Defining the X chromosome: the DNA of Women Led Startups

February 27, 2024December 28, 2011 by Pemo Theodore

For over a year I have been video interviewing venture capitalists, angel investors and women founders trying to investigate the apparent shortfall in funding for women led technology startups. My goal has been to listen to as many people as I could from both sides of the table, in order to get a diversity of opinions on this controversial subject. Whilst I have been doing these interviews, many people have said to me that no problem exists and that women can be as easily funded as men if they have a great idea, team, plan and advisors. However the statistics show another story. The percentages of women in technology, female entrepreneurs and female venture capitalists are extremely low compared to men. But the reasons are multifold and complex and cannot be resolved quickly or easily. With this post I hope to shed some light on the intricacies of this issue. Everyone that I interviewed was inspiring and added a different voice and view to the puzzle.

Herve Lebret: Difference in European and US Venture Capitalists

April 10, 2024February 10, 2011 by Pemo Theodore

Video interview with Hervé Lebret. Hervé manages the Innogrants @ EPFL (the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne), a program supporting startup creation. The program includes grants to entrepreneurs and conferences where role models share their entrepreneurial experience with students and researchers. From 1997 to 2004, he was with Index Ventures, the pan-European venture capital firm which invested in Skype, mysql, Virata, Addex, Genmab. He began his career in academia in electrical engineering and applied mathematics at ENSTA and ONERA (Paris). He is also the author of the book “Start-Up, what we may still learn from Silicon Valley” . Hervé Lebret is a graduate of Ecole Polytechnique (Paris) and Stanford University. He holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering from Université de Rennes. You can find Herve @ his blog & on Twitter @hlebret

Fred Destin, Atlas Ventures: Advice to European Entrepreneurs

February 28, 2024December 10, 2010 by Pemo Theodore

Video interview with Fred Destin, Atlas Ventures. Fred joined Atlas in 2004 and is a Partner in the technology group. He focuses on software and technology-enabled services and digital media infrastructure and applications. He currently serves on the boards of Atlas portfolio companies AdSafe, Dailymotion, Inspirational Stores, KDS International, NTRglobal, PriceMinister, RealEyes3D, Seatwave, Sporever, and Zoopla. He also served on the board of Seedcamp, which provides mentoring and seed funding to European start-ups. Fred holds a Masters in Financial Engineering from the University of Brussels (Solvay). You can find Fred @ his blog Fred Destin and Twitter

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FinTech Silicon Valley

FinTech Silicon Valley podcasts are focused on educating and highlighting FinTech in Silicon Valley to the global community both through video and audio. These podcasts are short and fun, one on one interviews by FinTech Silicon Valley journalists with experts and investors on how they are contributing to the community and what their perspective is on the future of FinTech.

Sankaet Pathak, Founder & CEO Synapse completed a Master’s in electrical engineering at the University of Memphis, where he previously majored in computer engineering, physics and mathematics. A scientist at heart, much of Pathak’s academic work was focused on physics and research related to the solar corona. As a student at the University of Memphis and a recent immigrant to the USA, Sankaet Pathak needed to open a bank account. He was surprised to learn that wasn’t an easy task. Sankaet knew he had to develop a better option not only for himself but for the over 20% of adults in the USA with poor or limited credit history. Sankaet founded Synapse with an eye toward offering a viable alternative to legacy banking systems, while providing operational simplicity, efficiency & ease of integration to perform virtually any banking interaction. Sankaet is launching an AI startup soon called Foundation. Foundation is developing the future of general purpose robotics with the goal to address the labor shortage. Foundation’s mission is to create advanced robots that can operate in complex environments, reducing human risk in conflict zones and enhancing efficiency in labor-intensive industries.