The Accelerator with Michael Conniff

In today's episode, we sit down with the CEO and Founder of Mall IQ, Batu Sat, to learn more about his AI-powered geofencing solution that is taking the banking, fintech, merchant, and e-commerce industries by storm. The company offers the most scalable and privacy-first Location Intelligence & AI Platform for mobile apps that is store-level accurate, both indoor & outdoor without any hardware deployments.With over 6 million users across 25 countries, including countries in North America, the Middle East, and Asia, Mall IQ's technology is empowering companies to truly understand their customers' needs and offer them only the most relevant information. Say goodbye to irrelevant spam notifications and hello to a more personalized experience!Mall IQ's application goes beyond just customer satisfaction. The technology is also being utilized for fraud detection and prevention. The company enables its clients to better monetize their current customers and increase revenues & their most important KPIs such as activation, frequency, wallet share & retention via curated real-time mobile engagement.And with partnerships with major players such as Microsoft, KPMG, and Oracle, Mall IQ is revolutionizing the industry by offering its cutting-edge technology as an add-on to its partners' products.But operating across 12 time zones is no easy feat. It takes a lot of dedication and hard work, something that Mall IQ prides itself on providing to its clients.So if you're interested in learning more about how AI-powered geo-fencing is changing the game for businesses, tune in now to hear from the expert himself, Batu Sat.

In this episode, Michael sits down for a chat with Courtney Presto, the CEO and Founder of Presto(https://presto.social/). This is a revolutionary social media platform that's changing the game for content creators everywhere! With Presto, artists no longer have to struggle to monetize their content - they can start earning as soon as they sign up. This is the first social media platform that monetizes artists with no barrier to entry.Courtney isn't just talking the talk. She's walking the walk. She's a seasoned content creator with a background in film production and computer science and engineering. And with her experience in market research and the entertainment industry, she understands the challenges that content creators face. Presto boasts a truly remarkable global network, working with innovative content creators from an impressive 22 countries. And here's the best part: Presto eliminates the barriers to entry, making it easier for content creators to turn their passion into a livelihood.One of the highlights from the episode is when she talks about monetization for content creators. The path to monetization is a difficult one for content creators. It can take a minimum of six months for a new content creator to make their first dollar. But with Presto, that uphill climb just got a whole lot smoother.Tune in to an enlightening episode on content monetization.

In this episode, Michael Conniff sits down with SK Lee, the dynamic founder of The Launch Coaching Lab and successful angel investor. Lee is making a huge impact in the world of startup acceleration, bringing her unique combination of legal and economic knowledge to the table.As a self-proclaimed "boss lady," Lee believes that businesses can not only be profitable, but also have a meaningful mission that positively impacts society. She is passionate about providing founders with the practical guidance and support they need to succeed, beyond just capital.One of Lee's key insights is that founders also need therapy in addition to coaching. By exploring their past experiences and motivations, therapy can help them understand their journey thus far and coaching helps them move forward with confidence. Don't miss this fascinating episode of The Accelerator with Michael Conniff, tune in to hear SK Lee's inspiring perspective on the world of startups and coaching.

Ben L is the co-founder and CEO of Gesture. Gesture is an e-commerce platform for sending gifts. Gesture uses pre-selected A.I.-driven recommended gestures, and is the only App that understands budget and cost-friendly methods to send tangible gestures. At Gesture, the mission is to help people let their loved ones know that they are thinking of them. You can send flowers, wine champagne, etc via the application. What sets Gesture apart from other solutions is the fact that you do not need an address to send the gift. You can use a phone number, email address, or social media platform to reach the intended recipient.

In today's episode, Maarten de Hoop and Michael Conniff talk about research and the role of UNIPLAT in creating opportunities for researchers and scientists in less developed countries. Maarten de Hoop is a researcher and a Professor of Computational and Applied Mathematics at Rice University. Maarten’s research interests are in extracting subtle signal information from the ever-expanding data sets produced from advances in data acquisition by dense arrays and sensor technology. Maarten is interested in exploiting the foundations of the theory of seismic waves, their properties, and multi-scale interaction with complex, highly heterogeneous media and nonlinear inverse theory, and in developing new paradigms for large-scale computing. He has always been interested in physics from an early age. Over the years, this interest grew into what he does today in the world of deep learning. He is Senior Advisor to UNIPLAT. Maarten and Michael talk about how the platform creates opportunities for researchers and scientists who are not lucky enough to be in the US to have a way of showcasing their work and research and getting the funding that they need. UNIPLAT aims to ensure that researchers from less developed countries get the same opportunities as those from developed countries.

Nektar Baziotis is the CEO of ICARUS AI E-Learning which is an AI-enabled E-Learning solution. He is also the president and co-founder of ENKI technologies, an IT services and IT consulting firm that helps companies and professionals around the world to move beyond local and conceptual boundaries. Additionally, Nektar is the Chief Technology Officer of Expert Dojo a growth accelerator that empowers entrepreneurs to achieve their dreams by providing a path for entrepreneurs who need investment and mentorship. He has been in the IT industry for over 20 years. His experience and learnings over the years drew him to e-learning and that is how he started ICARIUS-E-Learning. The impact that e-learning has on education is very huge and this was a huge motivating factor for Nektar. He talks about how he has used AI to make a difference in e-learning and his experience with Expert Dojo. Tune in for an enlightening episode.

A few months ago we spoke to Marina Sol. She is passionate about women’s health. Creating accessible tools to improve women’s well-being and reproductive health has become a personal goal and driver of her career. She has dedicated her path to health and technology, starting her own companies and helping big corps to pave their way toward digital transformation. Marina Sol is the founder and CEO of Diagnio. The company helps women to take control of their reproductive health through a home testing solution that they have developed. The home testing solution works together with an app to track fertility and hormonal balance at home in a cost-effective way. The company is backed by Alchemist & ExpertDOJO in the US and In5 & NRG Ventures in the Middle East. Tune in for an enlightening episode.

Milan Krajnc is an academician who works with governments and advises companies in crisis situations. He is an advisory board member at UNIFY PLATFORM AG(UNIPLAT). Milan is also a Nobel Prize nominee. He started his career as a teacher, a physics teacher. He then moved to the corporate world where he helped companies create good business processes. Soon after, he enrolled in a psychology and psychotherapy course to better understand people’s thought processes and mindsets as it relates to work. In this episode, he explains how being in the right mind contributes to the well-being of individuals and societies. He offers insights into healthy societies from his background in psychology. He also discusses the universal impact of UNIFY PLATFORM AG (UNIPLAT).

In today’s episode, we host Angel Colon. Tune in for an enlightening episode on capital management and how this has evolved over the years. You will also learn what to expect from equity crowdfunding going forward. Mr. Colon is the Managing Director at NY Capital Management LLC. The company provides services to high-net-worth individuals, businesses, and sizeable institutions to produce solutions that facilitate the advancement and management of capital. He is an established financial professional with over 15 years of expertise in negotiating and marketing financial products, risk management, and both, fixed-income and equity securities transactions. He addresses all elements of transaction structuring and special situation equity for small, private, and public companies, specializing in distressed asset funding, mitigation of risk, and capital markets introductions.

Guilia Imperatrice is the COO at WEVE Acceleration. This is a startup accelerator that helps international startups get entry into the US market. They go for companies that have traction, growth, and a strong product. They offer support in fundraising, opening an office, building a team, attracting clients, and many more WEVE capital work with over 25 countries across different continents. One of the companies they have worked with in fundraising has gone on to raise up to $100 Million in capital. Another company they worked with on the business development side went on to grow their user acquisition and eventually got acquired.

Conversational intelligence can be defined as a combination of machine learning and natural language processing technology. Today's episode is focused on someone who has made an amazing invention in conversational intelligence. Aleks Smechov is the co-founder and CEO at Wordcab. This is a technology that uses deep learning to automatically summarize conversions at scale. Aleks has a background in journalism and copywriting. It is during his journalism career that he came up with the idea behind the technology. Alecks is on a mission to build the world’s summarisation layer one call at a time with the aim of expanding this beyond calls, but also general business communication. Tune in for an enlightening episode.

Dr. Nigel Clarke is the Senior IT Professional focused on sales, marketing, and customer success. An Executive with 20+ years of experience in international (Europe, APAC & Middle East, and North America) technology sales and SaaS. Dr. Nigel Clarke wears many hats. However, he has a special heart for startups, marketing, and capital raising. Since he is in the Startup scene, he gets a lot of pitches. As a healthcare investor, these are some of the qualities that distinguish a potentially successful Startup from the rest include, Interesting science. The Startup should be able to offer a solution where current treatments are inadequate. Is it going to make a difference? Is the technology going to make an impact globally? Not just in Europe or the Americas. He is also a member at UNIPLAT. This is a platform specifically designed to help researchers and entrepreneurs worldwide get more exposure and connect with others who want to contribute to improving global research and humanitarian projects.

Rossana Ceccato is the CEO of Redress and Matias Matías Hercovich is, Global Inhouse General Counsel & Board member at Redress. This is a platform for trading slightly used garments. What you need to do is to take a picture of the garment and send it to them where they inspect it for eligibility. Not every dress/clothing item is eligible. Generally, they look for dresses that have been worn either once or twice. When you send a garment, you get points which you can use to redeem other clothing items from the Redress inventory

Maggie Brennan is an educational consultant. She currently works as the Admissions Director at Innovation Experience. One of the programs that she is working on is called Israel 360. This program seeks to create an ecosystem where founders can interact with the Israeli business ecosystem. The goal is to create networking opportunities as well as investment opportunities. The Israel 360 program has two components. The first is an online academy which is run online on zoom. This component runs for 13 weeks. The second component is a one-week trip to Israel where the participants go through a series of business meetings and also get to experience the Israeli culture which is a huge part of Israeli innovation and creativity.

In this episode, one of the things Apoorva talks about is the untapped use of Web3. He describes Web3.0 as the future of computing. Apoorva Ruparel describes himself as a Problem Solver, Sales Leader, Entrepreneur, and Growth Catalyst. Additionally, he is a general partner at Venture Rock Capital. Venture Rock seeks to help Startups at the most critical stages where they are most likely to fail. They invest in multiple rounds from pre-seed to scale, through a metered and auditable process. Based on progress metrics, founders earn equity in the venture.

Diane Bailey is an expert Startup Lifer and Accelerator. She wears many hats including Head of Accelerator Growth & Colorado Director at Founder Institute, Investor, and Community Builder. Founder Institute is The World’s Largest Pre-Seed Accelerator. They specialize in working with early-stage companies and help turn ideas into fundable startups. Diane is also a successful entrepreneur. In this episode, one of the things she talks about is the Lean Startup Model. This involves, creating something, testing, and then measuring the idea. The findings and learnings are then used to create a better model. This is useful for founders to do before sending their product out in the market. To find out whether the product is really needed in the market. The lean startup model ensures that the startup provides value by meeting a need in the market.

Phuong Phan- is the Regional Manager - East & Southern Africa for Draper Startup House. This is an entity under the Draper Network which was founded by Tim Draper. The vision that Draper Startup House has is to build a global network for entrepreneurs and digital nomads so that they can invest in Startups. Some of the criteria that they go for in screening companies is they look at companies that are solving real problems in the communities and also companies that are scalable.

In today’s episode, we talk to a service-oriented and impact-driven professional, Manveer Sandhu. Manveer Sandhu is a Venture Capitalist and an intelligent analyst with the Air Force. He is driven to make an impact in his areas of influence. As a VC, he seeks to find companies with promising ideas in order to help foster them to reach their full potential. In addition, he is an elected Trustee to the Travis Unified School District Governing Board. Interestingly, this is where he went to school.

Michael Pastko is one of the co-founders of Satoshi’s closet. The company creates physical apparel on the blockchain via NFT. Satoshi's Closet made its first mark on the blockchain in 2019 as the first project to create ERC-721 tokenized streetwear. The motivation behind the company is to enable the NFT economy in real life. Ultimately, the goal is to enable a full stack NFT solution at sporting events, concerts, art galleries, retail, etc to help in building a decentralized economy.

Vylto enables royalty revenue on all secondary market transactions, product authentication, and more. This is especially great as it connects artists and their audiences while ensuring artists get royalty revenue on secondary market transactions.

Kurt Hallead is the co-founder and president of Legacy League. This company has carved out a niche in the NFT space. They enable college athletes to monetize their Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) by creating, marketing, promoting, and trading NFTs. Kurt has a wealth of experience with 30 years spent working in a number of global investment firms. He has always had a passion for sports and saw an opportunity in Sports. This made him step away from Wall Street and that is how he founded Legacy League which incorporates business, technology, and sports. The technology enables college athletes to make money from their sport while still playing their sport.

Scott Levy is the founder of SNL consulting. People need help. We all need help. This is especially true for business owners and start-up founders who because of the nature of their work, wear many hats. Family, friends, and the people that they work with can’t necessarily offer the support business founders need. This is where coaching comes in. Tune in to listen to how Scott Levy accelerates business through coaching. He has a lot of experience, he is highly communicative, and is a certified business coach.

Jim Friedrich CEO is the CEO of Native Traits Corporation. The company uses proprietary technology that screens ancestral strains of corn as a natural source of genes to improve commercial varieties. The seeds are screened for drought tolerance and the ability to tolerate extreme temperatures. The company has successfully passed the proof of concept stage and is already seeing tremendous outcomes.

In this episode, he simplifies the concept of blockchain, tokens, smart contracts, and everything crypto. He is the CEO and co-founder of Brickken which is a tokenizing solution. The company offers tools to help tokenize the world. The company’s mission statement is to help asset owners around the world raise decentralized funding utilizing blockchain-based technology, giving individuals and businesses the chance to generate passive revenue. Brickken is providing the tools needed to tokenize the world.

Robert Tame is the CEO of Noktos. The company offers a solution that is revolutionizing the way companies pay for travel. What sets them apart is they give corporates the ability to control their travel costs and the ability to have a one-stop shop for all accommodation needs. Robert is a serial entrepreneur who has experienced both success and failure on the business front. He shares some of the lessons that he has learned in his entrepreneurial journey.

Nathan Beckord CEO Foundersuite. This is a SAAS platform that has a collection of tools for startups seeking capital. They have built products from every part of the startup journey. It is the “Ultimate Funding Stack” The team has plans to add more features to the platform in order to make startups more discoverable. Nathan’s whole career has been focused on helping startups raise capital. He started off in investment banking. This path led him to start Foundersuite. He made a product out of the process of raising capital. In addition to the software, the company offers additional support outside the software to help the founders succeed, for example, pitch deck reviews, weekly webinars, and the Foundersuite podcast.

Hayden Hughes is the Co-Founder and CEO of Alpha Impact, social trading built for the 80% of people who aren’t yet in crypto. He is originally from Canada but is based in Singapore. Alpha Impact is a copy-trading social media platform designed to connect followers with professional traders. Users can connect their investment account to Alpha Impact to copy top traders in our community, get the latest market news from traders, and learn crypto investing from influential traders, masterclasses, and beginner guides. Traders can earn another stream of income from sharing trades, trading knowledge, and building industry reputation.

Torkel Falkenberg graduated with Ph.D. from Karolinska Institutet close to 30 years ago. After getting his Ph.D., he discovered that he was more geared to global health. He has dedicated his time and effort since 1995 to help low and middle-income countries with healthcare reforms. Through this work, he started working with the World Health Organisation. He is one of the authors of global strategy for traditional medicine for the World Health Organisation. He is also on the advisory board for UNIPLAT. This is a platform specifically designed to help researchers and entrepreneurs worldwide get more exposure and connect with others who want to contribute to the improvement of global research and humanitarian project. He discusses how much Uniplat aligns with his lifelong passion for global health among other great initiatives. To learn more about Uniplat, go to https://www.uniplat.social

Jonathan Moore is a tech enthusiast and entrepreneur who has lived in Korea since 2006- He is originally from Texas. He randomly decided to go to South Korea right after college off a spinning globe and he has lived there ever since. Jonathan started off as an English teacher. Later on, met his future co-founder and they started a company called Be Native. This is when he discovered his purpose was in the startup scene. He has been a part of a couple of Startups in Korea. He derives a lot of joy from accelerating startups. He is driven to share his experience and learnings as an entrepreneur to help upcoming entrepreneurs. Jonathan has been privileged to work with many startups with amazing inventions and solutions. One such company is called Business Canvas and he describes the company as Google Docs on steroids. This is just one of many great startups he works with.

Anastasia Lit is the Director of Investor relations for Europe and the Middle East for the Deep Knowledge GroupDeep Knowledge Group is a consortium of commercial and non-profit organizations active on many fronts in the realm of DeepTech and Frontier Technologies (AI, Longevity, FinTech, GovTech, InvestTech), ranging from scientific research to investment, entrepreneurship, analytics, media, philanthropy and more.The vision for the company began back in 2014. Over the years they have grown and now work with amazing companies in the longevity industry like pension and insurance companies.

Michael Guastamacchio Co-Founder / CEO at MediaZilla talked to Michael Conniff about his revolutionary company. MediaZilla empowers organizations and individuals to communicate powerful information and experiences through video. MediaZilla specializes in making sure your important recordings remain confidential. The company has put specialized security protocols to ensure the videos remain private. What sets the company apart is the fact that they are customer-focused

Adam C Grant is a venture partner at Republic. He is currently investing with a venture firm called Overlooked Ventures. This is a venture capital firm focused on transparently supporting and investing in early-stage companies with one or more historically ignored founders. The community is made up of minorities, women founders, people of color, and the LGBTQ community. They work with winners and disruptors who have the vision to change the world. Adam’s dream is to change the world through investing. He also believes in good and authentic leadership.

He Worked in medical software for 14 years, first as an employee and then as a consultant. He began his investor journey soon afterward. He primarily focuses on C-stage startups. He shared with us some of the great companies he has invested in. When the pandemic struck, he started looking for a hobby that wouldn’t be affected by lockdowns and that is how his blogging journey began. His blog is called tremendous. blog. The blog is an angel investor's take on life and business.

He is Russian by Nationality and has Tatar origins. He works for Starta VC where is the Head of African Track. This entails creating an African Accelerator business for Starta VC which has its Headquarters in New York. Starta VC is a global accelerator that helps international business founders scale their businesses irrespective of their origins. He talks to us about his experience working with African start-ups and how the Start-up scene compares to Russia where he is from and New York. One of the ways that Starta VC empowers business founders is by offering communication workshops and one on one sessions with the founders where they are taught how to pitch their business to international clients and investors.

Andy Gibbs is the CEO of Fidotek Corporation. Fidotek enables pet owners to speak with their pets via a smart speaker. The company achieved this by acquiring dog data, using AI to determine dog behavior, and converting it into a human voice played into a smart speaker in the home which enables the pet owner and the pets to communicate. Andy has a wealth of experience in starting and running businesses. So far, he has started six companies. He started his first start up venture when he was 14 years old. Tune in to today’s episode to learn more about Fidotek, the game-changing data-driven enterprise, and tips on running a successful business enterprise.

She is a sought-after brand strategist, entrepreneur, and investor. As an investor, she thrives at helping start-ups thrive. She is also the founder of Brandprenuer, Brandfluencer a marketing agency that supports visionaries and change-makers, and pioneers to gain traction and acquire new clients. Dr. Irene Kilubi uses her background in corporate influence strategy to achieve this.

Huey Ching is an aspiring entrepreneur doing amazing things while in university. She is the founder and CEO of Chingspire Webdesign Solution. This is a company that creates websites for businesses for the purpose of marketing and identifying potential leads and bringing revenue to the business. She is currently majoring in International Business at Sunway University where she has won the Outstanding Leadership Award and Commitment Service Award. Huey has always had a passion for business since she was young. When her friends were busy reading comics, she would be reading books on business. She strongly believes in lifelong learning, being inspired, and to never stop creating.

Giannandrea Giammanco is the CEO of FVTURA. This is not your typical start-up incubator. Giannandrea describes the company as a venture builder rather than a start-up incubator A typical start-up incubator usually offers just funding and mentorship. What differentiates Fvtura from other incubators is that they give more. In addition to funding and mentorship, they offer support in terms of operational support. They have the capability in terms of manpower to support the different functions of a start-up, be it coding, marketing, design, etc. All this is done through the in-house Fvtura team. Andrea took this path from personal experience. As a start-up founder, he initially struggled to find the right operational support for his business. The few he found were very expensive and were not trustworthy. Fvtura does not charge start-ups for operational support. They offer investments for the start-ups in return they get equity. This ensures that Fvtura and the start-up are aligned. The team have to make sure the start-up succeeds in order for them to get a positive return on their investment. The company has team members from across ten countries. They target the most under-served communities which they believe have great entrepreneurs which can be used in the larger and greater cities if only they get the right guidance early on in the start-up stage.

James Spurway is a purpose-driven, impact-focused, angel lead investor who helps first-time sustainable business model founders navigate their external fundraising journey.He is also known as the fundraising angel. He is originally from Australia. He comes from a rural setting in Queensland Australia. In his own words, he was born in a very poor family. His family was literally dirt poor. This phrase had a whole meaning to him since their floor was even made of dirt! With such an upbringing, he learned very early in life the importance of working hard, that hard work gets you to where you want to go. His upbringing also conditioned him to be someone who always gives back. He believes it is important to give back not just when you have plenty but also when you have little. His first company is Indochina Consulting Pte. Which was in existence for 23 year up until 5 years ago. He left his corporate job in the early 90s and moved to Vietnam to set up his company. Years later during his entrepreneurial journey, he discovered he was really good at making money and deep down he was motivated to see other people succeed. As an angel investor, he derives a lot of joy in helping young and upcoming start-ups overcome the hurdles that are there at the beginning and helping them stand on their feet.

Bjorn Ekeberg is the Chief Commercial Officer at Recharge Health. The company offers a revolutionary technology called the FlexBeam which is targeted red light therapy. The technology offers an alternative way of managing pain without using painkillers. The target user of the device is people who are keen on trying new technology and people aged between 35 to 55 years. The technology is still evolving and they are now targeting people who are in sports, fitness and active recreation since they are more prone to pain and injury. Bjorn is a screenwriter by profession and was approached by the co-founder of the company to join him in launching a new technology that is revolutionary. He was worn over by the possibility of coming up with a solution to manage pain that does not involve using painkillers. This made him switch careers

Michelle Katics is the Co-Founder and CEO of BankersLab. BankersLab was started in Thailand by former bankers who decided to come up with solutions to the pain points they encountered in the Industry. The company has been around for ten years and is in 30 countries! Being in the business for this amount of time has seen the company go through a lot of pivotal moments. The most recent change was brought about by COVID which opened up new ways of doing business. The company has developed an improved digital lending process through its core product, The Simulator which is an award-winning simulation-based online training workshop for banking and finance professionals.

Lev Chneider is the CEO of Happiness As A Service (HAAS). According to Lev, HAAS is a mindset. They take data on customer satisfaction and curate it to give customers a 9/10 and even 10/10 satisfaction index. They focus on smaller/silent voices that may otherwise be overlooked or drowned by popular voices. Lev believes that companies and corporations who do not listen to their customers will disappear over time. HAAS does not only apply to customer service but also to job satisfaction. The tool is versatile and adaptable to different markets and use cases. Lev is passionate about the business of happiness.

Aditya Sharma is the Co-founder and CEO of HiCounselor. This is a career accelerator for recent grads and early stage professionals. The company has been in existence for two years, 8 months and has a success rate of 100%. Candidates who go through HiCounselor get ten times more interviews, they get jobs within five to six weeks instead of waiting for six months or more. Aditya was prompted to start the company from a personal experience. He sent out numerous applications for a job after clearing grad school at Duke University without any success. The few interviews he got, he wasn’t ready for them. This went on for six months and out of frustration, he came up with a solution to help people like him secure jobs. Aditya believes the two key problems that recent graduates face is lack of interview preparedness and lack of strong professional networks that can help them secure jobs. This is the key solution that HiCounselor offers.

Alex Porter, Founder & CEO of Mod Tech Labs Inc talks to Michael Conniff about their revolutionary technology. MOD is a mobile + cloud-based software that makes 3D in minutes! The way this works is, you take images using your mobile phone or any camera and upload it to the MOD processing portal. The automated portal outputs 3D digital content. The technology uses the data from the photos and scans to create a real and true 3D object. The goal is to make 3D data much more accessible. The company is always evolving and adding features to make 3D imagery more accessible. They are on track to add 3D to NFT capability to their technology. The company has had a successful first round which was a venture round. They managed to raise $770,000 in venture funding. They have an app on the Apple App Store and Android Playstore where anyone can go download and explore the basics of the technology.

Andre Facote is from Lisbon, Portugal. He is the co-founder of Skizo. Skizo is a company dedicated to making an impact on the environment by cleaning up plastic in the ocean. They do this in collaboration with fishermen. The idea came to Andre when he and his one-and-a-half-year-old son were out having fun on the beach and his son picked up plastic waste and started to eat. He was greatly disgusted by this and was prompted to do something about the menace of plastic. This is how Skizo was born. Andre runs the company together with his wife. The company produces high-quality items from beach waste including sneakers.

Andre Facote is from Lisbon, Portugal. He is the co-founder of Skizo. Skizo is a company dedicated to making an impact on the environment by cleaning up plastic in the ocean. They do this in collaboration with fishermen. The idea came to Andre when he and his one and a half-year-old son were out having fun on the beach and his son picked up plastic waste and started to eat. He was greatly disgusted by this and was prompted to do something about the menace of plastic. This is how Skizo was born. Andre runs the company together with his wife. The company produces high-quality items from beach waste including sneakers.

Daniel Sarquis from Brazil. He is a managing partner at Mergus Ventures. At Mergus Ventures, they believe in investment through a transparent, balanced, and prosperous environment. They are made of founders who dive into problem-solving opportunities. They operate in markets that have a lot of potential. He has an engineering background but was introduced to the world of investment by his dad.

Jeremy believes that the best investors are former founders. It takes being a founder to know a founder. Jeremy is both an investor and an entrepreneur at heart. He believes that the best investors are former founders. He comes from a family of entrepreneurs. His dad instilled in him the value of caring for the people around you, whether family, colleagues, or the society at large. According to Jeremy, the true mark of an investor is not someone you avoid, it is someone you seek help from not only when things go well but also when things don’t go well.

Blue Lake is a venture capital firm with a focus on the UK to Ukraine companies. They are keen on helping founders from under-represented places such as Ukraine, India Greece, and France

Ligo Partners co-invests with their discrete and invitation-only consortium of like-minded investors into disruptive tech-focused deal flow sourced directly from family offices and top venture capital firms worldwide. Travis believes that the best companies are the ones that solve smaller problems. When you solve smaller problems, you stumble into billion-dollar solutions. He believes that the pursuit of trillion-dollar ideas usually comes in the way of the small steps along the way which are very fundamental.