Today on Fundraising as a Female Founder, I’m joined by Lucy Wright who is co-founder of future wine company Nice - https://nice-drinks.co.uk.

Lucy started her entrepreneurial journey straight out of university, when she launched bircher museli company Cuckoo with a friend. They ran the company for four years, before selling. Lucy then consulted for two years - advising food and drink companies on sales and marketing strategies.

The entrepreneur itch was still there, though. And after meeting co-founder Jeremy May - they launched Nice (a disruptor to the wine industry) in May 2019. The pair have closed two investment rounds to date.

Today on Fundraising as a Female Founder, I’m joined by Claire Cherry who is an Investment Principal at True.

True. operates across multiple investment stages, but Claire specialises in investing at Seed & Series A in high growth, revenue generating, D2C or B2B Consumer focused businesses.

Before working at True., Claire worked at Calculus Capital as an Investment Associate, and has been in the venture capital industry since 2013.

In series 2, episode 1 of Fundraising as a Female Founder, after a healthy Covid pause, the podcast returns with an interview with June Angelides MBE, who works at Samos VC.

Born in London and raised in Lagos, June joined Samos Investments in 2018, investing in high growth European businesses. Prior to this, she started the first child-friendly coding school in the UK, Mums in Tech, which taught over 250 women to code in 3 years. She also held roles on the Venture Debt Team and Early Stage Banking Team at Silicon Valley Bank.

An active part of the tech and startup ecosystem, she is on the advisory board of mentoring app, Cajigo, a mentor at Oxford University and runs mentoring circles for founders and aspiring VCs.  She is a judge on the Debut Sessions, a monthly pitch session for founders seeking seed investment.  She is passionate about flexible working and getting more women and girls into tech. She is a contributor at The Financial Times. 

She has been named by the Financial Times as the 6th Most Influential Tech Leader and by Computer Weekly as one of the most Influential Women in Tech. June recently received an Honorary Fellowship at the Institute of Engineering and Technology and was awarded an MBE for services to women in technology.

#fundraising #femalefounder #vc

The first diary extract documenting where I (Alice Audley - host) currently am in the fundraising journey. 

Today on Fundraising as a Female Founder, I’m joined by Isabel Garvey who is managing director of Abbey Road Studios and was responsible for launching Europe’s first music technology incubator, Abbey Road Red.

Abbey Road Red offers music tech entrepreneurs a program of mentorship, access to Abbey Road's facilities and a platform for exposure.

Isabel started her career at Morgan Stanley, and then worked at Venture Capital and Private Equity company Compass Partners. She has advised many start ups on both growth strategy and funding options, and larger corporations on acquisitions - so has experiences of both sides of the table. 

Today on Fundraising as a Female Founder I’m joined by Tobi Oredein, who is the Founder and CEO of Black Ballad - a data, media and insights platform, which elevates the voices of black British women through content, community and commerce.

Tobi founded the business in 2013, and since then has raised money through crowdfunding, grants and gaining a place and investment from the Founders Factory in their accelerator programme. Tobi is about to go out and raise £500,000 in pre-seed investment.

Today on Fundraising as a Female Founder, I’m joined by Stevie Spring CBE, who is a portfolio director, investor and PE adviser. Stevie Chairs both the British Council and Mind; is Non Executive Director and Chairman of Remuneration for the Cooperative Group ; and Chairs tech scale up, Kino-mo.

An introduction into why I've decided to start this podcast - Fundraising as a Female Founder.