Trading with the Middle East and Fundraising do’s and don’ts – #AfterDinnerRoundup

by TableCrowd June 25, 2015 3042 Views

This week we had two completely different dinners on offer to our community, a fundraising dinner with Bill Earner, and an intimate dinner with Mahdi Kazemzadeh on the topic of Trading in the Middle East. We also had a selection of member-hosted dinners, including the monthly Foundrs dinner hosted by Grabble‘s co-founder, Daniel Murray, a legal industry dinner, and #ImpactWomen dinner with Servane Mouazan from Ogunte. If you’re interested in hosting your own dinner, take a look here.

Here’s a quick overview of what happened at our TableCrowd hosted dinners:

Trading with the Middle East
With an intimate dinner on Monday night at Aubaine, Heddon St, our group had the pleasure of dining with others keen to understand the Middle East market, and in particular the effect the lifting of sanctions has on trading with Iran. Mahdi Kazemzadeh, founder of Afraz Advisers, has a positive outlook for Iran’s future and spoke extensively on the huge opportunities that exist in the country.

Iran gets lots of sun, lots of wind, but it needs a robust framework in place to encourage future generations to invest time and money into this area.

Fundraising Do’s and Don’ts
We had the pleasure of hosting our first dinner at the wonderful Jamie’s Italian London Bridge, where Bill Earner, Managing Partner at Connect Ventures, provided an after-dinner talk on the do’s and don’ts of fundraising. His refreshingly candid approach gave his fellow diners a clearer picture of what they can expect from VCs and how best to interact with them. Take a look at his top 5 tips here.