Dec McLaughlin, Founding Partner of Foras Ventures, builds the UK's first community-to-fund venture platform by leveraging three years of international founder programs across SF, New York, Austin, and Europe to create genuine global-first mindset adoption for ambitious UK startups. Starting as a "joke on a Slack channel" during his Startup Grind Scotland leadership days, Foras emerged when Scottish Government's ecosystem fund offered £50K maximum grants, leading Dec and co-founder Carol to take 20 founders to Silicon Valley's Startup Grind Global instead of running traditional pizza-and-beer events. The name "Foras" derives from Gaelic, meaning "to travel together as a group on a voyage," symbolising their focus on collective international expansion and overcoming the dangerous "local maximum" trap where Scottish founders (5.5 million population) get caught building only for their home market rather than thinking globally from day one.

Dec positions Estonia as the European gold standard, citing their 10-11 unicorns from just 1.1 million people, driven by the Skype mafia's successful wealth recycling loop where founder exits created family offices that reinvest locally, plus a shared cultural mission of digital-first governance and ecosystem accountability that prevents bad investor behavior through reputation consequences.

Foras addresses systemic UK problems where founders receive unfavorable early-stage terms that create continuous fundraising loops rather than milestone achievement, while building toward a £20 million fund through three phases: immediate membership launch with 15,000+ network beta testing, SPV bridge deals for reputation building, and eventual fund leadership focused on founder-friendly terms, employee option pools, and supporting companies across health tech, climate tech, and deep tech verticals through university partnerships with Glasgow, Edinburgh, St Andrews, Heriot-Watt, and Strathclyde.