Michael Moritz

Michael Moritz is a partner at Sequoia Capital, which he joined in 1986. He has helped Sequoia adjust to the profound changes in global technology and was one of the co-founders of its business in China and India as well as Sequoia Global Growth, a global technology fund; Sequoia Heritage, the firm’s single pool of globally diversified, long-term assets; and Sequoia Capital Global Equities, a public market fund. Michael has represented Sequoia on the boards of a number of companies including Yahoo!, PayPal, Google, LinkedIn, and Kayak; and younger businesses such as Instacart, Klarna and Stripe. Prior to joining Sequoia, Michael co-founded Technologic Partners and was a correspondent for Time, where he was the San Francisco bureau chief. Michael graduated from Christ Church, Oxford in 1976 with a MA in History and is an Honorary Student of the College. Together with his wife, Harriet Heyman, he has made a series of major donations to educational causes. He received a knighthood from the Queen of England in 2013.

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Lydia Jett

Lydia serves as a Partner at SoftBank Vision Fund L.P. and SoftBank Group Corp. since March 2019, where she oversees some of the world’s largest technology investments. Lydia joined SoftBank four years ago, leading and managing global investments in consumer internet and e-commerce companies. Lydia serves on the boards of Tokopedia and Coupang, the largest online marketplaces in Indonesia and South Korea, as well as, Fanatics, Fair, and Klook. Before joining SoftBank, Lydia was a Vice President and Senior Associate at M/C Partners. She joined M/C Partners on October 26, 2009 and was previously a Senior Associate at the firm. She focused on investments in a variety of media, communications and technology industry segments.

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John Lindfors

John Lindfors is the Managing Partner at DST Investment Management, the investment adviser of DST Global funds. Over the last several years, DST Global has invested in companies such as Facebook, Alibaba, JD.com, Didi, AirBnB, Spotify, Xiaomi, WhatsApp, etc. and manages more than $12 billion. John joined DST in 2010 and has been based in Hong Kong since 2011. Prior to joining DST, John was the Partner in charge of the European Technology and Media Investment Banking department for Goldman Sachs. He joined Goldman Sachs in 1993 and worked in London and New York during his 17 years at the firm.

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Rytis Vitkauskas

Rytis Vitkauskas is a Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners in Europe. He’s been part of the European tech scene as either entrepreneur, venture or angel investor for over a dozen years. Rytis learned his entrepreneurial lessons early in life; at age 14, he started his first company, a white box PC assembly business. Later on, after his studies as a proud first ever Lithuanian at Harvard Business School, he joined Summit Partners to invest in the leading tech companies in Europe, backing the likes of Avast (LST:AVST) and Acturis. After a while, he left VC to start another business, a mobile ticketing software company called YPlan, which raised capital from some of the top VCs globally and ultimately was acquired by the leading lifestyle media group, Time Out Group (AIM:TMO). After a short sabbatical, he found himself back as a VC at a European fund Target Global, and now, at Lightspeed.

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Sarah Cannon

Sarah is a Partner at Index Ventures’ San Francisco office,  working with companies that are defining the future of work, including Slack and Pitch. She is most interested in productivity, analytics and automation. 

Prior to Index, Sarah was at Alphabet’s CapitalG, and before that she was a Policy Advisor on the National Economic Council at the White House during the Obama Administration. She also worked as a consultant at McKinsey & Company and spent a year in Ghana as a Fulbright Scholar. Sarah received a B.A. in Ethics, Politics and Economics from Yale College, an M.P.A/I.D. from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. Sarah is a Term Member at the Council on Foreign Relations.

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Mika Salmi

Mika Salmi is a serial entrepreneur whose work life has been primarily around discovering and nurturing talent. Mika has searched for talent in numerous industries and has discovered Grammy and Oscar winning artists (Nine Inch Nails), created the first online short video company (AtomFilms), ran the largest casual games web sites (Shockwave/AddictingGames), built one of the first sports tracking apps (MadRaces) and pioneered new business models in education (CreativeLive). Entrepreneurs are Mika’s favorite kind of talent and he enjoys helping them realize their ideas and dreams for their startups. He has done this working with Accel, Raine, and Sequoia. Mika is currently a Partner with Lakestar a top global VC based in Europe.

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Ophelia Brown

Ophelia is the Founder of Blossom Capital, an early-stage venture fund that brings a wholly differentiated approach to investing. Blossom makes a small number of high conviction investments each year, which allows the team to work closely with their companies, helping them achieve their ambitious goals. Fascinated by user behavior and design, Ophelia loves worked with founders with strong product DNA and design-oriented teams.

Ophelia is also the founder of ALT “Ambitious Ladies in Tech” – a mentor program that matches junior women in technology start-ups with senior functional leaders to provide them with valuable coaching, skills development, and networking. The network includes executives from some of the world’s leading tech companies like Amazon, Airbnb, Facebook, Google, Uber and many more

Previously Ophelia was a GP at LocalGlobe and a principal at Index Ventures where she led investments into a number of outstanding companies like Typeform and Robinhood. Blossom Capital’s portfolio includes travel startup Duffel, payments company Checkout, rental marketplace Fat Llama, brand management platform Frontify, deep learning and AI development platform Spell, and monitoring and security protection platform Sqreen.

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James Joaquin

James brings over 25 years of experience building businesses as a leader and an investor. His consumer marketing and trend-spotting expertise have helped create new categories such as online photography, web-based calendaring and the Personal Digital Assistant. While studying computer science at Brown University in the 80’s, James co-founded Clearview Software (acquired by Apple). After six years at Apple in engineering and marketing roles, James co-founded When.com, an Internet calendar and events service (acquired by AOL). After that successful acquisition, James became President and CEO of Ofoto. From its early beginnings through acquisition by Kodak in 2001, James led the growth of Ofoto into the world’s largest online photo service. He later served as President and CEO of Xoom.com (IPO March 2013).

James has been working in venture capital since 2007 and has invested in a wide range of mission-driven startups including Plum Organics (acquired by Campbell’s Soup), TenMarks Education (acquired by Amazon), and Opower (IPO April 2014).
James grew up in a Portuguese fishing community in southeastern Massachusetts.

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Jessica Schultz

Jessica is a Partner at Northzone, the leading European VC fund behind game-changing companies like Spotify, iZettle, Avito, Klarna, Trustpilot, Personio and Red Points. Since 1996, Northzone has backed over 140 companies and raised 8 funds, with over €1 billion under management. The fund has offices in Stockholm, London, New York and Oslo. Jessica‘s main focus is on e-commerce and consumer internet. Her portfolio includes Red Points, NA-KD, Matsmart, Klarna, Outfittery, Lemoncat and Fyndiq. Prior to joining Northzone, Jessica co-founded and was CMO of market-leading recipe-kit delivery service HelloFresh, spearheading the global marketing operations.

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Matus Maar

Matus is both an experienced entrepreneur and venture capital investor. Co-founder and Executive Chairman of Pirate Studios – the world’s largest chain of music rehearsal studios, fully autonomous and live streaming equipped. Involved since inception with Threads – the pioneering chat-based ecommerce platform.

As an investor he has led or closed over 50 private equity and venture capital deals. Matus enjoys early stage investing, working closely with the entrepreneurs. Matus represents (or did in past) Talis on various boards for companies such as Onfido, iwoca, Pirate Studios, Threads, Import.io, eporta, Narrativ, Price f(x), Plum Guide, and others.

Matus is passionate about world changing technology companies and spending time with entrepreneurs who are building them. Matus loves travelling and experiencing different cultures, he has lived in six countries and speaks five languages.

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Melissa Guzy

Melissa is the Co-founder and Managing Partner of Arbor Ventures. Prior to founding Arbor Ventures, Melissa was Managing Director and Head of VantagePoint Asia, a $4.5 billion venture capital firm based in Silicon Valley with offices in Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. As a thought leader in the global technology community, with experience across Asia and Silicon Valley, Melissa has been recognized as one of the Top 200 FinTech Influencers in Asia 2018.

Melissa brings with her a unique set of global experience and perspective, with deep technological and innovation prowess anchored in an extensive international network. Melissa is a regular speaker on the Venture Capital markets, Key FinTech Trends and the changing global landscape.

Melissa serves on the Board of Directors of the HKVCA and is Co-Chair of the HKVCA Venture Committee. She also serves on the Board of Innovation for the Hong Kong Securities and Commodities Commission. She is a Hopkins Fellow and participated in the
Women’s Leadership Program at Harvard University.

Melissa attended Wellesley College and received a Master’s degree in Finance from the University of Florida. She is the author of the paper “Venture Capital Returns and Public Market Performance.” She has been a speaker at Financial Times Top 50 Women in Asia, Money2020, Asian Financial Forum, RISE and a guest lecturer on the Venture Capital Industry at the University of Florida, Hong Kong University, Chinese University of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and is a Contributing Expert at CFTE, Centre for Finance, Technology and Entrepreneurship.

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Niklas Zennström

Niklas Zennström is CEO and Founding Partner at Atomico. He is an experienced technology investor and entrepreneur, having previously co-founded and managed globally successful technology companies including Skype, Kazaa and Joltid.

In 2006, Niklas founded the venture capital firm, Atomico, to help entrepreneurs, primarily from Europe, to scale their businesses globally. Atomico has partnered with and supported a growing number of highly successful technology companies, including Supercell, Klarna, Rovio, ofo and many more. It raised its fourth fund in 2016, which was the largest independent venture capital fund ever raised in Europe. In addition to overseeing Atomico’s strategy, he works closely with a number of founders of portfolio companies and sits on the boards of Rovio, Mapillary, Pipedrive, Lilium and Farmdrop. Niklas is most excited about founders that are solving major world problems using digital technology.

Prior to Atomico, Niklas co-founded Skype, which became the first truly global category winning online company to be founded outside the US. He has also co-founded and managed other globally successful technology businesses, including Kazaa and Joltid. Niklas helps support the European tech ecosystem as President of the European Tech Alliance (EUTA), a group of fast-growing tech companies that have all been built in Europe.

In 2007, he co-founded Zennström Philanthropies with his wife, Catherine. They invest strategically in two areas: human rights and the environment. Niklas focuses primarily on sustainability projects, supporting organisations that are tackling issues such as climate change and the state of the oceans. The foundation is also funding a professorship at Uppsala University to establish an academic environment focused on climate change leadership.

Niklas also founded the Race for the Baltic, a foundation for a well-managed and sustainable Baltic Sea, one of the most threatened major bodies of water in the world.

Michele Romanow

Michele Romanow is the Co-founder and President of Clearbanc: the fastest, most affordable way for founders to fund their business. Recently named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, Michele is a prolific investor who plans to invest $1 billion into 2,000 businesses this year and will continue to fund 8X more female-founded companies than traditional VC firms. As a “Dragon” on CBC’s hit show Dragons’ Den (Canada’s Shark Tank), Michele started five companies before her 33rd birthday and exited two before her 30th. She previously co-founded SnapSaves (acquired by Groupon) and was also Co-founder of Buytopia.ca, which acquired ten competitors including Shop.ca and WagJag. 

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Patrick Pichette

Patrick Pichette has 25+ years of financial and operating expertise. He has led world-class companies like Google, McKinsey, and Sprint Canada to break through the complexities of ‘hyper growth’. As CFO at Google from 2008 to 2015, he took an active part in the creation of the Alphabet structure. Patrick was actively involved in Google’s extensive corporate M&A agenda, engaging in close to 200 acquisitions, including Nest ($3B) and Motorola ($13B).

After departing Google, Patrick served as a board member of Bombardier and Twitter. In addition, he has been an independent investor, advisor and board member to a number of startups around the world, including Zoona (Sub Saharan Africa), OkHi (Kenya), Boosted Boards (Mountain View), and Arctoris (UK), among others. Patrick graduated with a Master of Arts in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Oxford in 1989 and with a BBA from UQAM in 1987.

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Paul Murphy

Paul is a Partner at Northzone, the leading European VC fund behind game-changing companies like Spotify, iZettle, Avito, Klarna, Trustpilot, Personio and RedPoints. Since 1996, Northzone has backed over 140 companies and raised 8 funds, with over €1 billion under management. Paul is focused on consumer and entertainment, as well as enterprise applications. His portfolio includes TIER, Thirty Madison, Klang, and Bunch. Prior to Northzone, Paul founded and was CEO of mobile games company Dots in NYC, and built and invested in companies at betaworks, the startup studio behind companies such as Poncho and Giphy.

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Linda Höglund

Linda is currently General Partner at growth VC firm Luminar ventures. Previously Linda was CFO at Klarna in Europe and Grab in South East Asia. Before this she was CFO at Electronic Arts Games Europe 2006-2010 and game developer Dice in Sweden 2002-2006. She has also been an entrepreneur in the mobile space and started her career in Goldman Sachs London.

Linda has a strong passion for supporting growth and driving company development, both through the finance function and working close to the business and operations overall. She has been part of several growth journeys building unicorns and knows what it takes to scale. Linda is born and raised in Stockholm Sweden.

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Bernard Liautaud

Bernard joined Balderton as a Partner in 2008. He was named Managing Partner in 2016. Bernard Liautaud founded Business Objects in 1990 and was CEO for 15 years then Chairman until January 2008. With 6,700 employees, 45,000 customers and $1.5 billion of revenue in 2007, Business Objects was the world leader in Business Intelligence and one of the 15 largest software companies in the world. Business Objects was the first European software IPO on Nasdaq in 1994. In January 2008, Business Objects was acquired by SAP for $6.8 billion, making it the third-largest software acquisition at the time. Bernard is now a member of the Supervisory Board of SAP. He also served as a member of the Board of Trustees of Stanford University from 2013 to 2018. He is now a member of the Stanford Global Advisory Council to the President.

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Harry Briggs

Harry is the Managing Partner of Omers Ventures, a €300 million fund aimed at European technology startups. Prior to Omers Ventures, Harry was a Founding Partner of BGF Ventures, an early-stage venture fund, focused on UK technology companies. Before BGF, Harry was a Principal at Balderton Capital, one of Europe’s leading venture firms, where he initiated investments such as The Hut Group, Revolut, GoCardless, Lyst, Touch Surgery, Magic Pony and Appear Here. Harry was the youngest investor to make it into the first Midas List Europe as one of Europe’s “25 best venture capitalists” in 2017.

Henry Tan

Henry is a seasoned executive with over 20 years of experience in technology, business strategy & operations, finance and investment. Henry is the Co-Founder and General Partner of Q Venture Partners, an early stage venture capital firm that invests in the most promising hardware and deep tech startups in the world. In addition to deal sourcing and investing, he focuses on helping QVP’s portfolio companies establish strategic partnership and generate revenue in Asia.

Previously, he was the Head of Corporate Development of PCD Stores Group Limited, a national high-end department store and outlet mall chain in China that he took public on the HKEX at >$1.5B in market cap; and a strategy consultant with Bain & Company Greater China practice. He acquired his B.A. in Economics from Cornell University and M.B.A. from M.I.T. Sloan School of Management.