Andy Philipps

co-Founder
Active Hotels

Andy Phillipps was co-founder and CEO of Active Hotels, which he helped to grow to become the largest on-line hotel booking company in Europe. The company was recognised as the fastest growing technology company in the UK by Deloitte, was a Sunday Times best employer and Andy won Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year. He sold the business to Priceline.com for $161 million in 2004 and was retained by Priceline.com to run their international operations.

He resigned as CEO in Q4 2005 following record profits for the international operations and was retained as a non-exec until Q2 2006. He has subsequently helped found, expand and/or invest in a number of start-ups, including Reevoo, I2O, Toptable and Moyses-Stevens and is Entrepreneur in residence at INSEAD business school. Andy has a PhD from Cambridge and an MBA from INSEAD.

Steve Endacott

Owner and CEO
On Holiday Group

Steve has the unusual distinction of having been successful within both the corporate and entrepreneurial environments, with a series of successful start up's to his name.

As the CEO of the On Holiday Group with its bed bank, tour operating and consumer direct divisions all focused on exploiting the explosive growth of the Dynamic packaging revolution, Steve is a well known commentator on the sector with in depth experience in the technology, trade relationships and consumer marketing sectors. However Steve has built his present business pulling on 15 years of experience leading traditional package tour operators.

Steve's corporate career involved high profile directorships in some of the UK's largest tour operating groups spanning financial controller of International Leisure Group to Deputy Chief Operating Officer of MYTravel Plc and included directorship over finance, yield management, marketing, contracting, overseas operations, sales and retail operations.

Steve's entrepreneurial career has seen him involved in the creation of a number of successful businesses such as Holiday Taxis (Transfers) , Click with Technology ( Technology) , Going on Holiday ( Call centre) and to make numerous investments in other start ups.

Roger Allard

Chairman
All Leisure Group

Roger has been involved in the travel industry for almost 40 years. He was a board director of ABTA until 2007 and of several other non-competing travel companies. Roger was instrumental in creating Owners Abroad (now First Choice Holidays) and in listing it on the London Stock Exchange in 1982. After 20 years, Roger left First Choice in 1993 as group managing director and was involved in the aviation industry until 1996. Roger acquired the Voyages of Discovery brand in 1997.

Dinesh Dhamija

Founder
eBookers

Born in Australia and son of an Indian Diplomat, Dinesh Dhamija was awarded Entrepreneur of the Year in 2003 - UK and considered one of Europe's leading businessmen. Established own business in the travel sector 25 years ago and realised the critical role the internet would play in the travel industry. He established the first interactive website for travel agents in the UK, flightbookers.net, in 1996. Ebookers.com was formed in 1999. NASDAQ, NEUER, and LSE listings soon followed and ebookers.com rolled out across Europe becoming the leading online travel agency in Europe. Dinesh took a $5 million Angel Investment loan in 1999 and then went on to sell e-bookers for $471 million in February 2005. Looked upon as an Inspiration Model Leader for all young Entrepreneurs, Dinesh is currently Chairman of Copper Beech Group, a leading Romanian property development business.

Glenn Fogel

EVP Corporate Development
Priceline

Mr. Fogel joined Priceline.com in February 2000 and is responsible for all of the firm's acquisitions and strategic transactions. He has been a key figure in Priceline's international program and has led all transactions since the first deal in September 2004. Through this program, Priceline has become the leading online seller of hotels outside North America. Mr. Fogel is a member of the Board of Directors of all of Priceline.com's international subsidiaries, including Europe-based Booking.com and Asia-based Agoda. Before Priceline, he worked in finance, first as an investment banker at Kidder, Peabody, and later as a senior equity trader at Morgan Stanley Asset Management. Mr. Fogel is a graduate of Harvard Law School and the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and was a Teaching Fellow in the Economics Department at Harvard University.

David Scowsill

Chairman
YuuGuu.com

David Scowsill is currently on the board of three Private Equity and Venture Capital backed businesses: Chairman of Yuuguu Limited (Enterprise Ventures/Merseyside Special Investment Fund). Director of On the Beach Holidays (ISIS Equity Partners) and Director of ilG Digital (ECI Partners). Recently concluded transactions in Europe are World Hotels AG (sale to KP Capital 2008), and VenereNet SpA (Advent International acquisition 2006, sale to Expedia 2008). His executive career includes Opodo, Hilton Hotels, British Airways and American Airlines.

Investment Criteria

• Provides early stage technology funding including proof of concept and pre-revenue stages.
• Typical investments will have unique and protectable technology
• The market size for the company should typically greater than £100m and be international.

Patrick Hoffstetter

Managing Director UK
lastminute.com

Hugo Burge

Executive Chairman
Cheapflights
Founder
Howzat Media

Hugo Burge became Chairman of Cheapflights in 2009 and serves as an Executive Director. With David Soskin, Hugo co-led Cheapflights' original management buy-in in March 2000 and has helped grow the company from a three-person attic operation in London into an international leader in travel search. Hugo has held a variety of roles including leading the 2003 launch of Cheapflights US which has become the company's largest business. Prior to joining Cheapflights, Hugo was an entrepreneur with a background in property investment.

Hugo holds a Degree in Geography from Cambridge University, is a member of the Royal Geographical Society and has a passion for travel. In 2007, together with David Soskin, Hugo co-launched the internet investment fund HOWZAT Media. Investments include WAYN, trivago, TrustedPlaces, CheapToday and academia.edu.

In 2008, Hugo won Young Entrepreneur of the Year award in the Travel Industry Hall of Fame.

John Kent

Founder and CEO
youtravel.com
Founder
Aquis Hotels and Resorts

John Kent is the Founder and CEO of youtravel.com and the founder of Aquis Hotels and Resorts. He has a strong track record in the tourism and travel industry, mostly as a serial entrepreneur within the online and dynamic packaging sector. He has managed to build value both as an executive and as an entrepreneur in six major companies, four of which were involved in Mergers & Acquisitions in a period shorter than 24 months from establishment.

He founded MedHotels.com and TravelBargains.com revolutionising the package holiday model and introducing dynamic packaging for holidays in the UK market. Both companies were then acquired by Lastminute.com, after two very successful years of operations. John was then appointed as UK Managing Director of Lastminute.com with global responsibility for the procurement of hotels. Since leaving Lastminute.com he has generated a range of dynamic projects.

He is currently the founder & CEO of Youtravel.com, the online resort accommodation provider - a company that he set up in 2006 and has achieved expected turnover of Euro 115 million for its second year (ended October 31 2008). Recently John invested in Aquis Hotels and Resorts www.aquisresorts.com which aims to build a portfolio of wholly owned hotels and hotels under management in the Mediterranean area. This venture has attracted substantial financial backing from Abu Dhabi. John is a Visiting Senior Fellow at the University of Surrey, UK and a Fellow of the UK Institute of Directors.

Jeff Wasson

Founder
TravelNow.com

Jeff is an entrepreneur and leader with experience in all phases of corporate and overall business development from start-up to operation as a public entity. He is the Founder and Chairman of Gusto LLC, which operates the travel community website www.gusto.com. Jeff also co-founded and sold one of the first internet-based travel services companies, TravelNow.com, which provides hotel, car and air reservations to customers through its site and affiliate sites worldwide.

TravelNow attained a NASDAQ Small Cap listing in 2000 and was sold for $47.4 million to Hotels.com in 2001, and is now a subsidiary of Expedia.com Jeff has attracted and led teams of experienced corporate executives and technical experts. Jeff has raised more than $10 million in capital from private investors, venture capital firms and hedge funds. He has also served on various boards of both public and private companies as well as non-profit entities, has participated as a VC and angel investor in numerous start ups, and has occasionally acted as a consultant and interim executive. Jeff currently resides in New York City with his wife and two daughters.

Faisal Galaria

Head of Global Business Development
Spotify & Angel Investor

Faisal Galaria is ex-Managing Director International of Kayak.com and was responsible for building the EMEA and Asian businesses. He now seeks out promising angel investments and advises start ups across the consumer internet space. Faisal has an outstanding brand building track record with sales, marketing and business development experience across media, internet and finance sectors.

Previously Faisal was the General Manager and VP Corporate Development at Jaman, based in California. Prior to Jaman, Faisal ran global online business development and was Director of Europe at Skype, which was acquired by eBay for $3 billion in 2005. At Skype/eBay, he was responsible for key partnerships across the US, Europe the Middle East, with companies such as Sony, Bebo, HP, Dixons and McAfee. Following Skype's investment in FON, Faisal became Vice President of Global Business Development and was responsible for partnerships with BT in the UK and Time Warner in the USA.

Faisal was also a member of the Policy Executive of Britain's telecom and media regulator Ofcom. At Ofcom, he played a senior role in the high-profile negotiation and valuation of distribution rights for Premier League Football and co-authored the Telecoms Strategy Review.

Faisal started his career in wireless and Internet consulting and was a senior member of Cluster Consulting, which was acquired by Diamond Technology Partners (NASDAQ: DTPI) for $930 million in 2000.

Faisal has been educated across Europe and graduated with honors from UMIST (University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology) with a Bachelor's in Management Sciences in the UK. He also holds an MBA from IESE in Spain.

Cree Lawson

Founder and CEO
Travel Ad Network

Cree Lawson is founder and Chairman of Travel Ad Network, the largest travel information audience online & one of the industry's leading vertical ad networks. The company delivers advertising to global audience of 19 million across 200+ websites including Lonely Planet, Rand McNally, Rough Guides and many more.

Lawson has been a publishing entrepreneur since Dec. 1994 when he posted the entirety of The Belmont Vision, his college newspaper, online. The only thing missing from the college paper -- one of the first to be published online -- was online advertising. Lawson spent the past 14 years in online publishing making up for this omission.

After a period in journalism Lawson joined two consecutive Internet start-ups: Bookface.com and Digital Goods, where he learned the opportunities and perils creating a market for new technologies. Lawson then joined the travel guide publisher Rough Guides Inc. in September 2001, creating Travel Ad Network in December 2003.

Beyond being a writer & online publishing entrepreneur, Lawson's legacy (so far) is creating Travel Ad Network from scratch and turning it into the largest travel information audience online with less than $500k in funding. In March, 2008 TAN raised $15Million Series A and one year later, Lawson moved to the Chairman position in order to explore new endeavors. When not traveling to other continents on a whim, he lives in New York City and does consulting work with several Internet technology and advertising companies.

Dhruv Shringi

Founder
Yatra

Dhruv returned to India after 8 years in Europe and his most recent role prior to co-founding Yatra was as Director Group Operations and Technology of the Ebookers Group where he was responsible for sales of over $850 million achieved thru multi channels including online, call centers and retail shops.

With regard to technology, he was accountable for developing the IT strategy and for leading the technology development and infrastructure teams, some 150 employees over 13 locations.

Prior to his stint at Ebookers, he has worked with Ford Motor Company in their Business Strategy team based in London where he was part of the European Business Turnaround team and also has significant work experience in India having spent over 6 years with Arthur Andersen based in their office in Delhi. Dhruv holds an MBA from INSEAD and is also a qualified Chartered Accountant.

Peter Waller

Group Mergers and Acquisitions Director
Thomas Cook

Peter is Group M&A director for Thomas Cook since 2006. During this time he has managed all acquisitions, disposals and joint ventures of the Group, both in UK and abroad. These include the merger with MyTravel, Condor/Air Berlin, Hotels4U, GoldMedal, Jet Tours etc. He is also responsible for expansion into emerging markets.

Prior to joining TC, he was with management consultancy McKinsey and German airline Condor. Peter is 37 years and holds a PhD in strategy as well as a master in finance from University of Mannheim and ESSEC Paris

Paul Evans

Founder and Chief Executive
Low Cost Holiday Group

Roberto Bonanzinga

Partner
Balderton Capital

Prior to joining Balderton, Roberto spent 15 years working with entrepreneurs in the US and in Europe. Most recently, Roberto acted as an interim CEO for Jambaz and non-executive director/adviser to numerous companies including Jaiku (acquired by Google NASDAQ:GOOG), Mobango, Piczo, Woome and our own portfolio company Pageflakes.

Roberto's past operational experience included helping to pioneer VoIP in Europe while serving as SVP of Marketing and Business Development at Viatel. He was also VP of Services and Marketing at Netscalibur, where he built the pan-European organization. Additionally, he has held senior management positions in Silicon Valley with Topica, Fabrik Communications (acquired by Critical Path) and Information Access Company (acquired by Thomson Corporation NYSE:TOC).

Education: B.A. in Business Administration from Bocconi University in Milan, Italy, and a European Commission-sponsored MSC in Electronic Information Management from Sheffield University in the UK.

Investment Criteria

• Investments range from $500k to over $50m, typical initial investment is between $1m and $15m. On average invest $15m over lifecycle of a company.
• Aim to be first money in, so invest in early stage of companies and continue to support them throughout.
• Invest in innovative companies from lots of different sectors.

Bill Morrow

co-Founder
Angels Den

Bill Morrow is the "token male", in an otherwise female company. He is also a co-founder, having set up the company in 2007 after several years researching the market.

Bill's background is in City banking and funding, and is a firm believer that there is plenty of funding around for really good business ideas. Since forming Angels Den he has attracted over 2500 angels to the network!

Bill has a Business Degree and started life as an accountant with Virgin. If you've ever met Bill you'll wonder that he could have been an accountant and Financial Director, but we've seen the certificates and it just goes to show that loud Scots people can also do sums when they need to.

Bill can often be found in Adam Street in London, where all the trendy entrepreneurs hang out. The rest of the time he is meeting Angels, entrepreneurs, press, competitors, advisors, or anyone else who will put up with him raving about Angels Den.

Daniel Smith

Assistant Director, New Investments
ISIS Equity Partners

Daniel Smith heads up the new investment activities of ISIS Equity Partners in the Travel and Leisure sectors. ISIS's travel investments to date include On the Beach, an online retailer of beach holidays; Travel Jigsaw, a pan-European online car rental broker; and Enigma Travel Group, the UK's leading independent ski tour operator. ISIS is one of the largest and most active investors in lower mid-market corporate UK with a strong pedigree in consumer markets and a portfolio of 33 investee companies across a range of service sectors.

Investment Criteria

• Look for potential for market leaderships and growth capability, alongside ambitious management teams.
• Typical invest between £2m and £30m

Debu Purkayastha

Principal - Corporate Development / M&A
Google

Alex Hoye

CEO
Latitude Group
Board Member
Seedcamp & Cambridge Angel

Alex brings a range of entrepreneurial, media and internet experience matched with institutional and global experience. As CEO of Latitude Group, one of Europe's largest independent digital marketing agencies, he is driving industry change in marketing driven by customer conversion. In 1999, Alex co-founded GoIndustry plc in Europe, valued at over $100M.

Alex cut his teeth at Disney where he was the project lead for the launch of a division and learned the tools of finance and M&A. Alex perceived the power of online models for media while at Harvard Business School in 1994 and thereafter as a management consultant for McKinsey & Co. working with newspaper, television and music companies migrating to the digital medium.

Since 2006 Alex has been encouraging the wave of entrepreneurial inspiration capturing Europe. To this end, Alex has acted as angel investor and mentor in technology and internet-based projects and a ski company. The companies are: Skimbit, MyBuilder, RentMineOnline, GoMix and Faction Skis. He also acts as an advisor to private equity firm Vitruvian Partners, a €1B private equity fund focused on technology, media and telecommunications, a member of Cambridge Angels and on the advisory board of Seedcamp.

Outside of his hectic schedule, Alex enjoys skiing, kite surfing and running, though rarely all at once, and is a trustee of the Venture Partnership Foundation, which applies venture methods to the social sector.

Jason Katz

Founder
KP Capital

Jason Katz is a founding partner of Kings Park Capital, a new private equity fund dedicated to investments in the global leisure sector. Prior to this, he spent 12 years in investment banking. Having established UBS Investment Bank's Hotel & Leisure Sector team in 1998 he built a market leading franchise in Europe working on over 60 deals in the leisure sector with an aggregate value of nearly $40 billion. Prominent transactions included the sale of Hilton International to Hilton Corporation, the sale of De Vere Hotels and the IPO of Rezidor as well as the sale of lastminute.com to Sabre and Active Hotels to priceline.

Investment Criteria

• Long term investors focusing solely on the leisure sector: hotels, travel, health and wellbeing, gaming, bars and restaurants, and visitor attractions.
• Target businesses with enterprise value of over £100m
• KPC's inaugural fund has already secured commitments with over 30 senior executives and owners from within the leisure sector.

Nic Brisbourne

Partner
DFJ Esprit

Nic has been in venture capital since 2000. In that time he has worked in London, Europe and Silicon Valley. His main areas of focus have been software and media. Prior to DFJ Esprit he was with Reuters Venture Capital. Nic's investment experience includes buy.at (sold to AOL for $125m) and UltraDNS (acquired by Neustar - NYSE NSR). He currently manages DFJ Esprit's investments in Zeus, WAYN and Tribold. Prior to joining Reuters Nic worked for Operis, a software and services start-up, and Cap Gemini. Nic also authors a blog commenting on the European technology and venture capital markets. Please see www.theequitykicker.com

Investment Criteria

• Look for companies with the vision and energy to effectively challenge the status quo and entrepreneurs that want to change the world.
• Look for companies that operate in high growth areas investing from $500k to $25m over the life of an investment.
• Invest in entrepreneurs to establish businesses as well as providing liquidity to founder teams and angel investors to support strategic shifts or latter phases of growth.

Will Fraser-Allen

Deputy Managing Director
Albion Ventures

Will qualified as a chartered accountant with Cooper Lancaster Brewers in 1996 and then joined CLB's Corporate Finance Team providing corporate finance advice to small and medium sized businesses.

He joined Albion LLP in 2001 since when he has focused on leisure and healthcare investing. Will became Deputy managing director of Albion (then Close Ventures) in 2007. Some of Will's current and former investments include Peakdale Molecular, Active Hotels, the Bold Pub Group and Lowcosttravel group.

Investment Criteria

• Look to make long term investment returns through making venture capital investments in smaller companies.
• Look to invest from £1m to £10m in a wide range of growing businesses.
• Work with smaller companies with entrepreneurial management teams to help business grow by providing financial resources as well as strategic advice.

Steve Schlenker

Managing Partner
DN Capital

Steve Schlenker has more than 17 years of venture capital and private equity investment experience.

Mr. Schlenker is a Managing Partner and Chief Investment Officer of DN Capital. He is particularly involved in investments in enterprise application software and consumer facing Internet applications. His companies at DN Capital include Endeca, Lagan, Datanomic, Digital Chocolate, IGA, FamilyBuilder, and Sonico.

Prior to co-founding DN Capital, Mr. Schlenker was a senior member of the investment team in his capacity as chief investment officer for SUN Technology Investors. At SUN he was also involved in the investment and successful sale of PlanetAll to Amazon, and also invested in Cyberview Technologies (AIM: CYBV), eMode (later Tickle.com, acquired by Monster Worldwide), PlasmaNet and others.

Prior to joining SUN, he spent four years with Interlaken Capital, a buyout fund in Greenwich, Connecticut, where he worked on private equity investments in companies in the consumer goods, industrial distribution and service industries.

Mr. Schlenker received a BSc in Economics, summa cum laude, from the Wharton School of Finance with dual concentrations in Finance and Entrepreneurial Management, and an MBA, with high distinction, from Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar.

Investment Criteria

• Global investor to guide growth through various growth stages: early stage to growth equity.

Gerry Samuels

Founder
Travel Capital

Gerry has more than 20 years experience in the travel industry, at Thomson Travel (TUI) and then at Worldspan, where he became Director - Northern Europe. In 1997 Gerry co-founded Gradient Solutions, a Dublin-based internet booking engine specialist. With a record of rapid and profitable growth, and a client list including many of Europe's and N.America's largest airlines and intermediaries, Gradient was acquired by Sabre in August 2000. Following the acquisition, Gerry served two years as Vice President, Business Development, Sabre.

Mobile Travel Technologies (MTT), a mobile software development specialist for the travel sector, was formally founded in 2005 by Gerry, and he is the full-time Executive Director (Commercial). MTT has quickly built up an impressive client base of leading hotel chains and airlines which includes InterContinental Hotels Group, Hilton, Radisson and Qantas Group's Jetstar.

Gerry has a number of involvements in software businesses in UK, Ireland and Australia. In 2000 Gerry was judged as amongst Ireland's Top 20 Entrepreneurs by Business Plus magazine, Ireland's largest circulation business magazine. Gerry is business advisor to an Irish government program for technology entrepreneurs.

Alexis Bonte

co-Founder, CEO and Angel Investor
eRepublik Labs

Alexis Bonte is the co-founder and CEO of eRepublik Labs. eRepublik is revolutionizing the way strategy games are created, distributed and played by leveraging the power of communities and the Web. Erepublik.com has over 120.000 active citizens, 3 million monthly visits and was a prize winner in the LeWeb3 start-up competition in 2007 as well as the TechCrunch FOWA competition in 2008.

Prior to Erepublik.com, Alexis was with lastminute.com for 6 years right up to its 1b$ trade sale to Sabre in 2005 - first as Head of Business Development (UK) then as Marketing and Sales Director (France) and then as Managing Director (Italy). Alexis is also an angel investor specializing in Internet start ups.

He is the non-executive chairman of the video and music sharing site trilulilu.ro, one of the top 3 websites in Romania and is a board member of various Internet and healthcare companies. Alexis holds a BA Honours Degree in International Business & Languages from the European Business School (London), is a sailing national champion (Portugal) and is fluent in 5 languages.

James Stoddart

co-Founder
Bestport Ventures LLP

James is a co-founder of Bestport Ventures LLP and has extensive experience of investing in venture capital opportunities in the UK.

He began his career working in corporate finance for Oppenheimer in New York followed by a three year role in corporate strategy for Hutchison Whampoa in Hong Kong. He then spent six years engaged in corporate turnaround work for Postern before establishing Bamboo Investments PLC, raising £16 million to make early stage, high growth venture investments predominantly in the technology sector. James has backed a number of successful businesses including Active Hotels Ltd, Cassium Technologies Ltd, Bango.net and Dr Foster Ltd.

James holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business from Boston University.

Investment Criteria

• Look to invest between £250k and £3m to companies with a strong growth potential through organic growth and/or acquisitions
• Primarily provides growth/expansion capital but also considers MBO/MBI proposals

Jason Purcell

CEO and Founder
FirstCapital

Prior to founding FirstCapital, Jason was a Director of Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS). He raised equity capital for start-up and developing companies in India and Pakistan. Whilst working for Smith New Court (now Merrill Lynch), Jason was a number 1 ranked equity analyst, according to both Extel and Institutional Investor. He is a Chartered Financial Analyst, and has an MA in Management Studies and Physics from Cambridge University.

Investment Criteria

• Boutique investment bank that specializes in find raising and mergers and acquisitions advice for growth technology companies.

Davinder Sahota

Investment Director
Barclays Ventures

Davinder is an Investment Director, based in the London office. He joined Barclays Ventures in 2005. Previous to this, he spent six years with Barclays Leveraged Finance in London and the Midlands, funding over 25 private equity backed businesses, latterly as a Director. Davinder graduated in Law from Birmingham University.

Since joining Barclays Ventures, Davinder has been involved in a number of high profile Barclays Ventures investments including Hall & Kay Fire, Lakeview Computers, Warehouse Express and You At Work.

Investment Criteria

• Act as principals and invest to help companies and entrepreneurs who wish to buy, sell or grow businesses.
• Provide equity for business worth between £5m and £50m

Josh Bell

Head of Financial Services
Dawn Capital

Josh Bell is an Associate Partner and Head of Financial Services at Dawn Capital.

Prior to Dawn, Josh worked with McKinsey & Company, managing teams that advised boards of Fortune global 500 financial institutions. Over the past 5 years, Josh has developed strong working relationships with many of the key senior executives, particularly in Europe. Josh has in particular extensive experience working with clients in private equity, corporate finance and retail strategy. Most recently, Josh was recognised within the firm as a leading financial services expert in Europe.

Within his retail and wholesale banking work, Josh devoted significant time to informing clients on the impact of new technologies on their industries, and helping to assess and implement these technologies for their businesses.

In addition to his private sector client work, Josh was also integral to supporting McKinsey's relationship with the World Economic Forum, leading McKinsey support for the WEF's financial services knowledge initiatives and activities, principally for the Davos conferences in 2006 and 2007.

Josh was a Graduate Scholar at Oxford University in Mathematics. He was subsequently a Research Fellow at Harvard University in Economics and Game Theory, publishing papers in Game Theory and IT Security journals before studying operational research and advanced financial modelling at Cambridge University, as part of an MPhil in Statistics; his MPhil research was supported by the Rand Institute of Santa Monica, California.

Investment Criteria

• Consider investing in companies at all stages of their development, beginning with start up phase and extending to late stage rounds.
• Critical factor is strength of company's management team and business model.
• Investment typically between £100k and £5m

Tim Rigby

Exponent Private Equity

Tim has a BA in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from Oxford University.

Prior to Exponent he was a strategy consultant at Bain & Company for four years in London, Johannesburg and San Francisco. He worked in several sectors, including Financial Services, Consumer Goods, Industrials and Mining, as well as conducting commercial due diligence in Bain's Private Equity practice.

He works with Exponent's investment in Trainline.

Investment Criteria

• Independent investment and advisory firm who acquire companies to build businesses in partnership with existing and new management teams
• Primarily mid-market UK companies
• Ready to commit up to £200m of equity to any single investment

Rory Stirling

Investment Manager
MMC Ventures

Rory joined MMC in 2009 as an Investment Manager. Prior to this, Rory worked as a generalist mergers & acquisitions analyst at Greenhill & Co, before going on to found a start-up business within the online media space. Rory has an MA in Economics from Edinburgh University.

Investment Criteria

• Venture capital firm that invests growth capital in UK companies
• Named FIS Fund Manager of the Year in January 2009
• Look to invest between £500k and £2m in an initial funding round

Mike Chalfen

General Partner
Advent Ventures

Mike joined Advent in July 2008. He has made around 25 investments over the past twelve years across most parts of media and technology and served on over a dozen Boards.

Before Advent, Mike was a partner at Apax Partners, where he spent ten years until summer 2006, and then spent two years making private investments. At Apax he was involved in growth buyouts such Future Publishing (FUT.L) and Ginger Media (sold to SMG); growth equity investments in SuSE Linux (sold to Novell), Eyretel (sold to Witness Systems), and King.com; and startups such as eDreams.com (sold to TA Associates), QXL.com (sold to Naspers), and Tideway Systems.

Prior to Apax he worked at the Boston Consulting Group. His academic background includes being elected the Choate Fellow at Harvard University, and Cambridge University.

Investment Criteria

• Look to invest in world-class technology
• Back strong entrepreneurs and management teams capable of building tomorrow's great companies

David Torbet

Investment Director
Bowmark Capital

David has eight years' experience of strategy consulting and business analysis

He began his career at OC&C Strategy Consultants, working in a broad range of sectors with a focus on strategic due diligence assignments for private equity clients. In 2004 he joined food service market leader, Brakes, as part of the management team put in place by private equity owners Clayton, Dubilier & Rice. Whilst at Brakes, David led trade acquisitions and business unit turnarounds. He joined Bowmark in 2006, and is a director of The JAC Group. He has a MEng with First Class Honours from Cambridge University.