CUTalks by CUTEC

This week on CUTalks we are talking to Joe Schorge, the founder and managing partner of Isomer Capital, one of Europe's leading Fund-of-Funds based in London UK. Isomer has a broad portfolio underlying more than 1,300 companies from start-ups to unicorns and including 6 IPOs, such as Darktrace, Deliveroo and Acast. Having worked as LP, GP, Angel Investor and Technology Operations Executive in the US and Europe over the last 25 years - Joe holds an impressive career trajectory in VC and private investing with distinguished accomplishments. In this episode, we spoke about Joe's experience of founding Isomer, his path to VC and impact of working in VC, digital finance, Crypto Fund-of-Funds as well as some of the new additions of start-ups in Isomer's portfolio. To find out more about CUTEC, visit www.cutec.io/ This podcast was produced by Carl Homer, Cambridge TV.

This week on CUTalks, we are speaking to Ashleigh Ainsley, the Co-Founder of Colorintech - a non-profit organisation that seeks to increase diversity in tech. Colorintech works with some of the largest tech companies in the world - including Facebook, Microsoft and Tik Tok. Ashleigh started his career working in strategy at the London start-up Qubit, Google, corporate KPMG and then the Founders Forum group. In this episode, we spoke about Ashleigh's experience of founding a company, the best and most challenging aspects from working to a large company to then being a start-up founder, as well as the mission of Colorintech to tackle the lack of diversity in the tech industry. To find out more about CUTEC, visit www.cutec.io/ This podcast was produced by Carl Homer, Cambridge TV.

This week on CUTalks, we are speaking to Prof. Anthony Finkelstein, former Chief Scientific Adviser for National Security to the UK Government and current President of City, University of London. We spoke about the threats to Britain's national security, the spread of mis- and disinformation on social media, technological revolutions which are changing our society including Artificial General Intelligence as well as Anthony's experience working in the Government. To find out more about CUTEC, visit www.cutec.io/ This podcast was produced by Carl Homer, Cambridge TV.

This week on CUTalks, we are speaking to Dr. Katalin Kariko, a biochemist who specializes in mRNA research. Katalin's ground-breaking technology has saved millions of lives during the pandemic as her research formed the basis of the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines. We spoke about the COVID-19 pandemic, mRNA vaccine safety and hesitations around vaccination as well as some of the entrepreneurial ventures that Katalin had embarked on. To find out more about CUTEC, visit www.cutec.io/ This podcast was produced by Carl Homer, Cambridge TV.

This week on CUTalks we are talking to Pierre Fautrel, one of the co-founders of Obvious AI. Pierre has a background in cultural entrepreneurship and has a master's in digital communication from Lyon Business School. Obvious use AI to create novel artworks in a range of different styles and sell them as NFTs online. We spoke about the technology behind their algorithm as well as covering topics such as the public perception of AI-created art. Pierre also shared how he met his co-founders and their plans for Obvious. To find out more about CUTEC, visit www.cutec.io/ This podcast was produced by Carl Homer, Cambridge TV.

This week on CUTalks, we are speaking to Vanessa Marcié who is an expert on leadership and humour and a guest lecturer at the Cambrige Judge Business School and HEC Paris amongst others. She holds a PhD in Management and Marketing Communications from the Univeristy of Côte d'Azur and an MBA from the Cambridge Judge Business School. We spoke about how leading with humour can be an effective leadership style and what steps we can personally take to utilise it more. To find out more about CUTEC, visit www.cutec.io/ This podcast was produced by Carl Homer, Cambridge TV.

This week on CUTalks, we are speaking to Denis Kaminskiy who is the co-founder and strategy director of the Cambridge-based digital transformation firm Arcus Global. Denis holds an MBA from the University of Cambridge and has previously held roles at Cadbury and Rolls-Royce. We spoke about how he got into Govtech, the work Arcus does for the UK government and how the UK government is doing at adopting technology.

This week on CUTalks, we are speaking to Taavi Kotka, an entrepreneur and the first CIO of the Estonian government. He started his career as a programmer and became the CEO of Webmedia (now Nortal), the region's largest software company before working with the governmentand is now back in the private sector, helping start-ups develop and consulting on digital transformation. We spoke about the process of the digital transformation of Estonia, the challenges faced during it and how other countries might follow suit. This podcast was produced by Carl Homer, Cambridge TV.

This week on CUTalks, we are speaking to Adam Medros who is the ex-President and CEO of edX, a non-profit online course provider. He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and has previously held roles at TripAdvisor and Amazon. We spoke about the impact of COVID-19 on online learning, the advantages of modular education, and the future of online learning amongst other things. Adam also shared his advice for startup founders running EdTech companies.

This week on CUTalks, we are speaking to Jonny Clifford who is the General Manager at Entrepreneur First London, a company that invests in potential entrepreneurs pre-idea and helps them to find co-founders. Jonny has previously been a teacher as well as worked within sales at Show My Homework, an Edtech startup. We spoke about how EF identifies talent and what the programme entails. Amongst other things, Jonny also touched on how to know if founding a company is for you and gave his advice to early-stage founders.

This week on CUTalks, we are speaking to Niklas Hebborn who is a partner at Freigeist Capital, a German deep tech VC firm based in Bonn. He holds a degree in business administration and has a background in consulting and private equity. We spoke about how he got into VC, how Freigeist Capital choose which companies to invest in and support them, and the outlook for the European tech ecosystem. Here is the link to the survey - https://forms.gle/8sBVj2WNNUjCmJZ58 This podcast was produced by Carl Homer, Cambridge TV.

This week on CUTalks we are speaking to Mark Shmulevich, the Senior VP at TAIGER - an AI software company in Singapore. He is also the founding director of the Zimin Institutes in Israel which helps commercialise promising research with the potential to generate solutions to pressing problems in the world. Additionally, he has been the Deputy Minister of IT in Russia. We spoke about his experiences in the government and the private sector, his work to help the commercialisation of high-impact research and briefly about how AI and deep tech applications may develop in the future. To learn more about CUTEC visit cutec.io

This week on CUTalks, we are speaking to Sir Menelas Pangalos, the VP of BioPharmaceuticals R&D at AstraZeneca. He holds a PhD in neuroscience from UCL and has previously worked at Wyeth and Pfizer. We spoke about the importance of collaboration with academia, how AstraZeneca’s drug development success rate has increased in recent years and how they make sure medicines are accessible to all. Here’s the link to sign up for the BBMS conference on "scientific and technological advances in healthcare crises" (March 2021): http://bbms2021.eventbrite.co.uk/

This week on CUTalks, we are speaking to Jeremy O’Hanlon, a Cambridge alumnus, who has worked as a corporate attorney in the life sciences and tech industries. He’s also held roles in business and corporate development in the life sciences as he currently does at Gilead Sciences in California. We spoke about M&A deals he’s worked on at Gilead, the skillset required in M&A and his insights from working with VCs.

This week on CUTalks, we are speaking to Richard Lucas, a business and social entrepreneur as well as an early-stage investor. He has also been heavily involved in teaching entrepreneurship and fostering entrepreneurial communities via CAMentrepreneurs and other initiatives such as TedXKazimierz. We spoke about how Richard approaches investing, entrepreneurship education and mentorship. He also shared his perspective on how the environment one finds themselves in can fuel entrepreneurship. This podcast was produced by Carl Homer, Cambridge TV.

This week on CUTalks, we are speaking to Christopher Kong who is the co-founder and Head of Business development at Better Nature, a tempeh-focussed food-tech company. Chris holds a masters degree in biochemistry from the University of Oxford. We spoke about the story behind Better Nature and challenges he and his co-founder had to face to build the company. Chris also shared how Better Nature has prioritised sustainability in business decisions and his thoughts on the long-term outlook for the alternative meat industry.

This week on CUTalks, we are speaking to Dr. Kai-fu Lee who is the Chairman and CEO of Sinovation Ventures, a leading Chinese technology venture capital firm. He was also the founder of Microsoft Research Asia and the president of Google China as well as authoring the bestseller ‘AI Superpowers’. Kai-fu shared his journey into AI and gave an overview of the entrepreneurial landscape in China. He then went on to give insights into how governments can support AI, how humans can adapt as AI adopts certain tasks and how AI can revolutionise education. This podcast was produced by Carl Homer, Cambridge TV.

This week on CUTalks, we are talking to Nigel Lambe. Nigel is the CEO of the Sussex Innovation Centre. He has also been an investor and/or co-founder in several food and drink start-ups including Small Batch Coffee Company and Brighton Gin most recently. Prior to this he worked in areas such as sales and supply chain management at various companies. Nigel told us about how he transitioned from working in the corporate world to working within start-ups and the challenges he overcame. He also shared the ways in which his current company, Sussex Innovation, helps support start-ups and university spin-offs alike. Lastly, he gave tips for current and aspiring founders based on his experiences over the years. This podcast was produced by Carl Homer, Cambridge TV.

This week on CUTalks, we are talking to Kate Hamer and Louis Saha, co-founders of AxisStars - a business which connects sports and entertainment stars with select partners via a mobile app. Louis is a former professional footballer and played for Fulham, Everton and Manchester United amongst others, whilst Kate has vast experience in the marketing world and has her own marketing and digital consulting company. We discussed how Louis and Kate met and how they were each able to utilise their previous experiences when it came to building the platform. They also shared lessons they’ve learnt along the way and the impact of mentors on their careers. This podcast was produced by Carl Homer, Cambridge TV.

This week on CUTalks we are talking to Jonny Everett, co-founder of The Chat Shop and current Programme Manger and Entrepreneur in Residence at Entrepreneur First. Jonny told us about the advisory work he does with startups via Entrepreneurship First and shared his candid experiences with mental health as a founder. He also gave advice on how founders can achieve greater balance in their lives and on how to cope with mental health struggles they may encounter.

This week on CUTalks we are talking to James Hawkins, co-founder of PostHog, an open course product analytics software, which recently went through Y Combinator and has raised a $3M seed round. James shared some tips for budding entrepreneurs who might not have enough experience to start their own business yet. He also shed some light on the different business models of open source companies, taking examples from RedHat, MongoDB and Gitlab. He firmly believes that there seems to be a trend of open source software taking over SAAS system in recent years. He also explained how PostHog pitched their open source business models to various investors. Lastly he shared about their recent seed funding round with Y Combinator and the experience of working with the firm.

This week on CUTalks we are talking to Dr Mark Goulston. Mark is an American trained psychiatrist, author of seven books including, "Just Listen" Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone, has contributed to Harvard Business Review, Business Insider, Fast Company and hosts the My Wakeup Call podcast. He is also the creator of the field of Surgical Empathy in which people learn to let go of their personal agenda, and instead go to where another person is coming from, and then reveal their most important, critical and urgent needs and desires and then serve those.

This week on CUTalks we are talking to Tim Brears, CEO of Evonetix. Evonetix is a synthetic biology company developing a desktop platform for scalable, high-fidelity and rapid gene synthesis. Tim holds a PhD from Cambridge University and has an MBA from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. Tim recently led a $30M Series B round. Tim introduced synthetic biology and its immense potential in the industry. He also shared about some strategies that his company used in order to differentiate themselves from the larger players. Tim also talked about his experience raising fund from a different continent i.e. the US, while growing the company in Cambridge, UK. Lastly, Tim gave some career advice for PhD students who might want to work outside of academia.

This week on CUTalks we are talking to Marcel Gehrung, CEO and founder of Cyted, a startup using digital diagnostics to revolutionise the early detection of cancer. Marcel has also completed a PhD from the University of Cambridge and is an Enrichment Fellow at the Alan Turing Institute. Marcel talked about the various types of cancers that Cyted has to deal with, and how they picked the target market. He also spoke about his experience being a technical co-founder and gave general advice for people with technical backgrounds on what to watch out for.

This week on #CUTalks we are talking to Professor Muhammad Yunus, a social entrepreneur who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his contribution in microfinance and Grameen Bank. He talked about the future of social business and his newest book, A World of Three Zeros.

This week on #CUTalks we are talking to Ollie Phillips, former English professional rugby player and now a director at PwC, charity ambassador, motivational speaker, and founder of ‘Optimist Performance’, which helps businesses build a team culture to succeed. Ollie shared some lessons on teamwork, leadership and resilience that he has learned from both his sports and business career. He also talked about how to handle difficult conversations with fellow teammates.

This week on #CUTalks, we are talking to Steve Blank, an 8-time Silicon Valley entrepreneur and creator of the customer development and lean startup method. He teaches entrepreneurship at Stanford, Berkeley and Columbia. Steve is also the author of four books: The Four Steps to the Epiphany, Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost, The Startup Owner's Manual, and Holding a Cat by the Tail.

This week on #CUTalks we are talking to Monique Boddington, currently Interim Deputy Director of Cambridge Judge Launchpad at the Judge Business School. Monique is a teacher and researcher in entrepreneurship, and we look forward to hearing from her about the insights she has gained from working so closely with many startups in Cambridge through the EVER project. These include issues like pivoting strategy, team dynamics, gender and stereotypes in entrepreneurship. She brought up several real-life stories and challenges based on her interaction with startups in Cambridge.

We are talking to Julia Rajnak, founder and Service Designer of Swishi. Julia is a Service and Experiences Designer having previously studied at the Royal College of Art. She is now launching Swishi to revolutionise the circular economy, starting with Switzerland. Julia shares about her experience scaling up the company, and the importance of integrating service design methodology into her strategy.

How has covid-19 affected the Southeast Asian (ASEAN) economy, and how can Southeast Asian countries leverage on the China-US trade war? Who will be the champion? Hear from Gita Wirjawan, Indonesia's Minister of Trade from 2011 to 2014. He is also the Chairman of Ancora Group, an Indonesian business group which he founded in 2008 with interests in real estate, technology, education and natural resources. This is a recording from a live webinar event that took place on 17th July 2020.

This week on #CUTalks we are talking to Carlene Jackson, CEO of Brighton-based tech company Cloud9 Insight. Carlene established her first business aged 17 and then spent nearly two decades in the software industry before going it alone to take advantage of the booming cloud technology sector. Cloud9 Insight is a Microsoft Gold Partner which has provided more than 700 UK businesses with cloud-based CRM software systems. Founded in 2010, the company has 30 staff and is also an award winning provider of training and apprenticeships programmes which it runs through its sister company, Vantage Academy.

This week on CUTalks we are talking to Yasrine Ibnyahya, director of advanced concepts and technologies at Inmarsat. She has done an MBA at the Cambridge Judge Business School. Yasrine talks about her experience being an intrapreneur in the satellite industry and mentor to women in the industry. She also shares her portfolio-based strategy for championing innovative projects within the company to manage risk. Yasrine highlights some of the differences in creating innovation between large companies and startups. She gives advice to aspiring entrepreneurs who are still early in their career.

This week at CUTalks, we are talking to Stephen Lile, co-founder and general partner of Oxbridge Angels, a recently founded early stage fund with a focus on Deep Tech and Life Sciences. The firm is made up of Cambridge EMBA and MBA students, with other investors as Limited Partners. Stephen started his career as an investment banker, became serial entrepreneurs (started 4 companies) and moved to academia upon doing master study at the University of Oxford, EMBA in Judge Business School and now as a PhD student at the University of Cambridge. Stephen shares some of the harsh lessons about entrepreneurship that he has personally experienced, and several tips and tricks on human and financial capital management that every startup founder should master. He emphasises the importance of being resilient as most of the time, the odds of success is against most founders.

What does it take to commence a successful biotechnology start-up? What risks are involved as a private equity investor? How can one manage and offset the risks of cashflow and company control vis-à-vis founders possessing controlling shareholdings? Hear from Dr William H. Janeway, a private equity giant from Warburg Pincus and University of Cambridge, Faculty of Economics lecturer. This is a recording from a live webinar event that took place on 12th June 2020. Content: During this webinar, Bill discussed the economics of innovation as illustrated by the founding of Life Technologies and resolution of the ‘Biotechnology Paradox’. Bill delved into the risks associated with investing as a private equity investor in this industry and the substantial growth in the number of pharmaceutical and biotechnology IPOs in the US. Format: Opening remarks were provided by Bill. Pre-submitted questions from our audience were then asked and further questions submitted via the online platform ‘Menti’ were welcomed on the topic. This event was organised by CUTEC and CUVCPE societies as part of the ongoing ‘CUTalks by CUTEC’ podcast series. The hosts for the webinar were Shreya Singhal and Shelby Newsad. To find other podcast episodes, visit here: https://cutec.io/cutalks. Follow us @CUTEC, #CUTalks and @CUVCPE on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook to find out about future events and podcast episodes.

Ep 30 - Urshita Gautam by CUTalks by CUTEC

Ep 28 - Lucy Jung by CUTalks by CUTEC

This week we are talking to Daniel Rooke, co-founder, partner and head of legal at StartCodon, the Cambridge healthcare and life sciences accelerator. Daniel speaks about his experience working in both large companies and startups, which aspects are similar and different. He also emphasizes the importance for founders to critically think about what they really want and need when finding accelerators to work with.

Given the current Covid-19 pandemic, everybody is reaching out more to people in their personal and professional networks, and so we thought we would do the same. We have been catching up with founders who we have previously had as guests on the podcast, to find out what they have been up to since our recording with them and how they are being affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. The founders featured on this episode are: Alex Murray, Flit Nisarg Mehta, Vector.ai Helene Guillaume, WILD AI

#CUTalks by CUTEC has just launched a new mini-series: Female Founders in the Spotlight. This series has the aim of increasing visibility of female founders of early-stage startups. To launch the series, Shreya Singhal and Thomas Bohné have been talking to Nicola Filzmoser, co-founder of Happyr Health, a mobile game based on cognitive behavioral therapy, to help children cope with recurring migraines. We met Nicola at the EnterpriseWOMEN program at the Judge Business School. Nicola is pursuing a Master of Entrepreneurship at Cambridge while working on Happyr full-time. She shares about her personal experience dealing with migraines when she was young and the lack of proper solutions made available to her. Happyr Health have launched a crowdfunding round, initial target of £10k which has been increased to £14k after rapidly reaching their initial target.

#CUTalks by CUTEC has just launched a new mini-series: Female Founders in the Spotlight. This series has the aim of increasing visibility of female founders of early-stage startups. To launch the series, Shreya Singhal and Thomas Bohné have been talking to Jennifer Jia, founder of Emporsand, a company empowering women through access to sanitation as featured on the BBC. They are repurposing waste cuts of clothing into sanitary towels and making them accessible to women in poverty. We met Jennifer at the EnterpriseTECH and EnterpriseWOMEN at the Judge Business School. Jennifer speaks about the scale of the problem that Emporsand is tackling and the challenges that her company faces in developing a sustainable business model to solve this issue. She also highlights the need for investors and the public in general to appreciate that the lack of sanitation towels are not just problems for women but also the wider society.

How has Covid-19 affected venture capital/private equity/asset management investments, and how can companies survive? Who will survive? Hear directly from Ozan Özkural, the founder of Tanto Capital Partners. This is a recording from a live webinar event that took place on 27th April 2020. Content: We discussed macroeconomic trends currently being seen, global political and economic consequences, how sectors may morph in the future, and what you (as an individual or a leading figure in your company) can do to survive. Format: Opening remarks were provided by Ozan (www.ozanozkural.com / https://twitter.com/OzanOzkural / https://www.instagram.com/ozanozkural/), and then questions were welcomed from the audience on the topic. This event was organised by CUTEC and CUVCPE societies as part of the ongoing ‘CUTalks by CUTEC’ podcast series. To find other podcast episodes, visit here: https://cutec.io/cutalks. Follow us @CUTEC, #CUTalks and @CUVCPE on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook to find out about future events and podcast episodes.

Martin Frost, CMR Surgical by CUTalks by CUTEC

How To: Embed early stage spin-out success & Connect with your customers Simon Hombersley is CEO of Xampla, a startup making natural plastic alternative made entirely of peas. Simon is an experienced technology entrepreneur with a track record in using technology to solve environmental problems. He is the former CEO of Oxford Flow, an energy reducing wealth technology, spun out of Oxford University’s Department of Engineering Science. Simon has more than a decade of experience building cleantech startups with global impact. He shares about what it takes to commercialize a scientific project out of academia, and the change in mindset that researchers need to adopt in order to make such a pursuit successful. Simon especially emphasizes the importance of understanding what the customer needs since early days of the company. Having connections with investors with extensive experience in the field is also a crucial factor in achieving success.

This week on CUTalks we are talking to Daniel Valdivia and Chris Rosser. Daniel is the CEO and Chris is the CTO, and together they co-founded Unlimitech, a fitness technology startup developing the Smartmask, which is a wearable designed to measure aerobic and metabolic efficiency metrics by tracking breath flow and composition. Daniel has a background in business engineering as well as an MBA from Cambridge, and Chris is an engineer by training, with subsequent engineering consultancy roles.

This week on CUTalks we are talking to Bill Janeway, an active growth equity investor, senior advisor and managing director of Warburg Pincus, as well as economic theorist. He co-founded and is a member of the Governing Board of the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET), and a member of the Board of Managers of the Cambridge Endowment for Research in Finance (CERF). Following publication in November 2012, his book Doing Capitalism in the Innovation Economy: Markets Speculation and the State (Cambridge University Press) became a classic. This episode is an exciting collaboration with the Venture Capital/Private Equity society at Cambridge, and we welcome the president of the society Shelby Newsad as a guest co-host.

This week on CUTalks we are talking to Tom Britton. Tom is the co-founder of Syndicate Room, a fintech company allowing investors to co-invest with Super Angels in a portfolio of early stage companies. Tom did an MBA in Cambridge before starting the company.

This week on CUTalks we are talking to Adrian Ibrahim, Head of Technology Transfer and Business Development at the Wellcome Sanger Institute. With a background spanning academic research, structured finance and technology protection, Adrian was recruited to optimise the ability of the Sanger Institute science to provide healthcare benefit. Adrian talks about the institute’s efforts to help technology transfer for impact to patients.

In this episode of CUTalks, Shreya and Thomas talk to John Cassidy, Co-founder and CEO at Cambridge Cancer Genomics (CCG.ai), a precision AI startup transforming the ability of oncologists to provide effective, personalised cancer treatment for everyone. John holds a PhD in functional genomics from the University of Cambridge and a Masters in Pharmacology from the University of Glasgow. His research career in academia (CRUK) and industry (MedImmune) focused on understanding how tumours evolve and become resistant to treatment. John is actively involved in the biotech startup community as a Venture Partner at the Pioneer Fund, Director of SiliconBio and a lecturer at Anglia Ruskin University.

Alex Murray, Flit Bike by CUTalks by CUTEC

Pierre Far, Blockmetry/data governance by CUTalks by CUTEC

In this episode of CUTalks, Shreya and Thomas talk to Ipshita Mandal-Johnson, co-founder of Global Biotech Revolution, and the first president of Gap Summit. They discuss Ipshita's journey as a serial entrepreneur and how to make an impact on a global scale.