Riding Unicorns: Venture Capital | Entrepreneurship | Technology

Cristina Vila Vives is the founder and CEO of Cledara. A dreamer and a doer, she started Cledara as a result of her life-long desire to start a company that focussed on helping people.Cledara brings visibility and control to software subscriptions, helping users to reduce software costs by 30% and save +20h a month on finance admin. With 1000+ customers and offices in Denver, London and Barcelona, Cledara is all companies need to manage their software in 2023.Cristina joins James Pringle and Hector Mason in this episode to discuss the prevalent but unrealized issues in a company's software management, the processes they implemented that helped Cledara’s growth and success, key learnings in business fund raising, & so much more.Don't forget to like, subscribe and follow The Riding Unicorns Podcast on our socials and your chosen podcast platform to stay up to date! 🎙️🦄

Dr. Andre Retterath is a Partner at venture fund Earlybird Venture Capital.  Earlybird Venture Capital focuses on European technology companies. Founded in 1997, Earlybird identifies and backs exceptional early-stage companies on a pan-European basis and supports them through their growth and development phases – providing financial resources, strategic support, and access to an international network & capital markets.Andre joins James Pringle and Hector Mason in this episode to share how looking at data can help you win deals, dealing with the classic AI problem, data-driven software for VCs, & so much more.Don't forget to like, subscribe and follow The Riding Unicorns Podcast on our socials and your chosen podcast platform to stay up to date! 🎙️🦄

This week's guests are Leapsome Co-founders, Jenny von Podewils and Kajetan von ArmanspergLeapsome is an all-in-one intelligent people enablement platform. CEOs and HR teams at more than 1400 forward-thinking companies (including Spotify, monday.com, and Unity) use Leapsome’s intelligent people enablement platform to drive employee development, productivity, and engagement.Jenny and Kajetan join James Pringle and Hector Mason in this episode to share what it’s like having two CEOs at Leapsome, leading a high-performance organization, cutting through the noise of HR-tech, & so much more.Don't forget to like, subscribe and follow The Riding Unicorns Podcast on our socials and your chosen podcast platform to stay up to date! 🎙️🦄

Peter Specht, Partner at Creandum, discusses how to be a valuable board member, questioning techniques, managing deal speed, and more. They also explore the relevance of operating experience in VC and the art of asking questions during due diligence.

This week's guest is Sequence Co-founder & CEO, Riya GroverSequence helps B2B companies design and iterate on billing and payment flows so they can stay focused on their mission. Their goal is to empower operators to build, scale and iterate, expand seamlessly into new markets and product verticals, and have a real time pulse on their business.Riya joins James Pringle and Hector Mason in this episode to share tips for facilitating merger and acquisition, the inspiration for Sequence, her views on building enterprise products, & so much more.Don't forget to like, subscribe and follow The Riding Unicorns Podcast on our socials and your chosen podcast platform to stay up to date! 🎙️🦄

This week's guest is Playfair Partner, Henrik Wetter Sanchez.Playfair is a generalist fund with a contrarian approach to pre-seed technology investing. They have backed 70+ companies across two funds including Thought Machine, Andela, Mapillary and Omnipresent.Henrik joins James Pringle and Hector Mason in this special episode to discuss his journey to VC, scaling Playfair, culture fit, crowdfunding, learning from other VCs, & so much more.Don't forget to like, subscribe and follow The Riding Unicorns Podcast on our socials and your chosen podcast platform to stay up to date! 🎙️🦄

This week's guests are Odin Co-founders, Paddy Ryan and Mary Lin.Odin is building a better way to invest together: a relationship-centric investment marketplace for founders, angels, and VC’s.Paddy and Mary join James Pringle and Hector Mason in this episode to discuss the founder's psyche, finding your Ikigai, creative strategies to facilitate people in your network to invest in startups & so much more.Don't forget to like, subscribe and follow The Riding Unicorns Podcast on our socials and your chosen podcast platform to stay up to date! 🎙️🦄

Startup Spotlight with Edmond Boulle, Co-Founder at Orbital Witness.Orbital Witness is a legaltech/proptech company liberating everyone involved in property transactions by organising all the information at the start of the process so there are no nasty surprises. Over 1.5% of all commercial property transactions in the UK use Orbital Witness and they have just raised a £7.5m Series A led by Parker89 to continue growing and also expand into the residential space. Don't forget to like, subscribe and follow The Riding Unicorns Podcast on our socials and your chosen podcast platform to stay up to date! 🎙️🦄

This week's guest is Yulife CEO & Co-founder Sammy Rubin.Yulife is on a mission to inspire people to live their best lives: financially, mentally and physically. They have fundamentally changed the nature of life insurance, creating an innovative new ‘win-win’ model which benefits individuals, businesses and society.Sammy joins James Pringle and Hector Mason in this episode to discuss how to spark creativity, how to build the right team, showing vulnerability in leadership & so much more.Don't forget to like, subscribe and follow The Riding Unicorns Podcast on our socials and your chosen podcast platform to stay up to date! 🎙️🦄

Startup Spotlight with Alex Lempka, Co-Founder at Connect Earth.Connect Earth is an environmental data company working with banks and fintechs to offer customers insights into the impact of their spending and investments on the climate.Its technology is integrated with banking groups such as KBC Bank, community banks and fintech firms in Europe and the United States. Connect Earth recently raised a £4.5m round led by Gresham House Ventures. Don't forget to like, subscribe and follow The Riding Unicorns Podcast on our socials and your chosen podcast platform to stay up to date! 🎙️🦄