By: Andrew Bott

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-botty/

Discover an Inside View on Start-up

Investment

Startup investment or raising finance is often an opaque hidden mystery to

most seeking it. Our 7 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.
GET FUNDED PITCH NIGHT
June 15, 2020 June 16, 2020
6:00pm - 8:00pm British Summer Time 6:00pm - 8:00pm British Summer Time
(10:00am PST, 1:00pm EST) (10:00am PST, 1:00pm EST)
Learn from industry experts in the investment Whether you're an investor looking for a deal, a
and startup world. All sessions are recorded, startup looking for investment, or just wanting
so if you have a ticket to the event you w ill to learn from other teams — hope to see you
have full access! there

6pm-6:30pm 5:45pm-6pm

“Choosing the Right Investor” “Intro and Pitch Coach”

James Somauroo, Kevin Smith, Yana Abramova, Louise Harvey Andrew Bott, Jessica Chen

“Investor Red Flags and How to Avoid Them”

Mercedes Bankston, Stephanie Opdam, Devon Zimmerling, Zoe 6pm-7:30pm
Peden
“Start-up Pitches”
6:30pm-7pm Costas Andriopoulos, Akash Bajwa, Olga Pavlova-Harris, Paul
Beach
“Getting your First Funding: Angels and Pre-
*12 Start-ups pitch to judges for Investment and are
Seed” given feedback from our judges who are all currently
Annelore Huyghe, James Thomas, Neal Davies, Alexander investors.
Piskunov

“Pitching for Investment” 7:30pm-8pm

Dhruvin Patel, Andrew Mossop, Saloni Bhojwani, Yvonne Bajela
Video Networking
7pm-7:30pm Our software allows attendees to be matched automatically every
5 minutes in 1:1 video chats! Network, make connections, and
find opportunities through some great conversations.
“Founder Stories”
Alastair Cameron, Amy Williams, Jennifer Johansson, Matthew or
Arevalo
Pitch Coach Feedback
“Legal Tips: How to Prepare your Startup for Amy Williams, Emilia Buggins, Tambo Silavwe
Investment”
Sarah Melaney, Howard Palmer, Stacy Kim, Isabella Ghassemi-
Smith

7:30pm-8pm

Video Networking
Our software allows attendees to be matched automatically every
5 minutes in 1:1 video chats! Network, make connections, and
find opportunities through some great conversations.
 PANEL 1: Choosing the Right Investor
JUNE 15TH | 6 PM - 6:30 PM BST

James Somauroo
FOUNDER AT SOM X

James is the founder of somX: the healthtech agency and supports the best healthtech companies in
the world. He covers healthtech for Forbes as a contributor and also hosts The Health-Tech Podcast,
which has listeners in >100 countries.

Kevin Smith
FOUNDER AT BOOM & PARTNERS LTD

Kevin is the founder and CEO of BOOM & Partners and has run his own business and finance
consultancy firm for 24 years. He is a mentor for Cass Business School which is one of the leading
business schools in the world, and is also a mentor for the UKs largest Entrepreneur Accelerator
programme run by NatWest Bank. He has had the privilege of working in over 45 countries and
speaking at seminars worldwide. He is also a prolific author and a BBC Radio contributor, writing and
talking about all aspects of running an early stage business.

Yana Abramova
PARTNER AT PRETIOSUM V ENTURES

Yana is a Managing Partner at Pretiosum Ventures, a UK based venture capital firm with a focus on seed
and Series A companies in AI, Fintech, and the Future of Work/Life sectors. Yana holds an MSc in
Management from Cambridge University. She is also an ambassador for Tech Nation UK and an
exceptional Tech Talent Visa holder.

Louise Harvey
S ENIOR A SSOCIATE AT S EEDRS

sLouise works on the Seedrs Venture Team and is responsible for growing and engaging the Seedrs
institutional investor community and building relationships with investment partners. Prior to joining
Seedrs in 2017, Louise worked in Investor Relations and Financial PR at FTI Consulting.
 PANEL 2: Investor Red Flags and How to Avoid Them
JUNE 15TH | 6 PM - 6:30 PM BST

Mercedes Bankston
V ENTURE CAPITAL A DVISOR AT LOYAL VC

Mercedes Bankston had a speciality of jump starting new business units, re-launching failed units and
new product roll outs primarily in innovative technical companies before moving into a role where she
critiqued companies on their investabilty. As a result, she is quick to pinpoint flaws and improvements
needed in streamlining operations, increasing sales, training teams and determining the best use case
for funds to scale quickly.

Stephanie Opdam
V ICE PRESIDENT AT 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.

Devon Zimmerling
PARTNER AT CELL CAPITAL

Devon is an investor and founding partner at Cell Capital, a new venture firm focused on late seed/series
A B2B SaaS companies. Cell Cap works with a small number of large investors to build portfolios of
mutually synergistic investments. Prior to Cell Cap she was an investor at Pi Labs, an early stage VC
fund focused on proptech, after beginning her venture career at DN Capital. Prior to working at venture
funds, she advised institutions on investing into those funds during her time at Cambridge Associates.

Zoe Peden
INVESTMENT M ANAGER UK AT A NANDA IMPACT V ENTURES

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.
PANEL 3: Getting your First Funding: Angels and Pre-Seed
JUNE 15TH | 6:30PM - 7PM BST

Annelore Huyghe
A SSOCIATE PROFESSOR IN ENTREPRENEURSHIP AT CASS BUSINESS S CHOOL

Annelore Huyghe is an Associate Professor (Senior Lecturer) at the Faculty of Management of Cass
Business School in London (UK). Her research focus and expertise lie at the intersection of
entrepreneurship and social psychology. Her work has been featured in media outlets and published
in leading academic journals such as Strategic Management Journal, Journal of Business Venturing
and Small Business Economics. Annelore currently teaches entrepreneurship courses at MSc and
Executive MBA level. She also advises several tech start-ups and regularly runs entrepreneurship
events to close the gap between academia and practice. In those activities, she’s a passionate advocate for women-led ventures.

Neal Davies
INVESTMENT S PECIALIST A ND M ANAGING PARTNER A T EXPONENTIAL EVENTS

Exponential Events Introduces carefully selected exciting Global Start Up, Early Stage & Growth
Companies, seeking Investment, to our Network of Sophisticated Investors. We do this via Worldwide
Pitch & Capital Raising Events and via our regulated Investment Platform. Locations include UK,
Europe, Middle East, South East Asia & Australia.

Alexander Piskunov
PARTNER A T R UVENTO V ENTURES

At Ruvento, Alexander specialises on fundraising, portfolio development and deep-tech investments

in emerging markets. Before that, he worked in pan-European tech-focused investment banking and
cross-border private equity funds. Previously, he has also founded his own business importing exotic
wines into British hotels, restaurants and bars.

James Thomas
INVESTOR & NED AT INVESTOR U PDATE

Investor with experience spanning technology, telecoms, publishing, venture capital and investment
banking. It includes a spell as an entrepreneur, co-founding a B2C mobile VoIP operator in Miami to
target the global Hispanic diaspora. Portfolio of board/NED/advisor roles and investments across
fintech, retail tech, ed tech and consumer. Based between London and Barcelona.
 PANEL 4: Pitching for Investment
JUNE 15TH | 6:30PM - 7PM BST

Dhruvin Patel
FOUNDER & CEO AT O CUSHIELD

Dhruvin Patel is an optometrist and entrepreneur encouraging a healthier relationship with technology
in the digital age. Since receiving a development grant from City University in London, he has built
Ocushield into an internationally distributed, MHRA medically rated product and established himself
as a leading authority on blue light, its impact on vision and quality of life. Dhruvin has been featured
in Forbes, The Guardian & USA Today - selling over 100,000+ Ocushield products in 65 countries.

Andrew Mossop
FOUNDER OF R UG & BONE LTD, S TUDENT S KILL S TORE

Andrew is founder of Rug & Bone - a communications consultancy whose primary aim is to help
university students fulfil their future career potential. He has spent three decades working across most
of the marketing disciplines for many of the world’s leading companies and brands. His career included
setting up and running Quintessentially Events Asia in Hong Kong and Singapore and prior to that was
founder of Brilliant Events in London and LHK Media in London and Hong Kong. He also guest lecture
in entrepreneurship, presentation skills, and communications at a number of universities including
King’s College London, The University of Birmingham, Winchester, Birmingham City, Brighton, Bath
Spa, Brunel and Exeter universities. Andrew recently wrote and filmed the first series of Student Skill Store to help university student
become brilliant presenters.

Yvonne Bajela
FOUNDING M EMBER A ND PRINCIPAL A T IMPACT X CAPITAL LLP

Recognised by Forbes as a key influencer of global money flows in 2020, Yvonne is the Founding
Member and Principal at Impact X Capital, a UK based venture capital fund founded to support
underrepresented entrepreneurs. Over the last five years, Yvonne has invested over £200 million in
various startups and advised over 100 companies. A board member and passionate leader, Yvonne
is a champion for female entrepreneurship.

Saloni Bhojwani
INVESTOR AT FOUNDERS FACTORY; A NGEL INVESTOR SUPPORTING FEMALE FOUNDERS

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.
 PANEL 5: Founder Stories
JUNE 15TH | 7PM - 7:30PM BST

Alastair Cameron
CO-FOUNDER AT STARTACUS

Alastair Cameron is the co-founder of online and offline startup focused platform and community
Startacus, the Head of Startup Programmes at Digital DNA HQ, a Maserati 100 awardee, freelance
trainer for Young Enterprise NI and a freelance business trainer.

Amy Williams
FOUNDER AT GOOD-LOOP

Amy is on a mission to convert people’s attention and data into funding for good causes around the
world. She co-founded Good-Loop in 2016 after turning her hand from advertising at Ogilvy to
volunteering at a soup-kitchen in Argentina. Today working with the likes of Nestlé, Unilever, the Co-
Op, Coca-Cola and H&M, Amy’s ‘ethical ad platform’ rewards consumers who choose to engage with
advertising by donating to their chosen charity, whilst delivering better ROI for advertisers. It’s Yin
Yang; a win-win. Amy is one of Forbes Europe’s 30 under 30, eConsultancy’s Rising Star of 2019,
listed as part of the BIMA 100 and a face of the United Nations #SheInnovates global campaign.

Jennifer Johansson
FOUNDER AT PLACED A PP

Jennifer is the founder of Placed, a mobile-first recruitment platform that helps employers within the
service industry to connect and attract Gen Z. Prior to setting up Placed, Jennifer was working in
hospitality and first-hand witnessed the mismatch between how these high labour-churn industries
recruit and the new generation of job seekers.

Matthew Arevalo
FOUNDER & M ANAGING PARTNER AT GIAL V ENTURES

Matthew Arevalo is an entrepreneur, consultant, and advisor. For almost 20 years he has had the
opportunity to create growth and value for partners through engagement marketing, experience
strategy, product/brand development and platform optimization. His primary focus is on helping to
create exceptional moments and initiatives that delight and unite customers of all types, helping create
community, evangelism and advocacy that leads to real business results. As co-founder and Chief
Experience/Innovation Officer of his last company, his role was to create the brand, product, strategy and experience initiatives for its
subscriber base that helped it create incredible organic growth (#1 Fastest-growing Private Company in America) and ultimately generate
more than $700M in revenue over 7 years with partners including, AT&T, Disney, Fox, Viacom, Comcast, Microsoft, CBS and many more.
 PANEL 6: Legal Tips: How to prepare your
Startup for Investment
JUNE 15TH | 7PM - 7:30PM BST

Sarah Melaney
PARTNER AT BROWN R UDNICK LLP

Sarah Melaney is a Partner in the Corporate & Capital Markets group. Sarah advises clients on a broad
range of corporate transactions including venture capital, mergers and acquisitions, corporate
governance, and equity capital markets. Sarah has extensive experience in advising on impact
investment, digital health, clean energy, fin tech and ed tech deals. Prior to joining Brown Rudnick,
Sarah was a senior associate at Baker Botts.

Stacy Kim
PARTNER AT WILSON S ONSINI GOODRICH & ROSATI

Stacy Kim is a leading American cross-border technology lawyer, strategic business advisor, and a co-
founding partner of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati's London office. Leveraging her unique experience
as a trusted advisor to high-growth U.S., U.K. and other European companies and as an in-house
advisor at a fast paced U.S. technology company, Stacy uses her legal insight, business acumen,
professional network, and industry expertise to resolve problems before they arise. She has a particular
focus supporting companies with their fundraising, corporate reorganization, and commercial
expansion.

Howard Palmer
PARTNER AT TAYLOR WESSING LLP

Howard is recognised as one the of the UK's leading advisers on venture capital investments. He
specialises in advising on both M&A and venture capital investments, working for both companies and
investors. Clients say they value his meticulous and highly practical advice. Howard primarily works
with companies from the technology, fintech and cleantech sectors.

Isabella Ghassemi-Smith
ECOSYSTEM M ANAGER AT S EEDLEGALS

Isabella is the Ecosystem Manager at Seedlegals, a revolutionary new legal tech platform that lets
startups and investors complete the end to end legals needed to build, grow and fund their business,
at a fraction of the cost of using a law firm. Launched in 2016, SeedLegals is now the number one UK
destination for start-ups to close a funding round. Initially specialised in corporate law, Isabella went on
to join an accelerator and co-found her own social enterprise Stepforce, which streamlines getting
refugees into work.
 PITCH NIGHT INVESTMENT JUDGES:
10 STARTUPS PITCH FOR INVESTMENT
JUNE 16TH | 6PM - 7:30PM BST

Costas Andriopoulos
A NGEL INVESTOR , PROFESSOR OF INNOVATION & ENTREPRENEURSHIP AT CASS BUSINESS
S CHOOL

Costas Andriopoulos is Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Director of Cass X and Associate
Dean for Entrepreneurship at Cass Business School, City, University of London. He is a member of the
investment committee of the Cass Entrepreneurship Fund and an angel investor. He is the founder of
Avyssos Advisors, consulting clients on disruptive innovation and digital transformation. He also leads
management development and training courses for business executives on the themes of disruptive innovation, innovation management,
entrepreneurial thinking and strategic management.

Olga Pavlova-Harris
A NGEL INVESTOR , HBS A LUMNI A NGELS S CREENING COMMITTEE

An experienced quantitative financial risk manager and angel investor. I am a member of a number
angel investor networks and screening committees with particular focus on fintech.

Akash Bajwa
PORTFOLIO AND INVESTMENT A NALYST, CASS ENTREPRENEURSHIP FUND

I’m an Analyst at the Cass Entrepreneurship Fund, where I focus on new deals and supporting our
portfolio. We invest at late-seed in UK-based B2B businesses. Outside of my role at CEF, I’m part of an
impact investing network called Shaper Impact Capital.

Paul Beach
H EAD OF EXECUTIVES & ENTREPRENEURS , A RBUTHNOT LATHAM & CO., LIMITED

Paul joined Arbuthnot Latham, the award winning independent private bank, in 2010 and is a proud
champion of entrepreneurship. Paul established the Executives & Entrepreneurs Team within the bank
and now heads of team of 26 dedicated to working with entrepreneurs and business owners at all
stages of their careers. Paul is passionate about supporting young entrepreneurs and founded the
Inspiring Innovator programme in 2015.
 PITCH NIGHT: PITCH COACHES
JUNE 16TH

JESSICA CHEN
FOUNDER & CEO AT S OULCAST M EDIA

Jessica Chen is Founder & CEO of Soulcast Media, where she provides high-touch strategies to
elevate people's speaking and authority. Her client list includes business executives and
entrepreneurs spread across the United States, Asia, Africa, and Australia.

Emilia Buggins
PITCHES BE CRAZY

An award-winning designer and passionate creative, Emilia brings the brand to PBC. Founder and
creative director of Kireli, she has years of branding experience under her belt, giving her a unique
perspective & style that's malleable and brings a positive impact to any brand strategy.

Tambo Silavwe
PITCHES BE CRAZY

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.

Amy Williams
PITCHES BE CRAZY

An in-the-trenches’ entrepreneur, Amy brings the story to PBC. CEO of a Good-Loop she has delivered
more than her fair share of successful pitches, to grow a successful business. She has an uncanny
ability to translate/tell any business’s story, making it relatable while staying true to its core mission.