Oh, it is cold outside! But we are poised to welcome you and share our love of good food, great company, and fabulous speakers ready to share their experience and knowledge of their industry with our Crowd. Whether you are fundraising, looking for tips and advice or are simply interested in meeting more people facing the same challenges and opportunities as you – you’ll find something on our February menu…

Finance | Dine with the CEO of iwoca | Feb 04 – Christoph Rieche is the co-founder and CEO of iwoca, a company that has reinvented small business lending using their award-winning technology. Christoph is a leading figure in the fintech sector and is the one to meet if you want to hear more about disrupting a traditional business sector using technology, raising big to scale as well as key mistakes and lessons learned from founding a fintech startup. Iwoca is on a mission to fund 1m small businesses – and you can find out more about it by joining the table here.

Fundraising | Dine with Angel Investor, Michael Blakey | Feb 05 – Michael has been an Angel Investor since 2000, when he co-founded Avonmore Developments and has since invested in over 25 companies and achieved 7 successful exits. This dinner is for you if you want to find out more about what makes a tech business truly investable to an angel investor, the differences between different funding routes (and which one you may want to take), as well as current investment trends to be aware of in UK, amongst other things.

Fundraising | Dine with Partner at Episode 1 Ventures | Feb 11 – Do you know enough about your customers to raise investment? Siobhan Clarke is a partner at Episode 1 Ventures, passionate about bringing together people and ideas into executable plans that really work. She has spent her career developing and launching products in startups and large enterprises and is the perfect choice if you want to know more about questions you will be asked when meeting a VC, mistakes she has seen first-hand that hinder growth, and key attributes Episode 1 Ventures look for in an investable business. Get your seat at the table here.

Fundraising | Dine with Nick Halstead | Feb 12 – The programmer turned CEO has raised over $80m for the businesses he founded from some of the world’s best VCs & investors – here and in the US. Nick is the founder of data businesses InfoSum and DataSift and the creator of TweetMeme which produced now well-known retweet button. Join us on this night to hear more on how he raised over $80m from some of the best investors in the world and get his top insider advice on what you need to know about working with investors – if you’re fundraising, this is the one.

Food & Drink | Dine with Head of Future brands team at Sainsbury’s | Feb 20 – we are joined by Milena Lazarevska, whose team are always looking for exciting and distinctive brands that Sainsbury’s shoppers will love. Always on a mission to find challenger brands their customers won’t find anywhere else, Milena is keen to meet with entrepreneurs and young brands that Sainsbury’s could partner with in the future. If you are a startup founder of, or C-level at, challenger brands within food and drink – this is the one for you. You’ll hear all about getting your brand stocked, key do’s and don’ts of pitching and an understanding of the whole process.

Fundraising | Dine with Carol Cheung of Cambridge Innovation Capital | Feb 20 – Our second dinner at Cambridge and we are very excited to join Carol Cheung, Investment Associate at Cambridge Innovation Capital. Led by an experienced investment team, an outstanding board and advisory panel of leading scientists and entrepreneurs, they are investing in high-growth technology companies. Their portfolio includes the likes of Cedar Audio, Swim.ai, CMR Surgical, GeoSpock and more. Carol will be talking about what your pitch deck should focus on and what an investor is looking to see, the importance of your team as well as sharing portfolio success stories and key lessons learned. Get all the details you need here.

Fashion | Dine with Head buyer at New Look | Feb 20 – Erica Davis has been in high street fast fashion for 16 years and as Head of Buying at one of UK’s best-known retailers, she has traveled the world extensively as a sourcing expert forecasting the next big trend. This is your opportunity to hear from and meet the head buyer of a leading retailer and learn all on their role in relationship building and negotiating, how New Look source and deliver a commercially focused product range and how to effectively reach out to a nationwide fashion retailer. If you’re in the fashion business, get your seat at this table.

Women | Dine with Salone Sehgal of London Venture Partners | Feb 27 – we finish off February with a ladies-only dinner, where we’ll be joined by the amazing Salone Sehgal, Principal Investor at London Venture Partners, a seed fund that invests early. They invest in tech gaming companies, with a portfolio that includes Supercell, Unity, NaturalMotion, Playfish, Applifier and many more. Salone is a leading, award-winning woman in the UK tech industry and this is your opportunity to hear her share all on investing in tech, pitfalls to avoid when growing and scaling your tech business, challenges women face in capital raising and team building – and how to work around it.

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See all our dinners in one place and take your pick.