Brent Hoberman

Co-founder & General Partner

Brent Hoberman is chairman and co-founder of Founders Factory, a corpo- rate backed incubator/accelerator based in London, and also Founders Forum; a series of intimate annual global events for the leading entrepreneurs of today and the rising stars of tomorrow. Brent is chairman and co-founder of made.com, a direct-from-factory consumer crowd- sourced homewares retailer in the UK. Brent co-founded PROfounders Capital in 2009. Brent co-founded lastminute. com in April 1998, and sold to Sabre for $1.1bn in 2005. Brent sits on the Advisory board for LetterOne Technology (a $16bn investment fund) and the UK Government Digital Advisory Board. He is a board member of The Economist and TalkTalk PLC. Brent is a YGL and Prime Minister’s Business Trade Ambassador. Brent was awarded a CBE in the 2015 New Year’s Honour’s List.

Spencer Crawley

Co-founder & General Partner

Spencer Crawley is General Partner at firstminute capital. Previous roles include Business Development at AppDirect (a San Francisco-based cloud commerce platform provider), Investment Associate at DMC Partners (Goldman Sachs spin-out Special Opportunities fund), and Analyst in the Moscow office of Goldman Sachs (in the Fixed Income, Currencies and Commodities division). Spencer studied History at Oxford University, did his MBA at INSEAD, and speaks fluent Russian and pigeon French.

Henry Lane Fox

Partner

Henry is Co-Founder & CEO of Founders Factory. Henry has deep experience of advising global brands and institutional investors on digital transformation, emerging technologies and startup partnerships, working closely with companies including Sky, Visa, Tesco, Silver Lake and L’Oreal. Henry co-founded micro-learning platform SmartUp.io and professional matchmaking platform Grip. He began his adventures in digital as one of the founding team at lastminute. com where he served as Head of Product Development.

Anaïs Benazet

Head of community

Anaïs joined firstminute as Head of Community in September 2017. Prior to joining firstminute, Anaïs spent 5 years at Founders Forum as Head of Events. By orchestrating Forums across the world, from London to New York, Los Angeles to Rio de Janeiro, Anaïs has developed an extensive knowledge of running top-level events for the world’s leading digital and technology entrepreneurs.

Lina Wenner

Principal

Lina joined firstminute from the Boston Consulting Group, where she worked alongside global corporates across Consumer, Energy and Heavy Industrials, advising on digital strategy, restructuring and M&A as a member of the corporate finance team. She gained an MPhil in Management from the University of Cambridge and a Bachelor's degree in Psychology, Economics and Statistics from the University College Utrecht, the Netherlands, where she graduated with Summa Cum Laude.

At firstminute, Lina leads on sourcing for the Nordic and German-speaking regions and has a strong interest in digital health, robotics, direct-to-consumer brands and femtech. ​She sits as a board ​observer of Evolution AI.

Elliot O’Connor

Investor

Elliot previously co-founded Code at Uni, a business that provides skills-based training to university students. He started the business aged 19 and scaled it across the U.K., where it now operates 15 university coding bootcamps and an e-learning platform for 16-18 year olds studying computer science. He spent time working at Blippar in London, Massdrop (backed by KPCB & First Round Capital) in San Francisco and Wimdu (Rocket Internet) in Berlin. He holds a double first class honours in Politics and Philosophy from the London School of Economics.

At firstminute, Elliot leads on sourcing for the US West Coast and has a strong interest in interactive-media & consumer-tech.

Camilla Mazzolini

Investor

Camilla joined firstminute having been an Equity Research Analyst at Berenberg Bank in the ecommerce and retail team in London where she also participated in the IPO of Boozt, a Swedish fashion ecommerce. Prior to that she lived in Buenos Aires working at the OLX headquarters (the largest classifieds marketplace in emerging markets) where she led the CRM project for Latin America. She is a cum laude graduate from Columbia University where she studied History and Political Science, and speaks fluent French, Italian and Spanish.

At firstminute, Camilla leads on sourcing for the French-speaking regions, and focuses on cybersecurity, foodtech, ecommerce, and marketplaces. She sits as a board observer of Chargifi.

Sam Endacott

Investor

Sam joined firstminute from Goldman Sachs, where he worked in the Financial Institutions Group within Investment Banking. His M&A advisory work included the IPO of Allied Irish Banks, Zurich’s acquisition of Cover-More Insurance in Australia, HSBC’s share buyback programme, merger of SABB and Alawwal Bank, the UK Government’s sell-down in RBS, and Virgin Money’s Digital Banking Strategy.

At firstminute he is focused on opportunities in fintech, insurtech, blockchain, and proptech. Sam sits on the board of Quanterium. He also works on the fund’s portfolio construction and strategy, and firstminute’s engagement with its investors. Sam received a double first class honours in International Relations and History from the London School of Economics.

Clara Lindh Bergendorff

Investor

Clara focuses on investments in consumer; future of commerce; digital lifestyle; and next generation social and digital media companies. She joined firstminute after spending time as a journalist, writing for the likes of CNN. Today, she’s also a commentator on VC in general and the consumer space in particular for a number of publications including Forbes and UKTN. Clara studied Business Management at Columbia University (summa cum laude) and University of Oxford, and marketing at NYU.

Arek Wylegalski

Venture Partner

Arek is a Venture Partner at firstminute capital focusing on Blockchain and FinTech. Prior he was a Partner at an AI-focused seed fund, Fly Ventures, and an investor at Index Ventures. He led or worked on investments into: Wayve, Pyka, Revolut, Bonify, Culture Amp, Dubsmash, Prodigy, Property Partner, Funding Circle and others. He joined Index after Avenue Capital, a $15Bn AUM hedge fund, where he focused on special situations. Arek started his career in investment banking, trading credit for Barclays Capital and then in M&A advisory. He speaks publicly, mostly about blockchain, and is an active contributor to the start-up scene in London. He has been a long-time mentor and an investment committee member at Seedcamp. Arek is currently launching a fund dedicated to opportunities in the blockchain space across both equity and crypto-assets.

Tommy Stadlen

Limited Partner & Venture Partner

Tommy Stadlen is a LP and Venture Partner at firstminute, focusing on the US and consumer. Tommy is the Co-Founder of Swing Technologies, which exited to Microsoft in 2017. Swing, chaired by Twitter founder Biz Stone, created the #1 App Store app Polaroid Swing. Tommy is the bestselling author of ‘Connect: How Companies Succeed by Engaging Radically With Society’, written with former BP CEO Lord Browne. He is a frequent media commentator and speaker, including as a contributor to the New York Times and Financial Times, and guest on CNBC, Bloomberg and BBC. Tommy is a former McKinsey consultant and previously worked for President Obama. He graduated with First Class honours from Oxford and holds an MSc (Distinction) from the LSE. He is an advisor to NYU Stern Business School. Tommy has been recognised by the FT as a top 50 Global Ally Executive and by Entrepreneur’s ‘Best Companies in America’ award.

Steve Crossan

Venture Partner

Steve is a Venture Partner at firstminute capital focusing on AI and Deep Tech. Prior to that he was at DeepMind, where he co-led the team putting DeepMind’s technology into Google, from datacentre optimization to Google Assistant, au- tonomous vehicles and protein folding. He joined DeepMind after almost ten years at Google on Maps, Gmail, and Search. Prior to that he left a Ph.D. in AI at Sussex unfinished to start a series of startups including Runtime Collective which became brandwatch.com. He has an M.A. from Oxford in History and an M.Sc. from UCL in Computer Science