Awards Judges
Roderick Beer
Managing Director - UKBAA
Roderick’s career spans over 17 years of managing, founding and growing angel
groups and investment platforms that have collectively deployed over £100m of equity investment in more than 500 startup and scaleup businesses. He started at Beer & Partners, the first and largest angel group in the UK which later sold to Risk Capital Partners, he later helped form and grow a successful corporate finance firm, as their COO. He is now the Managing Director of the UK Business Angels Association, the trade body for angel and early-stage investing, representing 220 organisations including over 100 Angel Groups that collectively deploy over £2bn p.a. in innovative, high-growth businesses.
Katie Ramsey
Head of FinTech at DBT for His Majesty's Government
Katie is the Head of FinTech at DBT for His Majesty’s Government, Co-Founder of The Power Collective and angel investor. Shortlisted for Angel of the Year 2024, she invests across fintech, Al, wellness, loT, robotics and feminine health markets and is on the Board of Zeed Al, one of the UK’s fastest growing fintechs. A former fund manager and algorithmic trader, Katie is twice winner of Financial News’ Top 40 Under 40, UN Women UK Delegate, a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader nominee, Computer Weekly’s Most Influential Tech Leaders nominee and named in Innovate Finance’s FinTech Power List of Senior Leaders. She ran ETF Product Distribution at BlackRock, co-managed Vanguard’s flagship LifeStrategy funds and managed the Middle East region for Macquarie’s Securities business.
Fred Soneya
Co-Founder & Partner - Haatch
As co-founder of Haatch, Fred leads the firm’s day-to-day operations and investment team. Since 2013, he has overseen over 150 investments into 70+ companies and onboarded 600+ investors into Haatch’s funds.
Previously, Fred spearheaded high-profile innovation projects at Kiddicare.com and Morrisons supermarket, creating award-winning digital experiences. At Morrisons, he launched browse-and-order points at 300+ stores, mobile payments scaling to hundreds of millions in revenue, and digital shelf labels – establishing Morrisons as a leader in tech-forward retail.
Eva Dobrzanska
Co-Founder
Eva Dobrzanska (fundraisingplaybooks.com) helps startup founders reach more investors with step-by-step strategies that real-life founders have used to raise millions. Her playbooks secured a VC reply within 20 minutes of hitting ‘Send,’ a reply from Mark Cuban, a reply from Sequoia Capital in less than 24 hours, and a stellar 100% response rate within the first 4 hours of sending cold emails. Her masterclasses are regularly oversubscribed, with a record of 1k+ signups in July 2024.
Marc Cohen
Sole Partner - Unbundled VC
Marc at Unbundled VC brings a founder mindset to venture capital. He invests primarily in early-stage digital tech businesses. Marc studied AI in 2001 under one of Geoffrey Hinton’s mentors and later co-produced what was then the world’s top poker AI. Notable investments include Capdesk, acquired by unicorn Carta; Runna, one of Europe’s fastest growing companies; and Magrathea, backed by high-profile US investors including Sam Altman of OpenAI.
Anthony Rose
CEO & Co-Founder at SeedLegals
Anthony is the CEO and Co-Founder at SeedLegals. He’s a serial entrepreneur: he’s built and sold several startups over a career that includes 3D graphics, P2P music, internet video, social TV and online communities.
We’re sure you’ll know and use the BBC iPlayer – Anthony is the man behind it: from 2007 to 2010, he launched and ran the project and other digital services for the BBC, adjusting his team so they worked like a startup to turn the iPlayer into one of the broadcaster’s biggest successes.
Laurent Laffy
CEO & Co-Founder at SeedLegals
Former VC and Serial Angel Investor, Laurent has made hundreds of startup investments. Successful exits include lastminute.com, Graze, Tails and CultBeauty. His promising portfolio includes Secret Escapes, Skin&me and Papier.
Jennifer Hoffman
CEO & Co-Founder at
Jennifer has 20+ years as a Marketing leader and Startup Executive with a focus on B2B SaaS. I love to build; startups, tech, communities, brands and most importantly, high performing teams! Currently I am a Fractional CMO and growth advisor for early stage tech startups as well as Founder & CEO of the female founder movement, Unstoppable. Our aim is to help support female founders on their journey of building high growth businesses through access to resources, networks and capital.
Ghita EL Haitmy
CEO & Co-Founder at
Ghita El Haitmy is the founder and Tech content creator at Techbible, an AI SaaS discovery platform that helps professionals discover new tools based on their job roles and industry and see experts’ tech stacks. As a creator led-startup, Techbible’s social channels gained over 160K on Instagram and 211K on Tiktok in 2024, and help individuals stay updated on the latest tech news, SaaS and AI tools so they stay ahead with all the development in tech and use them to their advantage to advance their careers or create new ventures. Ghita is a self taught coder and a top female voice in tech that has been featured on the Nasdaq board in Times Square snd BBC radio this year.
Margaret Anne Coyle
Co-Founder & CEO, Hotbed
After working on the programs team at TechHub, Margaret co-founded her first company, Spice Startups, right after finishing university. With over 5 years of experience in the London startup ecosystem, she’s worked with 2,500+ startups.
Engin Yenidunya
CEO & Co-Founder at
Engin is the Founder of 21×21, an angel “cartel” of 21 lifelong friends spanning 13 countries. He previously served as CFO at MUBI after spending 18 years in global banking across New York, London, Hong Kong, and Tokyo. Engin has invested $1 billion of equity, underwritten $2.5 billion of debt, raised $55 million for startups, produced nine films, and ran a 3:54 marathon. A Yale graduate with a B.A. in Economics and Political Science, he loves numbers, scuba diving, football, and live music.
Jonny Clark
Interim CEO of Capital Enterprise
Jonny Clark is currently the Interim CEO of Capital Enterprise, a leading not-for-profit startup support and ecosystem development organisation. His background includes experience as a founder and angel investor, coming from a background in technology policy and economic development. He has worked alongside senior politicians and bluechip industry leaders to drive forward technology entrepreneurship in the UK. He has backed category-defining SaaS businesses throughout the entirety of the UK, and served on a range of boards and steering groups dedicated to advancing the tech economy in order to spread wealth and improve people’s lives.
Oliver Hammond
Partner at Fuel Ventures
Oli is a Partner at Fuel Ventures, one of the UK’s most active pre-seed and seed funds. Fuel invests into marketplaces, platforms and SaaS model businesses both B2B and B2C and has made over 170 investments since it began in 2016
Ed Stevenson
SFC Capital
Edward joined SFC Capital in 2019 after attaining a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Manchester and performing a variety of roles across several organisations. Prior to joining the SFC team, he worked in financial analysis and consulting as well as spending some time at FinTech Startup. Working as an Investment Executive, he is responsible for the screening and selection of the best investment opportunities.