We're based in London and invest throughout Europe.
We take a hands-on approach to investing by helping founders
grow their startups into companies and provide our expertise on product,
marketing, and financing strategy. As a small and focused fund,
we are able to move quickly and give our portfolio companies
the time and attention they deserve.
Pietro is a successful digital media entrepreneur turned active venture capitalist. As founder of Neo Network, now Zodiak Active, the digital division of Zodiak Media Group, he has been “in the trenches” and knows what it takes to start, scale, and sell a company. Pietro has over ten years of direct operational experience as CEO and COO in key areas in digital media, including mobile entertainment and online marketing. He has been involved in the European web startup ecosystem both as an angel investor, including PlussPlugg and Picklive, and as a mentor at Seedcamp, Oxygen Accelerator and Mind The Bridge.
Bill has extensive, hands-on venture capital experience with venture capital deals and portfolio management as an investment manager at Amadeus Capital Partners, where he worked for six years. Prior to this, Bill has eight years’ direct operational skills in tech startups in a variety of operating roles including engineering, product management and marketing. Bill has an MBA from London Business School and a BS in Engineering from Harvey Mudd College.
Sitar is a venture capitalist with over seven years of experience in early-stage investments and portfolio management, having previously been an investment manager at Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures. Sitar focuses on product-led consumer internet and mobile sector, portfolio companies include SoundCloud, MegaZebra and Handmade Mobile. Prior to Doughty Hanson, Sitar was a banker focusing on technology mergers and acquisitions with Jefferies (Broadview). Sitar has a dual degree in Mechanical Engineering and Economics from Duke University.
Citymapper is building the ultimate public transport app, on smartphones and the web. Their previous app Busmapper changed how people use buses in London. Both apps have been featured as #1 apps in the UK. Citymapper is located in London.
Ondango is a social commerce platform provider. With Ondango, small and medium sized businesses can easily set up and manage online shops on Facebook through an easy to use subscription-based service. Ondanto is located in Berlin.
Secret Sales is the leading independent private shopping club in the UK. Secret Sales helps brands clear excess inventory through short online sales campaigns, which are promoted daily to a private members audience. Secret Sales is the channel partner of choice in the UK for over 650 individual brands across fashion, accessories, home wares, travel and other lifestyle categories. The Company boasts almost 2 million engaged members in the UK and is located in London.
Space Ape Games is a mobile social game company based in London, UK. It is a top team of social game developers with experience at two of the UK's leading game companies – Playfish and Mind Candy. Space Ape Games is located in London.
Teleportd makers of Nitrogram an analytics and marketing service for Instagram. Teleportd is located in Paris.
Urli.st is a way to collaboratively collect, organize, and share lists of links. Urli.st is located in Berlin.
YourGrind ensures you always drink good coffee at home. The company roasts in small batches and ships beans or coffee ground to your specification to your house on a regular basis. YourGrind is located in London.
We are 100% committed to investing in businesses in the mobile, Internet, and digital media sectors. We invest at the seed and early stages in European startups and make investments in the £200K-£1M range.
We are active business partners with the companies that we invest in. We lend a hand in product and marketing strategy development using our relevant startup operating experience. We help connect our companies to our extensive network of corporates, investors, and other entrepreneurs.
We only invest in mobile, Internet, and digital media businesses, areas where we have previous, proven expertise. We understand the key issues startups in these sectors face. By staying in our circle of competence we maximize the help we provide our portfolio companies and make the best possible investments for our investors.
We provide our portfolio companies with more than just money. When we make an investment, we're ready to roll up our sleeves and help entrepreneurs build their businesses. We have been in the trenches before and understand what it is like to try to build startup companies from the ground up.
Over the years we've built up a great network of contacts in the worlds of digital media, Internet, and publishing industries. We help our portfolio connect to larger industrial businesses in relevant sectors. It is our job to help entrepreneurs make useful, relevant connections to the right corporate and investor partners.
We only invest in mobile, Internet, and digital media businesses, areas where we have previous, proven expertise. We understand the key issues that startups in these sectors face. By staying within our circle of competence we maximize the help we provide our portolio companies and make the best possible investments for our investors.
We invest at the early stage, either seed or Series 'A'. We always ensure we allocate enough capital to follow our investments through later stages of financing as companies grow.
Our investment size ranges from £200K to £1M. We enjoy investing along with other good investors and are comfortable investing alone or in a syndicate as the situation demands. We are also careful to maintain enough cash in reserve to participate in follow-on funding rounds.
We look for product focused teams, who have found a big problem and an elegant solution to that problem. We like teams who show real grit, never give up and are willing to fail in order to eventually succeed.
We're based in London and invest throughout Europe. We expect that some of our companies will move to the US as they grow, that's fine with us too.
We have experience working in startups ourselves and lend a hand when it comes to product management and marketing strategy, our areas of expertise. We've got experience with growing startups from very early days to many millions in revenue. We've seen the problems companies have with scaling and know how to help founders think through the issues they'll confront as they grow. A few of our investors are big players in the online media world and other large industries and we can help make connections between them and the companies we invest in.
Reach out to one of us or else send an email to the address below.
We are located in Zeus House, on Provost Street, just north of Old Street Roundabout in Shoreditch.
Unit 11, Zeus House
16-30 Provost Street
London N1 7NG
E-mail: info@connectventures.co.uk
You can submit an idea or business plan to us by emailing pitches@connectventures.co.uk.
We like short slide presentations with clear a focus on your product stage and funding needs.
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