OCTOPUS - Key Persons
Adam joined Octopus Ventures in 2015 and focuses on making investments into B2B software companies solving problems for a broad range of sectors.
He previously worked in our investor fundraising team, helping raise capital for our investment products from a range of investor groups.
In 2018, he made the transition to early stage investor, initially working across a broad investment spectrum, before specialising in B2B SaaS from 2019.
Before Octopus, Adam worked as an associate at private bank Coutts & Co and software company Bureau Van Dijk (acquired by Moody's Analytics) within B2B enterprise sales.
Adam has a BA in accounting and finance from Curtin University in Australia and is a CFA Charterholder.
Adam has always had a passion for amazing food and spending time with family and friends. He also loves to travel, playing and watching sports, and, as our resident Aussie, is absolutely obsessed with coffee.
Adam's top 10 tips for Australian and New Zealand founders looking to grow in the UK
Chloe is part of our B2B Software team and focuses on deal origination for companies at the scale-up stage of their growth.
She joined Octopus Ventures in 2021 after seven years fundraising for Octopus Investments, part of Octopus Group.
She holds an LLB law degree from the University of Manchester.
Away from work, Chloe loves skiing in the mountains or spending time by the sea. She's also learning Spanish and loves cooking for friends and family.
Conor works in our B2B Software team, focusing on deal origination, execution and due diligence, as well as portfolio company development.
Before joining Octopus Ventures in 2020, he worked as a principal at scale-up stage technology investor Frog Capital.
At Frog Capital, he led UK deal origination and worked with companies like money transfer business Azimo, health and safety software provider SHE Software (now Evotix) and vehicle-sharing platform Vulog.
He also spent four years at financial adviser Arma Partners, where he worked on several high-profile European technology transactions, including the sales of flights comparison site Momondo, traveltech business CarTrawler and 3D inspection software provider Metrologic.
Conor graduated from the University of York with a degree in economics.
Outside of work, he's a big sports fan, and loves snowboarding and trying to watch football and rugby in as many countries as possible.
Constanza joined Octopus Ventures in 2021 to focus on B2B software.
She previously worked as a strategy manager at Vertiv, a global technology provider for data centres.
In 2020, she was selected as one of the fellows at Included VC, a fellowship that aims to increase diversity in venture capital.
This followed stints as an MBA associate in investment banking at Lazard in Chile and at Arma Partners in London. She also gained experience at mid-market private equity firm LDC.
She previously worked as a management consultant in Latin America and the Netherlands.
She has an MBA from London Business School and is an industrial engineer by background.
Constanza enjoys travelling, food, photography, painting and improving her golf swing.
Dany joined Octopus Ventures in 2021 to lead fundraising and investment in secondaries investment opportunities being created by increasing activity in startups across Europe.
Dany joined the team having previously held the role of Vice President at a London-based family office where he was investing primarily in venture and growth opportunities. Prior to that Dany was with the Consumer, Retail and Healthcare M&A team at Goldman Sachs. He started his career as a corporate lawyer at Allen & Overy, with stints at Lloyds Banking Group and Liberty Global plc.
Dany holds a BSc in Economics from University College London and an MBA from London Business School. Outside of work Dany is an avid skier, aspiring golfer and enjoys running.
She has previously managed eight early stage funds focused on supporting the best of Deep Tech from UK universities, investing from proof of concept through to series B.
They include seed funds she launched at Imperial College London in 2021 and vehicles managed by the University of Oxford and the government-backed Development Bank of Wales.
In total, Zoe has made over 60 deep tech investments in a broad spectrum of sub-sectors, from biotech to cleantech and advanced engineering.
Edward joined Octopus Ventures in 2008 and has invested across several sectors. Today, he focuses on B2B software, overseeing deal origination, execution and portfolio management, and sitting on the investment committee.
Edward started his career at Rolls-Royce in Bristol. But it didn't take long to work out big companies weren't for him, so he joined a startup called KorteQ.
Flavia joined the Deep Tech team in 2022 from the Ventures team at Plug and Play Tech Center, where she supported large corporations in scouting early stage startups and technologies, ranging from robotics through to machine learning.
Before entering VC, Flavia built up her expertise in process optimisation and compliance regulation for the banking, insurance and FMCG industries in roles at consulting and legal firms.
An avid climber and backpacker, Flavia has spent quite some time travelling through Chilean Patagonia, the Himalayas and exploring her native Alps. When she's not in the office, she can be found scaling the bouldering walls at the local climbing gym.
Fred is a B2B software specialist, with a particular interest in enterprise software.
He joined Octopus Ventures in 2020 after three years in corporate development at HUBX, a London-based fintech company focused on the digitisation and distribution of private transactions.
He previously spent two years working in TMT and asset management in the UK investment banking business at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
Fred graduated from the University of Oxford with a degree in classics.
Outside of work, he loves basketball, football and cycling. You're more than likely to find him at Chelsea FC's home ground - Stamford Bridge - every other weekend.
Bio
Hugo joined Octopus Ventures in 2022, excited to put his expertise to work seeking out the biotech and life-sciences opportunities poised to revolutionise global healthcare.
During his PhD, which focused on structural and synthetic biology, Hugo got his first experience of early stage businesses, working with accelerators, startups and entrepreneurs to turn world-changing science into pioneering business propositions.
He joined the Octopus Ventures team from Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst, a leading incubator in the cell and gene sector, where he spent two years helping businesses innovate and grow at scale.
Outside work, Hugo enjoys watching obscure B-movies and reading sci-fi novels.
"I think the pandemic highlighted how important the biotech sector is. It's really exciting to be in a place where we can deliver value and expertise for cutting-edge companies to grow."
Jebran is part of the B2B Software team, with a focus on companies that have commercialised their product and are in the scale-up phase of their growth journey.
Jebran joined Octopus Ventures in 2020. Prior to venture capital, Jebran spent four years at KPMG in the TMT M&A team, advising on mid-cap deals, with a focus on software and SaaS.
Jebran is a qualified ACA and holds a first-class BSc in economics from the University of Manchester.
Outside of work, he enjoys playing tennis, squash, football, cricket and skiing.
Jess joined us in 2021 and invests in health tech, with particular interests in longevity science, diagnostic innovation and prevention.
She previously set up and led the health tech investment team at Legal & General, where she invested balance sheet capital in early stage health tech businesses. She also supported the scale-up of the portfolio through commercial partnerships in-house and between investee companies.
Earlier in her career, Jess helped manage a £9bn portfolio invested in a range of alternative asset classes, including renewable energy, real estate and venture capital fund of funds.
She began her career as a banker focused on energy and infrastructure at Royal Bank of Scotland.
Jo joined us in 2009 and sits on our B2B Software team and the ventures investment committee.
He was previously an investor and entrepreneur in a range of businesses, including stints as an equity analyst at banks NatWest, Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers, focusing on mobile operators such as Vodafone.
Jo is a chartered accountant and read natural sciences at Durham University.
Away from work, Jo tries to lower his golf handicap and keep fit through a variety of sports in beautiful Dorset, where he lives with his family.
Job Titles:
- Investor
- B2B Software / Climate
Jorn joined Octopus Ventures in 2022 as part of the B2B Software team - on the lookout to support companies as they strive to improve operations, values and culture to the benefit of all stakeholders, not just shareholders.
Ahead of joining Octopus Ventures, Jorn worked as Chief of Staff for strategy and development at IBM, across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. With a background in Data Science at organisations ranging from startup to big tech-scale (including a stint at Amazon), he bolstered his business credentials with an MBA at INSEAD, and now he's excited to bring his data-oriented experience to the world of VC.
A globe-hopper, Jorn has lived in eight countries, and enjoys endurance sports - he's completed an Ironman 70.3 (which, as a quick Google search will reveal to the uninitiated, is no mean feat). When he's not testing his mettle, you can find him pursuing his love of nature and birdwatching on hikes, or sharpening his strategy over the chessboard.
Luisa joined us in 2021 and sits on the B2B Software team.
She previously worked in corporate finance at US investment bank Stifel, where she advised European tech companies on M&A and capital raises.
Luisa holds a BSc in economics from SOAS University of London, specialising in economic development of the Middle East. She also holds an MSc in economics and management from the London School of Economics.
Outside of work, she enjoys travelling - especially with a backpack - and learning languages. She is Italian, speaks fluent French and Spanish, and is learning Portuguese, as well as - less successfully - German.
Mario joined the Octopus Ventures B2B Software team in 2023, excited to build long lasting relationships with founders behind businesses past the commercialisation stage, and ready to scale up.
He brings extensive experience to the role, with career highlights including a stint as Latin America investment manager at the venture capital fund of Axon Partners Group, and time as COO of financial consultancy firm, Equity Advisors.
With an MBA from the University of Oxford, a Masters in Corporate Finance, and Bachelor's degrees in Industrial Engineering and Economics from his native Colombia, Mario's professional strengths are built on solid academic foundations.
Outside the office, you'll most likely find Mario indulging his love of sports on the tennis court or football pitch. He's also passionate about cooking, travelling and reading.
Mat joined the Octopus Ventures Deep Tech team in 2022, off the back of 14 years of experience founding and leading teams in Venture-backed businesses, ranging from garage operations through to international scale-ups. As a bona fide geek who reads science journals for fun, Mat is looking to back the visionary founders creating solutions to tomorrow's problems, today.
His relationship with Octopus Ventures started on the other side of the investor table during his time as CPO at Octopus Ventures' portfolio company, Conversocial, ahead of their successful exit in 2021.
Outside of the office, Mat spends most of his time running around after his young daughter. During her daily naps, he still finds time to read, write and climb, however. Just not as much as he used to.
"After 14 years of founding and working in VC-backed startups I'm very excited to ‘cross the table' and help the UK's leading Deep Tech investors find, fund and support the founders building our future, today."
Matt focuses on all things consumer, with a particular focus on consumer tech investing, covering marketplaces, social, and more. With a background in the arts and graphic design he naturally gravitates towards brand and marketing.
He worked in a hybrid consulting and investing role at True, a retail and consumer sector specialist investor and innovation consultant, before joining Octopus Ventures in 2021. At True, he targeted early stage investments in consumer tech and B2B software, and advised multi-national retailers on digital strategy.
Matt's also a former founder. He previously launched Mojo, a consumer SaaS platform for the beauty and wellness industry, with Octopus Ventures' Nicholas Sando.
Millen joined Ventures in 2020 to focus on investment opportunities in the consumer space. She is particularly interested in the transformative power of consumer companies on society at large.
Prior to Octopus, Millen bootstrapped a retailer offering gifts for expecting mothers and new parents for several years. Before this she covered large corporates and regional governments across Europe on derivative solutions for Citibank. Millen is German with East African origins and speaks six languages. She holds a BSc and MSc in Management from the London School of Economics, an MSc in Management from CEMS, the Global Alliance in Management Education and attended HEC Paris.
Outside of investing, Millen loves meeting new people and hearing their life stories, listening to podcasts, exploring new places at home and abroad, and learning new skills, most recently, pasta and bread-making.
Job Titles:
- Investor
- B2B Software
- Member of the Octopus Ventures Investment Team
Olamide joined the Octopus Ventures B2B Software team in 2022, excited to support founders with a proven commitment to improving access to opportunities - and reducing information asymmetry.
As a member of the Octopus Ventures investment team, Olamide brings experience from Start-ups, Consulting, and Venture Capital. After completing her degree in Economics and Politics, at the University of Manchester, she became a founding member of a media start-up, focussed on empowering the forgotten and delivering stories from across the political spectrum.
She learned more about the European start-up ecosystem as a Strategy Consultant at KPMG, which inspired her to immerse herself in the world of Venture Capital. From there, she moved to the Bayes Entrepreneurship Fund, where her role as an Investor gave her hands-on experience with early-stage B2B software companies.
Outside the office, Olamide has a soft spot for musical theatre, sci-fi, and art. At her most relaxed you'll find her painting, watching Doctor Who, or reciting West End shows back-to-front.
Bio
Oliver sits in the Octopus Ventures bio team, where he's excited to work with entrepreneurs changing people's lives in healthcare and beyond.
He joins Octopus Ventures from a role in the family office of Jonathan Milner (Founder CEO of Abcam) one of the UK's most successful biotech entrepreneurs, where he supported and backed early-stage companies working in the bioscience space.
Oliver's professional experience is underpinned by a background in biomedical science and biochemistry, coupled with commercial execution of complex biotechnologies and business models. He's worked in biologics drug discovery, gene editing tools, breath diagnostics, and digital prediction and mitigation tools for bipolar patients.
Patricia joined the Octopus Ventures Consumer team in 2022, with a particular interest in the way innovative consumer businesses stand to leverage Web3 to build their relationships with customers. Patricia has also looked extensively at Proptech and will be continuing to research the space this year.
With an academic background in industrial engineering, Patricia has always been committed to solving problems with the consumer in mind. Before moving into VC, she spent nearly half a decade at Amazon, managing one of the tech giant's retail categories, developing growth and profitable strategy for the Home Entertainment division and supporting the Alexa team as they launched Amazon's voice assistant in Italy and Spain. In her final year there, she joined AWS, supporting the team's sales strategy and operations across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
She arrived at Octopus Ventures fresh off the back of her MBA at MIT Sloan, where she gained VC experience with Conexo Ventures in Madrid, Taget Global in Berlin and IRIS ventures, a direct-to-consumer fund based in Barcelona.
Over the years, Patricia has lived in Montreal, Chicago and Boston - and the common denominator of icy winters is no coincidence. Outside the office, she's happiest on the slopes. In the summer, she tries to get to as many music festivals as her schedule permits, and, whatever the time of year, whenever she's back home in her native Madrid she makes sure to get acquainted with any updates to the city's bustling restaurant scene.
Job Titles:
- Investor
- B2B Software
- B2B Software Specialist
B2B software specialist Paul supports standout management teams with a clear product vision and desire for growth.
Paul joined Octopus Ventures in 2017. He has more than 12 years' broad investment experience working with companies operating in multiple different B2B end-markets and geographies under a SaaS value proposition, including cybersecurity, AI and data, infrastructure, human capital, e-commerce and MarTech. Paul is also a member of the Investment Committee.
He previously spent seven years at Royal Bank of Scotland, primarily in the leveraged finance team, where he originated and structured debt for management buyouts.
Paul has a first-class degree in economics and finance from the University of Manchester. He also holds an MSc in banking and international finance with distinction from Cass Business School (now Bayes Business School) and is a CFA Charterholder.
He's also a horseracing fanatic (and amateur tipster) and Manchester United season ticket holder, enjoys skiing and golf, and is a licensed scuba diver.
Job Titles:
- Chartered Accountant
- Investor
- Consumer
Rebecca joined Octopus Ventures in 2012 and heads our Consumer team. She focuses on e-commerce and subscription, community and product-focused businesses, B2B and B2C marketplaces, and social platforms.
She previously spent five years in the corporate finance department at accountancy Deloitte, first in the transaction services unit and later in the corporate finance advisory team, where she worked on M&A and capital market deals across a range of sectors.
Rebecca is a qualified chartered accountant, and has a first-class honours degree in accounting and finance from the University of Southampton.
Richard joined the Octopus Ventures team in 2022, alongside which he leads the academic agenda at Conception X and lectures in Entrepreneurship at UCL.
Operating at the intersection of entrepreneurship, investment and academia, he's passionate about supporting science and technology ventures that solve humanity's most pressing challenges. Over the course of his career, Richard has worked with more than 40 ventures, raising multiple rounds of investment.
Richard started out as a geologist, before joining 3i in the early 1990s, as part of a team managing investments of up to £5 million. He went on to a PhD in engineering geology at the University of Bristol, before spending time as a post-doc researcher and four years in industry.
He returned to the textbooks for an MBA at the Cranfield School of Management, then, immediately after the dotcom crash, joined KPMG's Information Communication and Technology practice as a strategy consultant, where he was seconded to Orange as interim head of group planning, covering 22 countries.
Richard focuses on software investments, especially B2B SaaS companies and those with SMB customers.
Before joining Octopus Ventures in 2018, he worked at private markets investment firm Northleaf Capital Partners, investing in and alongside some of Europe's leading private equity firms. He previously spent three years at KPMG.
Outside of work, he's a keen gym-goer, cyclist and aspiring golfer, although his handicap would suggest otherwise. You're often likely to find him walking his cavapoo in the Greenwich area.
Richard joined Octopus Ventures in 2017 and focuses on B2B software. He also sits on a number of portfolio company boards.
Richard has invested in UK and international SMEs since 2006. He previously worked at private equity firm TPG's direct lending fund, at UK-focused private equity firm RJD Partners and at Dresdner Kleinwort in the bank's principal finance group.
He qualified as a chartered accountant with PwC and holds a degree in banking and finance from the University of Birmingham.
Outside work, Richard turns his hand to a wide range of sports and is attempting to pass that enthusiasm on to his young family.
Rosie joined the Octopus Ventures Consumer team in 2022, on the hunt for the startups seeking to disrupt individual and collective consumer behaviour for the better. She is particularly interested in shifting behavioural trends, consumer psychology and the behavioural factors impacting the adoption of new technology.
Before joining Octopus Ventures, Rosie formed part of the famous Behavioural Insights Team (better known as the Nudge Unit), where she worked with governments and companies around the world to improve policies, processes and products through the application of behavioural science and rigorous experimentation. During her time at BIT, Rosie spent a year in Paris setting up the France office (and bringing her French up to scratch).
Rosie's interest in collective behaviour is underpinned by her academic background: she completed an MSc in Forensic Psychological Studies at the Open University, where she explored the way social media platform design can drive adverse social outcomes, and holds a BA in Experimental Psychology from the University of Oxford.
Outside work, Rosie loves playing sports, travelling and cooking, and dabbles in making her own gin. She spent a few years growing up in the French Alps and is most at home in the mountains - preferably with a pair of skis and a lot of melted cheese.
A specialist in sustainable technologies, Rubina joined Octopus Ventures to co-lead the Deep Tech team for early-stage companies. She joins from Centrica, where, most recently, she established and led the innovation division at British Gas.
With a BEng and MEng in sustainable energy engineering, Rubina's career kicked off at Fraunhofer, where she worked as a solar engineer before heading up Fraunhofer TechBridge, a division dedicated to validating and backing early-stage cleantech. In the 10 years since, she's worked with US DOE, Fortune 500 companies, FTSE 250, international start ups, universities and accelerators on sustainable deep tech development, de-risking, and commercialisation through industry/start up partnerships.
Rubina also holds a number of advisory roles, with organisations including the European Innovation Council's deep tech programme, and the Solar Impulse Foundation. Beyond deep tech, she's passionate about empowering people of all backgrounds in the industry, and sits on the board of POWERful Women.
Keep an eye out for insights from Rubina - she's sure to be blogging at Octopus Ventures, having published a number of technical papers and thought leadership pieces before, looking hard at cleantech innovation for the likes of IEEE and TechCrunch. Over the years, she's won a number of awards for her contribution to the energy sector, including the Innovator Award 2022.
Bio
Uzma joined Octopus Ventures in 2018 after working as a research scientist in the fields of photochemistry and synthetic biology.
She has built and led our bio investment strategy and today focuses on bio and frontier tech.
Uzma also runs the Bio Disruptors Showcase, helping the best of UK and Europe-based bio entrepreneurs connect with top-tier EU and US funds and growth stage funds with a strong track record in biotech.
During her PhD, she worked with the University of Manchester's innovation initiative to assess the commercial feasibility of technologies developed at the university, realising her passion for cutting-edge technologies.
She says: "Through this experience I learnt about the many challenges of spinning out companies and taking disruptive innovations from the lab bench to the market."
Uzma enjoys baking and cooking and has equipped her kitchen to a semi-professional level.