Welcoming our new 21/22 team
Creator Fund is delighted to share that we have 24 members joining our team this year alongside 15 investors that are continuing with us from last year for a total of 39 student investors across 25 campuses in the UK.
At Creator Fund we believe the way to find the next generation of UK deep technology startups is to have teams embedded inside the country’s best university programmes. We believe these opportunity are spread right across the UK, and will come out of a diversity of courses. That’s why we recruit a diverse team of domain experts and train them in VC. This year we have PhDs in everything from Cell Signalling, AI, Machine Learning, Data Storage, Quantum Engineering, Neuroscience, Fairness AI, Computational Paralinguistics, and Drug Discovery. We also have experienced operators an investors.
Our students go onto roles at leading VC Funds and technology businesses, after they finish their time with us. And we are proud of our role training this next generation of investors. In an industry where just 12% of decision makers are female, 40% of Creator Fund’s senior team are women. And 66% of our team are based outside London and Oxbridge.
We had 350+ applications to join the team, and have thought hard about the group we bring together for our fourth year at Creator Fund. This team brings together broad expertise, experience, and opinions, and in our view that is how we will continue to find and back exceptional technology founders in the year ahead.
190 interviews later, we’re excited to share the new Creator Fund team for the 2021/22 year:
Cambridge
Edward Kosasih (PhD in Engineering) — Cambridge
Edward is a data scientist who’s pursuing a PhD in graph machine learning for supply chain risk management. He is actively involved in the local entrepreneurship scene as the Advisor/President of Cambridge University Technology and Enterprise Club (CUTEC). Prior to doing PhD, Ed worked as a data scientist in a S&P500 electronics manufacturing firm serving various industries such as aerospace, defense, automotive, energy, communications, healthcare and semiconductor.
Edward Brown (PhD in Machine Learning & Second Year CF) — Cambridge
Edward is a PhD researcher in novel AI techniques for space science at Cambridge University. Drawing on his background in Physics and AI, his work at a NASA research lab has led to multiple significant results in forecasting solar-driven conditions for satellites in Low Earth Orbit. Professionally, Ed has extensive experience in software and machine learning engineering. Having worked at two successful London startups, Cleo AI and Onfido, Edward has hands-on experience in building out scalable tech stacks that allow startups to flourish.
Jan Heck (PhD in Physics) — Cambridge
Jan is a physicist at Cambridge University, where his research explores new biophysical analysis platforms at the intersection of optical and microfluidic technologies. He is passionate about bringing budding scientific ideas out of the laboratory and into actionable innovation. In addition to his academic and professional background in physics, hardware design, and open-source software that he uses to evaluate the potential of new ventures, he studied the history and philosophy of science in different cultures during his MA to underpin his views. Jan is an alumnus of the Studienstiftung and the Haniel Foundation, and speaks English, German and Japanese.
Rishit Jain (Undergrad in Economics) — Cambridge
Rishit is an Economics undergraduate at Cambridge, and a two-time founder in the media, education and social enterprise spaces. He has had professional experiences in venture capital focusing on e-commerce and adtech, strategy consulting in energy, and public-sector startup growth facilitation. He is also the President of Cambridge’s largest consulting society, the CUCS.
North
Dan Foster-Smith (PhD in AI & Design) — Newcastle
Dan is a PhD studying AI and the creative ideation process at Newcastle, the remaining time he works with various start-ups, primarily in the Sustainability and MedTech sectors. Previously he co-founded a creative AI start-up through innovationRCA after studying an MA in Design Interaction from the Royal College of Art.
Guy Sinclair (Business graduate & Second Year CF) — Sheffield
Guy is a graduate from the Sheffield Management School. His interests include sustainable agriculture and the future of food production, healthtech, mental health and the future of work. He has a broad range of experience having worked in front line healthcare, logistics, manufacturing and urban agriculture.
Jack Fleet (PhD in Renewable Fuels & Second Year CF) — Manchester
Jack is continuing into his second year with Creator Fund, seeking to find outstanding Northern-based startups, particularly within his areas of interest: Biotech/Agritech, VR/AR and Material Science. He is a final year PhD student researching the production of biofuels from microorganisms at the University of Manchester. He holds both a BSc in Biological and Medicinal Chemistry (University of Exeter) and an MPhil Biochemistry (University of Cambridge). Prior to working with Creator Fund, Jack won 3 awards at the Young Entrepreneurs Scheme competition (YES19) and completed a placement working with the University of Manchester technology transfer office. Taking on a role as Business Development Director for Creator Fund this year, Jack aims to grow Creator Fund’s position, across the UK, in a thriving ecosystem of innovative founders, entrepreneurs and key industry stakeholders.
Jack Pearce (Masters in Physics) — York
Jack is a final year MPhys Physics Masters student at York University with final courses in quantum mechanics and nanomaterials. He has worked in hospital labs for several years and currently works on clinical trials alongside his degree. His main interests are nanotech, med tech and technologies which promote a green future.
Lior Tapnack (Philosophy undergrad & Second Year CF) — Durham
Lior has been at Creator Fund for the past year, having interned at a venture-backed startup and a leading EIS Fund beforehand. Most recently, he spent 3 months in Tel Aviv working for Viola Ventures, one of Israel’s most successful early-stage investors. He is passionate about the fast-changing mobility sector and bullish on construction technology. Lior is a final-year undergraduate at Durham University, where he reads Philosophy
Naseem Moumene (Management & Business undergrad) — Durham
Naseem is a third year student at Durham University where he is deeply connected to the startup scene through his experience as a student founder and entrepreneur. Most recently, he was a summer analyst working on fintech innovation and investments at J.P. Morgan, and at Outlierz Ventures, an early stage Africa-focused VC in Morocco. Other personal passions include blockchain, climate/cleantech and technologies that are driving real social impact and sustainable development, especially those transforming the African/GCC ecosystem
Yash Deo (PhD in Medical Imaging & AI) — Leeds
Yash is a PhD candidate at the University of Leeds studying the topic ‘deep learning with simulated data in medical imaging’. He also has a masters degree in artificial intelligence and 2 years of experience working as an AI consultant at PwC.
London
Adrian Signell (PhD in Virology) — Kings
Adrian is starting his second year at Creator Fund, having been heavily involved with the fund’s investment in Baseimmune earlier in 2021. He is starting his final year doing a PhD at King’s College London where he studies viruses like HIV-1 and SARS-CoV-2 using a mixture of lab-based and computational techniques. Adrian also holds a governance role at King’s College London, and recently led two teams of students on pro-bono consulting projects for two London-based charities.
Adrian continues to look out for start-ups solving key problems in the biotech and life sciences space, and is passionate about the future of healthcare and wellness.
Alexandra Ntemourtsidou (MSc in AI) — Imperial
Alexandra spent almost three years at Goldman Sachs working in the Quantitative Investment Strategies team. Most recently she was conducting ML research at a neuroadaptive startup and is now pursuing an MSc in AI at Imperial College London. Alexandra also holds a BEng degree in Mechanical Engineering from Imperial.
Elizabeth Zubanova (Msci in Mathematics) — UCL
Elizabeth is pursuing a Masters in Mathematics at UCL. She has freelanced for a phygital startup as a self-taught machine learning programmer after being inspired by the potential applications of AI and big data while interning at a data-driven consultancy during her gap year. Her aim is to bridge the gap between ML and deep tech specialists to automate or optimise processes within research and product development.
She has also interned in financial/quantitative risk, has experience in marketing for early stage startups and heads up a team at the UCL Eurasian Business Society, managing events and speakers across a diverse range of industries including entrepreneurship and VC.
Ekaterina Shatalina (PhD in Neuroscience & Second Year CF) — Imperial
Kat is a neuroscientist who has worked on developing a digital diagnostics solution for improving mental health at the MedTech SuperConnector. She has also worked on digital innovation strategy at COMPASS pathways and as a clinical research scientist at Affect.AI. Kat is in the fourth year of her PhD at the MRC London Institute of Medical Science, Imperial College London and is starting her second year with Creator Fund. Her doctoral research is focused on combining novel ways of imaging the brain to understand the biological basis of schizophrenia.
Anand Ganeshalingam (MBA) — LBS
Anand is an MBA student at London Business School. He was previously a senior associate at a venture capital fund in Toronto investing in digital health companies. Prior to LBS, he interned with Georgian growth equity, investing in later stage enterprise SaaS. Before entering VC, Anand worked at Vena Solutions, a growth-stage CPM software company. He is a designated chartered accountant, and started his career at KPMG, in the financial institutions practice. He holds an honours bachelors degree in mathematics from the University of Waterloo.
Bilal Mobarik (Economics undergrad) — LSE
Bilal is currently a second-year student at the LSE. He started his first company at 17, and since then has gone on to found Foodi- a VC-backed startup helping students save money. On the VC-side, Bilal has interned at Flash Ventures and Plus VC, as well as helping a new fund in the Middle East raise from LP’s. At LSE, Bilal is President of LSE Entrepreneurs Talks, with guests including Tom Blomfield, Tej Lalvani, Christian Angermayer and Brad Feld. He is especially interested in fintech, crypto and data science, and is passionate about supporting the student startup ecosystem.
Eve Townsend (Masters in Innovation Design Engineering) — RCA/ Imperial
Eve is a current student at Imperial College London and the Royal College of Art studying Innovation Design Engineering (MSc/MA). After graduating from the University of Bristol with a Physics (BSc), Eve explored the commercial potential of her final year research. Her research focused on combining optics with microfluidics to develop a detector that could detect low-levels of pollutants in drinking water. The research was recognised to have a high level of commercial potential and was awarded a commendation by the School of Physics.
Beyond university, Eve joined the startup Spin Up Science to work towards their mission of driving technology out of the lab and establishing new career pathways for entrepreneurial scientists.
Céline Caraffa (Biochemistry undergrad & Second Year CF) — Imperial
Céline is pursuing her BSc in Biochemistry at Imperial College and continuing into her second year at Creator Fund. Having been involved in the fund’s Baseimmune investment she has gone on to work for the team part time along with her studies. She is currently working with Baseimmune on their Malaria and SARS-CoV-2 vaccines.
Céline’s interests lie in the biotech space, particularly genetic medicine and cell therapy. Beyond the student startup ecosystem Céline’s greatest hobby is language learning. Native German and French speaker she is tackling her 7th language : Arabic.
Scotland & North Ireland
Alison McFarlane (PhD in Cell Signaling) — Dundee
Alison is a final year PhD student studying Cell Signalling and Immunology at the University of Dundee. Her current research focuses on the pro-inflammatory cytokine Interleukin-6 and understanding vital missing information on how it functions at a cellular level to aid the drug discovery and development processes. She has also obtained an MSc in Immunology from the University of Dundee and is passionate about the constantly evolving life sciences and medtech sectors.
Iain Mackie (PhD in AI & Second Year CF) — Glasgow
Iain previously worked in Quant Trading, has led technology-focused research projects, and founded a successful e-commerce start-up that supports one of the UK’s fastest-growing brands. He holds an MA in Applied Economics from the University of St Andrews and an MSc in Data Science from the University of Edinburgh. He is currently pursuing a PhD at the University of Glasgow, focusing on machine learning within information retrieval.
Sarah Ruddell (PhD in Advanced Data Storage) — QUB
Sarah holds an MSci degree in Chemistry from QUB and is in the final year of a PhD with the EPSRC and SFI Centre for Doctoral Training in Photonic Integration and Advanced Data Storage. She is interested in the industrial applications of academic research and shining a light on the VC potential of students in Northern Ireland
Adam Flanagan (Undergrad & Third Year CF) — Edinburgh
Adam is a University of Edinburgh Economics & Politics student, and the co-founder of Future Labs, a teen-led consultancy and events company which aims to encourage more young people to pursue their passions. He has been recognised for his entrepreneurial achievements at an event at 10 Downing Street.
Federico Gambedotti (Msc in Data Science) — Aberdeen
Federico is an MSc Data Science student at Aberdeen passionate about turning technologies into easy-to-use services for citizenship. In 2017 he launched iBreathe, an air quality monitoring system designed to help users choose eco-sustainable behaviours, and that has been awarded in many youth science competitions including INESPO and Expo Science International. It is through iBreathe that Federico entered into the Scottish entrepreneurial scene and decided to launch its own tech startup. While this is still in the making, he has been supporting student entrepreneurs in Aberdeen.
Leon Gibson (Business Management undergrad) — QUB
Leon is a Business Management student at Queen’s Belfast. He is currently studying Business Management and has recently founded a fundraising platform start up. Having taken part in one of the CreatorFund challenges last semester he jumped at the opportunity to get involved with the organisation. His background stems from marketing and launching large scale live events. He is keen to get involved with innovative HPSUs stemming from Belfast, providing them a pathway to funding and creating a positive local startup ecosystem.
Gordon Rennie (PhD in Computational Paralinguistics) — Glasgow
Gordon is a PhD in Computational Paralinguistics at Glasgow University. He started out in psychology because he wanted to help people. Towards the end of my degree he became more aware of the huge benefits cutting edge technology can have in reaching dozens if not hundreds of people and using that technology to help them. This led him to first study human robot interaction and now computational paralinguistics. He is interested in AI, deep learning, and mental health.
Savina Kim (PhD in Fairness AI) — Edinburgh
Savina is currently a PhD student at the University of Edinburgh focusing on algorithmic fairness in AI with applications to the FinTech sector. She holds a MSc in Neuro-Informatics from ETH Zurich and a BA double degree in Cognitive Science and Economics from Yale University. Previously she has worked as a researcher at IBM Zurich focusing on transparent and trustworthy machine learning design and as an investment banking analyst in New York for the healthcare industry focusing on mergers & acquisitions, IPOs and general investment strategy.
South
Matthew Russell (PPE undergrad) — Exeter
Matthew is an undergraduate at the University of Exeter, reading PPE. He is serving as an Events Officer at the Exeter Student Investment Fund, responsible for organising over 50 events throughout the year. He has experience working at an early-stage organic drinks startup, and was part of the 2020 FutureVC cohort.
Maddelena Bergen (Civil Engineering undergrad) — Bath
Maddelena is a second-year Civil Engineering student at the University of Bath. She has started her own Personal Training business, which she continues to run alongside her studies. She is also part of the executive committee for an accelerator programme at Bath University.
Miruna Chipara (PhD in Formulation Engineering & Second Year CF) — Birmingham
Miruna is starting her second year within the Creator Fund team, continuing to find exceptional founders within the South while currently being based in the United States. While being our Birmingham lead as she is completing a PhD in Formulation Engineering at the University of Birmingham, this academic year she is going to be based at Harvard University as a Fulbright Research Scholar. Miruna has a broad background, also holding a MRes in Chemical Engineering and BSc in Biosciences with Business Management, as well as working in Stem Cell Research, Tissue Engineering, and 3D Bioprinting labs across different fields, being highly valuable when assessing the tech for a wide range of MedTech and Biotech companies. She participated in various MedTech innovation programmes in the UK and abroad, as well as organised startup competitions and events across campus while fulfilling various roles such as CFO, President, and CRO across different societies. Her interest lies in the translation of research discoveries into business opportunities and hopes to start her own Biotech company in the future.
Alexandre Belsley (PhD in Quantum Engineering) — Bristol
Alex holds a MSc in Photonics from the University of Jena and is currently pursuing a PhD in Quantum Engineering at the University of Bristol. He is part of the Quantum Engineering and Technology Labs where he carries out research in quantum information and metrology. His research focus is on developing and benchmarking novel sensing strategies that outperform current classical methods.
Alex is interested in helping innovative ideas transition from research labs into viable commercial products.
Anoushka Patel (Engineering undergrad) — Warwick
Anoushka is a 3rd Year Undergraduate Engineer. She works in the New Concepts Product Innovation team on live global projects, whilst concurrently studying for an Engineering degree from Warwick University. She is the recipient of the Smallpeice Trust Undergraduate Engineering Scholarship, and is founding TheTechSwitch, a non-for-profit movement supporting young people to lead with the technological, moral and financial astuteness to ensure all members of society reap the benefits of technological disruption
Mehul Anand (Business undergrad) — Warwick
Mehul is an Innovation fellow at University of Warwick and co-founder of Advance Accelerator, a student run social enterprise accelerator. He has extensive experience in the West Midlands startup ecosystem and has worked with regional programmes such as Birmingham Enterprise Community and WM Creative Scale Up Programme. Most recently, Mehul worked for The Bullring, a dragons den style pitching showcase that brought together 60+ companies and 18+ investors.
Tom Phipps (PhD in Management & AI) — Southampton
Tom is returning to Creator Fund this year, taking on the new role of Creative Director and working towards developing the CF brand and marketing strategies, whilst also continuing with his PhD at the University of Southampton.
Whilst his PhD focuses on AI Ethics, Tom has spent a considerable amount of time focusing on the ever-developing blockchain-based Metaverse, having been an early investor in the Bored Ape Yacht Club Collection (BAYC #7749) as well as other up-and-coming NFT collections that include Damien Hirst’s “The Currency’’ experiment. In addition to this, Tom actively manages a broader portfolio of crypto-assets and hopes to bring this experience to the team when reviewing the latest blockchain and crypto startups.
Oxford
Marc Moesser (PhD Machine Learning & Third Year CF) — Oxford
Now going into his third year at Creator Fund, Marc has been heavily involved in many different Creator Fund investments, most recently, our lead investment in Baseimmune. At the University of Oxford, Marc is pursuing a PhD focussed on the development and application of machine learning models for pharmaceutical drug discovery. On campus, Marc is active in supporting the startup ecosystem as an Ideas 2 Impact fellow at Said business school, and as the co-founder of the Oxford Venture Capital Network, a student led society focused on demystifying Venture Capital. As an investor, Marc is especially interested in helping deeptech startups find novel and unique applications to their cutting edge technologies.
Annabella Wainer (PhD in Environment) — Oxford
Annabella researches ESG and sustainable investing as part of her PhD at Oxford. She previously worked as a sustainability and climate change consultant at PwC, delivering ESG and impact investing projects for private equity firms, the BVCA, and other clients. She holds a BSc in Biology and MPhil in Environmental Policy from Imperial and Cambridge.
Rishi Anand (DPhil in Physiology & Genetics) — Oxford
Rishi is a neuroscientist at the University of Oxford, investigating novel mechanisms of dopamine release that can be utilised as targets for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease.
He is excited by emerging research, particularly in Life Sciences and Healthcare, and how these can be brought to market to improve the lives of patients. He joined Creator Fund after winning the Oxford Venture Capital Network competition and also has experience working on GTM strategy as a student consultant for DeepSpin GmbH in medtech. He is an Oxford-MRC iCASE scholar, and has undertaken additional courses in innovation and intellectual property in life sciences as part of his PhD studies, as well as internships at Cerevance as a research scientist, and Richmond Pharmacology in clinical trials. Outside of research, Rishi is a keen rower and was also President of the Wadham College Middle Common Room (MCR).
