It’s always a pleasure to try out a new restaurant local to our Old Street office for a TableCrowd dinner and last night our Startup Engine crowd descended on newish-to-the-scene Rotary Bar & Diner, right by Old Street tube. The menu was simple, burgers, steak and fish – all very tasty, as, it was reported, were the virgin cocktails. We had 11 diners from the Startup Engine Crowd, all ready to ...
Read More3 courses, 4 investors, 5 pitches. Our finalists joined us for dinner at Piccolino's in the City prepared to pitch their businesses to our panel. They had attended either the Application Dinner or Application Lunch previously to qualify for the final. The panel comprised Karri Vuori of Charles Stanley, William Orde of Oxford Capital, Thomas Colmer of Osbourne Clarke and Ben Kirby of Greenhill Capital Partners. They were tasked with scoring the ...
Read MoreLast week was the first application dinner for our "Startup Engine" crowd to help startups get investment. Yes, we know, there really is nothing we can’t do over dinner! We hosted the dinner in the private room in Piccolino in the City. The startups each had 1 minute to deliver their elevator pitch followed by 5 minutes of Q&A led by our expert judges. The judges had the tough job of ...
Read MoreTwo of my favourite things combined – pizza and startups! A little piece of Monday night heaven. On Monday night, Simona Valcuaite of The Link Foundry, hosted a fantastic dinner at Pizza East. The Link Foundry is a private business network for entrepreneurs, investors and business owner. This was a great opportunity to meet entrepreneurs and hear about their startups. A couple of first timers! Maya Traykova is managing partner of The ...
Read MoreSunday. Fresh off the plane from a very successful trip to San Francisco and NYC and headed straight to the SilkFred sample sale in Brick Lane. SilkFred is the online destination for emerging fashion designers and CEO & Founder Emma Watkinson has hosted a few TableCrowd fashion tables. It was a buzzy event packed out with designers and shoppers. Monday. (Jetlagged). No rest for the wicked. Before my trip, I bagged a demo ...
Read MoreLast month, TableCrowd was accepted to join Chinwag’s 2013 Digital Mission to NYC, so as well as the great schedule of events arranged by the Chinwag team, I set up a number of other meetings for fundraising and partnership purposes to maximize the benefit from the trip. So here is a little insight into two of the most hectic weeks of my life...! Monday. From the comfort of my downtown Airbnb digs, ...
Read MoreMonday. We’re in full fund raising mode, so as well as juggling the demands of the day-to-day business, I’m running around the City and West End for fund raising meetings. After missing out on their last demo & drinks event, I booked a demo slot on 25 February with Tech Meetups at Google Campus. It’s a good opportunity to further improve our pitch and receive feedback from London’s tech community. I’m off to ...
Read MoreWe dined at the rather busy Thai Thai on Old Street this week, a stone’s throw from London’s booming Tech City. Jon Prove joined us for the first time. I met Jon after hearing him deliver a fantastic demo (with prizes for those that listened most carefully!) at Tech Meetups last month for his startup Ginicam. Ginicam allows you to trade online, in real time, earning money without risk. For example, ...
Read MoreThis week at the Startup Engine weekly dinner we had a private room booked at Piccolina (great food, great service!). We were lucky enough to be joined by Sylvia Cohen, an expert in public speaking. There were 11 diners, all keen to finely tune their public speaking and presentation skills for a variety of reasons ranging from fund raising to career changes. We had an hour taster session where Sylvia shared ...
Read MoreThis week’s Startup Engine dinner was at the Giant Robot in Farringdon. A quirky mixed menu and many mustached staff! We had 10 diners this week, including a few regulars. Venus was back, 3rd week in a row, with more ideas for her business; she’s ready to map out the site! It was also good to see Doug Haines of London School of Attraction back again. His company offers coaching courses ...
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