang
Toyosi is an early-stage investor, entrepreneur, and venture builder with 10+ years of professional
experience. He primarily focuses on early-stage investments in Europe, with a particular interest in
cloud software and marketplaces. He currently works at Bessemer Venture Partners, a US-based VC
firm. Prior to this, he was an Investor at Creator Fund, a pan-European VC focused on student-led
startups - where he led sourcing, due diligence and community building efforts. Toyosi holds an MBA
from Oxford University and a Bachelor's in Engineering from the University of Bristol.
“Series A Mindsets”
SEPT 7TH | 6:30PM - 7PM BST
Flavia Richardson
V ICE PRESIDENT O F EARLY S TAGE PRACTICE, S ILICON V ALLEY BANK
Book Recommendation: Venture Capital Deal Terms by Harm de Vries
Flavia Richardson has handled investment portfolios worth up to £30m for over 140 portfolio
companies. She has worked with clients from across the world with portfolio amounts ranging from
small technology investments to multimillion-pound portfolios. Her speciality is working with technology
investors, where her excellent communication skills come into play.
Stephanie Opdam
V ICE PRESIDENT, NOTION CAPITAL
Stephanie works on the Investment team at Notion where she is actively searching for disruptive B2B
software start-ups in Europe at the Series A/B stages. Prior, Stephanie worked at venture debt fund
Columbia Lake Partners, where she was responsible for the analysis and structuring of venture debt
facilities of Series A/B/C stage software start-ups.
Wil Benton
V ENTURE & ECOSYSTEM DIRECTOR, ATI BOEING A CCELERATOR ,
H EAD OF NETWORK, LANDSCAPE V ENTURES
Book Recommendation: Shoe Dog, A Memoir by the creator of Nike by Phil Knight
Wil Benton has been designing and delivering seed to series A-stage accelerator programmes around
the UK since 2017; working with our partners to invest ~£2m in ~50 startups. He has also raised
money for his own startup, invested in 15+ startups as an angel, and have just become an LP in The
Fund London.
Raees Chowdhury
INVESTOR , R EVOLT V ENTURES
Book Recommendation: Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham
Raees is an investor and founding team at Revolt Ventures – a Series A / B real estate technology
focused venture capital fund. His investment interest are in sector convergences with real estate such
as fintech and construction tech where he has invested alongside generalist VCs including Index
Ventures and Northzone. His previous experience includes as a MedTech founder and at the Boston
Consulting Group.
“Insights from Impact Investors”
SEPT 7TH | 6:30PM - 7PM BST
Servane Mouazan
CEO OF O GUNTE
Through her B corp company Ogunte CIC Servane has spent the past twenty years helping
thousands of women in social enterprise and their supporters, make a positive impact on people and
planet, through learning, leadership development and angel investing. She has also helped investors
understand the gender lens, reframe issues, understand organisations’ readiness for investment and
fit as well as their relevance in social change. Steering Committee Member of Women in Social
Finance, Gobal Advisory Board Member at the British Council's “Inclusive Communities” group.
Zoe Peden
INVESTMENT M ANAGER UK, A NANDA IMPACT V ENTURES
Book Recommendation: The 100 year life - living and working in an age of longevity by Lynda
Gratton and Andrew Scott
Zoe is an experienced tech entrepreneur and VC investor for Ananda Impact Ventures with over 20
years operating and board experience in technology companies. She co-founded one of the UK’s
top grossing education apps, MyChoicePad and now spends her time looking for Europe’s most
impactful tech entrepreneurs to invest in.
Monique Meulemans
INVESTMENT M ANAGER , PYMWYMIC
Monique is responsible for sourcing, selecting, acquiring and managing early to growth stage
companies that seek to conserve and restore our ecosystems while generating an attractive
financial return. We have a tailor-made venture capital process to integrate impact in every step of
the process. In addition, she is responsible for general knowledge development and distribution on
impact investing.
Evan Patronik
DIRECTOR O F V ENTURE S ELECTION, U NREASONABLE
Book Recommendation: Mediations by Marcus Aurelius (translated by Gregory Hays)
Evan's focus is on driving funding and resources into Seed to Late Growth Stage ventures solving
some of the world’s most challenging social and environmental issues, as well as creating an
inclusive and global network of entrepreneurs to be part of the Unreasonable Group community.
Ultimately, Evan looks to build a stronger ecosystem for leveraging market forces to create lasting
impact while providing significant financial returns.
“Series B and Late Stage”
SEPT 7TH | 7PM - 7:30PM BST
Jennifer Austin
S ENIOR INVESTMENT PARTNER, R OCA X
Book Recommendation: The Innovation Blind Spot: Why We Back the Wrong Ideas—and What to
Do About It by Ross Baird.
Jennifer moved from California to Transylvania, Romania in 2013. She and her team built the first
equity-based accelerator in Romania and later set up the first private fund for early-stage startups.
She also built the Startup Avalanche competition, which brings startups from all over the world to
meet leading investors. She's recently joined the RocaX team, which invests in early-stage startups
and provides strong operational support. We are industry agnostic and have invested in startups
from all around Europe.
Guillaume Mercier
PARTNER – INDUSTRIAL INNOVATION V ENTURE FUND, BDC
Book Recommendation: The Talent Code: Greatness Isn't Born. It's Grown. Here's How by Daniel
Coyle
Guillaume Mercier is a Partner, Industrial Innovation Venture Fund for BDC Capital. Through his
consulting and entrepreneurial experience, he brings meaningful operational and strategic expertise
that benefits the ambitious early- to late-stage firms supported by the fund.
Shamillah Bankiya
V C INVESTOR , DAWN CAPITAL
Recommendation: Twitter. It's a completely underrated info source!
Shamillah is responsible for sourcing, due diligence and portfolio management at Dawn, with a focus
on software. Prior to joining Dawn, Shamillah was an investor at Softbank Vision Fund in London, a
leading global growth equity investor with >$100b AUM. At Softbank, Shamillah was involved in multiple
investments across software and healthcare businesses, leading due diligence and developing critical
sector investment theses. She also managed two portfolio companies.
Alexis Sheikh
CO-FOUNDER AND M ANAGING PARTNER, S UPERCAP M ANAGEMENT
Book Recommendation: Principles by Ray Dalio
Alexis Sheikh has more than 20 years of international financial markets and investment experience.
Prior to his current activities, he had an extensive professional financial career having held senior
executive positions as an independent financial adviser, investment broker, head of sales for licensed
alternative investment fund managers and registered broker dealers as well as managing partner for
private equity and hedge fund partnerships. Alexis has also been an appointed representative of
leading international banks, top tier wealth managers and global corporates and he is a certified investment
adviser from the Stockholm School of Economics.
“What Investors Look for in People”
SEPT 7TH | 7PM - 7:30PM BST
Katrina Logie
S TARTUP CONSULTANT, PEOPLE O N THE GRID
Book Recommendation: The Lean startup by Erie Vries
Interviewer and Moderator, Community Builder/Content Creator & Strategy Katrina is from London
living in Barcelona almost 11 years and has been contributing in building the local start up community
with a passion for startups, innovation for change and building communities. She loves to connect
people which comes naturally and finding the right talent for the right company. As a content
strategist, Katrina is specialised in launching new products into the market as well as moderating at
Tech conferences like South Summit, 4Y4N/Mobile World congress and Dublin Tech. For more info you can
visit: [Link]
Jenny Ruth Hrafnsdottir
FOUNDING PARTNER, CROWBERRY CAPITAL
Book Recommendation: Hard things about hard things by Ben Horowitz
Jenny Ruth Hrafnsdottir is passionate about supporting founders with building strong teams, focusing
on cross-cultural team building as well as offering a different perspective to founders in the male
dominated world of Venture Capitalists. She has served on numerous boards of early stage
companies, has managerial experience from publicly traded, privately held and venture capital
backed companies in the States, Sweden and Iceland. An engineer by trade, Jenny holds registered
IPs and is a Medtech and health enthusiast with operational experience in product development from
concept work, through project management, marketing and business development.
Cristian Dascalu
V C FUND PARTNER, G APMINDER V ENTURE PARTNERS
Book Recommendation: Hard things about hard things by Ben Horowitz
As an entrepreneur, Cristian co/founded a series of businesses and major projects aimed at the
development of the tech startups and digital innovation area such as: GapMinder VC, ClujHUB,
Techcelerator, Digital Transformers, TechFest, TEDxCluj, NASA Space Apps Challenge Romania and
others. Starting in 2012, launched ClujHUB, the second co-working space in Romania, being a key
contributor to the regional startup community.
Avani Patel
FOUNDING PARTNER, THE EMBER COMPANY
Recommendation: How I Built This (Podcast)
Avani Patel is a Founding Partner at The Ember Company, which is empowering a new generation of
consumer companies through the The Ember Lab, The Ember Fund and The Bonfire Group. The
Ember Lab provides unparalleled access to expertise and growth opportunities for entrepreneurs
building consumer companies. The Ember Fund provides consumer brands with inventory funding
and access to The Ember Lab. The Bonfire Group helps transform, build and connect consumer and
retail companies. She holds an MBA from Columbia Business School, a law degree from Northwestern
Pritzker School of Law and Sociology degree from Loyola University Chicago.
Judges for Live Pitch Event
SEPT 8TH | 6PM - 7:30PM BST
Tambo Silavwe
H EAD COACH, INSIGHT COACHING
Book Recommendation: Shoe Dog, A Memoir by the creator of Nike by Phil Knight
A well-seasoned coach and theatre director, Tambo brings the delivery to PBC. Head Coach at
Insight Coaching, he has helped entrepreneurs countless times at pitch events and speaking
engagements. His blended approach of behavioural science and theatre makes for an impactful and
natural delivery style.
Kevin R Smith
M ENTOR AND DIRECTOR , BOOM & PARTNERS
Kevin has worked in and around the financial services and SME sectors for over 35 years, during
which time he has worked with many companies seeking investment. He acts as an advisor and
investor and sits on the Advisory Boards of a number of companies helping them to scale, and is also
a guest lecturer and Mentor at Cass Business school and a Mentor at the UKs largest Entrepreneur
Accelerator.
Taimur Adil
CCO, ORCZY GROUP, FOUNDING PARTNER, IMPETUS ADVISORY GROUP
Book Recommendation: Principles by Ray Dalio
I am a blue ocean entrepreneur and investor, focused on portfolio diversification across new, emerging
markets. In 2013, I co-founded an informal real estate investment fund that sourced private equity from
friends and family and invested in greenfield real estate projects in Pakistan. Seven years later, the
fund has transformed into a multinational conglomerate, the Orczy Group, that is active in real estate,
retail and service delivery and has a combined equity portfolio of over $ 5 million. In 2019, I co-founded
a management consulting startup, the Impetus Advisory Group, that is fast emerging as one of
Pakistan's top transformation teams and is solving key public service delivery challenges for the world's sixth-most populous country.
Jennifer Austin
S ENIOR INVESTMENT PARTNER, R OCA X
Book Recommendation: The Innovation Blind Spot: Why We Back the Wrong Ideas—and What to
Do About It by Ross Baird.
Jennifer moved from California to Transylvania, Romania in 2013. She and her team built the first
equity-based accelerator in Romania and later set up the first private fund for early-stage startups. She
also built the Startup Avalanche competition, which brings startups from all over the world to meet
leading investors. She's recently joined the RocaX team, which invests in early-stage startups and
provides strong operational support. We are industry agnostic and have invested in startups from all around
Europe.
Alexandre Ouimet-Storrs
CO-FOUNDER AND M ANAGING PARTNER , Ó SKARE CAPITAL
Book Recommendation: Tout Savoir sur le Capital Investissement by Gilles Mougenot
Alexandre is an experienced VC with over 10 years of investment and dealmaking experience, working
at Truffle Capital in Paris as a VC investing in Deeptech and Cleantech (15 companies, over 100 MEUR
deployed), and 2.5 years experience as a CVC at Solvay Ventures. He has invested in several
companies that have exited successfully, and is also experienced in corporate governance, sitting on
a few boards today as an independent. Alexandre launched Oskare Capital in March 2020, which is
a new fund set to focus on investing in the emerging medical cannabis ecosystem in Europe.
