David has had 25 years strategic business development experience, as an entrepreneur founding and building tech businesses, and as a strategic advisor to tech companies leveraging his hard-earned experience, in both developing and developed markets.
David has founded and built a number of Mobile and Fintech related companies, starting with a mobile service provider for Plessey at the advent of the mobile industry in South Africa in 1994. After gaining his initial African and M&A experience at the MTN Group, he went on to found and build a satellite broadband network and service provider business in West Africa with the backing of the IDC and SES Astra. David moved to Switzerland with his family in 2008 and Singapore in 2012 to found and build an in-app commerce and payments company, with large enterprise customers in Silicon Valley and Japan.
He has a wealth of strategic advisory experience as a partner at Africa Venture Partners in Johannesburg and at Corniche Growth Advisors based in Switzerland, France and now the UK, advising both VCs and technology companies (from incumbent telcos to AI startups, and everything in-between) on go-to-market, strategic partnerships and capital raising. He is also a mentor at Swiss Fintech startup accelerators F10 in Zurich. David has an MBA and an electronic engineering degree, both from the University of Cape Town.
Ian has spent twenty years of his professional career in the intersection of Information Technology, Telecoms and Finance, as an equity analyst, consultant and principal. Since qualifying as a Materials Engineer at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg he initially practised as an engineer. Ian’s early career at ERA Technology, a contract research and development company in Surrey, illustrated to him the value of international benchmarks and best practise. Since this time, his viewpoint has always been global in nature.
An MBA degree taken at Cranfield School of Management prepared Ian for his new career taking a tour through stockbroking, corporate finance, banking and a few entrepreneurial ventures. Ian has always had an interest in risk, both from a financial and engineering standpoint, which interest has had a natural leading to insurance opportunities.
Ian’s entrepreneurial pedigree has been developed over nearly two decades in starting, building and exiting businesses. As a co-founder of a boutique advisory business in South Africa (Pleiad Capital in 1999) which was sold to MCC Global in 2006, Ian helped a number of clients in South Africa and abroad to realise growth through either acquisition, capital or business development. MCC Global listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in 2007. Ian is currently a shareholder and director of a number of businesses that he co-founded in the Energy sector since 2006
Vamshi Lingampally is our venture partner based in our London office. Vamshi’s particular skill is in developing and launching innovative propositions and businesses as a technology executive, entrepreneur and advisor in multiple sectors that make a real difference.
Vamshi has 18+ years of global experience developing disruptive products, empowering 11 million consumers digitally. A technology executive, working both in leadership and entrepreneurial roles, she has experience launching and growing products and platforms for start-ups in IoT, Financial, Wealth Management, Health & Education Technology. Vamshi’s expertise is in developing innovative business models and products – using AI, Deep learning and other deep technologies - addressing customer and business needs.
Vamshi also has experience in financial services where she specialized in quantitative strategies and structured products. She holds an MBA from IMD, Switzerland, Masters and bachelor’s in computer engineering from UMN, USA.
Vamshi actively advises technology start-ups in the UK, Europe and India, focusing on businesses that leverage technology innovation to address critical issues in healthcare and education sectors. She is passionate about the role technology and capital markets can play in solving important world challenges.