Riding Unicorns: Venture Capital | Entrepreneurship | Technology
Riding Unicorns is a podcast featuring the world's best minds from venture and startups. Hosted by VCs James Pringle and Hector Mason, the show explores what it takes to build and back successful tech unicorns. Each episode features conversations with top founders, operators, and investors unpacking the strategies, challenges, and insights behind scaling category-defining companies. From fundraising and product-market fit to hiring, growth, and beyond, no topic is off-limits. Whether you're a founder, VC, angel investor, or just curious about the world of startups, you’ll find valuable takeaways in every episode.
Episodes
234 episodes
What Makes a Top VC Fund Today? Dave Neumann at Schroders Capital on LP Thinking, DPI and Venture Returns
What does a genuinely great VC fund look like today, from an LP’s perspective?In this episode, James and Hector are joined by Dave Neumann, Investment Manager at Schroders Capital, one of the most experienced institutional investors in v...
Tony Jamous & Hadi Moussa at Oyster HR on leadership transition, CEO succession and unlocking global talent
Tony Jamous first joined Riding Unicorns in January 2023, just after Oyster became a unicorn. Since then, the company has raised its Series D, Tony has moved into the Executive Chairman role, and Hadi Moussa has stepped in as CEO.In this...
Nikola Mrkšić, Co-Founder & CEO at PolyAI on Building One of the World’s Leading Voice AI Companies
Nikola Mrkšić is the Co-Founder and CEO of PolyAI, one of the world’s leading voice AI companies, helping enterprises automate customer service through co...
Matt Wilson, Co-Founder & CEO at Jack and Jill, on AI Career Agents, Talent Density, and Building the Next Network-Effect Marketplace
This week on Riding Unicorns, Matt Wilson returns to the podcast. Matt previously joined us in September 2022 to talk about Omnipresent, which has since been acquired by Deel. He is now back building Jack and Jill, one of the most talked-about ...
Nicolò Frisiani, Co-Founder & CEO at Lupa, on Building the AI Operating System for Vets, Enterprise Sales, and Scaling at Speed
Nicolò Frisiani is Co-Founder & CEO of Lupa, the world’s first enterprise-ready AI operating system for veterinary clinics.Lupa has raised over ...
George Davis, Founder & CEO at Lorum on Rebuilding Global Clearing, Why Dollars Are Broken, and Building a Payments Only Bank
George Davis, Founder and CEO of Lorum.George has been deep in payments for years: Head of Product at TrueLayer, then co-founder of BVNK, and now building Lorum to tackle the hardest layer of the stack: global clearing.We get into...
David von Rosen, Founder of Lottoland on Majority Stake Investing, Loving Risk, Dubai’s Energy, and the Steve Jobs Turtleneck Story
James sits down with Dr. David von Rosen, the serial founder behind Lottoland and 25 Degrees, and the Principal of the VONROSEN family office, through which he invests globally and pan-sector in fast-growth pre-IPO startups.David does no...
Harrison Rose, Co-Founder at GoodFit on Mapping Your Market, Modern Go To Market, and Lessons from Building Paddle
Harrison Rose co-founded Paddle, one of the UK’s standout B2B billing and payments companies. Now he is building GoodFit, a go to market platform helping teams prioritise the right accounts, at the right time, with the right data.In this...
Ben Freeman, Co-Founder & CEO at Omnea on Building an AI Native Procurement Platform, Talent Density, and Founder Paranoia
Ben Freeman is the Co-founder and CEO of Omnea, an AI native procurement and supplier management platform used by companies from the mid-market through to enterprise, including Synthesia, Typeform, Spotify, Monzo, Albertsons, and The Adecco Gro...
Why "AI Visibility" is critical for your brand with James Cadwallader, Co-Founder & CEO at Profound
James and Hector sit down with James Cadwallader, CEO and Co Founder of Profound, to unpack how AI is reshaping the internet and what that means for every brand on the planet.James explains why large language models are not...
From Formula 3 to AI Accountants: Ariel Harmoko, Co-Founder & CEO @ Artifact
Ariel Harmoko is the Co Founder and CEO of Artifact AI. Ariel joined James and Hector for a conversation that moves from race tracks to reconciliation engines.Ariel grew up in Jakarta, was thrown into Go Karts at eight, and...
Building the AI Super Connector with Andrew D’Souza, Founder of Boardy and Clearco
Andrew D’Souza is the Founder of Boardy, the Creandum backed AI super connector reshaping how founders and investors meet and build trust.Before Boardy, Andrew co-founded Clearco, one of the first revenue based financing companies. Clear...
Inside SVB's dramatic acquisition and the Future of UK Venture with Erin Platts, CEO of Octopus Ventures
Erin Platts is the CEO of Octopus Ventures and former CEO of Silicon Valley Bank UK & Europe — one of the most pivotal figures in the UK tech ecosystem.In this conversation, Erin opens up in remarkable detail about her personal journ...
How SuperAwesome Built the World’s Biggest Kid Tech Platform with Co-founder Lee Veitch
Lee Veitch is the Co-Founder and Managing Director of SuperAwesome, the world’s leading kid-tech and youth marketing platform.SuperAwesome powers billions of kid-safe digital transactions every month — helping brands like LEGO, Disney, a...
Pioneering the AI-rollup model in the property management space with Dan Lifshits, Co-Founder @ Dwelly
The AI rollup transforming property managementThis week on Riding Unicorns, we sit down with Dan Lifshits, Co-Founder & COO of Dwelly — the AI-first lettings and property management platform reinventing ...
Building the "Spotify of Textbooks" with Gauthier Van Malderen, Founder @ Perlego
Hector is joined by Gauthier van Malderen, Founder and CEO of Perlego, the “Spotify for textbooks” and one of Europe’s leading edtech scale-ups.Gauthier shares the remarkable journey of building Perlego from a personal frus...
Building the capital operating system for fast-growing tech companies with Paul Becker, Co-Founder & CEO of re:cap
This week on Riding Unicorns, we’re joined by Paul Becker, Co-Founder & CEO of re:cap, a fintech platform helping digital businesses unlock capital and understand their financial position through intelligent forecasting, real-time data insi...
What happened to Babylon Health after reaching $1bn+ revenue? And how Ali Parsa is continuing his mission to fix healthcare for all with AI startup Quadrivia.
Ali first joined us in January 2022, when Babylon was still one of the most ambitious healthtech companies in the world. Today, he returns with a new mission, building Quadrivia and its clinical AI assistant, “Qu”, designed to a...
The future of Social Commerce with Sam Jacobs, Co-Founder @ Go Places
Sam Jacobs is the Co-Founder of Go Places, the operating system for social commerce.In just 18 months, Go Places has become a trusted partner to some of the world’s biggest brands including Samsung, Mars, The Body Shop, and Trip. Backed ...
AI, Infra vs Apps & Spotting Red Herrings with Akash Bajwa, Principal @ Earlybird
Akash Bajwa, Principal at Earlybird VC, one of Europe’s longest-standing early-stage funds.Akash shares his journey into venture and how he helped launch Earlybird’s London office, now a core hub for the firm. We dive into ...
Investing in Africa's Digital Future, Lexi Novitske, GP @ Norrsken22
Lexi Novitske, General Partner at Norrsken22, a $205m growth-stage fund backing transformative tech companies across Africa.Lexi has spent over a decade living and investing in Nigeria, backing breakout African startups lik...
Growth Equity, VCTs and Exits with Rupert West, Managing Director @ Puma Growth Partners
Please note: The topics covered in this episode should not be taken as investment advice.This week on Riding Unicorns, we’re joined by Rupert West, the founder and Managing Director of Puma Growth Partners, a UK-ba...
Building Outreach to a $4bn unicorn and helping AI agents get paid with Paid.ai - Manny Medina, Co-Founder & CEO @ Paid.ai
This week on Riding Unicorns, we’re joined by Manny Medina, the visionary founder behind Outreach — the $4B sales engagement unicorn — and now co-founder & CEO of Paid.ai, a startup pioneering how AI agents g...
Building, Backing & Scaling in an AI-Native World with Kenneth Auchenberg, Partner @ AlleyCorp
In this episode we are joined by Kenneth Auchenberg, Partner at AlleyCorp — one of New York’s most prolific early-stage funds known for incubating companies like MongoDB, Business Insider, and Radical AI.Kenneth’s journey f...
Inside the Quantum Infrastructure Revolution with Carmen Palacios-Berraquero, Founder & CEO @ Nu Quantum
This week on Riding Unicorns, we’re joined by Carmen Palacios-Berraquero, Founder and CEO of Nu Quantum, a pioneering company building the networking layer for the quantum computing era.Carmen’s journey started in academia,...
