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.
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.
What is unusual about your company and the problem identified?
At SPOKE we have worked out how to engage a young and diverse audience in mental well-being in a way that no other wellness product has been able to do. We work in youth culture with the world’s best artists and as a brand, we are not yogi or clinical, we are instead 100% driven by young creatives.
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.
What were your biggest learnings as a founder?
Being a founder is an ongoing learning experience. You make so many smaller and bigger mistakes. You learn from them, adapt and move on. If you only see the media it is easy to believe that you are the only one where its not smooth sailing towards unicorn status. That is why it is crucial to have a network of fellow founders. You will quickly find out that everybody has their own set of struggles behind the scenes. They also understand what you are going through, how lonely it can be and will give you honest advice based on their experience without any hidden agenda.
What inspired you to become a VC and was there a ‘lightbulb’ moment?
As the founder of a bootstrapped company, and an early employee twice over (most recently at Airtable, where I built our first growth team and led partnerships), I get my energy from the messy, early stages of company building. After I left Airtable, I assumed I’d take a few weeks to catch my breath and then get back to building. But I was really drawn to what Gil Dibner had built over at Angular Ventures for one major reason…Angular invests early.
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. 
