For our first anniversary 🎂🎉, we are joined by UK Angel Investor Simon Thorpe.
Simon talks to us about his portfolio and what he looks for in an investment. With 150-200 rounds in 60 companies and 10 successful trade exists under his belt, Simon discusses identifying investments and managing risk, advising his investments, and building relationships with his portfolio companies.
We discuss some interesting topics – does the UK sell tech companies too early? Should start-ups have revenue or not? And much more.
We share our thoughts on Cambridge as a role-model for the UK for science, tech and innovation, and the continued reputation of the University of Cambridge and its prowess in STEM. While keeping an eye firmly on the pursuit of continued innovation growth and shaping what Cambridge should look like in 10 years' time (tune in to next week’s episode with Innovate Cambridge for more on that subject with Tabitha Goldstaub and Diarmuid O'Brien ).
We pick out some of the top themes from the first year of the podcast and get Simon’s view on them:
Access to capital
Talent
Technology
Government
Entrepreneurship
In this first episode of Series 2, we also have our first FOC charity advert at the end of the podcast, so stay listening to hear from this week’s charity – Form the Future.
#FemaleEntrepreneurship #FemaleFounders discussed on the show to get the ball rolling for Gemma - Giorgia Longobardi, Emma Sinclair, Lucy Jung, Jana Voigt, Carmen Palacios-Berraquero… Drop us a message with who else (any gender identity) you think should be on our entrepreneur list.
In this week’s news, Xampla and Cambridge Gan Devices.
Finally, we have released the new version of our Cambridge Ecosystem map. You can download the wall chart here.
To listen and subscribe, search for ‘Cambridge Tech Podcast’ on your favourite podcasting platform or visit cambridgetechpodcast.com.