Keynote Speaker: Julie Meyer. Sponsored by UK Steel Enterprise.
"The co-founder of First Tuesday is bringing the spirit of American venture capitalism to Europe’s new breed of Internet startups.” - Forbes Magazine
Julie Meyer has 18 years of investment and advisory experience, helping start-up businesses and industry standards to emerge and establish themselves. As Chief Executive of Ariadne Capital, she has overall general and financial management responsibility for the group which she founded in August 2000.
Ariadne is an investment and advisory firm focused on the Software and Services, New Media, Communications and Life Services sectors.
Julie is well-known for founding First Tuesday, the largest global network of entrepreneurs, which many credit for igniting the Internet generation in Europe. It was sold for $50 million in cash in and shares in July 2000. Julie has raised hundreds of millions of capital for start-ups in addition to overseeing another $150 million of seed capital found for start-ups through First Tuesday. From 1998 to 1999, Julie was part of the team at NewMedia Investors [which became NewMedia Spark, an early stage investment firm, in October 1999] where she helped several companies, including lastminute.com, WGSN and Arc Cores raise significant venture capital financing and internationalise. Each of these businesses has had successful exits for their investors.
Ariadne is backed by 40 Entrepreneurs who founded the firm in 2000 in order to build the market leading companies of the new Millennium. Headquartered in London, our network of Executives, Investors and Partners extends from Asia to North America to Europe, giving us global reach. Ariadne Capital were early advisors to Skype and Espotting, two of Europe’s biggest VC-backed successes in the early 21st century. She advises leading corporates such as British Telecom, CarPhone Warehouse, EMAP, Morse, as well as a portfolio of start-ups including Intamac, Monitise, SpinVox ad Zopa.
Named a "Global Leader of Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum" and one of the top 30 most powerful women in Europe according to the Wall Street Journal, Julie's mission is to back the best entrepreneurs in Europe with global ambitions. She was awarded "Entrepreneur of the Year" Award in October 2000 by Ernst & Young U.K., and has been named by the Wall Street Journal one of the top 50 European Business Women.
The works of Ayn Rand, in particular ‘Atlas Shrugged’ have profoundly impacted Julie and Ariadne Capital.
Julie is setting up a foundation for girls in their teens which will work with fathers and daughters to create a virtuous circle of investment into women.
Media Coverage, Awards and Recognition
BBC Newsnight: Interviewed with portfolio company SpinVox – ‘How to build a $30M company from scratch’ – July 2007;
Regularly asked to comment on BBC Worldwide, CNN and CNBC
WSJ’s List of Europe’s 50 most influential Businesswomen today: Voted 13th most influential
Ernst & Young UK Entrepreneur of the Year Award - 2000: Received ‘Supporter of Entrepreneurship’ in recognition of her ingenuity in bringing internet entrepreneurs
World Economic Forum: Selected as one of the 100 Global Leaders for Tomorrow for 2002