Phoenix Court

🌟 We are excited to welcome Antoinette Ale to the Phoenix Court team as our new Program Lead/Head of Community for Blackout Tuesday🌟 Antoinette joins us with a strong commitment to advancing diversity in the venture capital space, and we are thrilled to have her lead on Blackout Tuesday programming and initiatives aimed at: 1. Increasing Black representation in VCs 2. Increasing the number of Black founders who receive venture funding 3. Increasing the weight of Black employees in venture-backed companies 4. Supporting Black GPs 5. Increasing the representation of Black or Black-aligned LPs Her leadership will be crucial as we continue to push for greater representation in our industry and take Blackout Tuesday VC to the next level. Antoinette shared her thoughts on joining the team: “Joining Blackout Tuesday VC is both a privilege and a personal mission for me. As a Black founder myself, I understand the challenges and barriers that exist in the venture capital space, especially for underrepresented communities. I am committed to advancing diversity in VC because I believe true innovation comes from inclusive representation. My journey here has been fueled by a passion to see more Black founders, professionals and investors thrive, ensuring that our industry reflects the rich diversity of talent and ideas. Working together with partners, my ambition is that Blackout Tuesday VC will set a new standard for inclusion and equity in venture capital.” We’re also gearing up for our next Blackout Tuesday VC event (#18) on Tuesday, 24 September, from 3pm - 7pm, focused on “Increasing Venture-backed Black Founders: Journey from Seed to Series A and Beyond.” Register below & stay tuned for more details later this week! Please join us in welcoming Antoinette to Phoenix Court. We look forward to the positive impact she will have on our community and beyond. Please register here: https://lnkd.in/ezH7KgAU #diversityinvc #Blackfounders #venturecapital

AI agents are forcing us to rethink not just what software can do, but how we should pay for it. Just as the shift from per seat to usage-based pricing has created a wave of companies in the horizontal tooling space, companies will need to be built to enable outcome based pricing for agents. And this tooling needs to be built now because in a nascent field, outcome-based pricing shifts some risk from the customer to the provider – a crucial factor for agent adoption. #AI #agents

🌟 Our very own Yvonne Bajela has launched a new podcast, The Startup Leap, in partnership with Maria Rotilu, Founding Partner at Openseed VC! 🗣️ Each week The Startup Leap will feature in-depth conversations with ambitious entrepreneurs who have boldly navigated the ups and downs of launching their own businesses. 🌱 In the first “Meet the Host” episode, Maria shares her Leap story, how she went from being a Founder, to an investor and now General Partner at Openseed VC Maria discusses:  • Why there is so much more to a person than the highlights on their CV • Growing up in Nigeria as a ‘curious and precocious child’ • Moving to England to study her MBA • How working in consulting and her journey scaling tech startups Uber and fintech Branch International shaped her • Why she chose to do an MBA at Oxford and her transition into venture capital • Key lessons from her founding experience: build a strong culture early,  get customer feedback quickly, and be adaptable in the face of uncertainty    At LocalGlobe we want to support founders at the earliest stage through to their best Series A, so if Yvonne and Maria’s podcast strikes a chord get in touch. https://lnkd.in/gDcRdNSi

Grab your earphones... our friend, longtime Phoenix Court member, and poet Suli Breaks, has recorded a new track with Faithless! 🎤 Give it a listen here: https://lnkd.in/e-QxZdJq cc Saul Klein, Laura Pospiech, Linda Ayoola

At Phoenix Court, we are passionate about inspiring the next generation of tech talent. 💡 It was a privilege to host these Camden students for work experience, and we were in turn inspired by their energy and enthusiasm. 🔥

Continuing our dinner series at our home Phoenix Court, last week Jean-Michel Lemieux, the former CTO of Shopify joined us in conversation with George Henry in which he shared a behind-the-scenes look at what went into building the giants Atlassian and Shopify and how these companies became global champions from outside Silicon Valley. 🚀 We brought together over 30 great founders and operators across our portfolio and network, from Product, Tech, Marketing, Ops and beyond, to meet, connect and share reflections on building some of the most exciting companies in Europe. 🤝 It was great to have leaders from 11x.ai, Automata, Avant Arte, Axiom, Blue Light Card, Deliveroo, Eleven Labs, FACEIT Ltd, Faculty, Granola, KareHero, Medusa, Meta, Motorway, Onfido, Picnic Technologies, Pixaera, Puzzle Ventures, REKKI, Sylvera, Threecolts, TravelPerk, Tunic Pay and Wise in the room! 🙌 We regularly bring together ambitious people, building exciting companies (or just thinking about it!), for great conversations - if you’d like to join us for a similar dinner at Phoenix Court soon, let us know via the form in the comments below. 🍽️

Saul Klein recently joined Peter High on the #Technovation podcast where he discussed how a powerful group of companies is emerging in Europe - which we call thoroughbreds - with the potential to become national, regional and global champions. But if EMEA is to fully deliver on this promise, it has to build an ecosystem that is more accessible to people from all backgrounds and shares the benefits of innovation more equitably. "We want Europe to be a different Silicon Valley – a new one, not just the next. A different ecosystem that’s based on values, and governance, not just a single stakeholder economy." Thanks Peter High for the great conversation!

UK venture capital has caught up with that of the US, at the early stage.  But we should be even more ambitious, with a powerful cohort of thoroughbred companies emerging here. 🇬🇧 As Saul Klein says: “We have the potential to be the world’s best innovation economy. We need to double-down. If we are just interested in being as good as the US, you are basically saying we don’t want to lead the world.” Thanks to David Wighton for this thoughtful piece on the economic opportunity the UK’s innovation economy now offers to build national, regional and global champions.  https://lnkd.in/eF4QAgqn

The results are in: explosive growth in 2024 means European tech is on track for one of its best years yet and the UK has come out on top according to new Dealroom.co data. European tech's relentless pursuit of innovation means that: 💰VC investment came in at £7.4bn so far this year, up 16% from 2023 📈1,450 startups have raised at least £1.5M or more across Europe already this year 💡Late stage had one of its strongest quarters, thanks to mega rounds for fintech, energy and AI companies 🐎 As our co-COO Catherine Lenson told City AM: “As late stage funding returns to Europe and in particular to New Palo Alto, the supercluster of innovation ecosystems, we’re seeing a surge of thoroughbred companies – boasting strong revenues and incredible potential.” https://lnkd.in/d9KEqYUG 

Such a privilege to host Loop at Phoenix Court, empowering the next generation of tech talent. We're excited to see their continued success in empowering their Loopers to build the future! 🚀