Allstars 2023

Entrepreneur of the Year – Front App

Investor of the Year – Partech Partners

Young Entrepreneur of the Year – Co-founder & CEO of Formo

Investor Allstars Hall of Fame – Co-founder at Phoenix Court Group

Partner – GP Bullhound

Alexis has broad experience across the technology industry and has led successful M&A transactions in sectors including software, IT services, telecoms, internet and digital media.

Prior to joining GP Bullhound, Alexis was Director of corporate development at Experian where he was responsible for deal origination and execution for the EMEA region. He previously spent more than 10 years working in the technology sector and held international Corporate Development roles at HP Enterprise Services and EDS, where he worked on numerous acquisitions and divestments across Europe.

Alexis holds a BSc Joint Hons. in International Management and Modern Languages from the University of Bath and an MBA from Imperial College Business School.

Ali Ramadan is a Technology partner at Goodwin. He has broad corporate experience and a practice that spans the corporate life cycle. In particular, Ali focuses on venture capital, cross-border M&A, and private equity transactions for technology businesses. His clients include start-ups, high-growth companies and investors (both institutional and corporate) operating in the technology, fintech, proptech, and digital media industries.

Partner – GP Bullhound

Alon is a Partner at GP Bullhound’s growth fund, responsible for originating investment opportunities and handling portfolio companies globally.

Prior to GP Bullhound, Alon worked at Silver Lake Partners, Atomico and Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Alon graduated from the London School of Economics with a First Class Honours.

Partner – EQT

Carolina joined EQT Partners in June 2020, based in London, where she is a part of the Growth team that partners with growth stage companies and management teams.

Prior to EQT, Carolina was a Partner at Softbank Vision Fund, where she invested in Growth stage companies globally, and prior to that, Carolina invested at Series A and B as a Partner at Atomico. Some of her recent investments include Behavox, Gympass, Hinge Health, Rekki, Ontruck, Memphis Meats and Farmdrop.

Previously, Carolina has worked as Head of Ops to a now defunct gifting e-commerce start-up, as an investor at Chicago-based private equity firm Madison Dearborn Partners and within Consumer/Retail Investment Banking at Merrill Lynch in New York.

Carolina has a Bachelor of Science degree in Foreign Service from Georgetown University and an MBA from Columbia Business School. She is originally from Brazil.

Partner – Orrick

Chris Grew, a partner in Orrick’s London office, is a member of the Technology Companies Group, which advises high growth technology companies and venture capital firms. Chris joined Orrick in 2008.

Chris advises technology companies in venture capital transactions, public offerings and cross-border mergers and acquisitions. He regularly advises high technology (particularly Internet and computer software and hardware) companies with respect to their international business operations and transactions, as well as investment banks, venture capital firms and other financial intermediaries that serve technology companies

Partner – Marriot Harrison

David is a partner and the head of Venture Capital at Marriott Harrison, responsible for the delivery of strategic leadership and advice to the firm’s client base of top-tier European and US investors and high growth companies.

Recognised as a leading UK venture capital specialist, David is a regular speaker, commentator and contributor to key industry events and publications and a member of the BVCA committee for early-stage investment model documents.

Partner and Co-President

Deep Shah is a Partner and Co-President of Francisco Partners, and is based in the firm’s London office where he jointly leads European investment activities as well as managing the investment team operations globally. Prior to joining Francisco Partners in 2003, Deep held a range of roles at Morgan Stanley within both their Investment Banking and Private Equity groups. Deep currently serves on the board of directors of BluJay Solutions, ByBox, EG Software and MetaSwitch Networks. He previously served on the board of Attenti, Click Software, C-MAC MicroTechnology, eFront, Ex Libris, Lumata, Masternaut, NexTraq, Operative, Prometheus Group and Smartfocus while being involved in a number of the firms other investments.

Partner – AlbionVC

Ed is a Partner at AlbionVC where he leads the tech investing, focusing on early stage software and deeptech investments.

Aside from investing Ed also plays keyboard in the Allstars band. Ed started his career at ING Barings, working with public companies during the dotcom boom and bust”.

Partner – Endeit Capital

Ilan is a partner at Endeit Capital, a venture capitalist with offices in Amsterdam, Hamburg and Stockholm. Recent investments include IPRally, Amberscript, Stravito, Parcellab and TourRadar.

He is currently board member at Virtuagym, a B2B SaaS technology scale-up for the fitness & corporate wellness industry. Ilan was previously on the board at Hubs, a leading automated on demand manufacturing platform, which was exited to Proto Labs.

Ilan was an advisory board member of the Interactive Advertising Bureau Netherlands, mentor at the accelerator Startupbootcamp in Amsterdam and is co-founder and former board member of VEECEE, the foundation for European venture capital professionals.

Prior to Endeit, Ilan was CFO and business development director at an international media tech startup. He holds an honours Master in Commercial and M&A Laws from the University of Amsterdam and completed graduate courses in law and business during an exchange program at the University of California in Berkeley.

Co-Founder of Astanor Ventures

George Coelho is Co-Founder of Astanor Ventures, an investment manager specialized in FoodTech venture finance. Previously he was Chairman of Octo Telematics, Ltd. Coelho also co-founded the European arm of Benchmark Capital, now known as Balderton Capital, a leading venture capital firm. Before Benchmark, he was a founder of Intel Capital, the strategic venture capital arm of Intel Corporation.

Coelho has wide investment experience ranging from early-stage start-ups to public companies and has been involved in more than 100 investments worldwide. Sample transactions where he has been an early investor include: Broadcom and Citrix (US), PCCW (China), Trend Micro (Japan) and Betfair, LoveFilm and ZOPA (UK). Coelho has successfully brought companies to flotation on stock exchanges throughout the world, which today represent over $100 Billion in market capitalization.

Coelho holds a B.S. from The American University and an MBA from The George Washington University. He has been a Trustee of The George Washington University (2008-2016) and was on the Council of the School of Business and The Corcoran School of the Arts & Design. Currently he is on the Board of Human Rights Watch and The American Air Museum in Britain. He is also a lifetime Fellow of the RSA. In 2011 he was awarded the Polish State medal, Pro Memoria.

Co -Founder and Managing Partner – Calibre One

James manages the firm’s activities in the EMEA region, based in London. With over 20 years of experience, his major focus has been on recruiting at Board and C-level for businesses headquartered in Europe. He works closely with the private equity community and is a trusted advisor to a number of funds.

He has also managed a vast number of leadership assignments for US companies across the EMEA region. Outside of work he is an active angel investor in tech companies, a parent to twin boys and an avid sports enthusiast (anything, but especially golf and rugby).

Managing Partner – Ventech

Jean Bourcereau joined Ventech in 2000. As a General Partner, he has spent two decades helping management teams scale B2B businesses from pre-revenue to market-defining.

An engineer with a global background in Telecommunications (AT&T Bell Labs, Telecom Argentina), Semiconductors, and IP Networks (Altran Group), Jean has facilitated successful exits for Altitude Télécoms (ILD), Arteris (QCOM), Ateme (ATEME), Ekinops (EKI), Musiwave (MSFT), Muzicall (RNWK), Wengo (VIV) and Withings (NOK).

Jean is based in Paris and holds an engineering degree with a major in Physics from Ecole Polytechnique and Télécom Paris.

Chief Investment Officer – Beringea

Karen is Chief Investment Officer at Beringea, responsible for making new investments and working with portfolio companies through to exit. Her investments include Watchfinder, Thread, Fnatic, Monica Vinader, and MatsSoft amongst others.

Karen was previously with the Boston Consulting Group and ran the Watch division of Swiss Army.  She holds an MBA from INSEAD and a BSBA from Boston University.

Managing Partner, IQ Capital

Kerry co-founded IQ Capital in 2006 and is one of the UK’s most experienced VC investors with over 20 years deep-tech venture capital experience. She joined Venture Technologies in 1998, investing in the first wave of UK deep-tech companies and has focussed on deep tech early-stage technology over her five funds which invest from seed to £30m to portfolio outperformers.

Kerry specialises in GTM, Strategic Marketing, Competitive Intelligence and heads up IQ’s cybersecurity, supervisory and reg tech, big data and neuro-tech portfolio. She sits on several boards and has conducted several exits and IPOs.

She is known as a contributor to best practice in venture capital, from ESG and a 2018 in-depth study on Investment Committee best practice and decision making across Private Equity and Venture Capital. She is the Chair of the British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (BVCA), a Fellow in Entrepreneurship at the University of Cambridge (Judge Business School) and Board Advisor to All Party Parliamentary Group for Entrepreneurship.

Co-Founder and Managing Partner – GP Bullhound
Manish Madhvani is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of GP Bullhound. Manish has executed M&A and capital raising transactions since 1997, involving some of the best known global internet, software and media companies, including: Spotify, King.com, Believe Digital, WPP, Wipro, Fjord, Hearst Corporation, Accenture, Newscorp and Experian.
Manish who was selected as one of the top 40 dealmakers globally by M&A Advisor, started his career at Barclays Capital’s Private Equity team. He has advised the Treasury on Entrepreneurship and graduated from Southampton University with an LLB in Law / MA in Marketing.
Manish is a regular speaker on Bloomberg and CNBC and is currently an Ambassador for London Technology Week. He was recognised as one of the leading Entrepreneurs in the UK by the Sunday Times / Maserati 100.

Partner – TCV
Mike is a Partner in TCV’s London office and has been with the firm for 8 years. He splits his time between SaaS, fin tech and consumer technology. His current investments include Revolut, Redis, Qonto, Trade Republic, Believe (Euronext Paris: BLV), Miro, Mambu, FlixMobility, SuperVista, Sportradar (Nasdaq: SRAD).

Actress, filmmaker

As an actress, Mika has worked on a diverse range of creative projects including the BAFTA-winning Falling Apart, Film London’s Balcony which won the Crystal Bear award at the Berlin Film Festival and BFI nominated Dictynna Hood’s Us Among the Stones in 2019. In 2021 Mika played in BBC’s Showtrial and most recently at The Park theatre London in Andrew Steins play Disruption about the impact of a rogue AI algorithm on human lives.

Mika’s directorial debut, Rain Stops Play, won the Silver Remi for best comedy at Houston World Film Festival and has been nominated at BAFTA qualifying Underwire Festival and CBFF. She was named as Best International Director for her second short film Breach at Portland Comedy Festival, which premiered at BAFTA qualifying BUFF in November 2021. In 2023 she premiered her third film My Week With Maisy starring Joanna Lumley which is now in competition.

When not working as an actress or making films, Mika hosts The Happy Vagina podcast which empowers women through inspirational content that both educates and entertains, as seen on Fabulous Magazines ‘graph of greatness’ was Marie Claire’s 2020 ‘next must listen’. In response to the success of the podcast, The Happy Vagina book will be published by Harper Collins in May 2022.

As a Women’s health activist, Mika is also co-founder of the Lady Garden Foundation, one of the world’s leading Gynaecological charities, and co-chair of the Ginsburg Women’s Health Board, an independent advisory board supporting better diagnosis in Women’s health.

In 2021 Mika was Harpers Bazaar’s Female Visionaries and YOU Magazines’ Women of the Year.

General Partner -HV Capital

Rainer has been a member of the HV Capital team since 2008. He was responsible for the firm‘s investments in Zalando (IPO 2014), Quandoo (sold to Recruit in 2015), Stylight (sold to Pro7 in 2016), HelloFresh (IPO 2017), Home24 (IPO 2018) and brands4friends (sold to eBay in 2010) and led investments in Scalable Capital, finn.auto, Dance, Outfittery, Alasco and many others.

Before coming to HV, Rainer played an entrepreneurial role as Head of Business Development at 123people.com. The business was sold successfully to Pages Jaunes in 2010. Prior to that, Rainer worked for five years in the venture capital field at 3i and Siemens Acceleration. Rainer started his career in a tech role at Siemens in 2000.

Rainer studied Electrical Engineering at the Technical University of Munich and received his MBA at INSEAD, graduating both with honors. He is a family guy, loves the outdoors and endurance sports, participated in the Ironman World Championship in Hawaii and many other events.

Partner – Connect Ventures

Rory is a Partner at Connect Ventures, a thesis-led venture capital firm based in London and investing across Europe. Connect leads seed investments in purpose-led founders, obsessed with solving hard problems at scale, by creating products and companies that people love. Rory is passionate about technology, entrepreneurship and leadership development, and has spent the majority of his career working in start-ups and venture capital. Prior to Connect he was a partner at MMC Ventures and a co-founding partner at BGF Ventures. He’s invested at seed, series A and series B stage, in both B2B and consumer software companies. He now spends most of his learning and investing in fintech.

Managing Director – CVC
Sebastian joined CVC in 2012 and is a member of the CVC Telecommunications, Media & Technology team and CVC Growth Partners.
Prior to joining CVC, he worked for Francisco Partners and UBS Investment Bank.
Sebastian studied at Boston College and the University of Glasgow, where he graduated with a first class MA in Business and Management. Prior to University, Sebastian served in the German military.

Partner – Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati

Stacy Kim is a leading American cross-border technology lawyer, strategic business advisor, and a co-founding partner of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati’s London office.
Stacy advises technology and life sciences companies at all stages of the corporate life cycle (including formation, U.S. “flips,” financings, collaboration/joint ventures, and exits); and leverages the Wilson Sonsini platform to help companies and investors compete and win on the global stage. She supports companies in diverse industries such as agritech, AI, digital media, fintech, IOT, life sciences, semiconductor, and software, as well as the venture capital firms that invest in these companies.
Stacy is passionate about advancing women in technology in the UK by collaborating with and sponsoring certain events, including her mentorship activities with Blooming Founders and Declare.

Will joined LGT in 2008 having spent 15 years in the wealth management industry. He is a Partner and focuses on high net worth clients who require a broad range of wealth structuring and investment solutions.

Armando is a technology entrepreneur and the CEO and Co-founder of RavenPack, the leading provider of big data analytics for financial institutions. At RavenPack, he oversees all product design and engineering of the company’s data products and analytical tools. Armando is a recognized expert in applied big data and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. He is widely regarded as one of the most knowledgeable authorities on systematic data analysis in finance. He is a recognized speaker at academic and business conferences across the globe. Armando holds degrees in Economics and International Business Administration from the American University in Paris. As a thought leader, his commentary and research has appeared in leading business publications such as the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, among many others.

Digital technology has characterized Carlo De Matteo’s career since his beginnings in London, where he initially worked in law firms specialized in media and IT. From 2002 to 2008 at Hewlett-Packard, he managed the marketing in-housing strategies, first in EMEA and then globally. In 2008 he met Andrea Pezzi, with whom a very productive professional partnership was born. First he held the role of General Manager of OVO, an  encyclopedic documentary videos platform, and he became a partner and co-founder of TheOutplay in 2010 and MINT in 2014.

A profound connoisseur of the digital industry, he is the creator of the products and processes that have given shape to the innovative MINT proposal: a platform that integrates and automates the processes and technologies of digital advertising allowing for a true transformation of the industry.

Born in 1973, Carlo De Matteo graduated in Law from the State University of Milan and subsequently received a Master’s degree in Media and Technology from the European School of Advanced Studies. Since 2017, he has joined his entrepreneurial activity with his academic activity at the University of the Union of the Chambers of Commerce, where he teaches the first course in Digital Economy in Italy.

Gareth is an experienced Chief Executive Officer with a demonstrated successful track record of growing and transforming software and services businesses. He has a deep understanding of technology, digital transformation, and commercialization of IP, and is an experienced executive working with Private Equity sponsors.

“Making profits is not a purpose of business. It’s a derivative. A purpose is what problems it is solving for us as customers and communities.” – Colin Mayer

Anton Pavlovsky is the Founder & CEO of Headway, a global EdTech startup with Ukrainian roots and an emerging unicorn. In just four years, Headway has grown into an ecosystem of microlearning products with over 60 million users, a team of 150+ people, and offices in London, Kyiv, Warsaw, and Nicosia. In 2023, Headway was recognized by GP Bullhound as “Europe’s Next Generation” — one of the top 50 companies with the most potential to become billion-dollar companies in the next two years, and by Global Silicon Valley as “GSV 150” — one of the world’s most transformative digital learning and workforce skills companies. The company’s flagship, the Headway app, is the world’s most downloaded book summary app, with over 25 million users and the Editor’s Choice award from the Apple App Store. Anton is a serial entrepreneur who loves to launch and scale startups, develop digital products that impact the market, and build teams with a cohesive culture. Before Headway, he founded a startup in the social discovery space and, as the CPO, built an embryonic startup into the #1 in its market. Anton advocates for lifelong learning and is passionate about self-improvement and the doors it can open.

Karsten Boehrs is an experienced management executive with a track record of more than 25 years in major enterprises. He worked for international eCommerce and media companies in C-level positions focused on sales, operations, and digitalization, held responsibility for thousands of employees and took leading roles in business development, joint venture, M+A and restructuring projects.

From 2008 on, Karsten decided to steer his career towards more personal projects and to support promising business models and companies with advice as well as venture funding.

In 2013 Karsten joined simpleshow, the market leader for explainer videos, as an investor as well as CEO. After 10 years under his lead, Karsten has managed the company to grow into the leading B2B platform for the creation of animated videos. While users can easily create their own animated videos with the help of AI-backed text-to-video technology, the simpleshow marketplace provides for professional creative services.

Karsten expanded simpleshow’s business to a range of international markets, above all the US and the DACH region, with further presence in EMEA and APAC. Large brands and multinational companies value simpleshow as a partner for simple explanation.

Matti Niebelschütz is co-founder and CEO of CoachHub, the leading global digital coaching platform, funded with over $330M from leading investors including Sofina and SoftBank Vision Fund 2, and operated by a passionate team of 600 people from over 50 nations on a mission to democratize coaching worldwide. Matti has been named Top40 Under 40 by Capital Magazine. He is a serial entrepreneur and former McKinsey management consultant with 15 years of experience in Future of Work, startups and digital business building.

Melissa Morris is the CEO and Founder of Lantum. Lantum is a workforce platform that transforms how healthcare organisations and workers connect, with a platform that simplifies rota management, staff engagement, and clinical governance for 18 ICSs, 300+ PCNs and 1-in-2 practices in the UK.

Lantum has raised in total £25 million from leading European Venture Capital firms Piton Capital and Finch Capital and employs over 100 people. They recently launched in the US, working with Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles.

Melissa previously worked in the Strategy Directorate at NHS London. Prior to that she was a management consultant at McKinsey & Company, where she focused on transformation projects within healthcare. She is passionate about large-scale transformation in healthcare through effective workforce management and is a fellow on the NHS Innovation Accelerator, as well as an alumni of the Cedars-Sinai Innovation Accelerator.

Melissa has been featured in a number of national publications such as The Sunday Times, The Evening Standard, City AM, Sky News and was named as one of Management Today’s 35 under 35.

Email Address
valentina.annese@gpbullhound.com

Phone
+44 773 268 2548