Riding Unicorns: Venture Capital | Entrepreneurship | Technology

David Wascha is the Chief Product and Technology Officer at Zoopla and also a Product Adviser at Kindred Capital. David is, as he describes on his official website, “a product guy at heart.” In fact David has dedicated his entire career to becoming an expert in this field and his tremendous knowledge in the space has seen him work at numerous successful tech companies including Microsoft, Moo.com...

Jasper Martens is the Chief Marketing Officer at leading online pension provider, PensionBee. Jasper is an award winning marketing professional with over 15 years of client side experience. Prior to joining PensionBee, Jasper worked at Simply Business, bringing business insurance to SMEs online. James and Jasper came together to discuss his rise as a marketer, how he helped grow PensionBee from a...

Harry Hugo is the co-founder of award winning global influencer agency, The Goat Agency. Operating across international offices and with over 200 employees, The Goat Agency is the world’s fastest growing influencer marketing agency. Since its launch seven years ago the company has achieved great acclaim having worked on huge campaigns for the likes of Lidl, British Airways, New Look and Chelsea FC...

Rikke Rosenlund is the Founder and CEO of online platform Borrow My Doggy. Much of Rikke’s career was spent working in financial services and entrepreneurship. It was only in 2012, following her own experience of dog sitting for a friend, that she decided to launch the company to help connect dog owners with trusted local dog walkers and carers. 10 years on the brand has established a reputation a...

Natasha Thomas is the co-founder of premium blended cocktail company, Lockdown Liquor. Launched at the beginning of the pandemic by Natasha and her husband Jack Durling the brand has already been able to shift more than 10,000 units since April 2020. Natasha works on the brand alongside her other venture she founded, Total Management, a leading global event, travel and experiences group.  In this...

Lucas London is the co-founder & CEO at the UK’s fastest-growing home decor startup, Lick London. The brand is revolutionising the interiors sector with their unique community-driven ethos, content-rich approach and high-touch quality support. Lucas started out in investment banking before going on to cut his teeth at a host of tech startups. In 2020 Lucas and his fellow co-founder Sam Bradley...

Mustafa Khanbhai is a Venture Partner at Seamlessly, a VC looking to help companies launch, source & scale sustainably. Mustafa for his part is an experienced corporate development and business leader. Prior to joining Seamlessly Mustafa worked at Uber and helped it grow to the business powerhouse we know it to be today. Elsewhere Mustafa spent 5 years at Virgin helping them launch businesses...

Sam Hodges is the Growth Director at men's health company, Numan. Founded in 2018 Numan has quickly become the go-to place for men looking to treat all manner of health issues such as hair loss, gut and lung health and nutritional deficiencies. The company's honest and modern approach to healthcare, fuelled in part by Sam expertise in Performance & Multichannel Marketing, has seen it...

Paul Lindley OBE is Founder of organic baby and toddler food brand, Ella’s Kitchen. Before turning Ella’s Kitchen into a company with a global turnover of over $100 million the entrepreneur worked as deputy managing director of Nickelodeon UK. Away from work Paul is a committed philanthropist. He is currently the Chair for Robert F Kennedy Human Rights UK and a Trustee of Sesame Workshop, a Board...

Hector Mason is an Investor at Episode 1 Ventures, a seed stage Venture Capital fund, whose previous investments include Carwow, Attest, Zoopla and Shazam. Prior to his time at Episode 1 Hector tried his hand at being a founder and after a couple of attempts, one of which included a successful exit Hector decided to move into consultancy before finally settling on venture capital. Since his move H...

Jeff Kelisky is the CEO at equity crowdfunding platform, Seedrs. Jeff is an experienced executive whose track record in building, leading and scaling successful technology businesses has made him one of the most revered figures in his space. Before joining Seedrs, Jeff was CEO for Picsolve and Multimap, the latter of which he led through a successful sale to Microsoft.  In this our sixth ever epis...

Vlad Tropko is a Partner at Digital Horizon, a new generation international venture company focused on B2B software based companies in fintech, retail and e-commerce. Vlad is a seasoned VC executive with over 15 years of experience with particular expertise in European and American startups. As well as this Vlad is also an Investor at companies such as Advisable, Bnext, and Ably. Vlad joined Ridin...

Jonathan is the VP Commercial at Europe’s largest equity investment platform, Crowdcube. The company has invested over £1bn into startups including Revolut, Monzo & Moneybox. Prior to Crowdcube Jonathan spent time working for the United Nations, UK energy firm, Centrica and was part of the founding team at Pavegen. Jonathan is multiple times Tedx speaker and has spoken at conferences around th...

Hamish Grierson is the co-founder & CEO of Thriva Health, a Wellness and Fitness company providing personalised blood tests, GP-reviewed results, and evidence-based advice. Thriva has already raised over £11m to help it achieve its mission of providing simple and affordable tools to help people better understand and track their internal health data.  In this episode we discover Hamish’s journe...

Andrew Scott is the Founding Partner of early-stage startup investor, 7percent Ventures. Andrew and his team have a keen eye for ambitious companies with huge upside. Several of his investments to-date include Oculus VR, Source DNA & Magic Pony, which have been sold to Facebook, Apple & Twitter respectively.  Riding Unicorns sat down with the entrepreneur turned investor to talk about what...

Sir Martin Sorrell is the Founder and Executive Chairman of S4 Capital plc. Sir Martin rose to prominence for founding WPP plc, the world's largest advertising and PR group. Prior to his departure from WPP in 2018, Sorrell had become the longest-serving chief executive of a FTSE 100 company. We are absolutely delighted to launch the podcast with such a fantastic guest. In this first ever Ridi...