Pitch Deck is coming back! Some news from Nick about what is round the corner for the re-booted Pitch Deck. Pitch Deck is sponsored by trumpet

Jay is a serial entrepreneur and has founded 3 successful businesses worth over $500m: Yieldify, Reachdesk & Screenloop He now spends his time in 3 areas: (1) Building tech companies through his startup studio Blissgrowth (2) Co-hosting the podcast Happy Millionaire - which is in the top 10 in Apple and Spotify: It's 2 friends having fun and talking about startups, success and happiness stories  (3) Angel investing - he has done 40 deals so far. His passion is to bring more joy to work...

Founding Partner of the multi award-winning Concept Ventures, largest dedicated pre-seed fund in the UK ($60m). Reece has invested in 80+ start-ups from idea to unicorns (6 in total) and been ranked as one of the Top Asian Tech Investors on numerous occasions by Diversity UK. Prior to founding Concept, Reece built and sold several start-ups in the software space, 1 of which was successfully exited, 1 a complete disaster and 1 is still going today. Passionate about giving back, Reece has...

Chris founded Divido in 2014, now the world’s largest white-label platform for Buy Now Pay Later. As founder/CEO Chris took the company to 10 countries and onboarded over 100 clients including Mastercard, HSBC and BMW. They have raised over $50m are recognised as the 83rd fastest-growing company in Europe by the Financial Times '21 and achieved 1250% revenue growth over three years until 2020. Chris is also an investor with Seedcamp, who have backed over 350 startups including the likes of...

Amory started life out in investment banking before moving into the energy sector and VC moving to Shell Ventures as Venture Principal. Shell Ventures an arm of the oil company,  invests in early-stage companies that have reached proof-of-concept focused on fintech/insurtech/mobility and clean tech. He is now founder of his own $20m fund, D2 and looking to do 10 deals this year and a further 10 next year, focused on lean startups that don't need further funding to get to Series A and then the...

Novo was co-founder of Syft that was acquired by Indeed.com in a multi-million pound deal and is now known as Indeed Flex, the online marketplace for temporary staffing in the UK and US supplying workers to the hospitality, retail and logistics sectors. Since exiting Syft. Novo has also angel invested and has around 15+ companies in his portfolio including BYP (Black Young Professionals), Tinto (mothers community app) and Ufurnish (marketplace for buying furniture across  retailers) Show...

Henry de Zoete is an alumnus of Y Combinator and in 2014 co-founded The Big Deal which uses tech to facilitate collective bargaining for consumers. In 2018, he went on to establish Look After My Bills, a tech start-up that became the largest auto-switching service in the UK, saving families money on their gas and electricity. After raising global investment and securing the best deal in the history of BBC’s Dragons’ Den, Look After My Bills was acquired by Go Compare in July 2019.  He is...

Rupa is an entrepreneur, angel investor and senior advisor to corporates, government and private equity. She has started several businesses over the last decade across the property, media and technology industries. She is an active angel investor in under-represented founders with 24+ company investments and an LP in five venture capital funds run by diverse partners. She was recognised in 2021 as Top 20 Female Angel Investors in the U.K. by the Angel Business Association and is also a...

I'll be taking a quick summer break and will be back in September with some more great guests.

Eamonn Carey is a partner at Tera Ventures, where he focuses on pre-seed and seed-stage investments across multiple sectors. He's previously been a founder, an MD at Techstars in London and New York, and a partner at The Fund. He's invested in almost 100 companies across Europe, the US, Africa and Asia. There is nothing that Eamonn doesn't know in this space. Episode Links: Sponsored by trumpet Eamonn's Linkedin and Twitter Tera Ventures

Delighted to be joined by Hannah Seal, early check investor from one of the largest global VCs, Index Ventures. Before joining the behemoth VC, Index, Hannah set up the General Merchandise business for Ocado before spending 3 years at Ebay UK, managing their consumer marketplace business. Hannah is fascinated by the future of work and has been an early and consistent champion of Europe’s B2B software sector. She is particularly energized by founders who have an unfair advantage in tackling...

Dan will need no introduction to most. Dan is an avid mental health advocate, community and brand expert having started, scaled, (failed) & succeeded with various companies over the last 10 years. His newest startup, Heights, exists to make braincare as normal as skincare and haircare. This includes Smart Supplements, mental well-being, and bitesize neuroscience—all combined to create proven pillars to make braincare simple. Dan is also the creator and host of rocketship podcast Secret...

Millen spent nine years at Citigroup working her way up to become Vice President of Corporate Derivatives before setting up her own business, "no+mi" in 2016 -    an online destination with perfectly curated gift sets for expecting and new mothers. In 2020 she joined the consumer team at Octopus Ventures and is particularly interested in category-defining innovations around the way we live, work, travel, play and recuperate! Octopus runs one of Europe's largest venture funds with £1.2 billion...

Alex is co-founder of Velocity Black which is concierge, reimagined for the digital age. Backed by more than $30m in venture capital, they are the 3rd fastest growing company headquartered in the UK according to Forbes, and was named in Deloitte’s Fast 50 2020 list of the UK’s fastest-growing tech companies based on revenue growth over the last 4 years.  Alex has also become a prolific angel investor and keen commentator on the space both on substack and twitter where he regularly posts...

I was thrilled to have a powerhouse early stage check investor from a powerhouse VC join me. In Summer 2021 Gemma joined Creandum as an investment principal. Creandum is a pan European early-stage VC fund, having invested in companies like Spotify, Trade Republic and Depop.  Gemma covers the London market and is focused on both B2C and B2B technology businesses.  Gemma was the Chief Operating Officer at Elder Technologies, a Series B health tech startup for the past 3 and a half years, where...

Saasha is the daughter of Iowa hippy entrepreneurs who was raised with a deep appreciation for the planet and its scarce resources. After completing her MBA at Stanford School of Business, where she met her OLIO co-founder Tessa Cook.  Saasha spent 13 years in various strategy and business development roles - at the likes McKinsey and Vice President of International Partnerships, American Express. When on maternity leave in 2012 she opened her first business in London, which she outfitted...

Maya is a multi-cultural & multi-lingual Google and American Express marketing, product & partnerships professional with 15+ years of experience in tech & D2C industries. Currently, as the Founder of a strategic growth consultancy - MarketingCube.co - her clients include portfolio companies of Balderton, Notion, Creandum, LocalGlobe amongst others.  Maya has also joined advisory boards and is an active Angel investor.  As a ‘full stack’ CMO Maya is able to support with:...

This episode we chat with Pietro Invernizzi. Pietro is an investor at Stride, a London-based VC firm investing first checks at the pre-seed and seed stage alongside investing superstars such as Fred Destin, Cleo Sham and Gabbi Cahane. Before joining Stride, Pietro entered the investment world 5 years ago at The Family, a world-famous accelerator, where he spent most of his time helping founders raise money from top angel investors and VCs. He has also made over 20 personal angel investments...

This episode we speak to Matt Smith, a professional footballer for the last 11 years for clubs such as Leeds, Fulham, QPR and Millwall, scoring over 100 goals. Matt, who has a business degree is also very interested in the angel investing world, investing in over 10 startups to date, including the likes of Velocity Black and Honest Mobile.   Episode Links: Supported by trumpet Matt's Twitter

In Episode 2 we are joined by Nikhil Shah. Nikhil is a creative, technology and social impact entrepreneur, passionate about supporting mission-driven founders on their entrepreneurial journeys. He is the founder of Mixcloud, the world's leading streaming platform for the DJ & radio community, with over 20 million listeners and 4 hours of content uploaded every minute. He now has a portfolio of startup advisory roles, social impact and creative projects. He is an angel investor with a...

In episode 1 we are joined by Deepali Nangia; Deepali is a seasoned, high profile, angel investor with over a decade of experience in private equity, investment banking and corporate operational roles. She is now a Partner at one of the world's most prestigious VCs, Speedinvest. Deepali also co-founded Alma Angels in 2019, an angel community on a mission to level the playing field for female entrepreneurs seeking early-stage startup funding. Episode Links: Sponsored by trumpet Deepali's...

Nick has taken a far too long hiatus but is back for Series 5! Here he reveals a new format for Series 5 which will give listeners a tonne of bite-sized, useful takeaways from leading angel investors and early-stage VCs. The plan for this series is to pump out a lot more content but in smaller chunks; 15-20 minutes per episode. Series 5 sponsored by trumpet - https://www.sendtrumpet.com/ Horseplay Ventures - https://horseplay.ventures/

I was joined by the inspirational Andrew Wilkinson, founder of Tiny; he started product and branding agency Meta Lab in 2006 and was responsible for some of our most-loved and used companies such as Slack, UberEats, Coinbase, Pinterest and Headspace, to name a few. He then used MetaLab's profits to purchase other companies that have solid revenues, are designed well, have a great culture, and are profitable, which he knew he could rocket ship. Tiny now owns circa 30 companies, the likes of...

I was joined by Gemma Bloemen; Gemma was the Chief Operating Officer at Elder Technologies, a Series B health tech startup for the past 3.5 years, where she helped the company scale from 20 to 120 people and raise a series B in 2019. She has been an angel investor for the past two years and is very interested in Healthtech, Marketplaces, Agetech, Silver economy and Sustainability. 80% of her investments have been in female founders. Previously, Gemma was a senior manager at Uber in the UK...