| Date | Title | Description |
| 31.01.2023 | Inflation and compensation FAQ | Against a backdrop of rising inflation, Laura WiIming, Head of Portfolio Talent at Octopus Ventures,... |
| 24.01.2023 | ‘Why you don’t want me on your board’ | Working in VC isn’t just a privilege – it’s my dream job. Over the last decade I’ve spent as an inve... |
| 12.01.2023 | Trend spotter: Natasha’s fintech predictions for 2023 | New Year, new predictions. The ripples of the macroeconomic climate are being felt across the board,... |
| 12.01.2023 | Our investment in Inflow | Co-founders Seb Issacs and Levi Epstein met whilst completing their Masters in Computer Science at I... |
| 19.12.2022 | It’s time to rethink growth investing | The period between 2019 and 2021 saw an impressive broadening in investor enthusiasm towards excitin... |
| 14.12.2022 | Should founders beware of venture debt? | As one of the most active VCs in Europe, our main business at Octopus Ventures is making equity inve... |
| 12.12.2022 | Managing growth, redundancies and planning for the uncertain... | This time last year we were in the swirl of the ‘war for talent’ at the tail end of ‘the great resig... |
| 07.12.2022 | Our investment in Phlux | Co-founders Ben White, Jo Shien Ng and Chee Hing Tan bring outstanding levels of expertise to the co... |
| 28.11.2022 | Unlocking deep tech’s revolutionary potential | Over the last two years, it has become ever clearer that what we call deep tech will have an outsize... |
| 22.11.2022 | Our investment in Cobee | Co-founders Borja Aranguren and Ignacio Travesi bring years of collective experience in scaling busi... |
| 18.11.2022 | The Employee Headcount Calculator – and responsible hiring f... | By Edward Keelan (B2B Software Investor) and Ben Newsome (B2B Software Portfolio Talent)
Until rece... |
| 08.11.2022 | Our investment in Apheris | Co-founder and CEO Robin Roehm is passionate about making data more accessible for impactful industr... |
| 03.11.2022 | Our investment in Lodgify | Dennis Klett and Marco de Gregorio co-founded Lodgify in 2012 with a simple mission: to help hosts a... |
| 01.11.2022 | The lifecycle of a cotton shirt: How software is turning sup... | Price fluctuations, port congestion, trucker strikes, pandemics, war, and the relentless quest for n... |
| 20.10.2022 | What should your fundraising tech stack look like | In this series of blogs we’ve been taking a close look at pre-seed fundraising. We’ve explored some ... |
| 17.10.2022 | Sticks and stones and male pronouns | The old ‘sticks and stones’ chant that we are taught as kids is wrong. Words matter. That chant is d... |
| 04.10.2022 | Our fintech experts’ top tips on weathering uncertainty | Youssef: One of the most useful things I’ve heard over the past few months, which has really stuck w... |
| 23.09.2022 | How responsible tech safeguards against unintended ethical c... | Application of technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning are fundamental to ... |
| 21.09.2022 | Raising a pre-seed round – 10 things to include in your data... | Approaching prospective investors for funding during your pre-seed round can be daunting, but the mo... |
| 24.08.2022 | Work experience – what’s the point, and why should you bothe... | What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of work experience in the city? You’d be fo... |
| 11.08.2022 | Adam’s top 10 tips for Australian and New Zealand founders l... | Earlier this summer at London Tech Week entrepreneurs from around the world descended on the UK’s ca... |
| 19.07.2022 | Dismount the sales team merry-go-round: how to step away fro... | It’s easy to imagine: a new company, offering a solution perfectly calibrated to the needs of its ea... |
| 11.07.2022 | Timing is everything: tailoring your board to the needs of y... | In my last blog, I drew on some of my experience and research to explore the basics of board composi... |
| 06.07.2022 | What to consider when choosing your board members | As a new starter at Octopus Ventures last summer, I was faced with a host of exciting new challenges... |
| 28.06.2022 | Backing the best; changing the way we listen | Foreword from Alliott, our Co-CEO:
Founders are astonishing people. They bring together huge ideas ... |
| 23.06.2022 | Raising a Pre-Seed Round | The story of every great technology startup often starts with an idea, most times a crazy and ambiti... |
| 07.06.2022 | How we think about our decision making process | Decision-making is one of the core challenges in any business, but it can be critically important in... |
| 24.05.2022 | Our investment in Foodsteps | Anya Doherty brings unrivalled expertise to bear on her role as CEO and founder at Foodsteps. Over t... |
| 12.05.2022 | Dear Founders and CEOs: don’t forget to secure your own oxyg... | You don’t have to spend much time with the founder or CEO of a company to find yourself blown-away b... |
| 09.05.2022 | Why we’re excited about European VC Secondaries | From cars to trainers, wherever there’s a primary market, chances are a secondary one underlies it. ... |
| 05.05.2022 | Tripling down on bio | Our mission is to back the people and ideas that are changing the world, and there are few better se... |
| 12.04.2022 | Mind & Machine: What’s next for neural interfaces? Matt ... | We have so much to learn about the brain. Identifying which neurons or groups of neurons correspond ... |
| 06.04.2022 | Consumer happiness and business families | As a founder launching a startup in the consumer space, it’s easy to get fixated on product. After a... |
| 28.03.2022 | Holding onto hope: how innovation can solve the climate cris... | The Climate Crisis is one of the world’s biggest collective problems to date. Fixing it requires a s... |
| 22.03.2022 | Soundtracking the future: how deep tech is pushing the limit... | Picture this. A soundtracked drive down a flowing California highway, through desert, rolling hills ... |
| 21.03.2022 | Building a business around a mission: Taryn’s tips for start... | I’ve long been fascinated by the way organizations are built – not just around an idea, but around a... |
| 15.03.2022 | Our investment in LifeScore | CEO and co-founder, Philip Sheppard, is a cellist, composer, producer and inventor. He’s composed th... |
| 09.03.2022 | Our investment in Delio | Gareth Lewis, Delio’s co-founder and Chief Executive, worked in corporate finance before moving home... |
| 08.03.2022 | Our investment in Nosso | Co-founder and CEO Youssef Darwich is passionate about bringing wealth management services into the ... |
| 07.03.2022 | Veeqo acquired by Amazon | When we first encountered Veeqo, we were immediately impressed by the dynamic combination of a missi... |
| 01.03.2022 | Our investment in Automata | Co-founder and CEO Mostafa elSayed comes from a background in architecture and design. While working... |
| 01.03.2022 | Our investment in Biofidelity | Biofidelity’s CEO, Barnaby Balmforth, brings over a decade’s experience in genomic technology develo... |
| 24.02.2022 | Our investment in HURR | Victoria Prew is the visionary behind HURR. Over the years she’s become an expert in sustainability ... |
| 17.02.2022 | Mention me | Mention Me was founded by Andy Cockburn and Tim Boughton, who met at VC-backed consumer startup Home... |
| 14.02.2022 | Endemic or not – Changing attitudes are taking us into a new... | The coronavirus pandemic has laid-bare the shortcomings of healthcare systems around the world. Whil... |
| 01.02.2022 | Why voice messaging should have everybody talking | You might call me a productivity tool junky. From second brain apps like Roam and Memex, to collabor... |
| 01.02.2022 | Why voice messaging should have everybody talking | You might call me a productivity tool junky. From second brain apps like Roam and Memex, to collabor... |
| 19.01.2022 | Demystifying deep tech | Deep tech is different. None of my colleagues across our fintech, consumer, health or B2B software t... |
| 19.01.2022 | We need to talk about TAM | Opening my third pitch of the day, I click through to the market opportunity slide. The business pro... |
| 13.01.2022 | Trend spotter: Natasha’s fintech predictions for 2022 | As 2022 gets underway, it’s time to look ahead to some of the trends I see shaping fintech in the ye... |
| 08.12.2021 | Meet the startups redefining the future of social media | On a weekly basis, I see a tweet with someone complaining about Instagram. In Jean de La Rochebrocha... |
| 25.11.2021 | LimeWire or Spotify? How to build the crypto winners of the ... | In 2000, a new website revolutionised consumers’ relationship with music. It was called LimeWire, an... |
| 19.11.2021 | How to hire top talent in a shifting jobs market | The coronavirus pandemic has caused global disruption, but it’s also been the catalyst for some posi... |
| 18.11.2021 | Our investment in APLYiD | In recent times, Australia and New Zealand have put innovation and entrepreneurship high up on the a... |
| 17.11.2021 | Are we on the cusp of a software revolution in farming? | Farming and software might sound like unlikely bedfellows, but a change is on the horizon. Slow movi... |
| 12.11.2021 | Why workplaces could unlock huge growth for fertility startu... | The fertility market is changing rapidly. Driven by a crop of exciting new startups, pioneering rese... |
| 02.11.2021 | Calling all climate tech entrepreneurs | The world’s eyes are on Glasgow as leaders from across the globe meet for COP26. Widely viewed as a ... |
| 01.11.2021 | Our investment in Tuune | When I first met the CEO and founder of Tuune, Shardi Nahavandi, over three years ago, it was clear ... |
| 27.10.2021 | Lessons in Deep Tech recruiting | This quarter I joined the Portfolio Talent team at Octopus Ventures after spending the past three ye... |
| 26.10.2021 | Institutional crypto adoption – will it happen? | A new economy is emerging online. Its thesis is decentralisation and its method is blockchain. As th... |
| 20.10.2021 | Our Investment in Imophoron | Professor Imre Berger brings decades of technical expertise, alongside a successful track record as ... |
| 19.10.2021 | Our investment in Turtl | Nick Mason, Founder and CEO, comes from a design thinking background, seeing first-hand the problems... |
| 06.10.2021 | Filling the Vacuum: can brands replace a lost sense of belon... | Spending time with a bunch of 16-18 year old students from inner-city London schools, as part of Oct... |
| 27.09.2021 | Our investment in Mojo | Xander Gilbert, Co-founder, is a former co-founder of Cuvva (D2C flexible car insurance provider) an... |
| 27.08.2021 | The Marketplace Approach to Enterprise Supply Chains | The advent of the internet brought the world-changing advantages of distributed, scaled communicatio... |
| 20.08.2021 | Our investment in Comma | Tom Beckenham is a second time founder having built a profitable tech business in the UK before Comm... |
| 11.08.2021 | An update from the Health team | It’s been an eventful 24 months since we formally set up a dedicated health team, so we wanted to sh... |
| 26.07.2021 | One team, two approaches: the B2B Software opportunity | To best serve entrepreneurs, we organise ourselves into specialist teams. Our B2B Software team is t... |
| 26.07.2021 | One team, two approaches: the B2B Software opportunity. | To best serve entrepreneurs, we organise ourselves into specialist teams. Our B2B Software team is t... |
| 22.07.2021 | Our investment in Collectiv Food | Jeremy Hibbert-Garibaldi, Founder & CEO, has a deep understanding of supply chain malpractices h... |
| 20.07.2021 | Our investment in NanoSyrinx | NanoSyrinx is an early-stage biotech business spun out of the University of Warwick. Our close invol... |
| 19.07.2021 | Our investment in Raylo | The way we access our smartphones is broken. Customers are expected to spend upwards of £1,000 to pu... |
| 29.06.2021 | Our investment in XYZ | David Mitchell, Founder and CEO comes from a construction background. Having grown up on constructio... |
| 10.06.2021 | Our investment in Overture | Overture was co-founded by Martin Varsavsky (CEO) in 2017. Martin is a serial entrepreneur who has b... |
| 08.06.2021 | Challenge & Opportunity: our Climate Tech Office Hours e... | Over the next 30 years, every business, within every industry, will need to transition to Net Zero c... |
| 02.06.2021 | Depop, Gen Z fashion resale marketplace, acquired by Etsy fo... | How do you sell to a generation who don’t want to be sold to? This is the Gen Z riddle that Depop ha... |
| 21.05.2021 | Making waves: the biggest UK deep tech acquisition in years ... | To date, head-worn Augmented Reality (AR) has remained on the edge of our lives. It’s there in defen... |
| 19.05.2021 | Our investment in Sprout.ai | Niels Thoné, CEO, builds on eight years experience in sales within tech and finance and three years ... |
| 17.05.2021 | Value chain teardown: Pensions | There is over £6 trillion of funds held in UK pensions, yet these assets are largely trapped in a se... |
| 12.05.2021 | Why we’re doubling down on B2B software | by Marieke Christmann & Richard Court
Business to business software is the biggest opportunity ... |
| 06.05.2021 | iSIZE: the Dolby of the video space | The calibre of angel investor a startup attracts reflects its potential. So the fact that Patrick Pi... |
| 30.04.2021 | Our investment in Taster | Anton Soulier, CEO, was #7 employee at Deliveroo where he built and ran the company’s growth through... |
| 29.04.2021 | Back to Basics: new world, same rules? | The world has changed. But the basics still apply. This is the message from two multi-unicorn builde... |
| 27.04.2021 | Changes and Trends in the US Exec Health Tech Space | What traditionally is known as the sleepiest quarter for executive search (Q4) saw astronomically hi... |
| 27.04.2021 | Deep Dive: Cannabis | The world of medicinal cannabis and the next 5-10 years of development in the UK is far from simple.... |
| 30.03.2021 | Profile: Julia Salasky, Legl | A “job for life” is rare – to walk away from a job for life is rarer still. But that is what Julia S... |
| 29.03.2021 | Alex Chesterman: the archetypal unicorn-builder | Not often do company’s leap into life with the spectacular pace of Cazoo. Now, within two years of i... |
| 18.03.2021 | Our investment in Wefarm | We always want to back the boldest, most mission-driven companies, and they don’t come more pioneeri... |
| 16.03.2021 | Ibex Medical Analytics: clinical-grade AI solution for cance... | Reputation in every sector is important, but none more so than health tech. The best technologies an... |
| 05.03.2021 | Increased Antitrust Scrutiny – a win or a loss for the start... |
We have become accustomed to a world in which there are a few enormous players that end up acquiri... |
| 04.03.2021 | Everything you love is non-fungible, but let’s not tokenise ... | Should we tokenise digital art? What’s the point of non-fungible tokens (NFTs)? Let’s start at the b... |
| 25.02.2021 | This is what we mean when we talk about Talent | Ask any CEO to name their number one priority and many will say “talent”. It stands to reason: hire ... |
| 25.02.2021 | 8 emerging trends on the health tech horizon |
Even before Covid, health technology was one of the fastest growing investment sectors in the worl... |
| 12.02.2021 | Climate FinTech: The startups helping banks to overcome the ... | In order to finance a low carbon, equitable world, we need a more transparent financial system that ... |
| 04.02.2021 | 3 years on, how is the Open Banking revolution doing? | January saw the third birthday of the Open Banking revolution, so why is it only in the past year th... |
| 27.01.2021 | Expanding to the US: has Covid changed the rules? | The recent pandemic has undoubtedly transformed how companies work, and distributed, remote working ... |
| 25.01.2021 | Announcing a major health boost for Octopus Ventures | Octopus Ventures is delighted to announce the addition of a new team from TenX Health – Joe Stringer... |
| 20.01.2021 | Welcoming Emma Davies, our new Co-CEO | What does a fast-growing company actually look like? One definition is that it will be changing all ... |
| 19.01.2021 | Sustainable Finance: trends and predictions for 2021 | In 2020, ESG stocks displayed greater resilience to economic shocks, outperformance to conventional ... |
| 11.01.2021 | Judge a VC by how they behave – everywhere | “We deduce founder characteristics from the smallest observations. Founders should take the same app... |
