On Thursday 4th June, 2020, Playfair Capital and 30 of the UKs’ leading venture capital funds will be holding remote office hours. 100 female founders, from anywhere in the UK, will have the opportunity to meet four investors during one hour of remote office hours to discuss their tech business idea, ask for advice (covid-related or otherwise) and pitch for investment.
The event is being jointly held by Playfair Capital and Tech Nation. The event follows two previous editions hosted by Playfair Capital at Warner Yard which saw a total of 400 individual meetings with 90 female founders and 25 investors taking part.
Playfair Capital and Tech Nation began working on the project several months ago, making the decision to hold a remote version of the event instead of waiting for the lockdown to be lifted. Not only does this ensure founders get access to the investors they need, but also that the event can be truly national, reflecting the fact that talent is not just in London and leveraging Tech Nation’s extensive UK wide Founders’ Network.
Never before have 30 early-stage VCs come together in such close collaboration to provide this degree of nationwide access and support to female founders.
Chris Smith, Playfair Capital’s Managing Partner, commented:
“I’m absolutely thrilled to see our third female founder office hours event come together with the support of Tech Nation and what must be one of the largest groups of VCs ever assembled in one (virtual) room. We know that it’s taking longer than it should to level the playing field for female founders and we hope that by bringing the ecosystem together at scale we can give a big shove in the right direction.”
Lauren Nicholson, Founders’ Network Lead at Tech Nation, commented:
“This is an exciting opportunity for all our female founder Founders’ Network members and we are delighted to be collaborating with Playfair Capital on such an important initiative. Female-led companies still only achieve 1p in every £1 invested in the UK and so Office Hour events like these are crucial to breaking down those barriers and creating opportunities for those teams to be supported by the investment ecosystem. We hope that this initiative will be a major step towards changing those statistics.”
Here is the full list of participating funds and investors:
- Ada Ventures — Francesca (Check) Warner
- Albion VC — Jess Bartos
- Amadeus Capital Partners — Amelia Armour
- Anthemis — Erica Young
- Ascension Ventures — Emma Steele
- Augmentum — Freddie Evans, Ellen Logan
- Beringea — Carrie Babcock, Emma Biasiolo
- Bethnal Green Ventures — Bethany Greer
- Downing Ventures — Kathy Gromotka
- Draper Esprit — Edel Coen, Diana Krantz
- Episode 1 — Carina Namih
- Forward Partners — Katie Kim
- Frontline Ventures — Helena Cavell
- Hambro Perks — Matilde Giglio
- JamJar — Belinda Gurung
- Mercia — Charlotte Clarke
- MMC Ventures — Alexia Arts
- Notion — Itxaso Del Palacio
- Octopus Ventures — Akriti Dokania
- Passion Capital — Robert Dighero
- Playfair Capital — Alexandra Baranowski, Simon Blakey, Chris Smith, Joe Thornton, Henrik Wetter Sanchez
- Samaipata — Carmen Alfonso Rico
- Smedvig Capital — Peter Duffy
- Soho Ventures — Monik Pham
