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Very proud to see the WVC:E dream team - Anisah Osman Britton MBE & Rachel Drapper - alongside long time friend and rockstar Ekaterina Gianelli on stage at TechBBQ discussing "Fixing the Talent Exodus in VC". Key Takeaways: 💰Impact of Consolidation on Culture and Talent: The ongoing consolidation in the VC industry is reshaping company culture, affecting morale, and influencing talent. 🚀Emerging Managers Aren’t Diversifying VC: Despite the rise of emerging managers, the industry remains largely homogenous, with many new managers still coming from the same traditional, non-diverse backgrounds. ⚠️Perceptions of Diversity as High Risk: Many in the VC industry continue to view diverse hires, investments, and business models as "high risk," "too time-consuming," or "too costly," perpetuating a cycle of exclusion. 🚼 Parental Leave Inequality: Inequities in parental leave policies are disproportionately affecting women in venture, creating additional barriers to progression. But there are funds, investors, LPs and organisations (like us!) that are trying to change this!

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I recently had two days in Dublin that demonstrated the amazing efforts to drive and facilitate innovation in Ireland. The first was the results of a grand experiment to create new startups at Dogpatch Labs, and the second was a government policy event at Dublin Castle. At Dogpatch Labs, there were 15 fantastic startups presenting (including the latest NDRC cohort). The experiment at the root of the Dogpatch cohort was incredible. Led by Jane Dillon, a talent-focused process began last year to find the best founders, with Dogpatch providing the structures and inputs for successful startup creation. The result was an incredible cohort in a matter of weeks (with ongoing tweaks to the programme as the team learnt along the way). Congratulations to Jane and the team - I'm very excited to see how the second year of this grand experiment goes. I'd write more about the amazing startups, but then this post would an unreadable length...! Second, it was a priviledge to be invited to join the Irish government's Digital Ireland Conference as an industry delegate. This was a rare occasion to hear the policy concerns of the world's top tech companies alongside the plans (and live rebuttals) of multiple government ministers and the European Commission. A few top take-aways: - On regulatory sandboxes - There was a call for focus here so startups could more cost-effectively test their tech. This would vastly reduce legal fees. Ministers made commitments to deliver on this. - On AI regulations - Karan Bhatia of Google had a startling stat. There were 1,300 new regulations on AI to come out of Asia alone in the past 3 years. He compared the challenges of doing business internationally to asking an airliner to reduce their wingspan by an inch before landing in a different country. It would be impossible for a startup to scale faced by these challenges. -On harmonisation of regulatory frameworks - a startup having to file tax returns in every EU country is one of the many things that need to be fixed. On a macro level the OECD - OCDE explained how they were trying to push for standardisation in AI globally to ensure interoperability but admitted the US, EU and China probably would only accept gentle nudges. -On trends in LLMs and Gen AI - Sandro Gianella of OpenAI said future product features would invalidate the need for prompt engineering as their platform became more intuitive. Patricia Scanlon, Ireland's AI Ambassador, tried to goad him into revealing more future plans for GPT-5, but alas that's all we got. Fair play for trying anyway, Trish! Overall, it was amazing to be part of the Dublin innovation ecosytem again for a brief time, and made me proud to see the big (but realistic) ambitions of my small country.

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What's been happening in Mental Health innovation this week? ⭕ Virtual Therapeutics and Akili announce a merger. Akili were in big trouble, losing about $10m a quarter after failing to generate revenue for their digital therapeutics products. ⭕ Seven Starling, a maternal mental healthcare startup, raises $12.6m ⭕ Irish startup Spectrum.Life raises €17m in a round led by Act Venture Capital ⭕ Orygen receives an additional $6.4m of funding from the Victorian Sate Goverment for their youth digital mental health service MOST ⭕ Workplace wellbeing provider Habit Health is acquired by Five V Capital for over $200m ⭕ Optum acquires outpatient mental health providers Refresh Mental Health and CARE Counseling ⭕ Acadia Healthcare appoints Nasser Khan, MD as COO to expand their comprehensive treatment centres, grow their outpatient segment and improve quality of clinical care __ Want more insights and trends on mental health innovation? Feel free to follow myself and The Hemingway Report.

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Very much looking forward to talking to founders that are enabling enterprises to get their data ready for AI consumption. Sign up below!

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We at Female Founders Fund started investing in #womenshealth 10 years ago and continue to believe that there is a huge opportunity through digital innovation to improve care by building targeted solutions for all women.  Over the past few months, it has been promising to see government funding being directed for the first time towards clinical research focused on understanding the critical life stages of a woman's reproductive journey and creating better solutions for the female patient. In honor of #Women’sHealthMonth and to shine a spotlight on the investment opportunity that exists in #menopause, I’m sharing key takeaways from a 2020 study we published with Fortune below:  💰 With 100% of women as the target market, menopause to be a $600B market opportunity, with a need for better products and solutions catering to this life stage.  📈 On average, women spend $2k per year on menopause treatments, doctor visits, devices and products, and 1 billion women are expected to be in menopause worldwide by 2025  👩‍⚕️ 80% of OBGYNs are not trained in menopause as part of their medical training 👯‍♀️ 75% of women in menopause get their information from their friends / community 💗 The biggest opportunities for innovation exist across products such as supplements and hormone creams targeting specific pain points & hormonal shifts, telemedicine, and digital communities for women. It is exciting to see start-ups and government funding paving the way for promising solutions in women’s health. We’re proud to be early investors in companies like Maven Clinic and Kindra that have been at the forefront of providing menopause care. Still, we recognize that there is room for more development, funding, and attention to be brought to this space. With advancements in testing and medicine underway, we believe there is opportunity for more preventative solutions that are increasingly personalized and targeted to address the unique needs of each woman. Full study: https://lnkd.in/ecBaQzC

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Proud to announce the first investment of Brilliant Minds: To&From by Bridget Johns-Pavlopoulos. 🎉 A retail powerhouse turned visionary entrepreneur, she's taking on the e-commerce world and redefining it with AI. As she says, "Success doesn’t require a sanitized version of yourself; it thrives on authenticity." You can read more about her vision and journey here: https://lnkd.in/eQd4wt54. More to follow soon! #investments #startups #brilliantminds #longevity

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"Funding Collapse sends investment in start-ups to six year low" The Times today covering the shocking stats that VenturePath uncovered, with our partner Beauhurst. Great quotes from supporters Michael Moore CEO, BVCA and Julian David CEO, techUK. * UK VC funding at Series A is -44% from last year, and worsening * Q3 24 is down a staggering 57% from Q2, itself down from Q1 * 9 in 10 seed funded startups cannot access Series A VC funding, the next 'rung on the funding ladder' * Just 32 future scaleup companies across the whole of the UK were able to access their first VC funding round in Q3...a 6 year low * Half a billion less capital is going in to UK scaleups at Series A, than just 2 years ago! As the UK scaleup funding gap widens, we are losing ground against other countries, at both startup stage (a position the UK worked hard to achieve, since 2011), and for scaleup support. OECD data: 13th in the world for scaleup support, and that's before Series A funding access dried up. I get that its confusing. Another report (BBB, Nations & Regions) released this week spoke of positive trends in private investment, stating "The data for Q2 2024 shows that investment value has continued to grow". Great, I love to see optimistic data. But under analysis that bundles venture with private equity (later stage), where a few megadeals skew the numbers. Otherwise the exact opposite is true. Our independent research here, for the UK ScaleUp Investment Mission, is laser beam focussed on Series A. The funding round where companies move from the c.1m startups launched each year, through the 2,179 that access seed funding, into the rarefied category of being recognised as future scaleups, attracting Series A funding (£2-10m). The UK venture landscape is currently funding just 248 pa of these companies, and declining. We've been sharing this urgent call for support with the new Government since the day after the election. I've personally met with several Ministers, and spoke to all the relevant Government departments. I will shamelessly repeat loudly what is at stake. UK scaleup funding at Series A has nearly halved in a year, and continues to decline steeply, more than halving in the last quarter. VenturePath developed The UK ScaleUp Investment Mission to convene the scaleup support ecosystem and £7bn of funders to help address this problem, to improve nationwide access to VC investment, and create more venture-backed successes. We have clear support, clear recommendations to reverse this decline in UK scaleup investment, and have made a clear ask of Government for participation in this, to ensure immediate action is taken to create the conditions for success for UK scaleups, ensuring the focus on growth isn't undermined by lack of capital, or equitable access to it. Government decision makers, we'd love your interest, to progress to action. HM Treasury: Rt Hon Rachel Reeves Spencer Livermore James Murray & CC Poppy Gustafsson (welcome to the debate).

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Corporate Venture Capital is becoming a vital tool for large company innovation - but it needs encouragement from the C Suite. Investors interested in seeing their large company investees innovate more effectively should make this a key topic for senior management discussions. Global Corporate Venturing's June 2024 Symposium in London included many important, encouraging insights: “Corporate venturing units are increasingly focused on helping their portfolio companies work with business units at the parent company …” “But you do need a push from the C-suite to make this happen, investors told us in more informal talks over drinks. Without business units being given specific performance targets by the leadership to work with startups, it is hard to get the startups any meetings in the first place.” James Mawson, Maija Palmer and the team at Global Corporate Venturing’s summary of their symposium and the posted videos are a fantastic resource for anyone wanting to understand CVC's fundamental transformation of innovation investment and venture capital.

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Survival of the Fittest in a Shifting Funding Landscape Founders are adopting a low-key approach, focusing their energy on internal growth. Armed with capital secured in 2021, many are strategically revitalising their businesses. But the big question remains: What will the dealmaking landscape look like in 2024? "Overall, capital infusion will be concentrated on a narrower spectrum of companies than in all. The private capital raising landscape is anticipated to be robust, showcasing significant improvement from 2022. However, the capital infusion will be concentrated on a narrower spectrum of companies compared to the prolific scene of 2021." Read More: https://lnkd.in/d3536qvA In the meantime, share your thoughts! Are you a founder facing a funding crunch? How are you adapting your strategy? #StartupFunding #Founders #Growth #DealMaking #SibaPanda

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Exploring the complex relationships between people, places and poverty through the lens of #urbandesign, #data and #financial #investment, which is where my worlds intertwine. Thank you Dinis Guarda for such a wonderful opportunity to unpack these themes. #regeneration #development #exclusion #entrepreneurship Yeme Tech https://lnkd.in/eBS84Vnr

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I couldn't help noticing that the debate about UK Capital Gains Tax has been based around first time founders (who don't care about tax) and investors (who may or may not care about tax). Missing from the debate are serial founders. It's a significant blind spot because they are a very important part of creating a self-sustaining (tech) startup culture. It seems that in the general imagination, startup life is like this: 1. Have a great idea 2. Work hard at it 3. Make millions 4. Retire and get a yacht Reality is a lot more messy and convoluted than that. I'd bet that the vast majority of founders don't follow this path. So I hope that the narrative gets wiser to the nuances of the startup sector; I'd love to see the UK building a more self-sustaining tech startup sector. Post here: https://lnkd.in/euKNpjAw

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Continuing to write down ideas I've been having conversations about to get a wider set of perspectives. This is based on the idea that Western companies' disproportionate access to innovation makes it harder for emerging markets to compete. Looking forward to comments

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Together with Dr Jussi Westergren, Emmy Network Fellow in Computer Science at Keble College, Oxford, I’ve written for Sifted on the importance of the budget tomorrow for the future of UK tech. It’s absolutely vital that the Government invests in developing the country’s next-generation compute capacity - or ‘supercomputers.’ Next-generation compute is set to drive breakthroughs in everything from drug discovery to financial modelling via supply chain and how we understand language in the near future. And will also create value for businesses and enable startups to accelerate their development exponentially. If the government does not adequately support home-grown supercomputing, the UK risks losing its status as a leading tech hub as its startups struggle to compete with rivals in Europe and the US. But by delivering funding and fostering a conducive wider investment environment, Britain could thrive in the supercomputing era. The depth of tech, research and business talent in this country is second to none, and the appetite from start-ups, corporations and researchers is there. A great deal of work has already been undertaken in Edinburgh in preparation for this investment. Additional schemes can be balanced around the country, and indeed there are a number of sites which would be suitable to host a supercomputer system. Bletchley Park is such a site: with obvious historical symbolism, geographic advantages and the recent host of the global AI safety summit. Alan Turing brought enormous benefits to humankind, and it would be a fitting tribute to him. Turing Machines still influence current computer science and the Turing Test is more relevant than ever. Close to Oxford, Cambridge and London - home to many of the finest brains in the world - the Bletchley Park SuperCompute is a project that must happen. Full piece here:

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👣 Two major steps towards European Health Assurance ⭐ We are thrilled to support both Doccla and Neko Health expanding their footprint across Europe this week. These two businesses are taking major steps to advance preventative care, critical for the delivery of Health Assurance. At General Catalyst, our European Health Assurance thesis is to build scaled businesses at the intersection of healthcare and technology across geographies. The health aspirations and care needs are the same for consumers and the vulnerabilities of the health systems are similar. However, the build is not easy; each country presents a unique set of challenges—distinct regulatory frameworks, differing care infrastructure, diverse payment models, and legacy technologies – that add complexity. But for the most ambitious, mission-driven European entrepreneurs, complex problems are the greatest opportunities! Born in Sweden, Doccla and Neko were built by Martin Ratz, Dag Larsson, Daniel Ek and Hjalmar Nilsonne respectively with big visions to scale across borders. While they operate at opposite sides of the acuity spectrum and have different approaches to reimbursement, they share an obsessive focus on building consumer-centric, technology-enhanced platforms that engage people in primary, secondary and tertiary preventive care. Just as most of the successful companies of the last decade have radically changed consumer behaviour, Doccla and Neko are standard bearers in a movement that will fundamentally transform how people approach their health. Since our investment, Doccla has scaled to serve over half of the NHS trusts, reducing emergency department visits by up to 60%. With a £35M Series B funding round, Doccla are primed to bring their virtual hospital solutions to France and Germany, bringing the same hospital-grade care to patients in the comfort of their home as in the UK. Neko has facilitated thousands of full body scans in Sweden and uncovered critical health issues that have spared many individuals. Now, with their expansion into the UK, they are cementing their position as the leading destination in Europe for consumers to gain a comprehensive understanding of their health. At General Catalyst, we are committed to creating, investing, partnering and operating to enhance the resilience of European healthcare. We see tremendous value in catalysing this European movement and invite founders, investors and traditional healthcare leaders from across the continent to join us in the pursuit of Health Assurance. The existing 'sick' care system is in a precarious state and can only be transformed into a more proactive, affordable and accessible one if we work together! Hemant Taneja, Jeannette zu Fürstenberg, Paul Kwan, Alexandre Momeni

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A very insightful and worthwhile read written by my talented NSP partner, Lisa Blosser, on how to best support Founders and CEOs at the Early Stage through coaching. Thanks Lisa! https://lnkd.in/gu5iU5Zm

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WVC:E Maternity Research - 2 mins appreciated! 🙏🙏🙏 We’re conducting research into the experiences of women in VC having children, taking parental leave and returning to work. We will be gathering insights on industry issues and best practice, which will be shared back to the community. We’d 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐞 if you could take 2 minutes to complete this anonymous form if you have any views on this topic. Link in the comments.

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I couldn’t be prouder to be a Venture Partner at Isomer Capital (aka the best European FoF - at least for me) as we just announced the launch of our pioneering £100m secondaries fund. This fund is dedicated to acquiring stakes from LPs in various VC funds, tapping into a massive and largely unexplored market. 🌟 Key Highlights: - Focused Investment: Primarily targeting stakes in VC funds, with selective investments in private companies. - Robust Funding: Already over 20% funded, thanks to strong support from Nordic family offices and a German foundation. - Market Potential: With a growing number of private tech companies and a VC liquidity crunch, Europe's VC secondaries market is poised for rapid growth. - Track Record: This isn’t Isomer’s first foray into the secondaries market. As a firm we’ve done several secondaries deals with portfolio companies and VC firms, including early-stage VC Seedcamp (in 2021) and mobility giant Bolt (in 2023). - Expert Team: Welcoming the amazing Omolade (Rachel) A., formerly of Coller Capital, as a principal to lead this initiative. 💡 Investment Strategy: - 65-75% of the fund will buy "LP interest" stakes in VC funds. - 15-25% will be directed towards stakes in companies. - Up to 15% reserved for flexible investment opportunities. 📈 Looking Ahead: We're targeting returns of 2-3x, with significant distributions expected in the next 4-7 years. As one of the few players in this space, we're not just participating in the market—we're driving it forward. Read all about it here: https://lnkd.in/dc7sbC3G #VentureCapital #SecondariesFund #EuropeanVC

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Reactions to the budget will dominate the media today and I note with interest speculation that the changes in CGT will have an adverse effect on the number of start-ups and that entrepreneurs will be disincentivised. In my experience the decision to start a business has more to do with passion about an idea and the impact it can make, so today I prefer to consider the question of - what does it really take to turn a scientific discovery into world-changing impact? I have spent rather more years than I care to remember in the world of IT and colleagues were used to me heading for a whiteboard to draw a technology stack. I would stress the importance of integration across the stack whether in a single piece of Apple hardware or in a complex ecosystem like Oracle’s enterprise cloud. A well-integrated stack operates like an orchestra rather than individual musicians - each component plays its part while contributing to a harmonious whole. This orchestration becomes increasingly critical as systems grow more complex and distributed. The world I now work in – supporting innovation to drive a modern economy - I see striking parallels. Just as fragmented technology creates system failures, fragmented innovation support can cripple an economy's innovative potential. From university labs to global markets, successful innovation requires systematic support at every stage: • Pure science research as the foundation • Cross-disciplinary collaboration • Early commercial validation • Strategic team building • Regulatory expertise • Scaling capabilities Through the QantX partnership with the SETsquared Partnership Universities (University of Bath, University of Bristol, University of Cardiff, Wales, University of Exeter, University of Southampton and University of Surrey), we'll be looking to support significant R&D spend - £600M+ and 300 plus innovations yearly across six universities - matching patient capital and strategic guidance to each critical stage of development. 🔍 Look out for our full analysis "Supporting the Full Innovation Stack: From Lab Discovery to Global Impact" on the QantX website. #Innovation #DeepTech #Venture #Research #UniversityPartnership

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