Welcome to our very first LIVE PODCAST, where you, the listeners, get to ask your questions live to our podcast guest and enjoy listening back later! As part of our series of resources to help founders on the fundraise during the Covid-19 crisis, we are delighted to be joined by Laura Connell, Principal at Europe's Leading Tech VC - Balderton Capital - to share her take on the impact the pandemic is having on fundraising now, and what founders can do to keep going and navigate this black swan event. Seize the opportunities available to you now! Learn more from Laura in this episode and if you like what you hear, please leave a review here!

About our Guest:
Laura joined Balderton's investment team in 2018. She spent the previous three years advising early stage technology startups across sectors on topics ranging from fundraising to product launch strategies. She was also CFO of a D2C womenswear brand. Prior to this, Laura was an Assistant Researcher at Imperial College undertaking neuroscience research in the Brain Sciences Department of Imperial College's Faculty of Medicine. She started her career at Goldman Sachs for five years, first in the Investment Management Division and subsequently the Financial Institutions Group in M&A. She was a Fulbright Scholar and gained her MBA from Harvard, and she studied Politics, Philosophy and Economics at the University of Oxford. She speaks fluent English and French.

Learn more about Laura here and Read her Medium Blog

How to raise capital in the U.S. during the Covid-19 Crisis? What are the key current trends coming out of New York when it comes to Angel and Venture Capital investing?  What do entrepreneurs need to know, to navigate these uncertain times in how they should approach investors? 

​You will learn all of this and more, from our first male investor guest, Ed Zimmerman who is a Partner/Chair of the Tech Group at the law firm Lowenstein Sandler LLP, an angel investor in roughly 130 startups, LP in dozens of venture funds, and for the last 15 years, also an Adjunct Professor of Venture Capital at Columbia Business School. Get ready for some great advice and tips!

Learn more about Ed Zimmerman Here

In 2018, Shelly Porges successfully created a global consortium to build the Billion Dollar Fund for Women - getting investors to pledge over $1 Billion of investment in female founders. Now she's going even further, with her new initiative - Beyond the Billion. In this episode, you'll learn why and how Shelly created Beyond the Billion as a movement and a new way to mobilise key funding stakeholders to truly shift the funding landscape for women entrepreneurs. Get ready to be inspired by this 7 time women entrepreneur, who as a former Senior Advisor, set up the Global Entrepreneurship Program (GEP) at the U.S. State Department, a program she expanded to almost 150 countries, under Secretary Hillary Clinton. Get ready to be inspired!

Learn more about our guest Shelly Porges here.

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In this episode, Anne talks to Anya Navidski, Founder and CEO of Europe’s first VC fund focused on investing in female entrepreneurs - Voulez Capital. Anya share’s why she became a VC, how she created Voulez, what needs to change in the funding industry and how she’s working to bring about that change.