Angel Insights | Your guide to angel investing

The UK is set to spend ~£15bn upgrading 5 million homes by 2030 — but much of the insulation we've already paid for is failing, and the way we survey buildings hasn't really changed in 30 years. Lucy Lyons is fixing that. Her company, Kestrix, flies thermal imaging drones over buildings to map exactly where heat is escaping — and has already covered around 12,000 homes. In this episode, Tom and Lu...

How does someone go from Pig Farmer, to Actuary, to successfully exited Entrepreneur, and now top 1% Angel Investor? I sat down with Alister Esam to find out and to unpack the hard-won investing framework behind his success and the portfolio companies he backs. Tune in as Alister explains why he ignores the hype, which metrics matter at the seed stage, and how he's now opening his deal flow to...

While the last decade of FinTech made accessing credit as easy as a single swipe, the technology behind repaying that debt remained stuck in the dark ages of rigid direct debits and impersonal collections. With UK unsecured consumer debt hitting a staggering £237 billion—averaging £4,400 per adult—the "repayment gap" represents one of the largest untapped opportunities in financial servi...

In this episode, SyndicateRoom Co-founder Tom Britton sits down with Colin Van Ostern , the incoming Head of UK and EMEA for Alumni Ventures , to discuss the fundamental shift toward a multi-polar venture capital landscape. While much of the media narrative has focused on a "funding winter," the ground-level reality tells a different story. As one of the world’s most active venture firms...

“We are looking for one thing: people who want to start a business in climate, and want to start it now .” In this episode of Angel Insights, host Tom Britton sits down with Michael Langguth , Founding Partner of Carbon 13 , the venture builder for the climate emergency. While much of the climate conversation focuses on consumer habits, Michael and his team are focused on the "hard stuff&quot...

Join Tom Britton and Jessi Baker, MBE (Founder & Chair of Provenance), as they break down the brutal choices founders must make to build a resilient, market-leading B2B SaaS company. In this episode, Jessi discusses: Strategic Flexibility: Why she made the critical decision to cut profitable consulting services to focus solely on scalable SaaS and the lessons learned from being an early blockc...

Heating and cooling drive 40% of all energy-related CO2 emissions, yet 60% of that energy is wasted by bad insulation. Is there a better way? We got the chance to speak with Theresa Hoffmann, founder of Nanoplume, a UK startup that has developed a revolutionary bio-aerogel 3x more insulating and 60% thinner than traditional materials. The technology is so non-toxic that she famously eats it during...

Temperate: The startups building tech that beams heat into space and aims to disrupt the trillion-dollar cooling market Air conditioning consumes 10% of the world's electricity, a figure set to double by 2050. Is there a better way? I got the chance to speak with Charlie, founder of Temperate, a UK startup that has developed a revolutionary cooling technology up to 20 times more efficient than...

Join us for a fascinating conversation with Pam Garside, a leading angel investor in the health tech sector and the first female chair of Cambridge Angels. Pam shares her unique journey from managing NHS organisations to becoming a trusted advisor and investor, offering a rare glimpse into how a true healthcare insider evaluates early-stage startups. In this episode, Pam reveals her "prescrip...

Angela Cretu spent 25 years at Avon, rising from area manager to Global CEO, where she led one of the most remarkable corporate turnarounds in recent history. Taking over in January 2020 when the company was predicted to go bankrupt, she navigated COVID-19 as a new CEO and transformed one of the world's most recognised beauty brands. After stepping down in 2024, Angela made a fascinating caree...

In this episode, we explore Jodie O'Keeffe's fascinating journey from IT contractor in 1990s Australia to becoming one of Angel Academe's most insightful investors. Starting with a chance magazine discovery in a Melbourne supermarket, Jodie shares how her unconventional career path through technology, journalism, and philanthropy unexpectedly converged into angel investing expertise. W...

Standing at a copy machine at HSBC late one night, reviewing 50 statements of work that needed urgent attention, Kayleigh Kuptz had her lightbulb moment. "Technology should do this," she thought, "this should not be done by me." Four years later, that frustration has become Deployed—a B2B SaaS platform that's saving enterprise clients millions while transforming how corpora...

The last flight out of London carried just two passengers on that fateful March day in 2020. As Boris Johnson announced the UK's first lockdown, Mike Gammell and his co-founder Duncan were airborne, heading to Scotland with nothing but faith in their vision for alcohol-free beer. Four years later, Days Brewing has become the fastest-growing brand in the UK's no and low alcohol space, provi...

How a biochemist turned management consultant became one of the UK's most experienced angel investors — and what new angels can learn from his journey. When Simon Blakey made his first angel investment in 2000, the startup ecosystem looked radically different. There was no AngelList, no Seed Legals, and certainly no standardised term sheets. Finding deals meant subscribing to the "Venture...

On today's episode, we are joined by Aled Phillips, Co-Managing Director at Niche Private Clients, who helps us take an in-depth look at the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS) and Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) , their similarities, differences, and when they might be right for your investment strategy. It's a fascinating discussion that we hope you enjoy. Please do leave a comme...

In a world searching for sustainable alternatives to fossil fuel-derived products, Deep Blue Biotech – a graduate of climate-tech-focused fund Carbon13 ’s 2023  Venture Builder programme – is making waves with an innovative approach to chemical production. Using cyanobacteria – one of the most efficient photosynthetic organisms on the planet – they're developing technology that not only create...

In the latest episode of Angel Insights, we sat down with Rob Wallis, co-founder of Moth Drinks, a SyndicateRoom portfolio company revolutionizing the ready-to-drink (RTD) cocktail market. From humble beginnings in a home kitchen to expanding across the Atlantic, Moth has established itself as a premium brand in a rapidly growing category. Here's how they did it. For more information on the Ac...

While carbon dioxide (CO2) often dominates climate discussions, methane plays a disproportionately large role in global warming. "Methane is a bit like the ugly duckling compared to CO2. It's between 28 and 84 times more potent, which means when it's in the atmosphere, it absorbs much more heat." We had the privilege of speaking with Louise Parlons Bentata, the CEO and co-founder...

Cocoon was formed through the ⁠ Carbon13⁠ ⁠ venture building programme with the desire to tackle the emissions produced by the world's second most consumed good, concrete. Eliot Brooks, CEO and Co-founder, joins us to share more about Cocoon's journey and how its product uses a byproduct of steel production to reduce emissions in concrete manufacturing. If you enjoyed the episode please li...

Join us as we speak all things Hydrogen fuel and climate-tech related with James Milner, CEO of Access portfolio company Wild Hydrogen. Learn how the hydrogen fuels industry has evolved, where it's headed, and why it's such an exciting time to be in the space. Find out more about what we do at www.syndicateroom.com Find out more about Wild Hydrogen . Don't invest unless you're prep...

David Hickson, part of the founding team at Founders Factory, joins us to give a bit of background on Founders Factory and why they are starting a new Pre-seed B2B SaaS programme and fund when so many others thought B2B SaaS was saturated. To find out more about the fund SyndicateRoom and Founders Factory are building, please visit www.syndicateroom.com/founders-factory-seis . Don't invest unl...

Hannah Leach , Partner at Houghton Street Ventures & Co-founder at VentureESG, joins us on this exciting episode of Angel Insights where we delve into ESG and what it really boils down to when it comes to startups and Venture Capital. In this episode we look beyond the products and services being built to the supply chains, hiring processes, and a whole lot more. As always, if you'd like t...

We had the opportunity to sit down and chat with the incredible Dr. Brian Moretta of Hardman & Co. Brian is a quant by nature, a former fund manager by past, and a fund analyst and reviewer at present. Not to mention, in his spare time, Brian is a professor at the prestigious Heriot-Watt University. Brian spends his days picking apart funds ( EIS and VCTs ) and creating the reports used by wea...

What does one do with a PhD in visual processing? Naturally, one would join the entrepreneur first accelerator, launch a machine learning-based visual processing business, sell it to twitter, then work one's way up the Twitter hierarchy before retiring around 30. Then one would turn one's hand to angel investing. Don't believe me? Listen in to today's guest Zehan Wang as he recount...

Addie Pinkster is the Founder and Chief Executive of Adelpha, a female-led corporate financial advisor and leading investment network, that specialises in high-quality, fast-growth, UK-focused companies. Prior to that, she spent 15 years in investment banking, most recently as Head of Hedge Fund Strategy at Citi. She is also a NED, and a growth & tech investor. I got to speak to Addie about he...