David Cohen, CEO and Managing Partner, Techstars

David Cohen is the Founder, CEO and Managing Partner of Techstars. Previously, David was a founder of several software and web technology companies. He was the founder and CTO of Pinpoint Technologies which was acquired by ZOLL Medical Corporation (NASDAQ: ZOLL) in 1999. You can read about it in No Vision, All Drive [Amazon]. David was also the founder and CEO of earFeeder.com, a music service which was sold to SonicSwap.com in 2006. He also had what he likes to think of as a “graceful failure” in between.

David is an active startup advocate, advisor, board member, and technology advisor who comments on these topics on his blog at DavidGCohen.com. He recently co-authored Do More Faster with Brad Feld.  He is also very active at the University of Colorado, serving as a member of the Board of Advisors of the Computer Science Department, the Entrepreneurial Advisory Board at Silicon Flatirons, and the Board of Advisors of the Deming Center Venture Fund. He is a member of the selection committee for Venture Capital in the Rockies, and runs the Colorado chapter of the Open Angel Forum. His hobbies are technology, software/web startups, business history, and tennis. He is married to the coolest girl he’s ever met and has three amazing kids who always seem to be teaching him something new.

Brent Hoberman, Investment Partner, PROfounders Capital

Brent co-founded lastminute.com in April 1998 with Martha Lane Fox and was CEO and took the company to profit and gross bookings of over $2bn. Lastminute.com was floated in March 2000 and in 2005 was sold to Sabre for $1.1bn.

Brent most recently founded another VC-backed internet based startup, mydeco, the online interiors site that will revolutionise the way we shop and design for our homes. Brent is on the Advisory Board at MobiMate and Kenshoo.  He is a Governor of University of the Arts College, London and a non-executive board director of Guardian Media Group. Brent is also an angel investor in several internet companies including Viagogo, Wayn.com and moveme.com.

Kevin Hartz, Co-Founder & CEO, Eventbrite

Kevin Hartz is the Co-Founder & CEO of Eventbrite and an early-stage investor. He was previously Co-Founder and CEO of Xoom Corporation, an international money transfer company providing remittance services to over 40 countries worldwide. Xoom's investors include Sequoia Capital, NEA, Fidelity Ventures, Silicon Valley Bank Capital, Stanford University, and Peter Thiel.

Kevin previously Co-Founded ConnectGroup, a start-up providing high-speed Internet access to the hotel industry that was acquired in 1998 by LodgeNet (LNET). Kevin has also worked in venture capital as an associate at Outlook Ventures and as a product manager at SGI.

Nic Brisbourne, Managing Partner, Forward Partners

Nic has 13 years experience in the venture capital industry and prior to joining Forward was a Partner at leading venture capital firm DFJ Esprit. He has worked and invested in London and Silicon Valley, leading over 25 investments and enjoying a number of successful exits including buy.at (acquired by AOL for $125m) and Zeus Technology (acquired by Riverbed for $140m). Nic also authors Europe's most popular VC blog: The Equity Kicker.

Duncan Davidson, Managing Director, Bullpen Capital

Duncan Davidson is a serial entrepreneur who spent the past six years as a managing director at a major venture fund, VantagePoint Venture Partners, before forming Bullpen. At VantagePoint, Duncan focused on digital media and mobile. His deals include Widevine, the leading provider of digital rights management and adaptive streaming for online video, and Livescribe, the maker of an innovative digital smartpen that has received many awards for innovation.

 He began his career as a lawyer, and in 1983 joined a small venture fund, Cambridge Venture Partners, first as a deal attorney and later as a deal partner.  In 1986 he went to Strategic Planning Associates to help with LBO advisory work. He received an Sc.B. in physics/math from Brown University, with Honors, and a J.D. magna cum laude from Michigan Law School, were he was Order of the Coif and a member of the Law Review.

Jenny Fielding, Head of Digital Ventures, BBC Worldwide

Jenny Fielding heads up New Digital Ventures for BBC Worldwide as well as BBCW Labs. Previously, she was CEO of fourforty Inc, the company that developed Wenzani for Lonely Planet. Jenny has a long history in the tech industry, co-founding start-ups such as Switch-Mobile, a disruptive VoIP mobile software company, that was acquired in 2008. She has also been the COO of Wodan Capital, a VP at JP Morgan, and a lawyer at Wieden & Kennedy, where she started her career.

Jenny sits on the Board and advises several companies and organizations including Founder Labs, Texting.ly, and Astia. Jenny is based in Silicon Valley.

Scott Gallacher, Director, The Aston Group

Scott is an expert in helping companies to grow through innovation – specifically through finding new ways for businesses to engage with consumers. He has assisted both multinational corporations and starts-ups. Organisations he has worked with include BSkyB, Lastminute.com, Facebook and American Express – he has engaged with these companies in a mixture of Director level line management and advisory roles and has delivered both business driving marketing innovation and organisational realignment.


In recognition of his expertise, Scott was appointed Chairman of the Marketing Society’s Digital Network – a group comprising of the marketing leaders of FTSE 100 brands. He is also a member of the Online Advisory Group for the BBC.
Scott’s commitment to developing innovation extends to angel investment and he is an investor in the SV Angel Fund, and he also advises a number of early stage companies on their international expansion. He is currently focused on opportunities within the Media and Healthcare industries.
Scott holds a Ph.D in “Innovation & Social Learning in Corporate environments” from Edinburgh University, M.Sc in Human Computer Interaction from Heriot Watt University and BCom in Business Studies from Edinburgh University.

Laurence Garrett, Partner, Highland Capital Europe

As a co-founder and Partner of Highland Capital Europe, Laurence primarily focuses on growth opportunities in the information technology sector for the European market. Laurence represents Highland Capital Europe on the board of NewVoiceMedia and is involved with the investment in MatchesFashion.com and Talentsoft.

Prior to joining Highland Capital Partners in 2012 as a Partner to launch their London Operations, Laurence was a Partner and founding member of Ethean Capital LLP. Previously, he was a Partner with 3i Group where he was responsible for investments such as CSR (IPO), UbiNetics (acquired by Aeroflex and CSR), Trigenix (acquired by Qualcomm), Insensys (acquired by Moog and Schlumberger), Ezurio (acquired by Laird), and Icera Semiconductor (acquired by Nvidia.)  Independently, he was an active board member of BlueGnome which was acquired in September 2012 by Illumina Inc.

Stefan Glaenzer was recently named the best angel investor in Europe by readers and editors of TechCrunch Europe, and was the first investor and executive chairman of Last.fm, seeing that company through to its sale to CBS (2007 USD $270 million).

Prior to that Stefan was co-founder of Ricardo.de, one of the first European online auction and classified sites, which he took public in 1999 and sold to QXL ricardo in 2000.

Luke plays an active part in all aspects of the Venture team’s activity, from finding investment opportunities to working with the outstanding entrepreneurs to help their businesses grow. As a former scientist and technology consultant, Luke has a particular interest in deep technology opportunities, although he has experience of working with a number of early stage businesses across a range of different sectors.

Outside Octopus, Luke sits on the investment panel at the Qtech Software Accelerator and works closely with a number of the other accelerator and incubator programmes, including Wayra, TechStars and Smarta.

Luke has a degree in Biochemistry and Biotechnology, a Masters in Computational Biology and a PhD in Computational Genetics.

Katie Leviten, Investment Manager, Jamjar Investments

JamJar Investments backs the best teams with early stage consumer ideas.  My role involves sourcing, managing dealflow, due diligence and working with the portfolio post deal. 

We focus on consumer facing businesses with strong proof of concept, looking for seed/round A funding in both digital and non tech.

Christian Hernandez, Managing Partner, White Star Capital

Christian has over 16 years of operating experience in technology companies, developing and scaling products and businesses internationally. Prior to co-founding White Star Capital, Christian worked at Facebook and led the international expansion of the company’s Business Development, Platform and Gaming Partnerships groups. He previously held leadership roles in the U.S. and Europe at Google and Microsoft and started his career in technology at MicroStrategy, a startup he joined prior to its 1999 IPO. Christian has worked closely with entrepreneurs and leading VCs and has been an active angel investor and advisor.  He serves on the Board of Advisors of Seedcamp and the Digital Task Force for the EVCA and is a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum.

Chris Loughlin, CEO, Travelzoo

Christopher Loughlin has served as Chief Executive Officer since July 2010 after serving as Executive Vice President, Europe since May 2005. From 2001 to April 2005, Mr. Loughlin served as Vice President of Business Development. From 1999 to 2001, he was Chief Operating Officer of Weekends.com. Mr. Loughlin holds a BSc(Hons) in Technology Management from Staffordshire University and an MBA from Columbia University Graduate School of Business in New York.

Simon Menashy, Investment Manager, MMC Ventures

Simon joined the MMC investment team in 2011. He is focused on the execution of new and follow-on investments, completing thirteen deals in 2013, and has lead responsibility for screening new deal flow.

Simon also supports across a number of portfolio companies including Knowledgemill, Masabi, Somo, WeDo, Small World and Breathing Buildings.

Simon's background is in European tech and media consulting, working with clients including the BBC, Virgin Media, BT, Thompson Reuters and Ofcom as part of the Deloitte Strategy team in London. He previously started an IT consulting business and holds a degree in Physics and Space Research.

Joe Charlesworth, Partner, Playfair Capital

As Finance Director he represents perhaps the toughest hurdle to securing investment. Post-investment he will be the one asking the toughest questions. It may seem tedious at the time, but accounting tough love benefits everyone down the line.

He takes a hands-on approach with our portfolio companies.

Bambi Francisco Roizen, Founder and CEO, Vator

Vator was a side project of mine that was a mere concept while I was a columnist/correspondent at Dow Jones MarketWatch. It was originally started to help me vet the many startups pitching me while I was a journalist. It was designed to ensure that those I couldn't cover would have a platform for others to find them. I left in April 2007 and launched Vatortv in June 2007.

At Dow Jones, I covered Internet trends and investments across the public and private sectors. I was a morning business anchor for KPIX (the local CBS affiliate in San Francisco), and reported on MarketWatch's business magazine show on CBS. I made frequent appearances as an expert on technology on CNBC, Fox Business News, and CBS. I was named one of the top 10 most influential journalists on the Web, by Adweek. In the 'mid-90s, I worked as producer at CNN's financial news network, where I created, launched and produced business shows, including one on IPOs and new ideas.

Ezra Roizen is a digital media investment banker with Ackrell Capital,  a boutique investment bank. He is also an advisor and commenter on emerging ventures. He focuses on digital media, e-commerce and mobile companies.

Prior to banking, Ezra co-founded and was CEO of Montclare Technologies Inc. He also co-founded and was director of business development for Convoy, which is now part of Sybase. Ezra is the Chair of the UC Berkeley, Haas School of Business Alumni Council.

Simon Walker, Partner, Taylor Wessing

Simon is a partner in the Corporate department and specialises in advising those involved in the technology, cleantech and life sciences sectors. Simon has advised on many venture capital investments, both for funds and companies and on numerous acquisitions, including many involving US companies on the buy side or sell side.

Simon regularly speaks at conferences in the United Kingdom.  He is a member of the British Venture Capital Association's Technology Committee and he is based in the firm's London and Cambridge offices, the latter of which he is the head.
Described as a "doyen of the industry" Simon is ranked in band 1 by Chambers & Partners 2013 & 2014 for Venture Capital Investment and recommended by Legal 500 2012. He is also ranked in the Chambers UK 2014 as a leading individual for Corporate/M&A.