Danielle Newnham Podcast

June Angelides: Founder Turned Investor

Episode Summary

June Angelides talks through her journey from growing up in Nigeria, learning about entrepreneurship from her grandfather to setting up her own business here in the UK before becoming a VC

Episode Notes

Today’s guest is June Angelides MBE – a former founder, turned VC. June grew up in Nigeria before coming to London to study Economics. She then joined Thomson Reuters working on the news desk, covering syndicated loans before she got a call to join Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) who were just starting up here in London. She joined a small team there, working on both the Venture Debt Team and Early Stage Banking where she started forging connections with early stage startups and founders.

It wasn’t long before June wanted a taste of entrepreneurship herself so she started Mums in Tech - the first child-friendly coding school in the UK - which ultimately taught over 250 women to code in 3 years and earned June an MBE from the Queen.

After Mums in Tech closed down, June joined Samos Investments in 2018, where she remains today, investing in high growth European businesses. She has also founded an angel syndicate that invests into African Startups.

In this episode, June and I discuss her career journey from working in the early days at Silicon Valley Bank here in the UK, setting up and subsequently shutting down her business, becoming an investor and the traits she looks for in founders, the importance of storytelling when pitching, as well as how representation and role models matter.

I learned a lot talking to June about her founder investor journey and I think you will too. So here is my conversation with June Angelides.