Riding Unicorns: Venture Capital | Entrepreneurship | Technology

Jack Durling is Co-Founder of Lockdown Liquor & Co . The brand offers award-winning premium blended cocktails, crafted by expert mixologists using the best quality ingredients resulting in unique and great tasting cocktails. Having initially traded direct to consumers, Lockdown Liquor is now retailed in a selection of prestigious outlets including Daylesford Organic, Anthropologie to name a fe...

Alex Macdonald Co-Founded Velocity Black which went on to be acquired by Capital One and is now the Co-Founder at sequel helping the world's best athletes invest in the world's best startups, making a positive impact. They are on a mission to help athletes build legacies for their families and for the world. They harness cutting-edge technology and a network of founders, angels, and vent...

Saasha Celestial-One is the co-founder & COO of Olio , a sharing app for local communities, on a mission to fight waste. They make it easy to pass on the things we no longer need — from food to furniture, and clothes to books — to people who live nearby. They also work with businesses to redistribute unsold or unserved food. That way, every last bit of edible food ends up benefitting local peo...

Cristina Vila Vives is the founder and CEO of Cledara . A dreamer and a doer, she started Cledara as a result of her life-long desire to start a company that focussed on helping people. Cledara brings visibility and control to software subscriptions, helping users to reduce software costs by 30% and save +20h a month on finance admin. With 1000+ customers and offices in Denver, London and Barcelon...

Dr. Andre Retterath is a Partner at venture fund Earlybird Venture Capital .  Earlybird Venture Capital focuses on European technology companies. Founded in 1997, Earlybird identifies and backs exceptional early-stage companies on a pan-European basis and supports them through their growth and development phases – providing financial resources, strategic support, and access to an international net...

This week's guests are Leapsome Co-founders, Jenny von Podewils and Kajetan von Armansperg Leapsome is an all-in-one intelligent people enablement platform. CEOs and HR teams at more than 1400 forward-thinking companies (including Spotify, monday.com, and Unity) use Leapsome’s intelligent people enablement platform to drive employee development, productivity, and engagement. Jenny and Kajetan...

Peter Specht is a Partner at venture fund Creandum. Creandum is a leading European early-stage venture capital firm backing some of Europe’s most successful tech companies including Spotify, iZettle, Depop, Klarna, KRY, Epidemic Sound and Small Giant Games. Peter joins James Pringle and Hector Mason in this episode to discuss how to be a super valuable board member, the odds of questioning, managi...

This week's guest is Sequence Co-founder & CEO, Riya Grover Sequence helps B2B companies design and iterate on billing and payment flows so they can stay focused on their mission. Their goal is to empower operators to build, scale and iterate, expand seamlessly into new markets and product verticals, and have a real time pulse on their business. Riya joins James Pringle and Hector Mason i...

This week's guest is Playfair Partner, Henrik Wetter Sanchez . Playfair is a generalist fund with a contrarian approach to pre-seed technology investing. They have backed 70+ companies across two funds including Thought Machine, Andela, Mapillary and Omnipresent. Henrik joins James Pringle and Hector Mason in this special episode to discuss his journey to VC, scaling Playfair, culture fit, cr...

This week's guests are Odin Co-founders, Paddy Ryan and Mary Lin . Odin is building a better way to invest together: a relationship-centric investment marketplace for founders, angels, and VC’s. Paddy and Mary join James Pringle and Hector Mason in this episode to discuss the founder's psyche, finding your Ikigai, creative strategies to facilitate people in your network to invest in star...

Startup Spotlight with Edmond Boulle , Co-Founder at Orbital Witness . Orbital Witness is a legaltech/proptech company liberating everyone involved in property transactions by organising all the information at the start of the process so there are no nasty surprises.  Over 1.5% of all commercial property transactions in the UK use Orbital Witness and they have just raised a £7.5m Series A led by P...

This week's guest is Yulife CEO & Co-founder Sammy Rubin . Yulife is on a mission to inspire people to live their best lives: financially, mentally and physically. They have fundamentally changed the nature of life insurance, creating an innovative new ‘win-win’ model which benefits individuals, businesses and society. Sammy joins James Pringle and Hector Mason in this episode to discuss...

Startup Spotlight with Alex Lempka , Co-Founder at Connect Earth . Connect Earth is an environmental data company working with banks and fintechs to offer customers insights into the impact of their spending and investments on the climate. Its technology is integrated with banking groups such as KBC Bank, community banks and fintech firms in Europe and the United States. Connect Earth recently rai...

This week's guest is Packfleet CEO & Co-founder Tristan Thomas . Packfleet is on a mission to empower independent businesses across the UK to offer the best deliveries on Earth. Tristan joins James Pringle and Hector Mason in this episode to discuss how to scale a business, how to time your fundraising activities, some thoughts on product management & so much more.. Don't forget...

This week's guest is hackajob Co-founder & CEO Mark Chaffey hackajob have made it their mission to make the hiring process fairer, faster and based on skills rather than backgrounds, so people can get the job they deserve and earn what they're worth. Mark joins James Pringle and Hector Mason in this special extended episode to discuss how to validate an idea, lessons learnt during hi...

This week's guest is CodeMonk Founder & CEO Maulik Sailor CodeMonk is changing the way the world goes to work — thanks to their dedicated platform powered by a global network of world-class, remote-based tech professionals. They offer companies a complete end-to-end solution, enabling them to hire entire development teams in just a matter of days. Maulik joins James Pringle and Hector Mas...

Our guest this week is Otta CEO Sam Franklin Otta is the better way to find a job in tech. They have raised over $20m including a Series A led by Tiger Global after initial backing from LocalGlobe and Riding Unicorns Live 2022 special guest Paul Forster . Sam has worked as a management consultant and cut his teeth at tech company Nested . Sam joins James Pringle and Hector Mason to discuss what ma...

Our guest this week is Eileen Burbidge, Partner @ Passion Capital and Director @ Fertifa Eileen has worked for some of the biggest tech companies in the world such as Skype , Apple and Yahoo . She founded venture firm Passion Capital in 2011 and has backed incredible companies such as Tide , Monzo , Tray.io and others from pre-seed stage. Eileen joins James Pringle and Hector Mason to discuss what...

Our guest this week is Thomas Wynne, Co-Founder & CEO @ Capsule ! Capsule is a specialist, purpose-led insurance partner for growth companies – partnering with innovative and ambitious businesses on their scale-up journey. They are a certified B Corporation with ESG at their core. Thomas joins James Pringle and Hector Mason to discuss the emotional side of selling a company, the opportunity in...

Startup Spotlight with Dan Webb , Co-Founder at Light Garden . Light Garden are building Existent®, the platform that brings physical interaction to the metaverse. Existent® is a software platform and set of authoring tools that extend state-of-the-art virtual reality with the ability for players to be able to physically interact with everything they see in the virtual world. They have raised from...

Our guest this week is Yann Sarfati, Co-Founder & CEO @ Userled Userled helps products sell themselves by initiating product led growth journeys. Yann joins James Pringle and Hector Mason to discuss the forming of Userled,   how prior startup attempts shape your next company, hiring sunshine people and much, much more! Don't forget to like, subscribe and follow The Riding Unicorns Podcast...

Startup Spotlight with Chris Priebe , Founder at Zelt. Zelt is a cloud application you can use to onboard new joiners in 2 minutes and manage HR, payroll and IT from a single system of employee record. They have raised from Episode 1 Ventures, The Fund, Lakestar and Portfolio Ventures. Don't forget to like, subscribe and follow The Riding Unicorns Podcast on our socials and your chosen podcas...

Our guest this week is Tony Jamous, CEO @ Oyster™ Oyster is a distributed talent enablement platform that allows growing companies to tap into the global talent pool and offer their remote workers around the world, a great employment experience. They have raised over $220 million from the likes of Connect Ventures, Slack Emergence, Salesforce Ventures. PayPal Ventures and others. Tony joins James...

Our guest this week is Mayowa Ogunremi, Investment Principal @ Form Ventures Form is a new early stage venture fund investing in startups disrupting regulated markets, or building in new markets that will face regulation. They use decades of experience to help founders break down policy barriers and shape winning regulatory strategies. Mayowa joins James Pringle and Hector Mason to discuss her rou...

Our guest this week is Crowdcube Co-CEO Matt Cooper . Crowdcube is a leading equity crowdfunding platform for investing in high-growth opportunities across Europe. They help entrepreneurs of start-ups and growing businesses to connect with potential investors. Dedicated to helping UK-based entrepreneurs raise finance to start or grow their business, Crowdcube gives investors real equity in the com...