On Deck — Now Live in London! 🇬🇧🚀
On Deck is a dinner series and evolving community of world class entrepreneurs who are about to start or join their next venture.
What started as a series of small dinners two years ago in San Francisco has blossomed into a global network of over 50 events in 7 cities, a community of 2,500+ past attendees who have founded ~25 companies (that we are aware of) with people they met at events — including Voiceops, Carrot, Spring Labs, Tia, Modern Fertility, and raised upwards of $50M. On Deckers have connected with co-founders, investors, and first hires — and helped countless others by making introductions, brainstorming ideas, and being a sounding board through the process of starting up.
And now, London! We’ve been flying under the radar, but have quietly run 5 events over the past 6 months, building our community and testing a few different ideas. We’re now excited to formally open up, welcome applications, and announce:
- The On Deck Dinner Series.
- Q3 event schedule.
- A monthly newsletter, so you can follow who’s building, raising, and hiring within the On Deck community.
How did we get here?
London’s On Deck story starts back in 2016. I first met Erik Torenberg shortly after he launched on Product Hunt. I was in the process of moving on from AngelList, and still fairly new to the City. London was brimming with talent, capital, and opportunity, but clustered around individual hubs and lacking some of the connective tissue i’d experienced in San Francisco. I’ve long been a believer in the power of serendipity in life and startups, and On Deck felt like a supercharger, with the potential to help entice more talented entrepreneurs off the sidelines.
I’ll admit, we took a while to get the ball rolling. It was late 2017 before a first group of 16 braved pre-Christmas London to join us for a drink at Balderton Capital. But the quality bar was exceptional — among that first group we had a quantum physicist, a Cambridge and Harvard trained bioethicist, the former head of ASOS data science, a Facebook analytics/ML engineering lead, a former Google and Palintir engineer, and more, each spinning up a radically diverse new venture. On Deck had struck a chord.
Four more meet-up style events in 2018 have helped the local community grow to 500+, with a steady stream of referrals and applications coming in every month. Over 6 months we’ve had over 150 attend an event — many of whom have gone on to launch their own ventures, join programs such as Entrepreneur First and Zinc, close seed rounds with top firms like Tiny.vc and Connect Ventures, and get accepted to Y Combinator and Village Global.
We’ve proven London has an unquenched appetite to start up. We believe there are far more high potential founders out there than have taken the leap so far, and are excited for what we can achieve here.
The On Deck Dinner Series
From next month, we’re kicking off the On Deck Dinner Series, and shifting our ‘meet-ups’ back to bi-monthly.
Each dinner event will focus on a particular technology or sector. We’ll invite a few special guests who know that sector backwards — authors, researchers, experienced founders or investors who can help to drive the conversation. Each will have a maximum of ~25 attendees, and we’ll mix up the tables between courses so attendees get a chance to know everyone.
Our first two dinners are focused on the future of education; and blockchain technology, respectively.
Sound like your kind of thing? See below for the schedule, and fill out an application :)
Q3 Schedule of Events 🗓
🍽 On Deck Dinner Series: How We Learn — The Future of Education & Technology
- Wednesday 15th August
- Apply here
🍽 On Deck Dinner Series: Blockchain — Building a Decentralized Future
- Thursday 30th August
- Apply here
🤝 On Deck: Q3 meet-up, hosted by our friends at Entrepreneur First.
- Thursday 13th September
- Apply here
Newsletter: Who’s On Deck?
The next great founder may be in our community today.
If you’re in the business of finding and helping such people succeed, you may be interested in our monthly roundup of new companies being founded, funded, and making key hires.
Sign up to the newasletter here (first edition end of August, probably)
How else can you get involved?
Interested in partnering, sponsoring, or speaking a future event?
We’d love to hear from you! ping daveboothy@gmail.com, and we’ll get right back to you.
Do you know someone who might be a good fit for our community?
Great! Forward them the application, and/or email your recommendations to daveboothy@gmail.com.
Not in London, but still interested in getting involved?
We’re also in San Francisco, NYC, L.A., Boston, Tel Aviv, and New Delhi. Want to come along to one? Fill out an application here. If you’re interested in starting up events in another city, check out Erik’s post here and get in touch!
