Ant group, BioNTech and an interview with the founder of GlycanAge
The newsletter for start-ups and venturing
Hello and welcome back to Heroa!
This week we have an inspiration interview with the founder and the CEO of the start-up GlycanAge. If you are the female founder of a company and want to be featured in this newsletter then please do get in touch.
Other than that one of the main things that I’ve been following closely this week is the Ant IPO. Ant is now the world’s most valuable fintech and the FT is reporting that the IPO could be put back by as much as 6 months as Jack Ma has reportedly infuriated Xi Jinping. This comes against a backdrop of Alibaba’s most successful single’s day sale to date. In 2019 the sale brought in $38bn whereas this year it brought in over $74 billion no doubt driven by Chinese consumers who typically make their large purchases overseas but have been unable to do so this year.
Interview with Nikolina Lauc, CEO and founder of seed stage health tech company GlycanAge.
“I saw myself as an 'underdog' and wanted to work with others who were just like me. ”
Tell us about your career to date: I've always been an entrepreneur (from preschool) I never knew how to do anything else (I've attached a silly CV I wrote few months ago)
Why did you decide to start your own business: my initial businesses came out of a desire for independence and self-sufficiency. Later I wanted my friends to do as well as me, so I tried to partner with them and offer employment/opportunity. Once the businesses got going, it was all about our customers, making them happy meeting their needs and desires, then also growing our teams with employees others were overlooking (mums working from home, students, etc.). I saw myself as an 'underdog' and wanted to work with others who were just like me. The latest business was pitched to me by my father (5 years ago now), he said "do you want to be renting properties all your life, or do you want to do something nobody else in the world can do right now", it took me a while to give in and I only joined when I was confident enough to 'own it'.
What’s been your biggest challenge: Me. Mental block from being dyslexic, a young woman, a woman, an immigrant. I wrote this a long long time ago now https://medium.com/@entreprylexia/for-mom-cb1f789e4527
What do you turn to for inspiration: Initially Richard Branson (he was the first dyslexic entrepreneur I learned of), then Dame Stephanie "Steve" Shirley (I even met her in real life), Ricardo Semler (turning the traditional workplace model upside down) and Muhammad Yunus I love how he explained why 96% of his microloan customers were women (they lifted up their whole families from poverty, the men lifted up themselves (sometimes)).
From the investors
“There is strength in sisterhood. My sister has taught me what it means to have someone’s back.”
Sophia Bendz of Cherry Ventures in an interview with Scandinavian mind, where she dives into her career path from start-ups to VC and talks about the angel investing scene in Europe alongside creativity and personal loss.
Sonali de Rycker of Accel on Hopin’s “meteoric rise”and how it’s used the growth of digital events to take a quantum leap forward the underlying reasons for success in crazy times.
Natasha Lytton, Reshma Sohoni and Sia Houchangnia of Seedcamp share the pitch deck they used to raise a £78m fund with Amy Lewin from Sifted.
From the operators
“If you get too attached to feeling senior, to feeling necessary, you will undervalue the virtues of fresh eyes and questioning, of influence without authority.”
Ugur Sahin and Ozlem Tureci of BioNTech in conversation with the FT. How the first Covid-19 vaccine was created by BioNTech– an amazing story of how several serendipitous events led to the breakthrough vaccine.
Charity Majors of Honeycomb on the trap of being a premature manager and why its better to keep learning as opposed to glorifying seniority within an organisation.
Alexandra Kozbunarova and Etien Yovchev of Trending Topics on the open banking [r]evoloution in centeral and eastern Europe and the trends driving and shaping the industry.
Events
The VC pitch process: is it failing female entrepreneurs?
Ecosystems has an event at 3PM GMT on Wednesday, 18 November 2020 where they explore where we might be going wrong and how female entrepreneurs can improve their chances of success when pitching to VCs.
Creating Europe’s first pet tech unicorn
In partnership with Purina Accelerator Lab, Sifted will be speaking to some key market players to discuss the pet tech market and the pet tech investing market.
Opportunities
Ada Ventures are hiring a Head of Operations
Silicon Roundabout has applications open for a 6 month fully paid junior placement for tech start-ups
Salesforce Ventures are looking for a Senior Associate
To share anything you would to include in this newsletter then please e-mail alexandrawyatt@hotmail.co.uk