Riding Unicorns: Venture Capital | Entrepreneurship | Technology

Jack Durling is Co-Founder of Lockdown Liquor & Co. The brand offers award-winning premium blended cocktails, crafted by expert mixologists using the best quality ingredients resulting in unique and great tasting cocktails. Having initially traded direct to consumers, Lockdown Liquor is now retailed in a selection of prestigious outlets including Daylesford Organic, Anthropologie to name a few, as well as a diverse selection of customers in the on trade from national restaurant groups, 5* hotels, members clubs, theaters to private aviation.Jack joins James Pringle and Hector Mason in this episode  to talk about how to break out as a brand, the signals of a growing business, venturing to the on-trade industry, & 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! 🎙️🦄

Alex Macdonald Co-Founded Velocity Black which went on to be acquired by Capital One and is now the Co-Founder at sequel helping the world's best athletes invest in the world's best startups, making a positive impact.They are on a mission to help athletes build legacies for their families and for the world. They harness cutting-edge technology and a network of founders, angels, and venture capitalists built over a decade to enable athletes to invest in the most promising startups changing the world for the better. Alex joins James Pringle and Hector Mason in this episode to discuss investing in startups, the competitive advantage of athletes against other investors, helping worthy young entrepreneurs & 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! 🎙️🦄

Saasha Celestial-One is the co-founder & COO of Olio, a sharing app for local communities, on a mission to fight waste. They make it easy to pass on the things we no longer need — from food to furniture, and clothes to books — to people who live nearby. They also work with businesses to redistribute unsold or unserved food. That way, every last bit of edible food ends up benefitting local people, rather than it ending up in the bin. Prior to founding Olio, Saasha spent 13 years in finance, strategy and business development roles at Morgan Stanley, McKinsey & American Express, and also founded My Creche, London's first PAYG provider offering flexible childcare for busy parents.Saasha joins James Pringle and Hector Mason in this episode to share about the food waste problem that sparked the idea for Olio, the challenge of building a business around it, dealing with doubters, & 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! 🎙️🦄

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! 🎙️🦄