- Stuart Paterson led original investment in travel search site Skyscanner which was sold to Chinese travel agency Ctrip (now called Trip.com) for £1.5 billion in 2016
- Silicon Valley Bank’s Flavia Popescu-Richardson, UK Business Angels Association’s Jenny Tooth OBE, BGF’s Euan Baxter, Old College Capital’s Andrea Young, Archangels’ David Ovens, TusPark UK’s Jerry Wu, and Robert Bosch’s Gitte Bedford are other investor panelists for EIE21 on 10th June
- Around 25 percent of the EIE21 company cohort are from outside Scotland, the highest proportion to date
SCOTLAND’S premier tech investor conference which will see company founders pitch for investment from seed level to over £2 million on 10th June, has announced its investor panelists. They include Stuart Paterson, Scottish Equity Partners (SEP) Partner and co-founder, who originally led SEP’s investment in travel search site Skyscanner which was sold to Chinese travel agency Ctrip (since rebranded Trip.com) for £1.5 billion in 2016.
SEP invests in growth stage technology companies across the UK and Europe and Paterson specialises in investments in consumer internet and enterprise software. He is currently non-executive director of European online eyewear retailer Mister Spex and Berlin-based online language learning business Babbel and has been instrumental in building SEP’s presence and reputation in Germany. Paterson also led SEP’s investments in Reykjavik-headquartered travel technology business Dohop and in online craft equipment and supplies company LoveCrafts and sits on the boards of both companies.
At the beginning of March, SEP made its latest investment, in Glasgow-based fintech AutoRek, the cloud-based financial reporting, data management and reconciliation software developer. The investment was made through the firm’s £260 million SEPV fund.
Silicon Valley Bank’s Flavia Popescu-Richardson, UK Business Angels Association’s Jenny Tooth OBE, BGF’s Euan Baxter, Old College Capital’s Andrea Young, Archangels’ David Ovens, TusPark UK’s Jerry Wu, and Robert Bosch’s Gitte Bedford are the other investor panelists for EIE21.
- Flavia Popescu-Richardson is vice-president of Silicon Valley’s early stage practice, manning a portfolio of early stage and growth technology companies
- Jenny Tooth OBE is the CEO of the UK Business Angels Association, the trade body for angel and early stage investing, representing over 18,000 investors around the UK.
- Euan Baxter works in British Growth Fund’s (BGF) Edinburgh-based investment team, and is responsible for championing new investments across central Scotland and Northern Ireland with a focus on earlier stage companies.
- Andrea Young is a fund manager and part of the founding team at Old College Capital, the in-house venture fund of the. University of Edinburgh.
- David Ovens is joint managing director of Edinburgh-based angel syndicate Archangels, chair of SIS Ventures and a non-executive director of LINC Scotland, the trade association for angel investors in Scotland.
- Dr Jerry Wu is the head of investment at TusPark Holdings UK, which has invested over £250 million in the UK since 2018.
- Robert Bosch’s Gitte Bedford, a GlobalScot, is vice-president of Robert Bosch Venture Capital GmBH, the VC arm of the German technology group.
Steve Ewing, Director of Entrepreneurship at Bayes Centre and EIE21 lead, said: “We have an amazing mix of investors for EIE21 this year, representing investor communities from Scotland, the UK, Europe, North America and Asia. The investor collective means our pitching companies will get invaluable experience of interfacing with some of the most respected angel, early stage and venture capital investors on the startup scene.”
EIE has supported over 500 tech startups since 2008 who have collectively raised around £750 million from seed through to Series A and later stage funding. Around 25 per cent of the EIE21 company cohort are from outside Scotland this year, the highest proportion to date.
Stuart Paterson, Partner and co-founder of SEP, said: “SEP has been a longtime supporter of EIE, a forum that provides a great opportunity for emerging technology companies from Scotland, and now from the rest of the UK and the international scene, to engage with the investor community and plot a path to growth. SEP invests in technology leaders across Europe, so we welcome the recent addition of the international component to the programme.”
