Awards judges
Sutin Yang
Managing Partner - The Fundraising Accelerator & SeedLegals Angel of the Year 2025
In the 12 years spent at J.P. Morgan investing for a $12.5B fund, Sutin learned not only how the world’s best investors think, but what it is that separates ideas that get funded from those that don’t. Equipped with this knowledge, she went on to found her own startup before launching The Fundraising Accelerator, a 7-week programme designed to help entrepreneurs master the investor mindset and close rounds in record time.
Jonathan Keeling
Partner - Haatch
Jonathan is the ex-Chief Growth Officer of Crowdcube, Europe’s largest private investment platform, where he spent nearly a decade building it into a category-defining brand.
Joining as an early employee, he played a key role in scaling the business to £14 million in annual revenue and 150 staff across the UK and Europe, working directly with some of Europe’s most exciting consumer brands, including Monzo, Revolut, Moneybox, Zoe, Brewdog, and What3Words. In his role at Haatch, Jonathan is dedicated to driving fundraising efforts across the firm’s multiple funds and seeking out new growth opportunities. Alongside his role at Haatch, Jonathan founded edge, a growth consultancy that partners with consumer startups from Seed to Series A to deliver world-class crowdfunding rounds. A two-time TEDx speaker, regular panellist at global events, active early-stage investor, and non-executive director, he is passionate about the early-stage investment ecosystem.
Shruti Iyengar
Investment Director at Future Planet Capital
Shruti Iyengar is an Investment Director at Future Planet Capital where she is the Investment Lead for Space-tech investments within the UK Innovation and Science Seed Fund and is an Investment Committee Member on the Blue Ocean Mandate. She has spent the last 10 years working in the early-stage investment ecosystem and is an investment expert/judge on various deep tech panels including the Economist Space Summit, BVCA sessions, London Tech Week, Blue Earth Summit, SeedLegals Startup Awards, and Innovation Zero. Prior to joining Future Planet Capital, she was an Investor with an early-stage climate tech fund, Sustainable Ventures, where she managed a portfolio of 36 companies and lead their 12 month-long Accelerator Programme. Shruti began her career in Singapore where she worked with organizations across outheast Asia including Governments and corporates, to build out their innovation programmes. She was involved with developing numerous incubator programmes for early-stage deep-tech companies across sectors such as manufacturing, environmental and water technology, and energy.
Karl Rego
Chairman at London Executive Advisors
Karl is a Chairman, Advisor and Investor with 25 years’ experience in the Impact space; he is a thought leader with an audience of ~ 1 million. He has founded, funded, scaled, and exited multiple businesses, and has deployed $150 million+ for impact ventures. He helps tech scaleup founders simplify complexity to get the clarity they need to move forward with confidence. Karl is Co-Chair of the Harvard Business School Alumni Angels of the UK, who have invested in ~60 startups, with 8 noteworthy exits including the $2.3 billion acquisition of Rover (Dogbuddy) by Blackstone, the £385 million IPO of Pension Bee, and others to Apple, GoPro and Prudential. He began his career at Johnson & Johnson as Director of Business Transformation. He then ran a top benchmark on responsible Workplace, Marketplace and Environmental practices for Business in the Community.
Kristina Pereckaite
Founder - South East Angels
Kristina Pereckaite is the Founder and Managing Director of South East Angels, an award-winning members club for angel investors. Since its formation in 2021, South East Angels actively deploys £2M+ into startups each year, and has received recognition from UKBAA as “Most Active Investor in the Regions” (2024), while being named a finalist for Angel Group of the Year for two consecutive years.
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.
Helen Chorley
Investor
Helen Chorley, an angel investor on SkyTV’s Property Elevator, is a respected analyst with over 20 years in finance. She began at JPMorgan, later moving into real estate and venture capital, where she now mentors and invests in high-growth startups. Helen co-founded Property Sisters to support women in real estate investing and frequently speaks on funding and startup challenges.
Engin Yenidunya
Investor & Founder - 21x21
Engin is the Founder of 21×21, an angel investment collective of 21 lifelong friends spanning 13 countries. He is currently CFO and COO of Zunou AI and previously served as CFO of MUBI after an 18-year career in global banking across New York, London, Hong Kong, and Tokyo. Engin has invested $1 billion in equity, underwritten $2.5 billion in debt, raised $55 million for startups, and produced nine films. He holds a B.A. in Economics and Political Science from Yale University and serves as President of the Yale Club of London.
Denise McQuaid
Co-Founder & Director of Investor Relations - AwakenAngels
As co-founder and Director of Investor Relations at AwakenAngels, Denise is dedicated to supporting and investing in internationally scalable, women-led companies, helping them refine their value proposition, prepare for global expansion and connect with the right investors and commercial partners.
Shosh Shetty
CEO - Thim Ventures
Shosh brings over a decade of experience across all sides of the fundraising table, having served as Head of an Angel Syndicate, VC Investor, Startup Operator, and Investment Banker, having worked across £1 billion+ in financing deals. As Founding Partner of Thim Ventures, he leads an angel investor network that has deployed upto £2 million into UK early-stage companies while providing UK investors access to high-growth opportunities in India. He also mentors and trains new angel investors, helping them make meaningful contributions across a wide range of industry professions. Through Thim Advisors, Shosh delivers tailored advisory and consulting services, equipping entrepreneurs with the tools to secure the right funding partners and achieve their growth ambitions.
Jennifer Hoffman
Founder and CEO - Unstoppable
Jennifer has 20+ years as a Marketing leader and Startup Executive with a focus on B2B SaaS. Passionate about building and scaling, she has successfully developed startups, tech solutions, communities, and brands while fostering high-performing teams. Currently, Jennifer serves as a Fractional CMO and growth adviser for early-stage tech startups. She is also the Founder & CEO of Unstoppable, a movement dedicated to supporting female founders on their journey to building high-growth businesses by providing access to valuable resources, networks, and capital.
Quentin Preuvot
Angel investor
An active business angel investor behind startups such as Abby, Equali and Yneuro, Quentin backs founders who think big and move fast. As an investor, he’s all about win-win partnerships, transparent growth and mentoring the next generation of leaders, tapping into 15 years of leadership experience.
Katie Mathias
Seed Stage Investing - Fuel Ventures
Katie is a seed stage investor at Fuel Ventures, where she has spent the last four years sourcing new investment opportunities and executing deals for the core fund, investing in over 10 companies per year. Prior to Fuel, she worked with startups in the venture debt space, giving her a grounded understanding of how early-stage companies access and deploy capital.
Manjit Mooker
Founder, Investor and Commercial Strategist
Manjit Mooker is a founder, investor and commercial strategist with 25+ years’ experience across healthtech, AI, and digital platforms. He bootstrapped and exited his healthtech company to Craneware at a 20x EBITDA multiple. He is CEO & co-founder of Hype and Swagger, a turnkey platform that turns audience attention into revenue for social media creators and brands. He advises startups on dev, GTM and scale.
Aly Read
CCO - SeedLegals
Aly is a dynamic commercial leader with nearly a decade of experience driving revenue growth and scaling teams across FinTech and LegalTech. As Chief Commercial Officer at SeedLegals, Aly oversees the GTM strategy, overseeing sales, account management, marketing, and partnerships. SeedLegals are dedicated to empowering founders by simplifying the fundraising process, enabling over £2 billion of investment raised on platform to date. Previously, Aly scaled teams to over 60 at the UK’s largest peer-to-peer lender, Funding Circle. Renowned for fostering high-performing teams, Aly excels at creating innovative, results-driven environments that deliver value for both businesses and customers.
Dan Bowyer
Partner - SuperSeed VC
Dan is a 4x exited entrepreneur familiar with the trials and tribulations that come with building a tech business. As co-founder and partner at SuperSeed, he invests £500k-£2m checks in early-stage tech businesses before helping them commercialise, operationalise and sell.
Chris Elphick
Head of Venture Capital - UK Private Capital
Chris leads on venture capital policy at the BVCA and works closely with their members to promote the role the industry plays in the UK economy by supporting entrepreneurs and businesses. Chris is also a member of the Independent Advisory Board for the Digital Growth Grant run by Barclays Eagle Labs and is an adviser to the APPG for entrepreneurship. He has represented the BVCA on a wide range of influential consultations and reports, including the Patient Capital and Khalifa reviews.
Greg Tufnell
Managing Partner - Prime Advantage Capital Partners
Having held senior Board positions at Next as Trading Director, Arcadia as Managing Director and Mothercare as CEO, Greg has successfully built a broad private equity and advisory portfolio extending across the consumer, retail, hospitality and lifestyle sectors. Greg also leads the Consumer sector at Prime Advantage Capital Partners (PACP), working across the Climate, Health & Life Sciences and Data & technology sectors.
Marc Cohen
Founding Partner - unbundled vc
Marc Cohen is the founder of unbundled vc, investing in pre-seed and seed European AI startups building for the US market. His early investments include Capdesk, acquired by Carta; Runna, acquired by Strava; and Ctrl Alt, which has tokenised over $1.4bn of real-world assets. Before venture capital, Marc was an interest-rate swaps trader and AI-quant trader, a successful amateur poker player, and co-built what was then the world’s best poker AI. In his spare time, Marc performs stand-up comedy, which may explain why he values founders who can get to the point.
Michael Theodosiou
Portfolio Manager - SFC Capital
Marc Cohen is the founder of unbundled vc, investing in pre-seed and seed European AI startups building for the US market. His early investments include Capdesk, acquired by Carta; Runna, acquired by Strava; and Ctrl Alt, which has tokenised over $1.4bn of real-world assets.
Before venture capital, Marc was an interest-rate swaps trader and AI-quant trader, a successful amateur poker player, and co-built what was then the world’s best poker AI.
In his spare time, Marc performs stand-up comedy, which may explain why he values founders who can get to the point.
James Church
Author, Investable Entrepreneur
James Church is an award-winning fundraising consultant and author of the Amazon best-selling book Investable Entrepreneur. His proven approach has helped startups raise over £200m in early-stage funding. Awarded Business Advisor of the Year at the Growing Business Awards, James has been featured in Entrepreneur and Forbes. He works with founders to craft clear, compelling investment cases and regularly mentors at incubators, lectures at leading institutions, and speaks at international business events and podcasts.
Mo Aldalou
Programme Director - Baltic Ventures
Mo Aldalou is Programme Director at Baltic Ventures, an early-stage tech accelerator and angel investment syndicate backing game-changing tech founders from the Liverpool City Region and across the UK. Over the last three years, Mo has led Baltic Ventures' flagship Accelerator programme, deploying over £1 million in funding into 30 digital tech startups who have subsequently raised £15m+ in follow-on funding. Mo was previously part of the team at Tech Nation, where he led the organisation's founder and investor relations across the North West of England and later led its Series A accelerator programme, Upscale.
Laurent Laffy
Investor Entrepreneur and co-founder of 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.
Anthony Rose
Co-founder and CEO - 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.