Startup Day

Adrian Colyer
Partner at Accel Partners, London
Venture, AI and Search
Mon 09.00

Abstract: Accel has been investing in companies for over 30 years, and Accel London was established over 15 years ago to invest specifically in Europe and Israel. Accel companies have generated over $175B in market value over that time. In this talk Adrian will share what Accel looks for when making an investment, and what you should expect in the fundraising process and beyond. Along the way, we’ll try to separate some of the hype and reality in the AI gold rush and pass on advice for those thinking of starting or joining a startup in the AI or Search spaces.

Bio: Adrian joined Accel in 2014, where it’s his job to help find and build great technology companies in Europe and Israel. Prior to Accel, he held a variety of CTO roles with Pivotal, VMware, and SpringSource, and was part of the team that took SpringSource from a small startup to a successful exit. He’s a board member or observer and advisor to a number of companies including Atomist, E8, Skipjaq and Weaveworks. Adrian also maintains ‘The Morning Paper’ blog where he reviews a computer science research paper every weekday.

William Tunstall-Pedoe
Founder and CEO, Evi
Title: From Start-Up to Alexa: The Story of Evi
Mon 14.00

Abstract: This talk will summarise the decade-long entrepreneurial adventure the speaker had founding a Cambridge technology start-up, taking it through multiple
pivots and launching Echo and Alexa following acquisition by Amazon.

Bio: William Tunstall-Pedoe is the founder of Evi (formerly True Knowledge), the inventor of its technology and the CEO of the business for most of its history prior to acquisition by Amazon in 2012. The company has deep technology around understanding natural language and automatically answering questions on any topic. Following acquisition, the technology became an integral part of Amazons Alexa and William held a senior product role in the team that defined, built and launched Amazon Echo. His entrepeneurial journey in Evi lasted a full decade, seven years as a VC-backed start-up facing and solving numerous challenges and three+ as part of Amazon.

Since making the difficult decision to leave Amazon in February 2016, he has been actively helping other start-ups, with a particular focus on AI. A full member of Cambridge Angels (the local business angel organisation), William is also a fellow of the Creative Destruction Lab, a start-up incubator in Toronto, helping many machine learning start-ups become successful.

A Cambridge University computer scientist, previous products include a commercial chess-playing program, the first and only software which can solve and explain cryptic crossword clues and the AI anagram-generating software which was used by Dan Brown to create the anagrams that appeared in the Da Vinci Code book and movie.

Jon Reynolds
Co-Founder and CEO, SwiftKey
Panel: The Funding Funnel: From University to Unicorn
Mon 09.45

Bio: Jon Reynolds co-founded SwiftKey (now part of Microsoft) in 2008, and has since been named Young Tech Entrepreneur of the Year (2013) at the Europioneers, and one of the 2015 Forbes ’30 Under 30′ for Consumer Technology. Jon holds a MA in Physics from the University of Cambridge and prior to founding SwiftKey, worked as a civil servant in the British Government. SwiftKey is best known for its smart typing technology which learns from each user to accurately autocorrect and predict their most-likely next word, and features on more than 300 million devices to date. The company was named the No 1 hottest startup in London by Wired magazine, ranked top 5 in Fast Companys list of the most innovative productivity companies in the world and has won a clutch of awards for its innovative products and workplace.

Max Kelly
Managing Director, Techstars, London
Session: How startup accelerators help you launch your startup
Mon 14.45

Overview: The session will take you through various aspects of early startups: business model, forming a legal entity, raising seed funding, networking, scaling, etc. It will also go over various types of startup incubators that you can leverage to get you up and running.

Bio: Max is the Managing Director of Techstars London. Techstars is the world’s leading accelerator programme for early stage start ups. Prior to Techstars, Max spent 12 years at Virgin where he was responsible for the strategy of the group and for starting new companies:
Virgin Insight – delivered big data consultancy to all the Virgin companies
Virgin Mobile USA – grew to revenues of $1bn within 18 months
Virgin Mobile Canada – voted best Canadian network in its launch year
Virgin Healthbank – freezing stem cells cryogenically
These companies exited for more than $500M for Richard Branson.
Alongside his Virgin commitments, Max also co-founded lastsecondtickets.com which was successfully sold in 2014. He started his career at Loreal running the UKs largest haircare brand – the irony was lost on no one. He was a scholar at Oxford University, where he obtained a First Class Degree in Chemistry.

Andrea Kells
Research and Partnership Facilitator, Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge
Panel: How to Launch a Startup from Academia
Mon 16.00

Bio: After a PhD in insect behaviour, Andrea worked at a science policy consultancy, where she specialised in evaluations of public-sector technology transfer funding schemes in the UK and internationally. She has since worked in university-industry liaison, and run an international undergraduate summer school for biology students for a US pharmaceutical company. For the last 3 years, she has been the research facilitator in the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory, where one of her jobs is to advise staff and students on potential routes to commercialisation, including funding sources, who to talk to and when, and things to consider along the way.

Milind Mahajan
Director of Engineering, Grab
Session: Scalable Online Services and Data Processing Architectures
Mon 17.15

Overview: In this talk, we will discuss the high level concepts and building blocks that you need to build a scalable online service. We will discuss architecture, evolution and trade-offs that are involved in building a service. We will talk about data processing architectures for big data including batch processing and stream processing for low latency. We will go over considerations for integrating real-time machine learning into an online system. The talk will provide a high level system overview that will help you to scale your online service.

Bio: Milind is currently Director of Engineering and leads the Seattle R&D center for Grab. Grab is the leading ride-hailing platform in South East Asia with over 580,000 drivers across the network and over 30 million mobile app downloads. Prior to Grab, Milind worked on improving ad targeting at Twitter using large amounts of diverse data and machine learning techniques. At Twitter, Milind also led engineering for Twitter Brand Hub which helped advertisers to generate insights about their brands from the real-time conversations on Twitter. Milind was co-founder of SwiftGist which helped businesses generate insights from their customer interaction data using statistical modeling, interactive exploration and visualization techniques. Before SwiftGist, Milind spent over 20 years at Microsoft in various roles. He worked on various aspects of speech recognition and natural language understanding in Microsoft Research. He also worked on mobile app search at Bing.

Barney Pell
Founder and CEO, Powerset
Invited Talk: Crucial questions for success of AI Applications
Mon 17.45

Abstract: In theory, AI algorithms can be applied to a wide set of problems of importance to humanity. In practice, however, technology itself is only a small portion of the overall success of an application. This talk discusses crucial issues that must be addressed in most successful applications of Artificial Intelligence. Key issues include quality, robustness, usability, optimal mix of humans and automation, trust, evolution, and economics.

Bio: Barney Pell, Ph.D. is a technology innovator, entrepreneur, angel investor and advisor. He is Founder of Decision Theory, an investment fund and consultancy focused on AI and Machine Learning; Co-Founder and Chairman of LocoMobi, a startup company bringing cloud and AI technology to the parking industry; Co-Founder of Moon Express, a startup company building a lunar lander robot to open up the Moon for commercial development; Machine Learning Fellow at the Creative Disruption Lab at the University of Toronto, advising 50 early stage machine learning and AI startup companies; and also an associate founder and serves on the board of trustees for Singularity University. He was Founder and CEO of Powerset, a pioneering startup in natural-language search that was acquired by Microsoft, where he then served as Search Strategist of Bing, lead for Bing’s local and mobile search team, leader of Microsoft’s long-range plan for semantics and knowledge, and co-founder of Cortana, Microsoft’s recently-announced conversational assistant. He previously managed an 85-person Artificial Intelligence R&D organization at NASA. Highlights included flying the first AI system in deep space (on the Deep Space One mission), the first spoken dialog system in space, and supporting the Mars Exploration Rovers mission. He completed his B.S. in Symbolic Systems at Stanford University and his Ph.D. in Computer Science at Trinity College, Cambridge, in which he researched artificial intelligence, machine learning, and general-game playing as a path toward artificial general intelligence.

Robert Mullins
Co-Founder, Raspberry Pi
Invited Talk: Title: Opportunities for no t-for-profit startups and open research
Mon 18.05

Abstract: A not-for-profit startup can be a great way to grow and maximize the impact of a project. It can also help build the complex infrastructure necessary to enable further research or commercial startups. This talk will discuss my experiences as a co-founder of the Raspberry Pi Foundation and the lowRISC project.

Bio: Robert Mullins is a Senior Lecturer in the Computer Laboratory at the University of Cambridge. His research and teaching focuses on computer architecture and VLSI (chip) design.
He is a Fellow of St. John’s College and Director of Studies for Computer Science at St. John’s College and Peterhouse College. He was a founder of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, a UK charity that promotes the study of computer science and electronics at the school level. He is a founder and director of the lowRISC project.

• Jon Reynolds, Co-Founder and CEO, SwiftKey, Bio
  Jon Reynolds co-founded SwiftKey (now part of Microsoft) in 2008, and has since been named Young Tech Entrepreneur of the Year (2013) at the Europioneers, and one of the 2015 Forbes ’30 Under 30′ for Consumer Technology. Jon holds a MA in Physics from the University of Cambridge and prior to founding SwiftKey, worked as a civil servant in the British Government. SwiftKey is best known for its smart typing technology which learns from each user to accurately autocorrect and predict their most-likely next word, and features on more than 300 million devices to date. The company was named the No 1 hottest startup in London by Wired magazine, ranked top 5 in Fast Companys list of the most innovative productivity companies in the world and has won a clutch of awards for its innovative products and workplace.

Panelists:

• Hanadi Jabado, Executive Director, Entrepreneurship Center, Judge Business School, Cambridge University, Bio
  Hanadi is a serial entrepreneur with a solid understanding of clusters and innovation. She is a seasoned start-up advisor, angel investor and a non exec . As the founding director of Accelerate Cambridge the Cambridge Judge Business School “in-house” accelerator, she has a unique vantage point at the cross -road of academic theory and practical experience. She is passionate about early stage ventures. She is industry agnostic and she selects the ventures she works with depending on the individuals behind t he idea and on the quality of the teams they form. She is passionate and committed to the ventures she supports and expects them in return to be dedicated.




• Simon Thorpe, Angel Investor, Bio
  Simon is an angel investor, entrepreneur, coach, mentor and acts as non-executive director to and growth consulting with, technology companies. He runs his own business, Delta2020, is a senior advisor to Eleven Canterbury, a member of Cambridge Angels, Cambridge Capital Group (CCG) and Angel Academe. An NED at Exacttrak, Transversal, Viewranger and CCG Observer at Eagle Genomics. He has been an active angel investor in the UK technology sector, building up a portfolio of over twenty companies and has backed nine female founders. Simon has achieved five exits including Cambridge CMOS Sensors, CentraStage, Swiftkey and Vocal IQ. In July 2016 he was awarded UKBAA Angel Investor of the Year 2016/2017. He is a mentor for Cambridge Judge Business Schools Accelerate programme, Angel Academes female entrepreneur programme and the University of Manchester.Simon is an active promoter of the digital economy. “The digital revolution is the new industrial revolution”. Outdoor enthusiast, when not in four wheels you will find him on two as a keen cyclist.
• Luke Hakes, Partner, Octopus Ventures, Bio
  Luke is a Partner at Octopus Ventures. After starting his career in science as a Computational Biologist and Geneticist Luke moved into technology consulting, spending a couple of years helping Goldman Sachs start and transform a number of its business units. Luke left Goldman to join Octopus as it launched its Venture fund and since joining has worked across a wide range of different industries, with a focus on deeper technology offerings and B2B portfolio companies. Most recently Luke has spent time working in the AI space having sold Magic Pony to Twitter and before that Evi Technologies (which went on to become Alexa) to Amazon.

Overview: Many potential entrepreneurs view securing financing as a barrier to starting a new venture. This panel aims to demystify the funding funnel by exploring the different stages involved in financing a venture. Looking at getting a concept off the ground, through to Seed investment and then Series A and beyond. What are investors looking for when making investments? How does this differ depending on the stage of financing? What should entrepreneurs be looking for in their investors? How do investors add value beyond the cash? Practical tips for entrepreneurs: How do you prepare for meeting investors? What will give you the best chance of securing investment?

• Andrea Kells, Research and Partnership Facilitator, Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Bio
  After a PhD in insect behaviour, Andrea worked at a science policy consultancy, where she specialised in evaluations of public-sector technology transfer funding schemes in the UK and internationally. She has since worked in university-industry liaison, and run an international undergraduate summer school for biology students for a US pharmaceutical company. For the last 3 years, she has been the research facilitator in the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory, where one of her jobs is to advise staff and students on potential routes to commercialisation, including funding sources, who to talk to and when, and things to consider along the way.

Panelists:

• Andy Hopper, Professor, Cambridge University, Bio
  Andy Hopper is Professor of Computer Technology at the University of Cambridge and Head of Department of the Computer Laboratory. His research interests include computer networking, pervasive and sensor-driven computing, and using computers to ensure sustainability of the planet. Andy Hopper has pursued academic and industrial careers simultaneously. In the academic career he has worked at the Computer Laboratory and the Departme nt of Engineering at Cambridge. In the industrial context he has co-founded thirteen spin-outs and start-ups, three of which floated on stock markets, as well as working for multinational companies. In recent years the companies he co-founded have received five Queen’s Awards for Enterprise. He is Chai rman of RealVNC Group. Professor Hopper received the BSc degree from the University College of Swansea (1974) and the PhD degree from the University of Cambridge (1978). He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (1996) and of the Royal Society (2006). He was made a CBE for services to the computer industry (2007). He was President of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (2012). He is a recipient of the Royal Academy of Engineering MacRobert Award (2013) and the Royal Society Bakerian Medal (2016/2017).
• Eldar Sadikov, CEO, Jetlore, Bio
  Eldar Sadikov is a co-founder and CEO of Jetlore. Jetlore was named Gartner Cool Vendor 2016 and provides machine learning to rank technology as a service to some of the world’s largest retailers. This technology powers product listing pages as well as content in millions of emails sent out by retailers like eBay. Eldar is a computer scientist by training and prior to Jetlore developed predictive statistical models for big data at Stanford University, Google, and Microsoft. He holds MS in Computer Science from Stanford University and dropped out from Stanford PhD program to pursue entrepreneurship.
• Sebastian Riedel, Reader, University College London; Bloomsbury AI, Bio
  Sebastian Riedel is a Reader at the University College London and an Allen Distinguished Investigator, leading the Machine Reading Lab. He is particularly interested in helping machines to read more accurately by leveraging knowledge gathered through reading more accurately. Sebastian is also part of the founding team of Bloomsbury AI, a startup that allows experts to scale their expertise by processing skilled tasks in parallel.
• Raoul-Gabriel Urma, CEO, Cambridge Spark, Bio
  Raoul-Gabriel Urma is CEO and co-founder of Cambridge Spark, a leading learning community for data scientists and developers in UK. In addition, he is also Chairman and co-founder of Cambridge Coding Academy, a growing community of young coders and pre-university students. Raoul is author of the bestselling programming book “Java 8 in Action” which sold over 20,000 copies globally. Raoul completed a PhD in Computer Science at the University of Cambridge. In addition, he holds a MEng in Computer Science from Imperial College London and graduated with first class honours having won several prizes for technical innovation. He has worked for Google, eBay, Oracle, and Goldman Sachs. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Overview: The panelists will try address the following questions from their personal experience: What does it take to do a startup from the university? When did they decide to launch their research work into a startup? How was it funded for scaling? How was the intellectual property/ownership work between university/faculty/student decided? What were the challenges faced from the point of view of students/faculty/funding source? How does one balance between teaching/taking classes and startup? What else should we know or be prepared for? What can the panel recommend to funding agencies like NSF/DARPA/NIH/ to facilitate startups from academia?