What have you learnt from the funding of 6 tech startups and have your experiences impacted upon your investment strategy? / As per the ‘hare and tortoise’ fable is being first to market critical as a startup?
My first three start-ups were self-funded and revenue generating very quickly, the fourth was self-funded but nearly broke me as we were too early to market with an e-commerce proposition that retailers weren’t interested in because they thought nobody would buy goods online, my last two ventures have been backed by Angels, VCs and debt.  If I do another start up I will fund it personally for as long as I can, if I need external funding I would choose Angels before VCs because there are no pref terms or board seats for Angels and they’re hands-off.  I don’t want to carry the burden of debt again as it’s a very expensive overhead for a business to service. At Cushon we had VCs and a debt provider, without them we wouldn’t have achieved what we did, so my above comments are idealistic, sometimes you don’t have the luxury of choice.  Timing and cash are two of the most critical factors for a start-up. Get either wrong and it can be a very expensive mistake.  

The story of a ‘broken’ housing market in the UK is not new. The UK housing market has long been plagued by numerous challenges that make homeownership an increasingly distant dream for many.

Preventive care is the future of health and social care and a crucial part of equitable care. This means care does not differ in quality regardless of someone’s age, gender, geographical location, cultural background, ethnicity, religion or socioeconomic status. By facilitating activities like data collection and remote monitoring, technology can enable this, improving health outcomes for all. 

It’s fair to say consumer fintech has had a tough run of it recently. A sector which was once one of hottest investments in the market was hit by a wave of blows last year – from nose diving valuations to funding drops which saw businesses collapsing at an extraordinary rate.

Hybrid work is the new buzzword in the workplace lexicon, and for good reason. There are plenty of perks to be had from this flexible working arrangement. Employees get to enjoy a better work-life balance, with less time spent commuting and more time spent doing things they love. And then there’s the cost savings for both employees and their employers.

The future’s so bright I’ve gotta wear shades.

It’s been often commented lately that ChatGPT and Bard and AI in general will render us all useless and redundant. Perhaps, in some dystopian future that might be true, but I’m sensing that we’re some way off and being optimistic, to paraphrase Timbuck 3, “the future’s so bright, I’ve gotta wear shades”. Being serious for a moment, the truth is AI won’t take our jobs, but someone who really know’s how to use AI might.

This is the story about Carmoola’s journey from launch to Series A in only 10 months…

Carmoola launched on the 1st of April 2022. Bringing consumers a cheaper, easier and faster way to finance a used car. And wow, it feels like a lifetime ago. So much has been achieved in less than 10 months. Multiple funding rounds, massive technology build out and thousands of happy customers! All with a very small team of driven, hard working and incredible people.

What have been your biggest learnings whilst being a Board member/observer at Toqio, Zift, Phrasee, Solidatus, and Clear Review?

My experience from over 20 years of investing at Series A and partnering with founders is that almost every successful company goes through a period when things don’t go to plan. This makes the clarity and alignment of objectives absolutely paramount. Firstly, the exec team and investors should spend time agreeing what the key strategic objectives are, what the short and medium term targets are to achieve these objectives, agree how to measure progress and assign clear responsibilities. We do this every time we back a new company, in a systematic way. Then the investors need to make sure they speak with a unified voice. How they achieve that depends on the size of the investor syndicate, but founders should not have to deal with disparate investor priorities. Another key lesson is that founders should not waste time in building a high calibre C level team as soon as they take on investment. It takes time to find the right people, bring them on board and allow them time to make a material contribution. In the context of a 24 month period between funding rounds, there really isn’t time to waste. Lastly, we operate in fast moving markets and those who win embrace agility and speed of execution and we overindex on founders with these qualities.

What were your biggest learnings whilst working at Goldman Sachs and subsequently driving FirstMinute’s work into South Africa, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Egypt?
At Goldman Sachs, I worked in the Financial Institutions M&A Group working on transactions for Banks, Insurance and Payments Companies. I’ve always been fascinated by the plumbing of the Global Economy! At firstminute I’ve spent a lot of time looking at the startups trying to modernise this system – both traditional fintechs and crypto infrastructure companies. What’s so exciting about Emerging Markets is how much white space there is to build critical infrastructure in financial services and the value capture for companies as these regions move from cash to digital. The talent in these regions is amazing and Covid really changed the fundraising dynamic as meetings shifted online.