When Alastair Cameron from Startacus came to Belfast to meet up and said “I want to run a female focused tech event in Derry”, I thought great let’s take a chance and see how we can help. We offered for Raise to helps sponsor the evening social, because that’s what works for us, the networking,…
Paying it forward – successful founders help and support the next generation of startups. This support comes in many forms; mentoring, advise, introductions and investment. It’s also not specific to the tech world, there has also been a tradition of one generation helping the next. We can see that it’s well established in NI…
[This was previously sent out to the Digital Circle Mailing list. You can join the mailing list and receive this and more via email every week for free. And if you want to support our work and receive additional benefits and discount codes from other members, there is a paid membership option for £45 per…
This week in RAISE saw the launch of Raise Start-Up Stories, this is the start of a series of monthly events showcasing stories from founders who have been there and done it. They will share experiences, what works, what doesn’t work with the main aim to help others starting out. The start-up club is…
Last week saw the launch of the Creative Industries Seed Fund in Northern Ireland. Obviously a direct descendent of the Innovation Fund it’s not quite as open as the predecessor because it’s definitely aimed at Digital. If you recall, 40% of the Innovation Fund was dedicated to Digital previously – this will be close to…
X : In a company, what really matters for culture is having the right purpose. Me: In a car, what really matters for efficiency is having the right direction. X : That doesn’t make sense, it’s orthogonal, almost independent of direction. Me : Car or company? — Simon Wardley (@swardley) January 7, 2020 We discuss…
Last year Matt Johnston and myself picked up the Belfast Silicon Drinkabout batton from Dermott McElduff who had been running the events. Matt and I are both founders of Raise Ventures, but this is an extra-curricular project. Matt loves tech and I love going to the pub so we’re well placed to take this forward.…
Francesca (Check) Warner writes: The mission of the fund is to open access to venture capital funding for people building businesses serving customers who are underserved by venture-backed companies, products and services. These ‘overlooked’ people include women, black, Asian and other founders from minority ethnic groups in the UK, the over 50s population, founders from…
This neatly fits into two posts by Guy Kawasaki ( The Art of Recruiting and a follow-on confusingly titled The Art of Recruiting. Both were written from an employer point of view but he includes a riposte Nine Questions to Ask a Startup. The bit that was interesting was the part about equity percentages. Most…
(This post was originally sent out to the Digital Circle Mailing List on 26th November but is included here for completeness). Timely to have this in the week of AICon – the inaugural convention on artificial intelligence and machine learning in Northern Ireland. But it’s too late to get a ticket as it’s completely sold…
