Riding Unicorns: Venture Capital | Entrepreneurship | Technology

Paul Forster, Co-Founder of Indeed.com, shares his journey from the UK to revolutionizing job search. Topics include motivations for starting a tech business, challenges post-pandemic, strategies for successful acquisitions, and the impact of experienced operators in angel investing.

Welcome back to our latest Startup Spotlight, our mini-series, which will provide you with an insight into an early-stage company that we are very excited about. This week's spotlight shines on Kuai Commerce, a startup focused on helping western brands sell Direct to consumers in the Chinese market. James sat down with co-founder Jonny Plein to discuss the opportunity the Chinese market presents and how Kuai provides western brands with access to it.💹Make sure to like and subscribe to the Riding Unicorns podcast to never miss an episode. Also, don't forget to give Riding Unicorns a follow on Twitter and LinkedIn to keep on top of the latest developments.

Justina Tartilaite is the Co-Founder of Adsum, tax credit specialists. Adsum is pioneering innovation in tax-based financing and is at the forefront of leveraging modern technology in order to provide businesses with much-needed tax credits in real-time. Prior to launching Adsum, Justina worked as a Director at Deutsche Bank and in various capital markets roles for ABN AMRO Bank. Justina joined us on this, our penultimate episode of the season, to discuss her career leading up to Adsum, why she decided to become an entrepreneur and what the early bootstrapped days looked like. Later in the episode, Justina opens up about her love of referrals, building an exceptional culture and what it was like to finally seek external capital. Make sure to like and subscribe to the Riding Unicorns podcast never to miss an episode. Also, don't forget to give Riding Unicorns a follow on Twitter and LinkedIn to keep on top of the latest developments.

Welcome back to our latest Startup Spotlight, our mini-series, which will provide you with an insight into an early-stage company that we are very excited about. On this weeks episode we will be discussing Monet, an embedded fintech for the creator economy - enabling platforms and agencies to offer borderless credit and payments. Make sure to like and subscribe to the Riding Unicorns podcast to never miss an episode. Also don't forget to give Riding Unicorns a follow on Twitter and LinkedIn to keep on top of the latest developments.

Pietro Bezza is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of thesis-led venture capital firm, Connect Ventures. Specialising in investing in seed companies, Connect was the first to invest in unicorns such as TrueLayer, Typeform and Oyster. Long-time listeners will be aware that this is not the first time we have had a member of the Connect Ventures team on the show. In fact, in Season 2 we invited Sitar Teli to discuss all things product. This time round though we invited Pietro onto the show to double down on product and to discuss a myriad of different subjects. In fact, the episode kicks off with James and Hector learning about how cheese played an essential part during the early part of Pietros career. Following this, the trio also go on to cover the topics of whether founders should be using Doc Send and if having board members is worth it or not. Make sure to like and subscribe to the Riding Unicorns podcast never to miss an episode. Also, don't forget to give Riding Unicorns a follow on Twitter and LinkedIn to keep on top of the latest developments.

Welcome back to our latest Startup Spotlight, an entirely new series, which will provide you with an insight into a company that we are very excited about. On this weeks episode we will be discussing Deployed, which is looking to help simplify the way we write and build effective dialogue. Make sure to like and subscribe to the Riding Unicorns podcast to never miss an episode. Also don't forget to give Riding Unicorns a follow on Twitter and LinkedIn to keep on top of the latest developments.

Joe Curtis is the Director and Co-Founder of 11 Investments, a seed-stage investment and accelerator program for recruitment businesses. Not content with one running one recruitment business Joe also works as a Director at Recruiter Labs, a recruitment consultancy business that he also co-founded and as if that wasn't enough he also finds time for a third role, that of Director at 3Search. All in all then we think it is fair to say that when it comes to speaking on the topic of recruitment there is no one better than Joe. James sat down with Joe to discuss what led him into recruitment, why he chose to bootstrap his businesses and what he is looking to achieve in the long term. The pair also go on to discuss some of the common misconceptions of recruitment, why founders should look to build strong relationships with recruiters and how to develop a strong culture within an agency model. Make sure to like and subscribe to the Riding Unicorns podcast to never miss an episode. Also don't forget to give Riding Unicorns a follow on Twitter and LinkedIn to keep on top of the latest developments.

Welcome back to our latest Startup Spotlight, an entirely new series, which will provide you with an insight into a company that we are very excited about. This weeks episode features the co-founders of Inveztor, Katee Hunter-Sharpe and Alastair Sharpe. Inveztor is developing a simple, efficient and collaborative digital platform for issuing and maintaining European debt securities. Make sure to like and subscribe to the Riding Unicorns podcast to never miss an episode. Also don't forget to give Riding Unicorns a follow on Twitter and LinkedIn to keep on top of the latest developments.

Yoko Spirig is the co-founder & CEO of Ledgy, an equity management and investor relations platform for startups and high-growth companies. Yoko comes from a Physics background and such was her proclivity for the subject as a student that she was invited to become the project lead of Swissloop, an initiative which was looking to build the first Hyperloop pod in Switzerland. Upon graduating Yoko and her co-founders Ben-Elias Brandt and Timo Horstschaefer, who she met at university decided to launch Ledgy to help scaling companies make ownership simple. Since its launch in 2017 the company has gone on to secure investment from the likes of Sequoia and a number of high profile angel investors. Clients to-date have included Wefox, Kry, Bitpanda, Gorillas and Trade Republic.The boys invited Yoko onto the show to better understand what problem Ledgy is trying to solve, how long it took the founders to validate their idea and how they were able to attract investors early on. Yoko then goes on to explain how the culture at the company continues to evolve and what she is looking to achieve as a founder, both in the present and in the future. Make sure to like and subscribe to the Riding Unicorns podcast to never miss an episode. Also don't forget to give Riding Unicorns a follow on Twitter and LinkedIn to keep on top of the latest developments.

Welcome back to our latest Startup Spotlight, an entirely new series, which will provide you with an insight into a company that we are very excited about. This weeks episode features Awabah, a digital pension platform for self-employed Africans. The co-founder & CEO Tunji Andrews joins us to explain exactly what the business does and how be plans to achieve his big vision. Make sure to like and subscribe to the Riding Unicorns podcast to never miss an episode. Also don't forget to give Riding Unicorns a follow on Twitter and LinkedIn to keep on top of the latest developments.