2012-01-19 12:08
Stephen Rockman is Founder of Merism Capital. Merism Capital provides seed funding for early stage social businesses: supporting entrepreneurs with equity investments of ￡50k to ￡150k for both financial and social returns. Stephen founded Merism in 2010 having discovered social enterprise’s challenges and opportunities whilst mentoring entrepreneurs for NESTA and UnLtd. In 2011 he co-founded Hub Venture Labs, based in Hub Westminster, the first incubator in Europe dedicated to investing in and creating better, more sustainable social entrepreneurs and championing innovation and impact across Europe. Previously Stephen spent twenty years in IT in various commercial roles with global software and services companies before becoming an advisor to and angel investor in start-up web and mobile companies in the UK, Europe and Israel. He is a guest lecturer in social investment at Goldsmiths College, where he also sat on the advisory group for the new MA in Social Entrepreneurship, and holds a number of non-exec roles in early stage companies and continues to mentor entrepreneurs.
Bjoern is the 26 year-old founder of the Startup Genome. One year ago he & his team set out to find a scalable way to accelerate businesses across the world. After releasing two research reports on success & failure of startups that were downloaded 25,000 times he most recently released the first software product that is best described as a virtual mentor for now more than 13,000 software businesses. The published research has been adopted by more than 50 universities globally -including Stanford and Berkeley. Harvard Business School Professor Thomas Eisenmann called the findings an important contribution. You can try the product at startupcompass.co and learn more about the research at blog.startupcompass.co. Before, Bjoern founded and led 4 for and nonprofit ventures in Germany, Bangladesh & the US. He also worked as an executive in Russia for one year for a mid sized marketing company. His personal passion or "leitmotif" is: unleashing human potential. His higher purpose is to strive to maximize the capitalization of every single individual.
Scott Sage is Associate at DFJ Esprit. Scott’s current areas of interest at DFJ Esprit include mobile, consumer and enterprise companies. DFJ Esprit is a leading cross-stage venture capital firm with just under $1 billion under management that invests in European technology companies. The DFJ Esprit partners have invested and helped build many of the most successful venture companies starting in Europe of recent years, including RadiumOne, LOVEFiLM, Apatech, Buy.at, and KVS. Previously, Scott worked in marketing, business development, finance and research roles at Smarkets, BVCA and UBS. He is currently a board observer at Taptu and Redkite and has advised and invested into other consumer internet companies in Europe. Scott is one of the co-founders of City Meets Tech where he helps start-ups find the right mentors and seed capital.
Philipp Moehring is Associate at Seedcamp, managing portfolio relations, the application and selection process, and Seedcamp’s network of mentors and partners. He works closely with all of the Seedcamp companies to achieve their goals and get in touch with the right people in the network. His investment focus is on new web technologies, mobile applications, and innovative application of technology to existing markets, both consumer and business focused. Before Seedcamp, Philipp was an Investment Manager at DuMont Venture, a German VC fund, where he scouted investment opportunities and managed investments in the consumer internet space. He also worked with many startups in operational and advising roles, focusing on consumer facing internet technology and media. He is a member of the advisory board at cloudControl.com. Philipp received his Msc in Technology Management and Entrepreneurship from HEC and EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland. He holds a BSc in International Business from Universiteit Maastricht in the Netherlands and spent time at the Warrington College of Business at University of Florida and the Instituto Tecnologico de Buenos Aires.
Bill Earner is a partner at Connect Ventures, a new venture capital fund focused on early stage Internet and digital media investments. Previously he spent six years at Amadeus Capital where he was an investment manager specializing in internet, web infrastructure, telecoms services, and consumer electronics. Among the Amadeus portfolio companies he invested in were Nomad Digital (broadband networks on trains), CBNL (mobile network backhaul infrastructure), and Plastic Logic (flexible displays for e-readers). Prior to Amadeus Bill worked as a product manager and marketing manager at LightPointe, a California based optical networking startup and as an engineer and engineering manager at Tiernan Communications a digital video startup, also in California. Bill has an MBA from London Business School and a BS in electrical engineering from Harvey Mudd College.