Ventures

Sasha Cayward, MSc., transforms venture capital by addressing the systemic psychological neglect of founders who receive massive funding without emotional support infrastructure. Coming from a background in competitive tennis, psychology, neuroscience, and religion at LSE, she transitioned through founding her own company via Techstars before recognizing that founders lack adequate psychological s...

Luke, Head of Brain Rot at Bigged, talks to us about startup marketing by spending hours "doomscrolling" across multiple phones to decode algorithm patterns, transforming viral format discovery into a systematic process that generates inbound leads with just two touchpoints. Starting as a summer intern recruited via LinkedIn DM while on holiday in the Lake District, he builds fresh algorithms usin...

Jakub Nowacki, CTO and Co-founder of Nusmark, builds an agentic AI assistant that transforms personal productivity by combining multiple specialised components into a seamless 24/7 digital secretary accessible in whatsapp. Starting his coding journey at nine years old creating video games and building AI opponents when friends chose basketball over programming, Jakub mentored over 100 students at...

Harvey Pitt, CTO and Co-founder of Alive Industries , pioneers the "zero-waste startup" approach by building a bootstrapped AI consultancy that gets paid to discover product opportunities while solving real customer problems, positioning AI as a "last resort" technology that should only be used when deterministic solutions fail. Having started at Oxford after witnessing early G...

Dana Aleff, CEO and Founder of Circonomit , builds the "ethical European Palantir" by creating enterprise software that maps reality into interconnected digital objects, enabling companies to understand causational relationships across their entire business ecosystem rather than relying on fragmented Excel spreadsheets and reactive monthly financial statements. As a mechanical engineer t...

Callum Woodcock, CEO and Founder of Wineify, democratises fine wine investing through a multi-award-winning platform that makes investment-grade wine accessible from £3,000 using innovative syndicate structures, positioning wine as a legitimate portfolio diversifier with equity-like returns and capital gains tax exemptions. Operating from rural France, he explains Winefi's UK Bear Trust nomine...

Ugne from ByFounders show us how Nordic startups evolved from overlooked markets to global unicorn factories, with Stockholm rivaling Silicon Valley in unicorns per capita through a fundamental shift where successful founders like those from Spotify and Klarna stay home to build ecosystems rather than emigrating, creating a virtuous cycle of mentorship and capital. Operating from their pre-seed fu...

Aaron Jones, Good Omen & Project Lovable Winner , transforms a spontaneous hackathon meeting into a €40,000 breakthrough by building video editing technology and AI journalism platforms in just 20 hours. Meeting teammates Gio (robotics and chip manufacturing expert) and Marco (described as "the smartest hacker I've ever met") at a Dawn Capital hackathon matching evening. The team...

We Max (Investor at wave Ventures) on VENTURES to break down the Lovable recap current state of Stockholm's startup ecosystem and investment challenges. "The talent density is, I would say, one of the highest in the world in Stockholm right now. And incredibly underrated, which works in your favour." "I think the problem is now that we see a lot of international investors coming...

TODAY ON VENTURES 🚀: 9 Guests, 5 hours, 1 don't miss streamThe docket is locked, loaded & it's special! 5 hours of streaming, bringing you the latest on what is happening in the landscape of technology across Europe. From Alternative Assets to Project Europe's Project LoveableWhere else are you going to find this 🤷‍♂️ 12:00: Callum Woodcock - CEO, WineFi 🍷12:30: Harvey Pitt - CT...

David, Founder and CEO of Car Crowd , revolutionises collectable car investing by democratizing an asset class previously exclusive to billionaires like the Sultan of Brunei and celebrities. Having managed collections for over 25 years since childhood, he reveals how Car Crowd's syndicated platform eliminates traditional barriers through expert sourcing, storage, and maintenance while deliveri...

Martin, co-founder and CEO of Bench, is building "Cursor for hardware engineering" to bring AI assistance to rocket builders, roboticists, and physical product developers. Connecting from San Francisco during a Valley exploration trip, he discusses raising a £1M+ seed round led by Superseed while evaluating whether to split operations between London and US markets. Having founded his uni...

Harry, Software Engineer and Labour Digital Committee Member, dissects the UK government's innovation strategy through the Number 10 Innovation Fellowship program and sovereign AI ambitions. Having witnessed the fellowship's evolution from Dominic Cummings' 2020 "misfits and weirdos" initiative, he reveals how the government is achieving dramatic efficiency gains through AI-p...

Zara Paul, CEO of Bigged and Dragons' Den alumna, is building a "performance marketing operating system" that combines human creativity with AI automation for paid social campaigns. After bootstrapping her first company, Choppity, to £150K ARR (currently in due diligence for sale), she pivoted to solve Meta's Andromeda algorithm changes that now favour creative variants over audi...

Carolina Lopez (Caro), technical recruiter at Vercel, explains the complexities of hiring cloud infrastructure engineers for a 650-person company building the future of web development. Based in New York and recruiting globally across SF, NYC, Berlin, London, and Amsterdam, she breaks down Vercel's values-based interview process and the importance of understanding both technical depth and stra...

Kenneth Thomas, principal at Back Future VC and co-host of "The Mergers" podcast, dials in from New York to discuss early-stage B2B SaaS investing and the upcoming SaaStock Dublin conference featuring a £1M winner-take-all pitch competition. Having moved from banking to FinTech to venture capital, he explains his fund's solo GP structure advantages and thesis on founder-market fit, w...

Tim Zaal, Video Lead at VEED transitioning to Corum AI, reveals the "SaaS content mafia" playbook that built Veed Studio to 150K subscribers. In this breaking news segment, he announces his move to a hardware-software AI company focused on home security, bringing his content expertise to a new vertical. He breaks down the difference between YouTube's intentional viewing versus TikTok...

Wenmiao Yu, Cofounder & Director of Business Development at Quantum Dice and host of "Low to Grow" podcast, discusses building quantum random number generation technology as one of five co-founders in this Oxford spinout. With a chemistry background and £2M pre-seed funding, she explains why their DISC (Device Independent Self Certification) protocol is crucial as quantum computing a...

Ash Turner, Influencer Marketing Manager at Synthesia, breaks down the company's creator strategy across LinkedIn's evolving B2B landscape. Having transitioned from LinkedIn's creator development team, he reveals how Synthesia builds long-term partnerships with niche creators rather than one-off campaigns, moving creators through funnel stages while leveraging their "Around the Gl...

TODAY ON VENTURES5 hours of StreamingBringing you the latest on what is happening in the landscape of technology. Jump in the chatFeed us your thoughts & questions - It's LIVE. 12:00: Ash Turner, Influencer Marketing Manager - Synthesia12:30: Wenmiao Yu, Cofounder & Dir. Business Development - Quantum Dice, Host - Low to Grow13:00: David Spickett, Founder & Ceo - TheCarCrowd13:30:...

Chris J Smith, director at Gold Studios, provides creator economy insights as YouTube surpasses traditional TV among under-25s per fresh Ofcom data. Managing talent while expanding into new WeWork office, he discusses format innovations like Bryson DeChambeau's "Break 50" with Adam Sandler, explains taking digital content to live events, and argues brands must develop entertainment channels over t...

Moises Barbera, founder of Drill Surgeries and theoretical physicist, builds "Google Maps for the operating room" solving 80-year-old broken bone surgery problems. Growing up in OR lobbies while his father sold medical equipment, he used ML software & mixed reality for 87% drilling time reduction. He reveals the personal toll of 200+ doctor interviews while sleeping in train stations...

Brian Da Silva - Head of Social & Influencer, VEED.IO, has revolutionised tech marketing by building authentic creator relationships and pioneering the "Clip Shop" campaign - a physical activation generating 115K video views and astronomical revenue impact. He's developed a three-pillar social thesis emphasising cut-through over volume and original content over hype-jacking. In the conversatio...

We had Alex on VENTURES, where the founder of Problem Kit and neuroscientist-turned-entrepreneur tackles what he calls the most dangerous trend in modern entrepreneurship: founders solving problems they haven't personally experienced. With background spanning GSK Pharmaceuticals and Zinc VC, he's developed "problem mining" methodology to combat cognitive biases. In the conversation, he reveals res...

We had Duarte and Antonio (Co-founders at Dojo AI) on VENTURES to break down why most marketing technology is broken and how AI can fix the entire function. "Marketers have been held hostage by all of this technology that actually made their jobs much harder, much more overwhelming, and much less effective.""Marketing technology just wasn't fit for Challenger brands—most were enterprise solutions,...