From a bucket of ice to a world leading life sciences innovator

Jonathan Milner was working as a postdoc in a Cambridge oncology lab when he was struck by an 'entrepreneurial seizure'. Inspired by his father, an engineer who ran a small company, he set up a venture to manufacture antibodies for biology research. Having come close to bankruptcy, Abcam is now worth £2.3 billion and renowned for its positive company culture. In this podcast, the first of two podcasts featuring Jonathan Milner, he takes us through this journey, and explains how lessons learned - as well as a single bucket of ice - turned a failing company into a world leader.

A telecommunications success story, and a chance for Manchester

Neil McArthur sold potatoes door-to-door as a child in Salford. Then, with his engineering background and his own capital, he set up the business that would later become TalkTalk. In this episode of The Invested Investor, Neil revisits the deals, false starts, and market choices that led to his success in the telecommunications field. He still works for TalkTalk, but spends most of his time working to improve his home city's entrepreneurial ecosystem. In the second half of the podcast he explains how much Manchester has going on beneath the surface in technology and enterprise, and how the narrative needs to catch up to reality.

The secret art of early-stage investment

David Gill's meandering investment journey has taken him from law, to corporate finance, to running fund operations at HSBC, to managing the highly successful tech incubator St John’s Innovation Centre, in Cambridge. Along the way he learnt some important lessons about early-stage startups. In this podcast David shares these lessons: the hard decisions early-stage entrepreneurs have to make; about his three rules for smart investment; judging an entrepreneurship ecosystem; and when investors should trust their instincts.

Women in investment, investing without a background in finance, and the importance of due diligence

Bridget Connell went into investing four years ago without any financial background, and has completed five deals since. In this episode she explains her hands-on style of investing. She has previously worked in technology, so supports tech startups, and she mentors female investors and entrepreneurs through the syndicate Angel Academe. Bridget is a strong believer in doing your due diligence when working on a project; she stays close to each company she works with, and supports them by drawing other investors close as well. She talks here about her desire to see more diversity in the investment world.

Start-up Spotlight with Gonçalo de Vasconcelos

Gonçalo de Vasconcelos is the CEO and co-founder of multi-award winning online investment platform SyndicateRoom and who was considered one of the Top 10 most influential people in tech in the UK at the Tyto Tech 500 Power List, as well as one of the Top 40 most influential people in FinTech in Europe.

Gonçalo pioneered the investor-led™ model in the UK, opening up access to exclusive deals that professionals are investing in.

His leadership of SyndicateRoom is driven by his vision for fair and transparent access to investments by all investors – big and small, institutional and private investors.

Pivoting to success

William Makant and Yusuf Muhammad founded Plumis in 2008 to develop Automist, an innovative sprinkler system. A decade later Plumis has a £2 million turnover and Automist is installed in 5,000 homes - but everything about it is different, from the product itself to the people involved. The secret to their success? Being able to pivot, to change strategy by learning about a market's key drivers. In this podcast William and Yusuf describe their journey, and the how and the why of their dramatic course change. They outline the pros and cons of working with Angel Investors, and describe how raising more money at the start might have made the company less successful.

Collaboration, failure, and the universe of numbers

David Gammon a rare thing - an investor in technology with no technological background. Through his work as an Invested Investor and as CEO of Rockspring, he has supported entrepreneurs through some extraordinary successes. In this podcast, David describes his unconventional career path and how he sees the world. He talks about how crucial collaboration is for investors, and how he works with his family to make investment decisions. He has had his share of failures as well, and here explains how dealing with failure can make you a better entrepreneur.

Daring, entrepreneurial, transparency advocate, and leading investor news

Modwenna Rees-Mogg is a world leading investor news provider. In this podcast, she openly portrays her diverse entrepreneurial journey, starting from the idea of delivering food from supermarkets in vans at the age of fifteen to Angel News, an online investor news platform. Unfortunately she wasn't able to gain 'funding' for her delivery idea, but she has successfully made Angel News into a world leading investor news provider. Modwenna is a prominent supporter of transparency and accountability in the early stage investment ecosystem.

Start-up Spotlight with Meganne Houghton-Berry

Meganne Houghton-Berry, the current UK Business Angel Association Angel of the Year, discloses her experience and her reasons for becoming an angel investor. Meganne is an active angel investor, board director and start-up mentor and has over 25 years’ experience in tech and consumer marketing and now invests across a wide range of industry sectors.

increasing the success of early stage start-ups by sharing entrepreneurial and investment war stories

Privacy TERMS AND CONDITIONS