Author Archives: Silicon Roundabout

Which Israeli founders does UpWest tend to identify before the broader US venture ecosystem sees them? Looking back at 15 years of investing, I see an interesting pattern in how we source and identify founders. A significant percentage come through …

What have been your biggest learnings at Jet HR, Zipjet, Flash Ventures, JP Morgan, etc and how have you applied them to your role at Italian Founders Fund and portfolio companies? Each chapter taught me something different. JP Morgan gave …

1. What have been your biggest learnings at Antler,Houghton Street Ventures, Scalable Capital and Goldman Sachs and how have you applied them to your roles at Portfolio companies? Goldman taught me markets are humbling. You’re never as clever as a …

1. You were a founder before starting investing. How did you decide to switch sides? I don’t really think of it as switching sides. I loved building companies, but I realized that the part I was most drawn to was …

For start-ups and scale-ups in the tech sector, having the right team in place is critical. Product development, market penetration and securing investment all depend on having the right people, and so businesses in this sector generally act swiftly when …

What have been your biggest learnings at Dawn Capital and HV Capital and how have you applied them to your roles at Portfolio companies such as Exein, LeanIX, Fonoa and Templafy? Where to start… The biggest two are related. Number …

Every serious business runs on financial data. It shapes pricing, investment, procurement and risk. Over the next decade, another dataset will start influencing those decisions just as directly: carbon data. For years, emissions reporting was treated as an annual compliance …

Q: What makes you lean forward in the first five minutes of a B2B SaaS pitch? Clarity of problem and founder depth. Early on, I want to feel that this person has lived the problem and that they’ve spent time …

My career has basically been about platforms. I started in the early days of the internet, building Global Media’s digital portal, then helping flesh out Orange’s web and WAP portals. Yep – I’m that old!

An introduction to Co-Founder Agreements Starting a business with co-founders is exhilarating, but it can also be a leap into the unknown. When co-founders are aligned, things run smoothly. But what happens when opinions clash, someone wants out, or life …