Angel Insights | Angel Investing | Crowdfunding

Avin Rabheru is the Founder and CEO of Housekeep (https://housekeep.com), London’s top rated cleaning service which allows you to find and book a local and trusted house cleaner in minutes. Prior to being an entrepreneur, Avin worked in venture capital at Smedvig Capital in London, investing in early stage, high growth companies with an investment range of £2-15m. Throughout both Avin’s operational and VC experience, he has been a prolific angel investor having made over 40 direct investments in the likes Zipcar, Crowdcube and Kabbee just to name a few. In Today's Episode You Will Discover: 1.) How did Avin make his way into the world of startup investing? How did Avin’s mindset alter when comparing his angel investments to his VC investments? 2.) How does Avin decide his capital allocation profile? Does he set aside an initial pool of capital and have a set investment range and set portfolio size he is looking to achieve? 3.) How does Avin look to differentiate himself in the ever increasing angel market?

David Rose is the Founder & CEO @ Gust, the platform that has allowed $1.8bn to flow through Gust to startups. David himself is a serial entrepreneur having personally raised millions in VC funding and being named a ‘world conquering entrepreneur’ by BusinessWeek. David is also a prolific angel investor himself having invested in over 70 early stage companies and having founded and chairing the New York Angels. It has to also be said that David is a master of the VC pitch and you can check out his incredible Ted talk here. Topics Discussed Today: 1.) How did David make his way into the world of investing in tech startups? 2.) What were David’s biggest lessons from watching the success and achievements of his entrepreneurial father and grandfather? 3.) How has David seen the startup and investing ecosystem evolve over the last few decades? 4.) Is entrepreneurship itself an element that can be taught or is it an innate being within an individual? 5.) What are the commonalities amongst the great

We have a very special show for you today both in terms of people and organisation. Firstly, we have two guests joining us today in the form of David Barrie, David has created and managed several ventures that have been credited with raising £300m+ of new investment through public-private partnerships. In 2013, David proposed to the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea a seed investment in the foundation of the new Wild Blue angel investment network. David is joined by his investment director Deepali Nangia, who has enjoyed a career spanning the heights of Wall St to the financial hub that is London to founding a business in India. Now the second element that is slightly unusual today is the organization that David founded, Wile Blue Cohort an angel investment network with a specific hyper location focus on West London investing in business close to home. Today's Episode Covers: 1.) How did David and Deepali make their move into the world of investing? 2.) What was the impetus behind the founding of W

Chris Mairs (https://twitter.com/Chris_mairs) is the chief scientist at Metaswitch where he has seen the company exponential growth over the last few decades including the raise of their first vc money in 2008 with the likes of Sequoia and Francisco partners investing, he is also a prolific angel investor and has an immense portfolio with the likes of MagicPony, SmartUp and Adbrain all being investments of Chris’. Chris is also the chair of Code Club and the UK Forum for Computer Education. Finally to cap it all off he is also a Fellow of the British Computer Society and a Fellow of The Royal Academy of Engineering. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1. How Chris made his way into the world of tech and then later angel investing? 2. What were the lessons that Chris took from his communications with Sequoia and Jim Goetz, that he has applied to his angel investing thesis? 3. Which element of the Metaswitch journey was Chris favourite time of the experience to work in? 4. How was the scaling process for Chris

Simon is an active angel investor in UK companies with a focus on the technology sector. His current portfolio consists of twenty companies and to date has achieved four exits, including the likes of SwiftKey to Microsoft. Simon is also a member of Cambridge Capital Group (CCG) and Angel Academe (a predominately female network), where he is on the advisory board. He participates as a mentor for the University of Manchester, Cambridge Judge Business School's Accelerate Cambridge programme and Angel Academe's female entrepreneur programme. In Today’s Episode We Dive Into: 1.) How Simon made his entry into the investing world? What was it that attracted him to the world of startup investments? 2.) With 4 exits in the last 12 months, how has this affected you mindset to investing? What have been the commonalities when looking at those investments? 3.) At what point can an angel decide not to follow on in a round without providing a negative signaling function? Does it matter if you are the cornerstone invest

Russ is an angel and venture investor and non-executive director of a number of high growth businesses. He is also a limited partner in Ariadne Capital’s ACE Fund and an investor in and advisor to Amazing Media Group. Russ is also a board member of the Tech City Advisory Group. Previously, Russ was Vice President & General Manager at Skype with responsibility for its mobile division globally. Russ exited when Skype was sold to Microsoft. Before Skype, Russ was at Telefonica, where he was the Global Innovation Director. This included managing a venture fund and an internal ‘incubation’ initiative. Prior to this role, he was with Telefonica’s O2 mobile business, as Marketing Director, responsible for initiatives such as The O2 venue in London. In Today’s Episode You Will Hear: 1.) How Russ made his entry into the investing world? What was it that attracted 2.) What were Russ’ big takeaways from his career investing institutionally? How does he allocate his portfolio in terms of differing asset classes? H

Jonathan is a General Partner at Indicator Ventures, however, Jonathan has not always been an early stage investor! After graduating from Yeshiva University, Sy Syms School of Business, Jonathan was the Director of Marketing at Sheets Brand Energy and Sleep Strips, helping launch their national advertising campaign in over 50,000 retail locations. He parlayed his experience into founding Socialosity, a digital marketing agency connecting brands with top-tier celebrities and influencers (LeBron James, Serena Williams, Pitbull, Chris Paul, etc.) through social media. Most recently, he was Co-founder of Kodiak Samurai, a NYC-based social media agency catering to complex global brand clients including Amazon’s Audible.com, Rolling Stone Magazine and Polaroid, among others. In Today’s Episode We Discuss: 1.) How Jon made his way into the world of early stage investing? 2.) What does the Jonathan make of the evolution of social with the rise of the mobile? What does Jonathan think will be the platform for social i

Nancy Fechnay is a Partner @ Flight Ventures where Nancy runs the UK syndicate which now has over 430,000 comitted to the syndicate and Nancy moved to London from Silicon Valley in 2014, having spent time with the likes of Kleiner Perkins and GE Ventures. Now in the UK, Nancy is the Interim Director at Techstars London as well as an advisor to several select UK and U.S. based startups and has a soft spot for wearables and other digital hardware plays, but invests across all sectors. Contained In Today’s Episode: 1.) How Nancy made her entry into the tech and investing world? What was it that attracted Nancy to the world of investments? 2.) Having working in both the US and UK venture scene now, when comparing the US and European scenes what are the biggest differences? Do the entrepreneurs have a fundamentally different mindset? Are UK entrepreneurs more risk averse, as is always suggested? Are investor expectations different in the US? 3.) Does the narrow exit funnel for European startups not concern NancyS

Ruzbeh Bacha is the CEO and Founder @ CityFalcon and has worked in finance and strategy roles at KPMG, Nokia, Skype and Microsoft and With more than 15 years of investing and trading experience, he looks for parallels when investing in start-ups, and has invested in more than 10 start-ups since 2013. He also runs London Value Investing Club where members discuss stock investment opportunities and share their investing views and theses. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Ruzbeh made his entrance into the world of startups and investing? 2.) What were the biggest takeaways from working at Skype and how Ruzbeh has applied them to his role at CityFalcon? 3.) What were the hardest elements of starting and then building CityFalcon? What are Ruzbeh’s thoughts on the progression of London’s ecosystem as a fintech hub? Where are we doing well? How could we improve? 4.) What made Ruzbeh want to make the move into the investing world? How has his operational background impacted your investing perspective? 5.)

Sara is a seed-stage investor in consumer startups at Maven, where she works with 20+ companies in the Maven portfolio and manages the Maven mentor network. Prior to joining Maven, Sara ran early-stage startup programming at The Idea Village, an entrepreneurship engine in New Orleans. While at The Idea Village, she built and managed a team of over 40 employees, contractors, and mentors to deliver direct services to over 1,200 companies. An enthusiastic supporter of entrepreneurs, Sara launched her own business in 2014 to help founders and investors launch and build networks that help startups thrive. She shares some of these experiences in her TEDx talk (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uR4-aEk5lQ). In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Sara made her way into the world of tech and investing? 2.) What does Sara believe is the most important value add to startups and portfolio companies? How can investors differentiate themselves from fellow angels? 3.) What does Sara make of the importance of startups f

Max Kelly is Managing Director of Techstars London for those of you that are not so familiar with Techstars, Techstars is the leading global ecosystem for entrepreneurs to bring new technologies to market helping to create the next generation of amazing startups and prior to joining Techstars, Max had a long background running innovation and entrepreneurship at Virgin. While there, he was responsible for the strategy of the group and for starting several companies which eventually exited for over $500M. Alongside his Virgin commitments, Max also co-founded lastsecondtickets.com which had a successful exit in 2014. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.)How did Max make his way into tech and investing? How was his time at Virgin? 2.) What is Techstars and what is the fundamental differentiator to the plethora of other accelerators that exist? 3.) What does Max think of Sam Altman’s recent article on the damning nature of incubator hopping? Does he agree? In what situations is it acceptable? 4.) With many c

Sean was on the Founding team at Trulia (acq Zillow for $2.5bn), Sean was also the founder and CEO at Sequoia funded, Crunched (acquired by ClearSlide). On the investing side he is an investor at Correlation Ventures and a prominent angel investor in several marketplace companies including SeatGeek, NerdWallet, Zeel, Paintzen, Peach and the home improvement app Smith. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Sean made his start angel investing in startups? 2.)How startups can deal with the mass of advice on offer to them today? What makes a great mentor? What should they look for and what should they be wary of? 3.) What are Sean's views on accelerator alumni? How can investors get early access to accelerator companies pre demo day? 4.)What does Sean make of companies attending multiple accelerators? What are the good reasons and what are the bad? 5.) As an angel investor now, how does Tom determine the 'eye of the tiger' within the entrepreneur? Having worked with many at Techstars, what are the commonali

Edward Lando is an active angel investor and the founder of Horizons, the coding bootcamp that teaches you to code real products before you graduate. Edward must be considered one of the youngest angels being only 23 years old giving him a unique insight and perspective into the current market. In today’s episode we discuss the pros and cons of having an operator background as an investor, what metrics early stage investors should be honing in on and the commonalities of successful consumer products and for the accompanying article of todays show head on over to synducateroom.com where you can find our investor academy. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Edward made his way into the world of investing and tech? 2.) As a 23 year old investor, what are the benefits of being so young and investng? How does it differentiates Edward? Does it pose any challenges in terms of commanding respect from higher tier VCs or Founders? 3.) What does Edward look for in potential investments? What metrics does Edwar

Chris is an active angel and tech entrepreneur as the founder of Voodoo Ventures, a platform that invests in companies and builds out their own products he has invested in several companies across a range of sectors at the very early stage. Furthering this, in 2009 Chris co-founded Launch Pad, a community that provides workspace, mentor network, and educational events to develop the talent in the New Orleans ecosystem. Prior to LaunchPad, Chris also co-founded Flatstack, a software development company with offices in Kazan, Russia and New Orleans that builds applications for clients worldwide. Before we dive into the show do not forget to check out the accompanying article to the show today discussing the 2 different types of angels and what works best for what type of company. It is a fascinating read and you can find that on syndicateroom.com. However, enough from me so it is now time to welcome the man himself, Chris Shultz, Founder @ LaunchPad. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Chris made his

David Ford has been an active investor in the public markets. However, in the past 12 months David has been gaining experience angel investing in a variety of startups from the £2m-£10m valuation range. Prior to becoming a full time angel investor, David worked for a leading global leveraged finance investor, backing a variety of LBOs and investing across a range of asset classes, including Senior Debt, High Yield bonds, and PIK securities. He was latterly Head of Credit Research for Europe, as well as sitting on the European, AsiaPacific, and US Investment Committees. David also got an early taste for the tech ecosystem, in the early 2000s David was on secondment to the San Francisco office and experienced first hand the boom and bust of Silicon Valley! In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How David made your entry into the investing world? What was it that attracted you to the world of investments? 2.) What was David’s primary method of deal sourcing as a hobbyist angel and how has that transitioned now

Jake Gibson is a prolific angel investor in SF whose investments include the likes of Datafox, Meadow, the new on demand delivery service for marijuana and TripleByte, the amazing recruitment platform for engineers co-founded by YC’s own Harj Taggar. Prior to his transition into investing Jake co-founded NerdWallet, a startup focused on offering price-comparison tools for financial products where he is to this day an advisor and if that was not enough he is also a mentor with our good friends, 500 startups. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Jake made his way into entrepreneurship and made the transition into the world of investing? 2 2.) Why did Jake decide not to take external money when growing Nerd Wallet? What does Jake think are the pros and cons of bootstrapping? 3.) What was it that attracted Jake to the world of investing? In the opening days, how did Jake operate as an angel? What was Jake’s deal sourcing like? 4.) Why has Jake decided to have a sector diverse approach when it comes to in

Ben Wiener is the Managing Partner @ Jumpspeed Ventures, self proclaimed to have raised one of the smallest first funds ever with a first fund of $251,000. Due to the immense success of Ben’s first fund he has gone on to raise a further fund 10X the size of the 1st fund. Today is a super interesting interview with Ben in revealing the benefits of having a very tailored and niche approach to investing and choosing one particular segment of the market and nailing it and Ben has clearly done that with Jumpspeed. Do not forget to head over to the site at www.syndicateroom.com to read the accompanying article from our episode with Ben. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Ben made his entry into the investing world? 2.) Why did Ben decide to be so location focused? Does he fear missing out on deals outside of Jerusalem? How is the current tech market in Jerusalem? 3.) When investing at such an early stage, what does Ben look for in prospective investments with very little KPI’s to go on? 4.) Why did Ben c

Keith Wallace is a Partner @ The Investors Club, Keith is a Scotsman with a passion for Europe. After graduation he started his first consulting company and ended up in the heyday the DotCom. When the Internet bubble burst , he moved to New York with a new mission: to help fellow-entrepreneurs avoid the “burn-rate” trap he himself had fallen victim to. Together with friends, Keith started investing and soon became a part of one of the Netherlands largest networks of informal investors, leading him to found De Investeerdersclub – “Hollands most informal investors club”, together with Martijn Blom and Gert van Veldhuisen. Keith has extensive experience is setting up companies, bootstrapping, coaching, and pre-seed capital and financing. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) Now I would love to kick off today’s show by hearing how you made your way into the world of investing to become as you call an informal investor? How did the bubble burst really affect you and your mindset on the market? Now can you expl

I am delighted to welcome Alexandre Covello to the show today. Alexandre is an active tech investor and startup mentor. He is the Founder and CEO of AngelsCube, an innovative investment platform dedicated to institutional investors focused on technology investments. He is a Member of the Board of the Harvard Business School Angels Club of London where he co-chairs the screening committee. Prior to founding AngelsCube, and for the past 15 years, Alexandre advised institutional investors on their global private equity allocations. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Alexandre made his entry into the tech world? What was it that attracted Alexandre to the world of investments? 2.) As an angel you are at the very beginning stages of a companies life cycle so what is your deal sourcing looking like these days? Does this differ to how you source deals for the AngelsCube platform? 3.) What are the key activities that Angelscube engage in to ensure their companies are ready for the VC funding stage? What are

Julian Ranger has been an Angel Investor since 2007 and an entrepreneur since he formed his first business, STASYS in 1986. Which he sold to Lockheed Martin in 2005. Julian was responsible for the growth of STASYS to a £17M+ business with 230 staff, with subsidiaries in USA, Germany, Australia and Malaysia prior to sale to Lockheed Martin. Julian Left Lockheed Martin in June 2007, and has been an angel investor in many businesses, mainly technical in focus, including such successful businesses such as Astrobotic, Hailo and Datasift. If that wasn’t enough Julian also founded an Innovation Hub, iBundle, which has been responsible for a number of new businesses, and is the current Founder and Chairman @ Digime. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Julian made his entry into the tech world? What was it that attracted him to the world of investments? 2.) Having spent years in the operations business, how has this affected Julian’s investing style? 3.) What does Julian think about part time angel investo