Startup mentoring
Discussion
Hello,
I'm recently out of a 15 year career in Markets (Sales and Trading) at an Investment Bank and would be keen to mentor some FinTech start-ups to keep myself busy while I look for my next steps.
Does anyone here work for an incumbator/accelerator program in London that could put me in touch with the relevant people to get on boarded as a mentor?
Thanks muchly
M
I'm recently out of a 15 year career in Markets (Sales and Trading) at an Investment Bank and would be keen to mentor some FinTech start-ups to keep myself busy while I look for my next steps.
Does anyone here work for an incumbator/accelerator program in London that could put me in touch with the relevant people to get on boarded as a mentor?
Thanks muchly
M
Are you in London?
I think you'd be better off going to some fintech meet-ups and organically connecting with founders that you are interested in there.
I've done a couple of accelerators (as a founder) and I think as a mentor you get lumped with X number of companies - some of which you'll get quite excited about and others you have less interest/expertise in. For the latter, neither you nor the founders are going to get much out of relationship and it's all a bit of a waste of time.
If you're set on accelerators, I would just get in touch with them directly - I don't think you need an "in" for an unpaid mentorship/venture partner role (unless you want to go for a very prestigious one like YC or Neo, who aren't in London anyway). I'd be pretty clear on your value add though - you're (probably) not going to be that useful for VC fundraising as it's not your background, so what will you bring to the table? Relationships for distribution? Technical know-how? Something else?
You also might want to speak to some fintech VCs (not accelerators) directly to help advise more mature startups depending on if you're interested in that.
Accelerators - EntrepreneurFirst, Antler, Blenheim Chalcot, Zinc, TechStars, Bethnal Green, Founders Factory, etc etc. Not an accelerator but also worth getting in touch with New Entrepreneur Foundation / CFE as they have lots of mentors.
VCs (who do some fintech) - Anthemis, Augmentum, Octopus, Passion, LocalGlobe, EarlyBird, SpeedInvest, MMC, Index, Connect, Kindred, Balderton, Albion, 7percent, etc etc
Good luck!
I think you'd be better off going to some fintech meet-ups and organically connecting with founders that you are interested in there.
I've done a couple of accelerators (as a founder) and I think as a mentor you get lumped with X number of companies - some of which you'll get quite excited about and others you have less interest/expertise in. For the latter, neither you nor the founders are going to get much out of relationship and it's all a bit of a waste of time.
If you're set on accelerators, I would just get in touch with them directly - I don't think you need an "in" for an unpaid mentorship/venture partner role (unless you want to go for a very prestigious one like YC or Neo, who aren't in London anyway). I'd be pretty clear on your value add though - you're (probably) not going to be that useful for VC fundraising as it's not your background, so what will you bring to the table? Relationships for distribution? Technical know-how? Something else?
You also might want to speak to some fintech VCs (not accelerators) directly to help advise more mature startups depending on if you're interested in that.
Accelerators - EntrepreneurFirst, Antler, Blenheim Chalcot, Zinc, TechStars, Bethnal Green, Founders Factory, etc etc. Not an accelerator but also worth getting in touch with New Entrepreneur Foundation / CFE as they have lots of mentors.
VCs (who do some fintech) - Anthemis, Augmentum, Octopus, Passion, LocalGlobe, EarlyBird, SpeedInvest, MMC, Index, Connect, Kindred, Balderton, Albion, 7percent, etc etc
Good luck!
Forgot to reply earlier, thank you very much for the helpful post!
I knew of/heard of some of those names but you've added a good chunk more.
Have reached out to a few and I'm getting onboarded on a couple of platforms, so things are progressing well!
For the VC side of things I probably need to see what kind of contacts I have...
I knew of/heard of some of those names but you've added a good chunk more.
Have reached out to a few and I'm getting onboarded on a couple of platforms, so things are progressing well!
For the VC side of things I probably need to see what kind of contacts I have...
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