Tech Nation
  • Programmes
    • Programmes & Events

      If you’re a tech entrepreneur, be it aspiring, scaling or late stage, we have a programme for you. See here...

      • Climate

        Supporting climate tech founders

      • Libra

        Empowering underrepresented tech founders

      • Future Fifty

        Growing late-stage ventures, to IPO and beyond

      • Upscale

        Equipping scaleups post series A

      • Rising Stars

        Pitch competition for early-stage startups

      • Creo

        Championing disabled founders and entrepreneurs innovating around disability

  • Global Talent
    • Global Talent

      Work, Live, Thrive in the UK

      • About Global Talent

        Supporting global talent to work live and thrive in UK tech through our various support services

      • Global Talent Visa

        Discover the steps to apply and begin your journey

      • Global Talent Alumni

        Gain access to a global talent alumni network to support your journey

      • Global Talent Ambassadors

        Showcasing success stories from our Global Talent Visa Ambassadors

      • What To Consider Before You Apply

        Understand the standards applicants need to meet to be considered for a successful endorsement

      • Global Talent Visa Report 2024

        Celebrating 10 years of global talent in UK tech

  • Research & Insights
  • Partnerships
  • About
Contact

Meet Our Libra Advisors

See All Advisors
Andy Ayim MBE

Founder, Angel Investing School

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Brianna Bao

Co-Founder & COO, Platin

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Tom Foster-Carter

Founder & CEO, Lollipop

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Chenelle Ansah

Partner, Cornerstone Partners

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Dama Sathianathan

Partner, Bethnal Green Venture

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Tom Adeyoola

Co-Founder, Extend Ventures

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Kofi Siaw

Vice President Innovation, HSBC Innovation Banking

Karl Lokko

Chairman, Black Seed

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Gabbie Swycher

Investment Manager, Redrice Ventures

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Maria Rotilu

Investor, Stealth

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Drew Currie

Founder, hibretOne CIC

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Dayo Koleowo

Partner, Microtraction

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Lyubov Guk

Founding Partner, Blue Lake VC

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Akash Bajwa

Investor, Earlybird Venture Capital

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Leo Chandler

Investment Manager, Nesta

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Liam Gray

Head of Account Management (Europe), Plaid

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Rohan Inneh

Founder T.R.I

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Temi Olugbenga

Co Founder, Sylt Pickling

Husayn Kassai

CEO & Founder, Quench.ai & Onfido

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Douglas Lloyd

Co-Founder and CEO, Macademia

Kathleen Brietman

Co-Founder, Tezos

Siobhan Randall

Siobhan Randall, Social Impact & DEI Practitioner

Nakai Jirira

Ventures Lead, Deloitte

See All Advisors
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Andy Ayim MBE
Founder, Angel Investing School

Andy Ayim MBE is a long-term investor in businesses that close gaps in society and for the planet. He is also the founder of the Angel Investing School (AIS).

Andy serves on the Board of Whering, Translate Culture, Treasure Tress, If We Raise and previously London Tech Week.

He has deployed over $3m into startups and alumni from AIS have invested over $5m in over 300 startups since 2021.

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Brianna Bao
Co-Founder & COO, Platin

Brianna Bao is an early stage deep tech investor at Simsan Ventures, a London and Seoul based venture capital firm. She is also the Co-founder and COO at Platin, an AI-powered professional networking platform. As a Forbes-featured VC specializing in early-stage deep tech startups, Brianna actively promotes DEI as well as democratization within the tech industry.

She demonstrates her commitment to supporting underrepresented founders and creating an inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystem through her mentorship roles at various accelerators, including Zinc VC, Google for Startup Black Founders’ Fund, and Tech Nations’ Libra Programme.

Brianna is the Diversity Lead at University of Oxford’s Founders & Funders, a highly curated community bridging the gap between science and business, where Brianna cohosted a Webinar Series on “Investing in Underrepresented Founders”.

Brianna holds an MBA from Cass Business School in London and a Master’s degree in Mathematics and Education from New York University, following a double major in mathematics and physics. Prior to embarking on her entrepreneurial journey, Brianna served as one of the earliest Math for America Fellows, teaching mathematics and coding to underprivileged students in New York City.

Currently, Brianna is involved in Girls Are Investors (GAIN) and is a passionate advocate for girls in STEM. She firmly believes in transformative potential of deep tech and actively promotes STEM education and learning throughout her career.

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Tom Foster-Carter
Founder & CEO, Lollipop

Known as TFC to many, Tom is a serial entrepreneur who has helped build companies with a combined value of $5B – and he’s not done yet. His fourth startup, Lollipop, is looking to shake-up online grocery by creating an AI assistant that does the shopping for you.
Prior to that, he helped scale Monzo bank to 4 million customers as COO while building their multi-award-winning customer support service. He also co-founded Curve, an all-in-one card aggregator and was Founding COO of early London FinTech, Osper, a banking app for children.
Before catching the startup bug, he spent many long (and slightly boring) years in management consulting with Bain & Co and Accenture. He holds an MBA from INSEAD and a BA from New College, Oxford in Psychology, Philosophy & Physiology. In his (limited) spare time, Tom has also co-founded All In, a community of leading startups and scaleups who have pledged to move the needle on diversity and inclusion in the tech ecosystem.

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Chenelle Ansah
Partner, Cornerstone Partners

Passionate about Economic Empowerment Fintech and Climate Change.

Recently awarded Innovate Finance’s Standout Women in Fintech on Innovate UK’s Fintech Power list for being a Top Female Investor. Chenelle Ansah is an early-stage Venture Capital Investor investing in Climate Tech and Fintech in Europe and Africa.

In addition to being recognised as one of the UK’s leading female investors in Venture Capital, she is a speaker and holds a number of NED and Board Advisor positions.

Chenelle has worked in Financial Services for 16 + years and has spent the last 10 years working at the intersection of Fintech and Diversity. A Partner at Cornerstone Partners (the UK’s first black-owned investment firm), Chairwoman of the Investment Committee and Board Advisor at Crisis Venture Studio.

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Dama Sathianathan
Partner, Bethnal Green Venture

Dama Sathianathan (she/her) is a partner at Bethnal Green Ventures (BGV), Europe’s leading early-stage tech for good VC, backing ambitious founders using tech to tackle pressing social and environmental challenges at scale. At BGV, she leads on deal flow, community and networks, driving BGV’s efforts to act with integrity on diversity, equity and inclusion and fuel the broader tech for good movement across the UK.

Dama previously worked for international NGOs advocating for better human rights practices in global development and humanitarian response and has a background in international relations and human rights.

Dama sits on the steering committee of VentureESG, the world’s largest community of VCs and LPs stewarding better-shared learning and practices to integrate ESG and impact at the fund level and beyond. She’s also a Trustee at Chayn, a non-profit building open-source products and services for survivors of gender-based violence and domestic abuse.

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Tom Adeyoola
Co-Founder, Extend Ventures

Tom is an entrepreneur passionate about disruptive technology for societal and climate good. He was CEO and Founder of acquired fashtech scale-up Metail until 2019. Angel investor and policy change catalyst, he is also currently co-founder of research nonprofit Extend Ventures, and serves as Non-Exec Director for SPOKE, Verco and ‘Do Nation’ amongst others.

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Karl Lokko
Chairman, Black Seed

As a campaigner, Karl has spent the past decade of his life advocating for a fairer and more inclusive business ecosystem. Karl offers consultancy and advisory to high profile individuals, decision makers and corporates. His philanthropic efforts have helped raise millions for charities in the UK. A gifted orator, Karl is regularly invited to speak at corporate, public and charity events including TEDx Talks. He is also the co-founder and chairman on Black Seed, Europe’s first Black fund for Black founders by Black founders. A £10M fund and community providing black founders access to an extensive network whilst acting as a bridge between the city and community.

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Gabbie Swycher
Investment Manager, Redrice Ventures

Gabbie is an Investment Manager at early stage consumer fund, Redrice Ventures. We support founders creating premium consumer brands and related B2B tech solutions from pre-seed to series A.

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Maria Rotilu
Investor, Stealth

Maria is an operator turned investor, having scaled international technology startups to millions of users in leadership roles such as Country Manager, Uber Nigeria, and General Manager West Africa at Branch.co (a neo-bank that offered credit using AI/ML to credit score smartphone data).

She’s currently working on a new venture. Most recently, she was a fund manager who co-led a £10m European fund investing in European founders at pre-seed across B2B Software, Fintech and Digital Health and has invested in over 50+ startups across continents at pre-seed.

Maria has a BSC. in Computer Science from Covenant University, an MBA from Said Business School, University of Oxford, was the Managing Director of the Oxford Seed Fund. She is also a Certified Chartered Accountant, with Association of Chartered Accountant (ACCA) in the United Kingdom.

Maria personally finds backing and supporting ambitious founders early, even before day one, most impactful.

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Drew Currie
Founder, hibretOne CIC

Drew Currie has a passion for supporting small businesses and making entrepreneurship more accessible. Drew runs informative, ‘Show Me The Money’ grant funding events around the country, sharing guaranteed hints, tips and tricks to securing funding opportunities.

To date he has helped founders access over £7.3million of grants & Free Money programme funding.

Drew is a business founder, a mentor at NatWest Entrepreneur accelerator. Board member. Judge for Tech Nation. Ambassador for Birmingham Tech. UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship Assessor.

Based in the W Midlands, his previous enterprises include, co-founding a nationwide chain of 9 laser hair removal and botox clinics. Currently Drew is launching hibretOne CIC. A revolutionising freemium Saas platform, delivering the most comprehensive business resources, tools, investment and opportunities, all in one place.

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Dayo Koleowo
Partner, Microtraction

Dayo Koleowo is a Partner at Microtraction; an early-stage venture fund backing remarkable African tech entrepreneurs. His primary focus is pre-seed/seed investments across different sectors in Africa, portfolio support, fundraising, and the day-to-day operation of the fund.

He has a degree in Quantity Surveying and worked in the construction industry for 2 years before starting an online food delivery startup in 2015.

He is passionate about the economic growth of the African continent and believes her acceleration to economic sustainability will be achieved by empowering one of her biggest assets – the people.

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Lyubov Guk
Founding Partner, Blue Lake VC

Lyubov is a Founding Partner at Blue Lake VC, investing and supporting the UK’s early-stage international founders with a global vision. Principal organiser of International Office Hours linking early-stage startups in or on their way to the UK and the leading investors within the local ecosystem.
The UK Global Talent Visa Recipient and Ambassador.

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Akash Bajwa
Investor, Earlybird Venture Capital

Akash is an early stage investor at Earlybird Venture Capital, where he invests in enterprise software and fintech from Pre-Seed to Series A. Prior to Earlybird, Akash was investing in fintech at Augmentum Fintech and Barclays Ventures.

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Leo Chandler
Investment Manager, Nesta

Leo works as an Investment Manager at Nesta, focused on Seed and Series A investments across climate, health and education. Leo has also worked with SOSV at their IndieBio office in New York, focused on Pre-Seed life sciences/biotech companies innovating across human and planetary health. He started his career at a venture backed start-up and worked on the UK Government’s flagship programme to grow the impact investment market in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia with British International Investment, PwC and the Department for International Development.

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Liam Gray
Head of Account Management (Europe), Plaid

Head of Account Management (Europe)

Liam heads Plaid’s European account management and implementation team, facilitating the implementation and expansion of open banking solutions for clients across the continent. Before joining Plaid, he spearheaded Tech Nation’s Fintech programme and served as the Head of Research & Partner Management at Startupbootcamp Insurtech.

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Rohan Inneh
Founder T.R.I

Meet Rohan, the founder of T.R.I. Consulting – a growth operations consultancy that specialises in scaling D2C by optimising their operations. He’s worked with industry giants like EY, Deloitte, and Capgemini, alongside leading scale-ups including Treasure Tress, Boho Locs, and Chrissy Bales.

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Husayn Kassai
CEO & Founder, Quench.ai & Onfido

Co-Founder and former CEO at identity unicorn Onfido. Now Founder and CEO at new startup Quench.ai – using internal recordings to empower smarter work by delivering relevant learning in the flow of work. WEF Tech Pioneer; Forbes Contributor and “30 Under 30”; BA in Economics and Management from Keble College, Oxford.

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