#EcosystemGiants live, in-person for the first time! Cem Sertoglu (Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Digital East Fund, Earlybird Venture Capital) on Tuesday, 28 September 2021!
#EcosystemGiants are the talks that highlight leaders who redefine tech investment and the entrepreneurial landscape
New to ‘Ecosystem’? This passion project aims to help tackle the barriers to entry in venture for less networked founders and investors of diverse backgrounds through a newsletter and online initiatives (#EcosystemGiants). Find out more here or become an annual subscriber to support our growth.
*If this post was delivered directly to your inbox**, welcome back! Delighted to (still) have you on the journey we set out to take more than a year ago, together, to increase transparency in the venture capital industry.
If you are new, welcome. The drive behind ‘Ecosystem’ has always been two-fold - to support pre-seed (women) founders get ahead when fundraising and to make venture capital more accessible. It has also strived to enable new entrants with a desire to be capital allocators, to join and excel in an industry which has been notoriously difficult for outsiders to break into.
In a way, by joining ‘EcosystemGiants’ (and by reading the newsletter), I hope you get plugged into an ecosystem of its (our) own – web of network and connections that takes years to build. Why am I opening it up? Because I care. Because I would like to see capital being allocated to ‘less obvious’ entrepreneurs and managers. Ones who reflect the diversity of the world we live in. Who beat all the odds against them. So that innovations serving the diverse society we live in at large are brought to life.
If you would like to find out more, drop me a line by hitting ‘reply’.
About over a year ago, shortly after the lockdown across Europe was put in place and measures limiting our mobility installed, the way we could connect in real life, also took a toll. While from one side, technology opened the world like never before (and allowed us to quite literally ‘enter’ someone’s home from the very first Zoom interaction), the new way of working, connecting and well..living; the environment deepened existing inequalities. Looking at it through the prism of tech, it amplified the divide between the very well-connected, well-funded founders and those just starting out. The serendipitous opportunities of casually bumping into someone, being brought into a conversation, or a tighter-knit network slowly disappeared. And while in principle, we could connect with anyone, anywhere - as technology opened the world like never before, in practice, most of us continued to rely on the familiar, and trusted (pre) existing contacts. Making it even less likely for ‘outsiders’ to enter in the ‘elite VC’ club. In the aim to overcome that, the ‘Ecosystem’ project was born.
And now, over a year after the start of #EcosystemGiants, it is time for it to be brought to life, in-person. In London. Going back to where the tech journey started - for me and many of you, who are following this project. I am beyond delighted to share that the first ever, in-person session of the series will be with Cem Sertoglu (Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Earlybird Digital East Fund), one of the most respected venture capitalists in Europe, instrumental in driving the development of the CEE/SEE innovation ecosystem forward. Cem gives the means to local founders to take their tech businesses global and serves as a role model to an entire generation who looks to get into tech investing.
Join us at 5pm (UK) on Tuesday, 28 September 2021 at a venue hosted in (East) London, (closest Tube station: Whitechapel).Â
Following the fireside chat there will be networking time - and a chance for us all to meet - an audience of tech founders/operators and junior investors.
A conversation about :
Starting and successfully exiting a tech company,
Spotting billion-dollar businesses at inception stage
Building a career as a VC
Live in-person, in London at 17:00 UK on Tuesday 28 September 2021.
Please note this session will not be streamed.
Timings (BST)
Arrival from 16.30
17:00 Start; in conversation with Cem Sertoglu (Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Digital East Fund, Earlybird Venture Capital)
17:30 Market commentary and Q&A
17:45 Pitching for feedback, Hristian Nedyalkov (Co-Founder and CEO, Novus) will share his vision for building UK's impact banking app that turns every payment made into a force for good
17:55 Chat ends
Until 19.30 Networking
Moderated by Tzvete Doncheva, Founder 'Ecosystem'; IR and Platform Manager, PropTech1 Ventures
The event is in collaboration with Queen Mary University Enterprise Zone (QME), an innovation hub in East London, offering flexible, modern workspace for start-ups, with particular focus on Digital Health, MedTech and AI.
Supported by community partners:
Kaiku, MentorshipHub, ParlayMe, Startups Magazine
If you would like to find out more about the ‘Ecosystem’ project, you may reach me on Twitter or Linkedin.