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ALLOCATE — The European tech GP/LP event
Talks about Venture Capital, Fundraising and General Partner
LM
Lian Michelson
Investor at Vala Capital
London, England
Overview
Lian Michelson is an Ocean, Climate & Impact Investor at Vala Capital in London, England, with a background in fixed income, corporate finance, and private equity. Notable career highlights include serving as an Investment Director at Vala Capital and being a Venture Partner at Conscience VC, focusing on impact, ClimateTech/CleanTech, and digital health sectors.
Work Experience
Angel Investor
2019 - Current
Investing in deeptech, climate & impact startups across the UK, US and Europe. 25+ investments to date including: Revela (Acquired), Oddity (IPO), Shift, Vitro Labs, One-Five, Cocoli, Harmony, Bright Biotech, Jude, Bitzero, HackCapital, Honest Mobile, VoltQuant, Wonder
Board Member
2022
FlexSea is a sustainable-packaging company aiming to replace traditional petroleum plastic film with an innovative natural material derived from seaweed. The transparent, resistant material is degradable in marine, soil and home-composting environments and is also 100% edible.
Angel Investor
2019
Alma is an angel community in support of female founders. We aim to encourage and educate more to angel invest into women owned businesses. The community is only for angels and those wishing to learn about angel investing.
Founder and Managing Partner
2023 - 2024
Global venture capital fund focused on early-stage ocean / blue-economy deeptech companies. Investment verticals: Plastic alternatives, blue food, maritime tech & robotics, ocean & off-shore energy.
Investment Director & Partner
2022 - 2024
Vala is a UK VC backing the best entrepreneurs as they build new ventures. We support startups and high growth companies led by teams that have the potential to positively change the world. We invest in startups with purpose that solve big problems around planetary health, sustainability and social goods. 15 fund investments include: Oxwash, Qflow, Flexsea, MakeMyHouseGreen (Switchd), Mondra, HonuWorx, Rad Propulsion, Sust Global, Pipeline Organics, Sennen (Acquired).
Industry Development Committee Member
2022 - 2024
The UKSIF is the membership network for sustainable and responsible financial services, which promotes responsible investment and other forms of finance that support sustainable economic development, enhance quality of life and safeguard the environment.
Venture Partner
2021 - 2024
Conscience is an early-stage deeptech fund pioneering the intersection of consumer and science. We invest into pre-seed and seed stage start-ups embracing deep tech and data.
Mentor
2021 - 2023
Mentor on the Virgin StartUp Programme; a not-for-profit organisation that helps entrepreneurs in England and Scotland start, fund and scale their businesses.
Capital Advisor
2019 - 2021
Antler selects the most passionate aspiring entrepreneurs, helps them find the right co-founder and connects them to a network of fitting business and academic domain experts worldwide. Antler provides funding from day one to support founders building businesses they will own and run, and that can positively impact local, national and global economies.
Mentor
2019 - 2020
Mentor during the Corporate Innovation Workshop - in collaboration with Equinor. Mentor during the Covid-19 Innovation Bootcamp – mentored some of the top 20 winners of the Global Online Startup Weekend: United to Fight Covid
Techstars is an accelerator that provides pre-seed investment and mentoring for various early stage startups.
Raised $108,919,999.00 from SVB Financial Group and Foundry Group.