Alexis is an Executive Director at GP Bullhound. He has broad experience across the technology industry and has led successful M&A transactions in sectors including software, IT services, telecoms, internet and digital media. Prior to joining GP Bullhound, Alexis was Director of corporate development at Experian where he was responsible for deal origination and execution for the EMEA region. He previously spent more than 10 years working in the technology sector and held international Corporate Development roles at HP Enterprise Services and EDS, where he worked on numerous acquisitions and divestments across Europe. Alexis holds a BSc Joint Hons. in International Management and Modern Languages from the University of Bath and an MBA from Imperial College Business School.

Chris is a partner in Orrick’s London office, is a member of the Technology Companies Group, which advises high growth technology companies and venture capital firms.

Chris joined Orrick in 2008 and he advises technology companies in venture capital transactions, public offerings and cross-border mergers and acquisitions.

He regularly advises high technology (particularly Internet and computer software and hardware) companies with respect to their international business operations and transactions, as well as investment banks, venture capital firms and other financial intermediaries that serve technology companies.

Deep is a Partner and Co-President of Francisco Partners, and is based in the firm’s London office where he jointly leads European investment activities as well as managing the investment team operations globally. Prior to joining Francisco Partners in 2003, Deep held a range of roles at Morgan Stanley within both their Investment Banking and Private Equity groups. Deep currently serves on the board of directors of BluJay Solutions, ByBox, EG Software and MetaSwitch Networks. He previously served on the board of Attenti, Click Software, C-MAC MicroTechnology, eFront, Ex Libris, Lumata, Masternaut, NexTraq, Operative, Prometheus Group and Smartfocus while being involved in a number of the firms other investments.

Edwin is partner at Endeit Capital, a venture capital firm with offices in Amsterdam and Hamburg. Late investments include 3D Hubs (Amsterdam), Chronext (Zurich) and Tourradar (Vienna). Prior to joining Endeit, Edwin was at Cyrte Investments, a family office of John de Mol, co-founder of Endemol. Edwin’s background is in New Media, Private Equity and M&A. He studied aviation economics and holds a Masters Degree in Financial Economics and Business Administration but showed real perspiration by running the Athens marathon, 2500 years after Greek soldier Pheidippides was sent for a message. Edwin is director of the LOEY foundation, a Dutch initiative to stimulate Entrepreneurship.

George Coelho is Co-Founder of Astanor Ventures, an investment manager specialized in FoodTech venture finance. Previously he was Chairman of Octo Telematics, Ltd. Coelho also co-founded the European arm of Benchmark Capital, now known as Balderton Capital, a leading venture capital firm. Before Benchmark, he was a founder of Intel Capital, the strategic venture capital arm of Intel Corporation.

Coelho has wide investment experience ranging from early-stage start-ups to public companies and has been involved in more than 100 investments worldwide. Sample transactions where he has been an early investor include: Broadcom and Citrix (US), PCCW (China), Trend Micro (Japan) and Betfair, LoveFilm and ZOPA (UK). Coelho has successfully brought companies to flotation on stock exchanges throughout the world, which today represent over $100 Billion in market capitalization.

Coelho holds a B.S. from The American University and an MBA from The George Washington University. He has been a Trustee of The George Washington University (2008-2016) and remains on the Council of the School of Business and The Corcoran School of the Arts & Design. He is on the Board of Human Rights Watch and The American Air Museum in Britain. He is also a lifetime Fellow of the RSA. In 2011 he was awarded the Polish State medal, Pro Memoria.

Jean is a General Partner and President at Ventech, and has been investing in the Mobile and Infrastructure sectors since 2000, as well as online marketplaces. He brings to the team his expertise in this area as well as knowledge of these industries’ business models and key actors.

Jean currently serves as a board member for ReachFive, Crocus Technology, Intercloud, Misterb&b and Ogury. He was instrumental in many of Ventech’s investments, including Altitude Télécoms (ILD), Arteris (QCOM), Ateme (ATEME), Ekinops (EKI), Musiwave (MSFT), Muzicall (RNWK), Wengo (VIV) and Withings (NOK).

John is a General Partner in London and a founding member of TCV’s European investment efforts. He focuses on investments in software, internet, and FinTech companies. John’s current investments include Believe, FlixMobility, NewVoiceMedia, Perfecto, RELEX Solutions, Revolut, Sportradar, SuperVista AG, TourRadar, The Pracuj Group, and WorldRemit. John left his native Ireland more than 20 years ago and has lived and worked in the U.S., Asia and now Europe. Prior to joining the investment world, John competed on the men’s ATP Tennis Tour and was a member of the Irish Davis Cup team from 1996 to 2004. He is a sports fanatic and has competed in tennis, rugby, football, squash, and Gaelic football. These days, John mostly plays on the playground with his young family and enjoys watching the occasional Manchester United match. He received his M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School and graduated with a B.A. in Economics (with honors) from Harvard College.

Karen is Chief Investment Officer at Beringea, responsible for making new investments and working with portfolio companies through to exit. Her investments include Watchfinder, Thread, Fnatic, Monica Vinader, and MatsSoft amongst others. Karen was previously with the Boston Consulting Group and ran the Watch division of Swiss Army. She holds an MBA from INSEAD and a BSBA from Boston University.

Kerstin is Managing Partner of Brightly Ventures, a Stockholm-based seed investor focused on Nordic technology companies. Before launching Brightly, she co-founded and led the Nordic early stage investment firm MOOR, where she oversaw all the firm’s investments, and served as a board member at Acast, Attach, Buildsafe, FirstVet, Mitigram and Universal Avenue. Prior to her VC career, Kerstin worked on SEB investment teams in Sweden and the U.S., investing in start-up hedge funds and developing and selling alternative investment products for institutional clients. With 20 years of experience in the financial and IT industries, she started her career at Silicon Valley based Echelon, which was listed at Nasdaq in 1998. In the late 1990's, Kerstin co-founded global integrated communications agency Cognito and spent eight years in leading positions at financial software company, Trema, in diverse positions ranging from M&A transactions to heading the company’s US operations. Kerstin holds a Masters from Umeå School of Business and Economics.

Manish Madhvani is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of GP Bullhound. Manish has executed M&A and capital raising transactions since 1997, involving some of the best known global internet, software and media companies, including: Spotify, King.com, Believe Digital, WPP, Wipro, Fjord, Hearst Corporation, Accenture, Newscorp and Experian. Manish who was selected as one of the top 40 dealmakers globally by M&A Advisor, started his career at Barclays Capital’s Private Equity team. He has advised the Treasury on Entrepreneurship and graduated from Southampton University with an LLB in Law / MA in Marketing. Manish is a regular speaker on Bloomberg and CNBC and is currently an Ambassador for London Technology Week. He was recognised as one of the leading Entrepreneurs in the UK by the Sunday Times / Maserati 100.

Richard is the Head of Wealth and Asset Management UK having joined Berenberg in June 2011 from Schroders Private Banking.

He is the Founder of Impact Ventures UK, a social enterprise investment fund, Chairman of the Arts and Culture Impact Fund and Co-Founder of Re-Generate Trust. He is a Director of the Montpelier Foundation and the Guy Foundation Family Trust and sits on the advisory boards of the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Big Society Capital.

He holds a BSc in Mathematics from Sussex University and is Chartered Accountant (ACA) and PCIAM (Distinction) qualified. He was awarded Impact Investor of the Year at the 2020 Digital Agenda Awards.

Rory is a Partner at Connect Ventures, a thesis-led venture capital firm based in London and investing across Europe. Connect leads seed investments in purpose-led founders, obsessed with solving hard problems at scale, by creating products and companies that people love. Rory is passionate about technology, entrepreneurship and leadership development, and has spent the majority of his career working in start-ups and venture capital. Prior to Connect he was a partner at MMC Ventures and a co-founding partner at BGF Ventures. He’s invested at seed, series A and series B stage, in both B2B and consumer software companies. He now spends most of his learning and investing in fintech.

Zoé is a Managing Director at Eurazeo Growth; she is based in Berlin and heads the firm’s growth equity investments with a focus on the DACH region. Before joining Eurazeo Growth, Zoé invested globally in technology-driven companies at pre-IPO stage. Prior to that, Zoé was a Senior Investment Manager at Axel Springer, Europe's largest digital publishing house, where she led several growth investments in a joint venture with General Atlantic, focusing on marketplaces, as well as in adtech and traveltech, including Yad2 and @Leisure. Zoé started her career at Blackstone, first out of Paris and then based in New York City, advising on M&A, restructuring and IPOs with a focus on Energy and Consumer. She is currently serving on the boards of Adjust and Sophia Genetics. Zoé graduated with a MSc in International Management from ESCP Europe and a degree in Economics from Freie Universität Berlin.

Alastair Peet is a corporate partner leading the 2019 Legal 500 Awards winning Venture and Growth Capital team at Shoosmiths. He advises founders and companies as well as institutions such as Octopus Ventures, Oxford Capital, Triple Point, Amber Digital, Pentech and Gresham House.

He has led more than 50 VC deals in the past twelve months, many involving EIS/VCT investment, from seed deals, series A, B, C, and on through to exit. He recently advised Octopus Ventures on the acquisition of Graze.com by Unilever. In Chambers UK, clients describe Alastair as “extremely commercial, intelligent and experienced” and praise his ability to constructively foster collaboration and compromise.

Alexis is an Executive Director at GP Bullhound. He has broad experience across the technology industry and has led successful M&A transactions in sectors including software, IT services, telecoms, internet and digital media.

Prior to joining GP Bullhound, Alexis was Director of corporate development at Experian where he was responsible for deal origination and execution for the EMEA region. He previously spent more than 10 years working in the technology sector and held international Corporate Development roles at HP Enterprise Services and EDS, where he worked on numerous acquisitions and divestments across Europe.

Alexis holds a BSc Joint Hons. in International Management and Modern Languages from the University of Bath and an MBA from Imperial College Business School.

Chris Grew heads up the London technology practice at Orrick, a leading US law firm. Orrick has one of the foremost practices for emerging growth technology companies in the US, Europe and Asia.

Chris is recognised for his expertise in advising technology and emerging growth companies in venture capital transactions, IPOs and cross-border M&A and is one of the foremost authorities on European venture capital transactions having completed more than 50 venture investments in the last year alone.

Edwin is partner at Endeit Capital, a venture capital firm with offices in Amsterdam and Hamburg. Late investments include 3D Hubs (Amsterdam), Chronext (Zurich) and Tourradar (Vienna). Prior to joining Endeit, Edwin was at Cyrte Investments, a family office of John de Mol, co-founder of Endemol. Edwin’s background is in New Media, Private Equity and M&A.

He studied aviation economics and holds a Masters Degree in Financial Economics and Business Administration but showed real perspiration by running the Athens marathon, 2500 years after Greek soldier Pheidippides was sent for a message. Edwin is director of the LOEY foundation, a Dutch initiative to stimulate Entrepreneurship.

George Coelho is Co-Founder of Astanor Ventures, an investment manager specialized in FoodTech venture finance. Previously he was Chairman of Octo Telematics, Ltd. Coelho also co-founded the European arm of Benchmark Capital, now known as Balderton Capital, a leading venture capital firm. Before Benchmark, he was a founder of Intel Capital, the strategic venture capital arm of Intel Corporation. 

Coelho has wide investment experience ranging from early-stage start-ups to public companies and has been involved in more than 100 investments worldwide. Sample transactions where he has been an early investor include: Broadcom and Citrix (US), PCCW (China), Trend Micro (Japan) and Betfair, LoveFilm and ZOPA (UK). Coelho has successfully brought companies to flotation on stock exchanges throughout the world, which today represent over $100 Billion in market capitalization.

James is a co-Founder and Managing Partner of Calibre One and manages the firm’s activities in the EMEA region, based in London. With over 20 years of experience, his major focus has been on recruiting at Board and C-level for businesses headquartered in Europe. He works closely with the private equity community and is a trusted advisor to a number of funds.

He has also managed a vast number of leadership assignments for US companies across the EMEA region. Outside of work he is an active angel investor in tech companies, a parent to twin boys and an avid sports enthusiast (anything, but especially golf and rugby).

Jean is a General Partner and President at Ventech, and has been investing in the Mobile and Infrastructure sectors since 2000, as well as online marketplaces. He brings to the team his expertise in this area as well as knowledge of these industries’ business models and key actors.

Jean currently serves as a board member for ReachFive, Crocus Technology, Intercloud, Misterb&b and Ogury. He was instrumental in many of Ventech’s investments, including Altitude Télécoms (ILD), Arteris (QCOM), Ateme (ATEME), Ekinops (EKI), Musiwave (MSFT), Muzicall (RNWK), Wengo (VIV) and Withings (NOK).

Jessica 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. 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. 

John is a General Partner at TCV in London having helped set up TCV’s European investment efforts back in 2012. He focuses on investments in the software, internet and fintech sectors and his current investments include: Believe Digital, Brillen.de, Grupa Pracuj, RELEX Solutions, Sportradar, Tourradar and WorldRemit. 

Previous investments include NewVoiceMedia and Perfecto Mobile. Before TCV, John received his M.B.A from the Harvard Business School and graduated with a B.A. in Economics (with honors) from Harvard College. He then went on to compete in the men’s ATP Tennis Tour where he was a member of the Irish Davis cup team between 1996 and 2004.

He is still a sport fanatic and has competed in tennis, rugby, football, squash and Gaelic football, but these days, he mostly just plays with his three children and enjoys watching the occasional Manchester United match. John started his career in investment banking at Morgan Stanley in London and New York. He worked at Summit Partners before joining TCV in 2012.

Kerstin Cooley is Managing Partner of Brightly Ventures, a Stockholm-based seed investor focused on Nordic technology companies. Before launching Brightly, she co-founded and led the Nordic early stage investment firm MOOR, where she oversaw all the firm’s investments, and served as a board member at Acast, Attach, Buildsafe, FirstVet, Mitigram and Universal Avenue.

Prior to her VC career, Kerstin worked on SEB investment teams in Sweden and the U.S., investing in start-up hedge funds and developing and selling alternative investment products for institutional clients.

With 20 years of experience in the financial and IT industries, she started her career at Silicon Valley based Echelon, which was listed at Nasdaq in 1998. In the late 1990’s, Kerstin co-founded global integrated communications agency Cognito and spent eight years in leading positions at financial software company, Trema, in diverse positions ranging from M&A transactions to heading the company’s US operations. Kerstin holds a Masters from Umeå School of Business and Economics.

Karen is Chief Investment Officer at Beringea, responsible for making new investments and working with portfolio companies through to exit. Her investments include Watchfinder, Thread, Blis, Monica Vinader, and MatsSoft amongst others.

Karen was previously with the Boston Consulting Group and ran the Watch division of Swiss Army/Wenger. She also has experience with start-ups as both a founder and advisor. Karen has lived and worked in the US, Europe, and Asia, and has an MBA from INSEAD and a BSBA from Boston University.

Lucian Schönefelder (London) is a Director at KKR. He is heading up KKR’s growth equity and internet & digital media private equity activities in Europe/Israel. Since joining KKR in 2007, Lucian has played leadership roles in KKR’s investments in Trainline, Scout24, Fotolia, BMG Rights Management, Darktrace, GetYourGuide, Optimal+, Clicktale, Arago, ProSiebenSat.1 and Duales System Deutschland. He is currently serving on the boards of Trainline, Arago, Clicktale, GetYourGuide and Optimal+.

Lucian is also the Founder of KarmaWings, a non-profit online platform, and PeStudents, an initiative that helps top students from all around the world to connect with the private equity industry. Lucian holds a MSc in Economics as well as a PhD (summa cum laude) from the University of St. Gallen (Switzerland) and UT Austin.

Manish Madhvani is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of GP Bullhound. Manish has executed M&A and capital raising transactions since 1997, involving some of the best known global internet, software and media companies, including: Spotify, King.com, The Telegraph, WPP, Concentrix, Fjord, eCommera, Handbag, Hearst Corporation, Accenture, Newscorp and Experian. Manish who was selected as one of the top 40 dealmakers globally by M&A Advisor, started his career at Barclays Capital’s Private Equity team.

He has advised the Treasury on Entrepreneurship and graduated from Southampton University with an LLB in Law / MA in Marketing. Manish is currently Chairman of the Investor Allstars and Media Momentum judging panels and is a regular speaker / panellist at conferences including Digital Hollywood, The Global E-commerce Summit, TiE, Internet World, Red Herring, BVCA and EVCA.

Matt Weigand focuses on enterprise software, consumer internet and security businesses.

Matt works closely with Accel’s investments in Cornershop, G2Crowd, MessageBird, Xero and GoFundMe. Prior to joining Accel, Matt worked with William Blair’s technology investment banking group.

Matt is from Cleveland, Ohio and graduated from Miami University.

Nicolas Perard is a Senior Investment Manager in the ICT Venture Capital fund of funds team of the European Investment Fund. Since he joined EIF in 2015, Nicolas has invested in a number of Venture funds across Europe totalling more than EUR 700M of commitments.

The European Investment Fund (EIF) is the largest investor in European Venture Capital with close EUR 10Bn committed in more than 350 funds since late 90s.

He currently sits on the boards of Brandwatch, EcoVadis, NA-KD, Evaneos and UrbanSportsClub.

Before joining Partech, Omri had senior executive positions at worldwide retail leader Casino Group: he joined the executive committee in 2010 as EVP Corporate Planning and Strategy and in 2012, he was promoted to Deputy CEO at Cdiscount.com, the #3 eCommerce player in Europe and #1 in France. Omri also worked for Dassault Systemes, where he led Corporate development department for the worldwide leader in Product Lifecycle Management software from 2007 to 2010.

He started his career, from 2002 to 2007, as a high-level civil servant at the Ministry of Economy, where he implemented government programs for start-ups and SMEs.

Omri holds a Master’s Degree in Sciences from the Ecole Polytechnique summa cum laude and is an alumnus of the post graduate Corps des Mines program.

Rainer Maerkle , General Partner, HV Ventures

Rainer has been a member of the Holtzbrinck Ventures team since 2008. He was responsible for the firms investments in Zalando (IPO 2014), Quandoo (sold to Recruit in 2015), Stylight (sold to Pro7 in 2016), HelloFresh (IPO 2017), Home24 (IPO 2018) and brands4friends (sold to eBay in 2010) and led investments in Scalable Capital, Outfittery, and many others.

Before coming to Holtzbrinck Ventures, Rainer played an entrepreneurial role as Head of Business Development at 123people.com. The business was sold successfully to Pages Jaunes in 2010. Prior to that, Rainer worked for five years in the venture capital field at 3i and Siemens Acceleration, where he was involved in investments in the e-commerce sector. Rainer started his career at Siemens in 2000.

Rainer studied Electrical Engineering at the Technical University of Munich and received his MBA at INSEAD, graduating both with honors.

Richard Brass is the head of Wealth and Asset Management UK at Berenberg. He joined Berenberg from Schroders Private Banking, having started his career in corporate finance after qualifying as a chartered accountant at KPMG. 

He is the founder of Impact Ventures UK, a collaborative social impact fund focused on the UK. He is the chairman of the Arts Impact Fund Investment Committee, a board director of the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the Montpelier Foundation and a member of the Institute for Family Business Advisory Council.

Rory is a Partner at Connect Ventures, a pan-European seed stage investment firm. Rory is passionate about technology, entrepreneurship and leadership development, and has spent the majority of his career working in start-ups and venture capital.

Prior to Connect he was a partner at MMC Ventures and a co-founding partner at BGF Ventures. He’s invested across seed, series A and series B, whilst focusing on marketplaces and B2B SaaS companies.

Sophie Dingreville has more than 25 years’ experience in high tech of which 16 years in the Venture Capital Industry.

Mrs. Dingreville serves as Investment Director at Munich Re/HSB Ventures. She leads the European VC activities of Munich Re Group investing in the insurance sector. Previously, Mrs. Dingreville was a Partner at Iris Capital Management for 14 years and served as a member of the Investment Committee of Capnamic in Germany. She was previously on the boards of Let It Wave (acquired by Zoran Corp), OpenTrust (acquired by Keynectis), iAdvize and Agorize.

Prior to joining Iris, Sophie Dingreville had served as a consultant at McKinsey & Company. Previously she was a Project Manager at satellite digital TV platform TPS (acquired by Canal+ Group). Mrs. Sophie Dingreville started her career as an academic in Digital Image Processing working at the CISRO in Australia and at Universidad Politecnica de Madrid in Spain.

-Received the Award for Best Woman in Venture Capital from “Women In Private Equity Awards” in November 2015.

-Selected as a “Rising Star” at the Global Corporate Venturing Awards in January 2018.