Ventures

Explaining the "SpeedRunning The Intel Playbook" Op-ed https://virajacharya.substack.com/

"SpeedRunning The Intel Playbook" Op-ed - https://virajacharya.substack.com/ On the show today:Assia Kasdi: Founder and CEO, Milvus AdvancedIsabel Fox: Head of Investor Relations, Hoxton VenturesSava Founders: Renato Circi and Rafaël Michali Andra Bagdonaite: General Partner, FIRSTPICKJean-Philippe Lorinquer: Partner, OSS VenturesSam Baker: Investor, Planet A Ventures

From the front lines of McDonald's to the helm of a leading European VC, Sara Rywe is redefining what it means to be a "founder-friendly" investor. In this long-awaited sit-down, she reveals how byFounders is engineering a generational firm by stripping away traditional downside protections and fostering a low-ego, high-autonomy culture. Sara is the General Partner at byFounders, the...

Jonny Clifford rarely does interviews, but he’s breaking his silence to detail the strategy behind Entrepreneur First’s massive $200M Series D. This is a masterclass in how EF is engineering a global shift in founder ambition and why the "Bay Area mindset" is the ultimate competitive advantage. We dive deep into the mechanics of the new funding, the "rubber band" effect of relo...

The Cost of Ambition Op-Ed explained

It's Thursday, 12th March and Today on VENTURES we have a star studded line up. On the show today: 11:30 GRITCULT 11:45 Luciano Belviso: Founder, Mirai Robotics 12:00 Jonny Clifford: Partner, Entrepreneurs First 12:30 Sara Rywe: Partner, byFounders 13:00 : Ivan Tregear, CTO, Co-Founder KAIKAKU 13:15 Yariv Adan: General Partner, Ellipsis Venture 13:30 Wilson Tukiainen: Investment Analyst, Maki....

It's Tuesday, 10th March & today on VENTURES we have a world-class line-up:On the show today:11:30 Ties Boukema: Head of Data, Tech & AI, Dawn Capital12:00 Benjamin Torrero: Investor, Boost Capital Partners12:30 Antonia Eneh: Co-Founder, Elva13:00 Hussein Kanji: Founder and Partner, Hoxton Ventures13:30 Martin Prince-Parrott FRSA RIBA: Founder, ROMULLUS13:45 Thomas Clarke: Director - A...

ARE YOU READY: Today on VENTURES 🚀 9 Guests, 4.5 hours, 1 don't miss streamThe docket is locked and loaded 4.5 hours of streaming, bringing you the latest on what is happening in the landscape of Technology & Business. RUN IT ☄️ Where else are you going to find this 🤷‍♂️Eloïse Wainwright - US Immigration Paralegal, Bay Immigration LawHannah Meiton - Co-Founder & Partner, Ampli Ventur...

Benjamin Wolba, Co-Founder of European Defence Tech Hub, transitioned from theoretical physics PhD to venture capital at Lunar Ventures before founding Europe's first defence hackathon movement after witnessing Silicon Valley's defence innovation ecosystem. Following Ukraine's demonstration that modern warfare relies on fiber optic drones and small asymmetric systems rather than expensive monolith...

Ben Kaluza, co-founder of ninesixteen Studios, critiques AI editing hype while advocating for immediate adoption, arguing that style and taste remain key differentiators as most agentic editing demos are "over-exaggerated" marketing. He views Google's NanoBanana as incrementally better than existing models rather than revolutionary, emphasising that creative value comes from making h...

Aengus Boyle, Vice President at VaynerMedia EMEA, he advocates for VaynerMedia's organic-first approach, where brands test content organically before investing paid media dollars, leveraging algorithm-driven feeds that now reach 95% non-followers. Aengus positions brands for AI-powered search through optimised video content and immediate-answer website formats, predicting that advertising inte...

Rowan Aldean, pivoted from Casa Platforms' AI rental agent after recognising he skipped steps on Nathan Barry's "ladders of wealth creation," moving from agency work directly to consumer products without building the foundational SaaS experience that creates sustainable value rather than merely capturing it. Born in Iraq and formerly at Checkout, he's now developing software-...

Matt Clarke, Co-Founder of Leapfrog, raised £3.15 million in angel funding to build the "AI layer for the cloud," positioning LeapFrog as "Devon for DevOps" that automates infrastructure management across any cloud provider through natural language Terraform generation, seamless multi-cloud migrations, and autonomous incident resolution. Operating across three pillars—build, mi...

Jannes Klaas, Principal at QuantumBlack, AI by McKinsey, authored a machine learning book during undergraduate studies while teaching courses on neural networks and gradient descent—fundamentals that remain largely unchanged despite rapid AI evolution, though LSTMs have been superseded by transformer architectures that enable today's scaling laws through bigger models and datasets. Specialisin...

Oliver Quie, Tom Ryan & Oscar Hayek Co-Founders of Innerworks, raised $4 million to build "synthetic threat intelligence" that answers three fundamental questions: is a user human, which device are they using, and where are they located, as AI's ability to mimic authentic human behaviour renders traditional behavioural biometrics obsolete. Operating as an "immune system for...

David Gelberg, Fastest Exited Founder Ever at the20hr.co (acquired by Revel), achieved Europe's fastest hackathon exit by selling a company built in 20 hours during Project Lovable, leveraging London's competitive hackathon community where he consistently wins through strategic team formation and hunger-driven talent selection. Building secondary market disruption tools for family offices...

Josh Tulloch, co-founder of Plugged, operates a curated founder community with 34 paying members who undergo rigorous vetting for tenacity, wicked ambition, and cultural fit, maintaining a 30% acceptance rate through application processes that dig deep into candidates' "why" to identify founders who exhibit spiritual-level commitment to building regardless of pivots or obstacles. Dra...

HERE WE GO: Today on VENTURES 🚀: 9 Guests, 5 hours, 1 don't miss streamIt's more bang for buck than 39 SpaceX Raptor engines at max thrust 💥 5 hours of streaming, bringing you the latest on what is happening in the landscape of Technology & Business. From the fastest ever exit 🏃‍♂️ To European Defence 🇪🇺THE BLOK IS ABLAZE 🔥Where else are you going to find this 🤷‍♂️12:00: Josh Tull...

Johannes Korpela - VC, Wave Ventures

Aaron Morris, Co-Founder/CTO of Bigged, pivots the ad tech startup from creative tooling toward LinkedIn advertising optimization after recognizing enterprise pricing advantages over the consumer model (Update has pivoted back) Starting as a 12-year-old game developer building racing games and "psychedelic kitten tree" experiments, Aaron developed expertise in non-Euclidean geometry syst...

Alexandru Voica, Head of Corporate Affairs & Policy at Synthesia, navigates the complex intersection of AI regulation and startup innovation, drawing on 15 years of tech experience across ARM and Meta to educate policymakers about artificial intelligence while protecting European startups from regulatory overreach. Romanian-born Alexandru advocates for startups in EU AI Act discussions, highli...

Louise Maunoir, Director Europe at Sigma, bridges European and Chinese entrepreneurial ecosystems through community building and fellowship programs, drawing on her diverse background from creating carbon credit systems for 3,000 Egyptian farmers (generating €4.8 million in carbon credit value) to microfinance work in Kenya and founding her own venture-backed startup that she closed earlier this y...

Melissa Dewar, Founder of The Modernist, creates the "future of lifestyle membership" through a hospitality tech startup that provides ClassPass-style access to private members clubs, co-working spaces, and exclusive events across London, describing her platform as the offspring of "ClassPass and Soho House." Originally studying architecture at Cambridge where she conceived the...

Katie Saddleton, Senior Ecosystem Manager at Royal Academy of Engineering. Founded by Prince Philip 49 years ago to put engineering innovation in service of society. Operating under the Academy's Strategy 2030 framework focused on "engineering better lives," Katie supports bold, IP-rich deep tech innovations spanning the full breadth of engineering from software and biomedical to tra...

Brian Walker, Founder of REVEL, accelerates humanoid robotics adoption by building the world's largest library of digital twins for physical embodied AI training, positioning REVEL as "Scale AI for robotics" while pursuing partnerships with major manufacturers, including Dyson, Bosch, Milwaukee, Stanley Black & Decker, and IKEA. Originally a Czech filmmaker who spent 17 years in...