We were delighted to host a fireside chat at Balderton HQ about disrupting capital markets with Murray Roos, Group Head of Capital Markets at LSEG, Enrico Bruni Managing Director at Tradeweb, and Rana Yared, General Partner at Balderton.
John Cole is the CCO of Ezoic. Ezoic is a Google award-winning artificial intelligence platform designed to automatically test ads, website layouts, mediation, and more to increase ad revenue and optimize user experiences at the same time. John is the Chief Customer Officer of Ezoic. Formerly an officer in the British Royal Navy, John was a founding Director of Media Run Group – which started several online businesses in the mid 2000’s (Media Run Search, Media Run Ad Network, and Blowfish Digita...
Mårten Mickos is a rare European founder. He has led 3 global software companies, including the Balderton-backed MySQL, and is now opening the London office of HackerOne, a new company which is used by Uber, Twitter and Github to protect their critical systems. Mårten joined open-source database company MySQL as CEO early in the company's journey. He remained in charge until the $1 billion acquisition by Sun Microsystems in 2011. Mårten's next role was again as a software CEO, at cloud software ...
All three coFounders of Lovecrafts - Cherry Freeman, Nigel Whiteoak and Edward Griffith - joined Ben Goldsmith for the latest episode of the Balderton podcast. Lovecrafts create online marketplaces such as LoveKnitting and LoveCrochet that bring traditional crafts to the digital age. Balderton first invested in the company in 2015, leading a $7.5m round. LoveCrafts have since raised a further $20m. 0030 You have three cofounders: is that better or worse than one, single CEO figure? 0100 Edward s...
The Tab's CEO and Founder Jack Rivlin talks to Ben Goldsmith about all of the 'first-times' he's encountered since founding student media company The Tab with a group of friends at Cambridge University. The first time Jack hired people outside of the founding team, the first fund-raise, the first time that The Tab decided that they were going to launch in New York... 0014 Without pausing for breath, Jack starts the episode by sharing the news that The Tab recently smashed one of their own traffi...
Steve O’Hear is best known as a technology journalist, currently at TechCrunch where he focuses on European startups, companies and products. Steve joined TechCrunch in November 2009 as Contributing Editor for TechCrunch Europe, where he worked alongside Editor Mike Butcher to help build TechCrunch’s coverage in the continent. In June 2011, Steve took a break from journalism to co-found the London and Prague-based startup Beepl. In his role as CEO, he helped the company raise its first VC round,...
In the latest Balderton Capital podcast, James Cook talks to Ben Goldsmith about how technology entrepreneurs (and their PRs) can get newsjacking right, and avoid falling foul of a journalist's 'delete' button. James Cook is Technology Editor at Business Insider UK. He was formerly Contributing Editor at The Daily Dot, and the Deputy Editor of The Kernel. He also runs @LedZepNews. 0100 James explains why he currently deletes most of your emails. 0125 “We’ve done this to ourselves” – James admit ...
The latest Balderton Capital podcast is a recording of the panel session from the latest Doctorpreneurs Meetup, which was held at Balderton HQ. Doctorpreneurs is the ‘global community for doctors, medical students, and individuals interested in healthcare innovation and entrepreneurship’. The panellists were: Dr Andre Chow, TouchSurgery Dr Jean Nehme, TouchSurgery Melissa Morris, Network Locum Dr Jamie Wilson, My Home Touch Daniel Nathrath, MedX Dr Mohammad Al-Ubaydli, Patients Know Best Moderat...
Chris Morton is the CEO and founder of Lyst, a fashion aggregation and discovery app, and universal checkout cart. Before launching Lyst, Morton was part of our investment team here at Balderton Capital. Chris talks to Ben Goldsmith about building a team from 3-150 people, and about the decision he made to take the business through a massive pivot. 0020 Chris has taken Lyst from 3 cofounders in London, to a team of 150 spread across continents. 0100 Chris explains that fluidity and informality w...
Graham Cooke is the Founder and CEO of Qubit. Graham set up Qubit alongside three former colleagues from Google, and has piloted the business through its Balderton-led Series A, it's Accel-led Series B, and its most recent funding from Goldman Sachs, Salesforce Ventures and others. Ben caught up with Graham on the subject of how building a team scales throughout a period of rapid growth. 0100 Qubit have a founding team of four, which Graham is comparatively large. This has great benefits due to ...
Olivier Pailhes is the Founder and CEO of Aircall. Aircall is an telephony service that is the built on top of the newest technologies for realtime communication: Websockets, WebRTC. Aircall brings its customers a new approach for managing their business calls. 0100 Very early in Aircall's life, Olivier and the founding team took the company to the USA to participate in the 500 Startups accelerator programme. Olivier explains why the decision was made to take the company to the USA during their ...
George Spencer is founder and CEO at Rentify, a software platform which helps landlords market, manage, and make money from their properties. Gabriele Maroso is the Director of Business Operations at Rentify. 0120 There are two factors that effect an entrepreneur's ability to hire smart people at the very early-stage: chiefly available capital, and the own ability to 'sell' the company to prospective employees. 0240 If there are multiple founders at an early-stage company, each founder needs to ...
Before we get into the detail... SIGN UP FOR THE TOUCHSURGERY HACKATHON!! Title: Healthcare Innovation Hackathon - Inspire innovation and impact healthcare. Date: June 4th & 5th 10am - 4pm Location: Balderton Capital - The Stables, 28 Britannia St, Kings Cross, London WC1X 9JF, United Kingdom Goal of the event: Identify problems in the medical field and offer solutions that can realistically be pursued as a viable product as; Tools/ instruments, consumables, hardware, software, App. Sign up page...
This week, we speak to Guy Levin, the Executive Director of Coadec. Guy heads up the UK's foremost digital think tank and trade association, and is also the Associate Editor of Policy at The Memo. He was formerly a special adviser to DFID (Department for International Development) and DCMS (Department for Culture, Media and Sport). 0030 For those who haven't come across Coadec before, Guy gives a brief introduction to what they do. 0050 We have to talk about Brexit. 80%+ of Coadec's membership r...
This week Ben Goldsmith talk to Luke Lang, who cofounded Crowdcube in 2011 alongside Darren Westlake. 0050 When Luke and Darren set up Crowdcube, there was no blueprint. Nobody has attempted to build an equity crowdfunding platform at such a scale before. We ask why they took such a risk on a new and untried idea, and what it was like to sail into uncharted waters. 0248 Luke explains how equity crowdfunding has increased the level of diversity amongst those who make investments, and shares some ...
This week we catch up with Sebastiaan Heijne, the founder of Signkick, who takes us through the Dutch tech scene. 0045 The Dutch have a naturally world-wide approach due to the small home market, very high levels of spoken English, and huge network connectivity. 0335 Seb explains that the majority of the best Dutch tech leaders and entrepreneurs now work from overseas... is this good or bad? 0645 Is there anything particularly 'Dutch' about the Netherlands tech scene? 0730 There is more to the D...
Ben catches up with Editor of The Memo Alex Wood, and talks about what entrepreneurs should do to maximise their chances of getting covered in the media. 0100 Alex explains how a newsroom actually works behind the scenes, and how entrepreneurs can use this knowledge to their advantage 0250 What's the best 'first point of contact' for a journalist? Is it email? Or are you guys way too busy? 0355 Where are you going to coverage? Should entrepreneurs shoot for the stars and go for national & intern...
Neil Murray, Founder and Editor of TheNordicWeb, joins Ben Goldsmith to challenge a few outdated assumptions about the Scandinavian tech scene. 0030 Neil recently wrote a piece with the title, 'the state of the Nordic tech scene today'. It is a response to certain outdated assumptions about the ecosystem that Neil would like to dispel... 0330 Neil answers the question: will The Nordics overtake London as a venue for tech investment anytime soon? He explains how the stats & gut feeling provide a ...
Tom Blomfield becomes the second of GoCardless' original cofounding team to join Ben for a podcast in the last couple of weeks. Tom is building Mondo, a bank that is challenging the high street incumbents. In this episode, Tom talks about the challenges of applying for a banking licence, shares some tips for first time entrepreneurs, and explains why opening banking APIS are - at the moment - rubbish. 0030 It's Mondo's first birthday next month! Feel free to send them a cake in the post. 0130 So...
Matt Robinson, coFounder of GoCardless, talks about founding a business for a second time. As well as swapping stories about McKinsey, YCombinator and cold-calling; Matt gives some advice to entrepreneurs who are starting businesses for the first time...
Ed Cooke -Memory Champion and cofounder of language-learning app Memrise - talks about the struggles faced by ed-tech entrepreneurs, the Membus project, and how memory-techniques can help entrepreneurs hone their investment pitch-deck... 00:44 At the moment, all the talk at Memrise is about a certain project... Ed explains exactly what the Membus is, and what it hopes to achieve. 02:05 Ed explains why using a brightly coloured, vintage bus to collate video clips of native language speakers isn't...
As PhD data scientist Ollie Glass puts it, data science is a lot like UX/UI was a few years ago: everyone wants a piece of it, but nobody really knows how to make it work for their business. Rentify have managed to overcome that challenge, and - as Founder & CEO George Spencer explains - data science is now integral to Rentify's business. 01:17 George explains how and why he realised that there was an opportunity for Rentify to be a lot smarter with data. 02:55 Was the first though that data cou...
Former Surgeons Dr Jean Nehme and Dr Andre Chow took a great leap when they decided to start TouchSugery... they talk to Ben Goldsmith about saving lives, working with Stanford, and why young surgeons can't get into the operating theatre. 01:13 The Doctors explain the genesis of TouchSurgery, which was inspired by real experiences in hospitals. To quote John, "there are moments, as a physician, when you are trying to save someone's life" 02:50 Jean explains that the best surgeons, due to a lack ...
Roland Lamb talks to Balderton's Ben Goldsmith about how ROLI have fostered a unique company culture, and how this progressive approach to creating a strong identity and team has a positive effect on the business. You can watch a performance of their latest musical invention here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euoNphLUvxU 0:01 Roland kicks off by explaining exactly how and why ROLI have created an entirely new musical instrument. 2:31 The importance of self confidence and passion: Roland expla...
Joe Steele, CEO of Bookatable, chats with Ben Goldsmith about how Bookatable have grown to put millions of diners in touch with 12,000+ restaurants in 19 European countries every single month... 0:00 Intro: How the Bookatable business evolved from Livebookings. 1:54 Why Bookatable's offering to restaurants is key to success. 3:00 Supply versus demand 4:40 It's a crowded market for both restaurants and customers... how does Bookatable achieve cut-through on such scale? 7:30 Bookable isn't just fo...
Sam, our resident Swedish national, delves into exactly why the Nordic technology scene is so rich in investable right now. 0:50 Why are the Nordics so techy? Sam explains the area's roots in infrastructure & mobile. 2:13 Tech and politics: Sam poses the interesting idea that socialist politics and ideology have contributed to expertise in creating open-source & network-based technologies. 3:05 Size isn't everything: Sam questions how and why The Nordics have given the world a disproportionately...
Maja Kecman joins Ben Goldsmith to talk about both product and app innovation in healthcare. Maja currently leads Helix, a team of designers embedded in St. Mary's Hospital, and is currently spending the summer on a secondment at Balderton. Listed below are a few key questions in the podcast: 2:10 How do you get a product to market in healthcare? 4:30 How does a product innovation in healthtech evolve? 7:15 Can MVP-style thinking and procedures be applied to healthtech? 9:00 Due to the specialis...
To accompany James' recent piece in CityAM, our Mr Wise shares his thoughts on crowdfunding. In addition to expanding on how the industry is encouraging diversity in business, he talks about how crowdfunding is changing the way that people think about ownership, and he responds to criticism that the industry may be a flash in the pan. Recorded during the week that Crowdcube raised £6m http://www.cityam.com/222021/ignore-snobs-why-crowdfunding-bringing-diversity-back-business
CEO and Founder of CarWow James Hind chats to Ben about running and growing a marketplace business. Amongst other things, James reveals how cold calling VCs and angel investors actually works; he advocates taking the plunge with TV advertising, so long as you keep your eye on the stats; and he offers some hints & tips for entrepreneurs trying to spearhead their own marketplace business.
TechWorld's Startups and Innovation Editor Sam Shead chats to Balderton's Ben Goldsmith about where he'd start a tech business in London, asks whether London can collaborate or if it's in competition with itself, and also offers some handy advice for Tessa Jowell and Lord Davies...
