We are business partners with high expectations and huge respect for each other.
We enjoy the challenge of working together and have a lot of fun. The same goes for the founding teams we work with.
We listen hard to founders, to their customers in the market, and to the investors that back them. We push to challenge them, and we expect to be in this for the long haul.
ANNA-LISA WESLEY
Anna-Lisa is an experienced business advisor to the leadership team of a portfolio of IP-rich hard tech startups and scaleups in healthcare and clean energy.
In her first career in management consulting, Anna-Lisa advised top teams in the UK’s largest banks, energy companies and utilities, responsible for the delivery of £100m+ strategic initiatives under regulatory scrutiny. This deep experience is more relevant than ever as industry looks to reinvent through technology adoption.
Alongside personal investments, advisory and Board positions where she leads on growth strategy, governance and commercialisation, Anna-Lisa’s expertise is called upon by UK universities, TTOs, VCs and strategic incubators to drive novel technology to scale.
Anna-Lisa is a thought leader on topics including technology adoption, collaborative culture and scaleup governance and is in demand as a key note speaker, provocative panel host and chair.
PeteR Blake
Peter is an advisor and investor with a portfolio of deep-tech startups spanning clean energy, sustainable systems and the circular economy. He is co-founder of advisory firm Sapphire & Steel, and a Non-Executive Director at green chemistry startup Sages.
Peter began working with entrepreneurs in the 1990s, supporting the launch of digital products and ethical consumer brands. In the early 2000s he worked at IBM, leading research teams and driving commercialisation of deep tech solutions. He has built and sold two businesses and co-founded two social enterprises, raising tens of millions in investment along the way.
Peter mentors founders through The Greenhouse, the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, Techstars and ConceptionX, and leads the Shott Scale-Up Accelerator at the Royal Academy of Engineering.
Peter is also an advanced instructor in Wu-style Tai Chi Chuan, and enjoys sharing with founders the value of this practice — for personal resilience and to preserve clear thinking in tough situations.