Turing Festival: Aligning Interests

With the Turing Festival round the corner over the next few weeks I’m going to highlight some of the events being run that I think startups in Scotland should be attending. Now obviously the big draw is the headline act, Steve Wozniak on the 23rd of August, but from 9-12 on the 23rd is Aligning Interests being organised by Brian Corcoran of Stipso.

One of the aims of Turing is help develop the considerable latent potential of the Scottish startup ecosystem. To that end this event is bringing together an international panel of preeminent folk from both sides of the table to discuss both the general question of what makes a great startup ecosystem, as well as specifically looking at the issue of Scotland’s critical lack of seed funding for tech startups & how to remedy it. Participating from the floor will be members of Scotland’s investment community as well as the country’s best technology entrepreneurs.

The panel will be made up of:

• Brian Caulfield, DFJ Esprit - Brian is a 2x successful technology entrepreneur turned angel investor and venture capitalist. Two of the technology businesses he founded were acquired for a combined total of over $100M. Since those exits Brian has been heavily involved in technology investing, both in his native Dublin and in London. He is a partner at pan-European VC DFJ Esprit.
• Brendan Richardson, ex Vision Capital – Brendan is a 17 year veteran of Silicon Valley venture capital and PE investing. During his eight years at Vision Capital he was responsible for sourcing and funding deals throughout Europe. He is a Global Scot and has been heavily involved with NorthFace Ventures, a group that aims to raise a Scottish-based seed fund for investing in very early stage tech.
• Nigel Eccles, CEO of Fanduel - Nigel is co-founder & CEO of Fanduel, the leading developer and operator of daily fantasy sports games. Originally Edinburgh based, where it raised its seed and Series A round, Fanduel has cornered a rapidly growing market in the US. The company is now headquartered in New York, is growing fast and approaching profitability.
• Sam Collins, CEO of Eventasaurus and an “exiled” entrepreneur - one of the early advocates of Edinburgh’s startup scene, Sam founded TechMeetup to help build the tech community in Scotland. After some frustrating engagement with the Scottish investment community, Sam moved to London and promptly raised a seed round for his startup Eventasaurus. He is also Editor of MindTheProduct, the first blog for European Product Managers.
• Carlos Eduardo Espinal, Seedcamp – Carlos is a Partner at early-stage micro seed investment fund and mentoring programme, Seedcamp. Hailing from across the Atlantic, but based in London, Carlos is amongst Europe’s most active seed investors and is at the forefront of trying to jumpstart the entrepreneurial community in Europe.

Tickets are £10 and the event will be taking place in the Appleton Tower of Edinburgh University. For any more information get in touch with Brian.

Less than 3 weeks to go, what are you looking forward to at the Turing Festival?