Filling a role is about more than just sending a job ad out into the world. How do you attract the best people to apply? And once you have them, how do you keep them? This is where your employer brand can play a big part.

Graham Quinn is a specialist in crafting irresistible employer brands and employee experiences. He has conducted employer brand audits, built communications strategies for entire culture and values refreshes, and has created engaging marketing to attract underrepresented groups in tech and improve diversity.

He is also now a partner with Flexa, the company working to help people find truly flexible workplaces, where he contributes to thought leadership and works with Flexa-listed companies to improve their employer brand and attract top talent.

During this series, we’ll be discussing the art of building strong, high-performing teams to give your startup the best foundation possible.

I’ll be speaking to industry experts about inclusion, employer branding and establishing culture, plus I’ll be hearing both the VC and founder viewpoints and experiences when it comes to finding and supporting the best talent.

So, whether you’re a founder starting to scaling your team, a hiring manager looking for top talent, or simply curious about how diverse teams are tackling the planet’s most pressing challenges, this series is for you.

Open Org

1:54 - Basics of employer brand and what it means

4:56 - Is it ever too early to start thinking about employer brand?

8:43 - Where do you see companies get things wrong, and how can people starting from scratch avoid the pitfall of internal experience not matching up to the front the company presents externally?

11:58 - For smaller organisations does it make sense to bring someone in to achieve an unbiased view of your culture and brand?

17:08 - Thinking about who you’re not for, is as important as knowing who you are for when it comes to employer brand and attracting talent.

21:17 - How do you specify your culture and who would be a good fit for your team but also be inclusive and encourage diversity?

23:28 - How can choice of language convey employer brand and culture? Is swearing okay?

28:23 - What are some easy wins in employer brand that early-stage startup founders can act on to get started?

32:00 - Where do personal brand and employer brand meet?

38:58 - Do reviews on sites like Glassdoor really make a difference?

46:15 - Should you ask about company culture in a 1:1?

48:24 - As a company grows, who should own employer brand and how often should it be revisited?

50:56 - Should this be continuously looked at as part of C-suite or broad meetings?

53:06 - What one thing should early-stage founders do to get started with this?

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Creating an inclusive workplace is vital, not just for employee wellbeing but also to increase innovation and creativity, which are key in the climate tech space.

Ed Jervis is the CEO at Inclusion Crowd and the founder of the Inclusion Think Tank. He has worked with an array of businesses ranging from complex multinational organisations through to non-profit and startups.

He works with leaders to coach them in creating company cultures that thrive and offer team members psychological safety. He also guides them to form internal staff groups, attract and retain diverse talent, and helps clients to foster meaningful connections with their stakeholders.

During this series, we’ll be discussing the art of building strong, high-performing teams to give your startup the best foundation possible.

I’ll be speaking to industry experts about inclusion, employer branding and establishing culture, plus I’ll be hearing both the VC and founder viewpoints and experiences when it comes to finding and supporting the best talent.

1:21 - Do we need to discuss inclusion more and not place all focus on diversity?

5:19 - People are talking about DE&I but not always executing. Where is the disconnect?

11:48 - Is it ever too early to start thinking about DE&I? e.g. when it’s just the founders.

15:04 - A good place to start is telling your own story and experiences with DE&I and modelling what you want to see.

18:07 - How do you create a psychologically safe environment?

21:44 - Don’t forget to look at things through a commercial lens sometimes to create connections

26:39 - Does AI have a place in increasing diversity in recruitment when it comes to vetting and screening?

32:52 - How can people communicate better right from the start at the job ad?

37:13 - How do you maintain DE&I as the team grows and make sure you don’t lose sight of it in the chaos of growth?

41:55 - Are regular 1:1s or surveys worth it as a way to assess your culture and how people feel working in your company?

47:40 - What resources would you recommend for people to learn more about DE&I? 

50:35 - How do identify that there even is a problem? How can you expand your mindset to recognise the problem to start with?

So, whether you’re a founder starting to scaling your team, a hiring manager looking for top talent, or simply curious about how diverse teams are tackling the planet’s most pressing challenges, this series is for you.

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During this series, we’ll be discussing the art of building strong, high-performing teams to give your startup the best foundation possible. 

I’ll be speaking to industry experts about inclusion, employer branding and establishing culture, plus I’ll be hearing both the VC and founder viewpoints and experiences when it comes to finding and supporting the best talent.

With fundraising being so crucial to any startup, it’s important to understand how VCs see talent and assess it not only when making their investment but also beyond, when things start to scale.  

We’re starting this series with Heidi Lindvall, a general partner and investor at Pale Blue Dot. Over her career, she has herself built SaaS and B2B companies, and has run two accelerators helping founders to scale. Now the other side of the table, she focuses on pre-seed and seed startup investments. 

Pale Blue Dot is a seed-stage climate tech VC that backs visionary founders, building future-shaping businesses.

2:06 - Heidi’s experience of building teams as a previous founder.

4:40 - Were there any advisors or resources you used to learn how to pull a team together?

10:55 - How to handle realising you’ve made the wrong hire.

14:46 - Would you advise working with a business coach or advisors when first starting out?

18:16 - Why did you move into accelerators?

22:18 - What stage did you take people into the accelerators?

23:11 - What were the common themes that you saw companies struggle with from a team and hiring perspective?

25:00 - How can founders assess whether someone is a good fit for a startup?

29:02 - Competing on salary at early-stage companies.

31:58 - What would your advice be around offering equity at early stages?

33:36 - From a VC perspective, how important is the team when assessing an investment?

37:28 - How important is the advisory board and can that offset gaps in a founding team when you’re assessing an investment?

41:24 - Where have you seen team building and hiring done well in your portfolio at Pale Blue Dot?

44:49 - Should you always be recruiting and building a talent pipeline?

47:16 - How involved do you get in hiring with your portfolio companies?

48:49 - Do you see hiring challenges differ between locations or are they fairly universal?

50:08 - What is one final key piece of advice you would give founders when it comes to hiring?

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For the final episode of series six, was joined by Pippa Gawley, Founding Partner at Zero Carbon. They are investors in early-stage companies that are on a mission to fix climate change through deep science innovation. They look for hard-tech solutions that have the potential to make half gigaton-level reductions of CO2e at scale; and have vision-aligned, ambitious teams to go with them.

Across this series we will be discussing the challenges around scaling deep tech solutions within climate. I’ll be speaking to Investors, Founders, Venture Builders and other key ecosystem players all focused on scaling and commercialising groundbreaking, deep tech innovations.

We will explore how to prepare for the challenges that deep tech companies often face around fundraising, scaling, team building and commercialisation; and we’ll hear from stories of those who have successfully scaled to Series A and beyond.

2:04 - How did you come to investing from engineering?

7:48 - What was the state of the ecosystem in climate tech and investment in the UK when you started out?

10:47 - What differences have you noticed between the US and the UK. Given that you’ve lived in both places?

13:04 - What is your investment thesis and has it changed over time?

14:29 - How do you assess a startup’s potential impact when they are still so early-stage?

18:04 - Is there a timescale that you expect companies to be able to prove their impact?

19:36 - What common threads do you see across your portfolio companies that made them a good investment proposition and made them successful?

22:41 - Do you support companies with building out their team to ensure they have the skillset needed to progress?

24:41 - What key challenges do you see deep tech companies face?

27:55 - Do you feel the needed infrastructure is there to take these companies beyond seed-stage?

30:29 - Is there more that corporates could or should be doing to engage at early-stage?

31:55 - What do you think prohibits corporates from getting involved?

36:37 - What solutions within deep tech climate are most exciting to you and where do you see big potential?

39:18 - How to contact Pippa and Zero Carbon Capital.

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For the penultimate episode of series six, I was joined by Katya Constant, the Head of The Climate Brick. The Climate Brick is an initiative set up by EQT Ventures and Contrarian Ventures to accelerate the at-scale deployment of climate tech by introducing the "missing manual" (a playbook for scaling and funding seven different climate tech archetypes based on data from over 3,000 companies) and uniting the ecosystem through building the largest cross-stakeholder community. 

Across this series we will be discussing the challenges around scaling deep tech solutions within climate. I’ll be speaking to Investors, Founders, Venture Builders and other key ecosystem players all focused on scaling and commercialising groundbreaking, deep tech innovations.

We will explore how to prepare for the challenges that deep tech companies often face around fundraising, scaling, team building and commercialisation; and we’ll hear from stories of those who have successfully scaled to Series A and beyond.

Video versions of this and previous episodes are available here.

https://climatebrick.com/ 

1:48 - Katya’s journey from investment banking through to climate and career coaching 

9:51 - What themes have you seen across the successful businesses you’ve been involved with, that has separated them from those that haven’t survived?

15:01 - What was important to you from an investor perspective when you were at Systemiq?

19:02 - What do you see as being the key financial challenges that deep tech companies face?

23:19 - What advice would you offer to founders in the early stages, to help them de-risk things and show it to investors.

25:49 - When do you think a startup should think about having a CFO in place either permanently or fractionally?

28:37 - What is the Climate Brick?

33:47 - What were your key learnings from doing research for the Climate Brick?

35:42 - Do you find that corporates are as keen to collaborate as the rest of the investment community?

37:19 - Are there certain industries or locations where communication across the capital stack is better and climate could learn from?

38:28 - What led you to move into coaching founders and where do you add value?

42:08 - Do you work with individuals or with founding teams?

43:17 - What common challenges do you see founders face when you’re coaching, are there recurring themes?

47:08 - What advice would you give early-stage founders around what to start thinking about and practising now, that will help them face those challenges in the future?

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I’m joined by Dr. Luke Charbonnier-Bevan from Zinc, an inception stage, impact-led investor. They invest at the start of new ventures that are tackling some of the most pressing and complex problems facing the health of people and the planet. 

Across this series we will be discussing the challenges around scaling deep tech solutions within climate. I’ll be speaking to Investors, Founders, Venture Builders and other key ecosystem players all focused on scaling and commercialising groundbreaking, deep tech innovations.

We will explore how to prepare for the challenges that deep tech companies often face around fundraising, scaling, team building and commercialisation; and we’ll hear from stories of those who have successfully scaled to Series A and beyond.

Video versions of this and previous episodes are available here.

1:49 - What is Zinc and what are the different arms of it?

3:30 - How is Zinc different to other VCs?

6:07 - If you come across founders with a good idea but it needs a bit of work before you write that first cheque, do you put them through the venture builder first?

9:08 - How does Zinc support with helping deep tech companies to access lab space to develop their products?

11:32 - What are Zinc looking for in investments?

14:07 - What support do you offer companies when the founding team perhaps aren’t working so well together?

16:59 - Do you think it’s better to invest in an A team with a B idea, than a B team with an A idea?

20:02 - How much deep tech are you starting to see come through the venture builder?

22:44 - How does the mix of stages of companies affect the community of the venture builder, because everyone is at different points in their journey?

25:58 - What are the most common risk factors you see when assessing deep tech propositions, and how could founders start to counter those risks?

28:58 - How good do you think the UK is at supporting commercialisation of spin outs?

34:03 - Technical risk in deep tech across the technical readiness scale

35:25 - What investors want to see for deep tech

37:08 - How do you show that a deep tech company is scalable?

40:07 - At pre-seed stage, what minimum level of commercial traction would you expect a company to be able to demonstrate?

44:42 - What locations does Zinc invest in, UK-only or European too?

45:50 - What are you excited about for the rest of the year and 2025?

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Francesco Perticarari is a deep tech super angel, community leader and founder of Silicon Roundabout Ventures. SRV's mission is to back entrepreneurs who are to shape the next-generation of technology and to provide superior returns to investors through venture capital funds. They do this by capturing the explosive growth of early-stage deep tech startups in the UK.

Across this series we will be discussing the challenges around scaling deep tech solutions within climate. I’ll be speaking to Investors, Founders, Venture Builders and other key ecosystem players all focused on scaling and commercialising groundbreaking, deep tech innovations.

We will explore how to prepare for the challenges that deep tech companies often face around fundraising, scaling, team building and commercialisation; and we’ll hear from stories of those who have successfully scaled to Series A and beyond.

Video versions of this and previous episodes are available here.

1:46 - Francesco’s journey from computer science to investment 

4:02 - Francesco’s work establishing a 15k-strong deep tech community across Europe before setting up the fund

6:05 - Why is deep tech a good investment?

10:29 - What was it like raising your first solo VC fund?

15:07 - What are you looking for in a good investment prospect?

18:04 - What is your due diligence process like?

22:31 - Why do you think Europe has such good potential for deep tech and do you think Europe is well-positioned to support from a wider ecosystem perspective?

28:12 - How Israel has supported tech founders and what we can learn from them.

30:57 - What would you like people to understand about the risk level within deep tech, and how to mitigate it?

35:08 - What do your portfolio companies have in common, whether that’s themes, founding teams, the problems they’re solving etc.?

41:15 - What support does Silicon roundabout offer to founders and why are you a good person to have on the cap table? 

45:33 - Why have you decided to build your fund in public?

49:07 - How have you found 2024 for deep tech investment and how do you see the market developing in 2025 and beyond?

53:40 - What are you excited about for the rest of the year and how can people get in touch with you?

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I’m joined by Dave Wardell, Chief Commercial Officer at measurable.energy, a company working to eliminate wasted energy in buildings via their combination of hardware and software. Dave is responsible for commercial operations, from marketing awareness, lead generation and business development to onboarding and customer satisfaction.

Across this series we will be discussing the challenges around scaling deep tech solutions within climate. I’ll be speaking to Investors, Founders, Venture Builders and other key ecosystem players all focused on scaling and commercialising groundbreaking, deep tech innovations.

We will explore how to prepare for the challenges that deep tech companies often face around fundraising, scaling, team building and commercialisation; and we’ll hear from stories of those who have successfully scaled to Series A and beyond.

Video versions of this and previous episodes are available here.

https://measurable.energy/

1:51 - About measurable.energy, who is the solution for and what problem is it solving?

3:55 - Dave’s career journey to where he is today

4:59 - Where measurable.energy was with product market fit at the point Dave joined, just post-Series A

6:48 - How things at ME have evolved commercially over the year since Dave joined

10:50 - What is the software element that combines with the hardware of ME?

12:55 - What have the difference been over your career as you’ve moved from pure software and SaaS into a hardware-software blend?

15:23 - Do customers have a view of the ME software platform and data?

18:10 - What is the focus at ME post-Series A?

20:40 - What should pre-Series A businesses be thinking about from a commercial perspective?

23:31 - At what point should a commercial leader be brought in if there isn’t one within the founding team? And at what point does a sales function need to be established?

26:13 - Where are you currently at ME and what are the future plans?

29:22 - What changes could there be from a wider economic or regulation landscape perspective that could remove blockers for companies trying to scale?

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In this episode, I speak with Fahmida Khan, Innovation Specialist from Prosemino, the UK's first climate tech venture builder with lab space, offering pre-seed capital, specialising in electrochemistry, hydrogen, energy storage and advanced materials.

Across this series we will be discussing the challenges around scaling deep tech solutions within climate. I’ll be speaking to Investors, Founders, Venture Builders and other key ecosystem players all focused on scaling and commercialising groundbreaking, deep tech innovations.

We will explore how to prepare for the challenges that deep tech companies often face around fundraising, scaling, team building and commercialisation; and we’ll hear from stories of those who have successfully scaled to Series A and beyond.

Video versions of this and previous episodes are available here.

2:08 - Fahmida’s journey from academia to venture building

18:08 - How is Prosemino different to other venture builders?

23:05 - Why Prosemino isn’t cohort based

24:27 - What support is on offer around commercial aspects of business e.g. marketing, finance, commercialisation, business planning etc.?

27:54 - Why have you chosen to invest in startups so early in their journey, unlike other venture builders who usually invest at the end of a cohort program?

32:43 - Does Prosemino help with non-diluted funding?

34:18 - What is the new Prosemino lab space like and what’s on offer?

37:26 - What makes a business a good fit for Prosemino?

42:23 - Are there common themes amongst the companies, ideas, founders or values that work with Prosemino?

45:05 - How long are companies incubated for and what is the alumni relationship?

48:44 - What improvements need to happen to help startups go further, faster?

53:10 - Would it help if there were more academics in investment and investors working in academia?

56:33 - How to join and contact Prosemino?

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For this episode, I'll be joined by Dr. Stafford Lloyd, Innovation Lead for Clean Growth Strategy at Innovate UK - they are working on ways to catalyse private investment in climate tech. 

Across this series we will be discussing the challenges around scaling deep tech solutions within climate. I’ll be speaking to Investors, Founders, Venture Builders and other key ecosystem players all focused on scaling and commercialising groundbreaking, deep tech innovations.

We will explore how to prepare for the challenges that deep tech companies often face around fundraising, scaling, team building and commercialisation; and we’ll hear from stories of those who have successfully scaled to Series A and beyond.

Video versions of this and previous episodes are available here.

1:45 - Stafford’s career path so far from aeronautics to Innovate UK

10:17 - What was the landscape like before you started your work at Innovate UK when it comes to driving corporate investment into climate?

15:29 - What solutions have Innovate UK come up with to drive investment flow and combat risk aversion?

19:02 - How do advance market commitments work well and how are you applying them to climate innovation?

23:06 - Innovations in concrete production and using advance market commitments to encourage investors

28:09 - Do you look for problems or solutions first, when trying to get advance market commitments (AMC)?

33:28 - How have AMCs been received by VCs when they’re looking to invest?

35:04 - Could AMCs work when securing other types of funding e.g. debt financing?

36:57 - What time scale is your current pilot running across and what is success for you?

39:13 - How does this AMC pilot scale beyond Innovate UK?

41:37 - What challenges do you commonly see deep tech businesses facing?

45:47 - Blending public and private investment

47:43 - What are you excited about for the rest of this year?

48:11 - Is there anything you think could be changed or improved to drive the pace of innovation?

51:58 - How to contact Stafford and Innovate UK

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