Our Investors

Investors

BDMI

The BDMI team concentrates on digital media opportunities around the world connected to television production and distribution, book and magazine publishing, and media services. BDMI concentrates on early stage investments into growing companies in the digital media landscape.

BDMI is a strategic investor that brings a wealth of experience and opportunities to emerging companies. BDMI provides not only capital, but also a worldwide network of diverse businesses. Their goal is to partner with companies that can benefit from the BDMI innovative spirit and media leadership across the globe. BDMI is a wholly owned subsidiary of Bertelsmann AG.

Sussex Place Ventures

Sussex Place Ventures is a specialist private investor fund providing venture capital and private equity to earlier stage companies and seeks to support great entrepreneurial talent and top teams.

Owned by the London Business School, the company is in a privileged position to leverage the Business School's alumni and an entrepreneurial cluster which has evolved around the School.

NESTA

NESTA is one of the UK's largest seed-stage investors. Their fund is a compelling demonstration of how a blend of private and public capital can drive world-beating, innovative UK companies. It is a model which is increasingly becoming replicated across the country.

They combine capital investment with non-financial support to help the UK's innovative early-stage companies turn their ideas into commercial success.

500 Startups

500 Startups is an early stage investment company, located in the heart of Silicon Valley. With over 160 experienced start up mentors around the world, a vibrant community of startup founders, and creative work space, they help companies succeed in ways other venture firms do not. 500 Startups invests primarily in consumer & SMB internet startups, and related web infrastructure services.

The Accelerator Group

Based in London, The Accelerator Group (TAG) has been an advisor and investor in early stage and start-up companies since 1995. They focus on the internet services, eCommerce and multi-channel retail sectors, investing primarily in the US and Europe.

Venrex Investment Management

Venrex is a private investment firm with a focus on identifying start-ups and growth companies with well-defined market demand and management teams that exhibit high growth/profit potential. Its existing portfolio includes Just Eat, NotOnTheHighStreet.com, Peerius, Seedcamp and many others.

Advisors

Alex Hoye

Chairman

Alex brings a range of entrepreneurial, media and internet experience matched with institutional and global experience.

In 1999 he co-founded GoIndustry plc in Europe, which he and his partners built from the proverbial napkin into a 17-country global leader in online industrial auctions. Alex and the team took it public in London where it was valued at over $100M. Before that, stints at Disney and McKinsey & Co. gave him a basis in media, strategy, finance and change management. As CEO of Latitude, one of Europe's largest independent digital marketing agencies, Alex and his team deliver PPC, SEO, social media strategies, affiliate marketing and is on the leading edge of the cross channel analytics to make a cohesive campaign effective to household brand names and SMEs alike.

Since 2006, Alex has been encouraged by and is encouraging the wave of entrepreneurial inspiration capturing Europe. To this end, Alex has acted as angel investor and mentor in internet-based and consumer projects. These include Seedcamp, home repair marketplace MyBuilder.com, RentMineOnline, Faction Skis, which he co-founded, UserVoice, GoMix, as well as Skimbit. Alex is an advisor to private equity firm Vitruvian Partners, which applies venture methods to the social sector, a member of Cambridge Angels.

Alex has worked and lived in the UK, Germany, the US and Latin America, speaks the respective languages to varying degrees and is a pretty average but avid kite surfer. While an undergrad at Stanford and getting his MBA at Harvard, ever the entrepreneur, he co-founded the wine club at both.

Richard Jalichandra

Advisor

Richard is a veteran internet executive whose media experience includes leadership roles across the media spectrum: as a client, at an agency, as a publisher, and with an advertising network. Currently, he is the CEO of Technorati Media, the largest social media ad network.

Prior to Technorati, he worked as an M&A and strategy consultant for several internet properties and investment firms, and served as SVP of Corporate Development for Exponential Interactive, Tribal Fusion’s parent. Previously, Richard was SVP of Business Development for Fox Interactive Media and Vice President of Business & Corporate Development at IGN Entertainment, where he led the company’s M&A, business development and international activities. Before joining IGN, Richard led national sales at Lycos, was Vice President of Business Development at Neopost Online, served as Senior Vice President/Managing Director at Answerthink and founded K23 Creative Services in Singapore.

His early career included management roles at Ford, IBM and Siemens, and he has a B.S. in Business Administration from the University of Southern California and an M.B.A. from the University of Washington.

Oren Michels

Advisor

As CEO and Co-founder of Mashery, Oren Michels has led the team responsible for working with over 100 leading brands to power over 10,000 apps created by 50,000+ developers. Oren is a leading evangelist for the API movement in general and has pioneered and chaired the annual Business of APIs conference, now in its 5th year.

Prior to Mashery, Oren served in Executive roles for a number of successful startups including Feedster, WiFinder, Colt HR and Winebid.com. He also served as President and CEO of The Groundlings, a Hollywood-based entertainment production company.

Oren began his career as a software designer for Hughes Aircraft. He holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from MIT and an MBA in Finance and Entrepreneurial Studies from UCLA’s Anderson School.

Scott Rafer

Advisor

Scott Rafer is a co-founder and director at Mashery and has been helping internet publishers and users develop the 'next big thing' since 1995. As CEO of MyBlogLog and Chairman of Winksite, Scott helps deliver services for media publishing and discovery. Both sites offer unique features: MyBlogLog delivers user familiarity for publishers even with the quick click'n'go nature of today's Web and Winksite helps publishers assemble active mobile communities around their brands and content.

Previously, Scott was CEO of Feedster from 2001 to 2003 and co-founded WiFinder, an online tool for finding public wireless access; BookBroadband, the broadband hotel finder; Fresher Information, a real-time search engine using RSS back in 1999; and FotoNation, a creator of connected photography solutions.

Before 1995, Scott headed-up the internet products group at Kodak Hollywood, worked in investment banking at Needham & Company and graduated from the Management of Technology program at the University of Pennsylvania.

Gokul Rajaram

Advisor

Gokul Rajaram is the Product Director - Ads at Facebook. He helps drive Facebook's advertising product strategy and roadmap. His company, Chai Labs, a semantic technology company, was acquired by Facebook in 2010. Prior to founding Chai Labs, Gokul was Product Management Director at Google, where he helped start Google's Adsense partner business and other key products.