LGBTQ+ Founder Office Hours: Meet The Investors — Part III
We’re pleased to welcome both startups and investors to our LGBTQ+ Founder Office Hours event on October 22. As part of our Office Hours series, we have been running events dedicated to undersupported and underrepresented founders in the startup community. This time, we have partnered with industry bodies StartOut and Series Q to help support LGBTQ+ founders in getting access to investors they might otherwise not have been able to reach.
As we’ve covered on previous parts of this blog series, LGBTQ+ founders do not receive the equity funding that might otherwise be afforded to a founder outside of the community. This may be surprising to hear. Reading this, I’m sure you know intuitively that who you love has no bearing on whether or not you can scale a disruptive technology company. Nevertheless, the facts bear out that there are some investors who believe the opposite, either directly or through the economic principle of Revealed Preference.
In addition to those we covered in Part I and Part II, I’m pleased to present below a fantastic group of investors who don’t display an embarrassing level of unconscious bias.
To learn more about the LGBTQ+ Office Hours event, visit https://bit.ly/lgbtq-office-hours
Anthemis — Alex Mayall and Katie Palencsar
Stage: Pre-seed — Series A
Sector: Fintech
Anthemis is an investment firm focused on cultivating change in financial services by investing in and building businesses committed to improving the world. We are founded on three guiding principles — authentic collaboration, virtuous cycle outcomes, and diversity and inclusivity. Our deep understanding of markets and models, passion for emerging technology, and values inspire everything we do. Our goal is to reinvent finance by bringing together and investing in talented entrepreneurs, thought-leaders, institutions and change-agents in the world of finance to solve the financial services’ most pressing challenges faster, better and for the benefit of all.
Atomico/10x10 — Andy Davis
Stage: Pre-seed— Growth
Sector: Generalist
Andy Davis is a Founding Partner of 10x10 Fund, a pre-seed fund investing in exceptional Black founders, and an Angel Investor with Atomico, a leading global Series A investment firm.
Balderton — Greta Anderson
Stage: Series A
Sector: Generalist
Balderton is a leading early stage venture capital investor, focused exclusively on European founded technology companies at Series A, with funds totaling $2.6 billion. The firm invests between $1 million to $20 million into companies with the potential to disrupt huge industries and the ambition to scale globally.
Force Over Mass Capital — Arjun Kandola
Stage: Seed — Series B
Sector: Generalist
Force Over Mass Capital focuses on B2B technology innovation (Industry 4.0, Artificial Intelligence, Fintech) in Europe and the UK investing in companies that combine transformational technology with strong business models. Force Over Mass Capital likes to support companies and founders over multiple funding rounds. The firm typically invest in the Seed stage with its EIS Funds and in the Series A and Series B stages with its Growth Funds.
Octopus Ventures — Natasha Jones
Stage: Early Stage
Sector: Fintech
Octopus Ventures is one of Europe’s largest and most active venture capital firms investing in startups in the areas of healthcare, finance, deep tech and consumer. Natasha joined Octopus Ventures’ Future of Money team in 2020 with a keen interest in financial services, insurance, blockchain and climate risk.
The Pride Fund — Wolf Starr
Stage: Early Stage and Growth
Sector: Generalist
The Pride Fund is an early stage and growth venture capital fund with the aim of empowering a generation of LGBTQ+ entrepreneurs to pursue and reach their dream of owning and operating their own business. Wolf’s goal is to create opportunities and relationships for organisations the community feels passionate about.
Speedinvest — Namratha Kothapalli
Stage: Early Stage
Sector: Deep Tech
Namratha is an investor focused on deep tech and enterprise software at Speedinvest, an early stage venture capital fund with more than €400 million to invest in visionary tech startups across Europe. Speedinvest has a portfolio of over 100 companies, with a team specialising in hands-on operational support to startups.
Upfront Ventures — Aditi Maliwal
Stage: Early Stage
Sector: Generalist
Upfront Ventures is a venture capital firm based in Los Angeles. The company invests in technology businesses across digital media, SaaS, consumer internet and retail innovation. Before joining Upfront, Aditi was a product manager on the Next Billion Users team at Google, in a hybrid role leading investments in and building product for companies in emerging markets.
Urban Innovation Fund — Andrew Felbinger
Stage: Seed
Sector: Future of Cities
Andrew is a Senior Associate at the Urban Innovation Fund, a venture capital firm that invests in the future of cities. The fund provides seed capital and regulatory support to entrepreneurs solving our toughest urban challenges — helping them grow into tomorrow’s most valued companies.
