I first met Sherry Coutu as I was raising Brainient’s seed round back in 2010. The round was almost subscribed but I wasn’t thrilled with our option for the lead investor, and Alex Van Someren (Amadeus Capital) made an email intro to Sherry and suggested that we meet.
It was just about springtime in London and we met at Morisson & Foerster in The City, where she was giving a presentation. We went to a little coffee shop nearby, I popped out my laptop and started pitching. About 15 minutes in, she said that although she likes what we do, video advertising was not something she had experience with so she won’t invest, but offered to connect me with someone who might make a good lead investor and would be interested. That someone was Thomas Hoegh of Arts Alliance, the venture fund that became our lead investor in the seed round. And a few weeks before the round closed, Sherry called me and said she would like to participate as well.
In a way, if it weren’t for Sherry we wouldn’t have been as far along as we are today with Brainient, and I’m sure that this is just one of the many moments when she’s been instrumental to a startup’s success. So it comes with very little surprise and much joy that Sherry has been awarded a CBE (Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) on the New Year’s Honours List 2013. I really can’t think of a better choice they could have made. Congrats Sherry!
