UK Tech Investment Weekly Episode 17

UK Tech Investment Round-Up takes place every Monday at 12 pm BST on Clubhouse, hosted by Manoj Ranaweera of Deal Lite (a product of Techcelerate) with co-hosts, Andrew Threlfall of Malinko (Techcelerate’s largest tech company, which makes scheduling community nursing a walk in the park for the NHS) and Stewart Townsend, a SaaS Channel Specialist who helped scale Zendesk, DataSift and many others.

Episode 15 will take place on 14th June 2021 at 12 pm BST.

The friendly discussion will focus on:

• Investment Update from Deal Lite
• Founder journeys
• Investment journeys
• 2021 Plans

We hope the audience will be able to benefit from the knowledge shared.

Speakers

Christer Holloman – Divido (Series B)

Christer is the Founder and CEO of Divido, which recently secured £21 million Series B investment led by HSBC and ING.

Christer was formerly a technology feature writer for Sky News and author of The Social Media MBA book. He launched Glassdoor.com in Europe and prior to that was Head of Digital Product Development at The Times and The Sunday Times and spent over 10 years in the newspaper industry. He is a professional business speaker and an expert commentator on TV.

Divido creates a flexible way for lenders, merchants and partners to control and configure payments, in a way that meets the evolving needs of customers at the point of sale. Divido has 1,000 clients and operates in ten markets across two continents.

2. Mariano Kostelec – StudentFinance (Seed)

Mariano is the CEO and Co-founder of StudentFinance, which recently secured £3.7 million Seed investment co-led by Giant Ventures and Armilar Venture Partners.

Mariano is a young entrepreneur and has co-founded Uniplaces.com which has become the largest mid-term rental platform in Europe. Before that he worked for leading investment banks including Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, and UBS, and several fast growing startups (most notably he led the international expansion of Groupon and Wimdu in Asia). 

StudentFinance is an educational technology company focused on helping partner schools and universities financing students’ education through Income-Share -Agreements (“ISA”) to help increase educational opportunity and empower people to access high-impact careers.

3. Vicky Wilson – Kind Call t/a Settld (Seed)

Vicky is the CEO and Co-Founder at Settld, which secured £500k Seed investment led by SFC Capital.

Vicky has experience in International Project and Program Management, Product Development, Launch and Scale, Marketing (B2B + B2C), Idea Generation and Logistics. In 2019, Vicky and her co-founder Julie faced the account bereavement closure process for a close relative and realised how terrible it was. They built Settld platform to save other families from facing the same unnecessary difficulties.

Settld is a mobile-friendly web application that serves families in the task of preparing for death, accessing end of life services, and closing down the digital and household accounts of a loved one who dies. With inbuilt case tracking and automatic information chasers, Settld is designed to support you at a time when it matters the most.

4. Steven Mendel – Many Group t/a Bought By Many (Series D)

Steven is the Co-founder and CEO at Bought By Many, which secured £246 million Series D investment led by EQT Group.

Steven has over 25 years’ experience as an actuary in financial services which includes Close Brothers Wealth Management, Christie’s; Barclays Wealth and McKinsey UK. Steven founded Bought By Many, which is disrupting the world of pet insurance through the innovative use of tech. In April 2019 Steven was included in the London Business School Review of 30 People Who Are Changing The World.

Bought By Many is an award-winning pet insurance. It offers advanced easy-to-access pet health insurance and preventive wellness services, delivered through convenient subscription-driven technology and seamless benefits.