Anthemis Venture

Ali Geramian is a Partner at Anthemis, where he leads the firm's ecosystem and investor relations platform, connecting portfolio companies with strategic investors. Since joining in 2022, he has supported the firm's expansion and AUM growth across the US, Europe, MENA, and Latin America. He previously served as national leader for KPMG US Innovation Labs and headed its national insurtech program, and earlier worked in MetLife's US individual business group and founded companies in insurance and financial services.

Iason Nikolakis is a Partner at Anthemis, where he works on sourcing, evaluating, and executing investments. Before joining the firm, he was an assistant trader on the foreign exchange and derivatives desks at the Treasury of the National Bank of Greece. He holds a BSc in Economics from the University of Ioannina and an MSc in Investment Management from Cass Business School, and speaks Greek, English, and French.

Naoshir Vachha is Group General Counsel and Managing Partner at Anthemis, where he advises on the group's investment activities and advisory engagements. He is a dual-qualified solicitor admitted to practice in India, England and Wales, and previously worked as a corporate lawyer at Lawrence Graham LLP advising private and public companies on mergers and acquisitions and India-focused investment strategy. He holds an LLB from the University of Mumbai.

David Galbraith is a product designer and entrepreneur with over 25 years of internet industry experience across London, San Francisco, and New York. He co-founded multiple companies including Origins (acquired by D.C. Thomson), Moreover news search engine (acquired by LexisNexis), and MRL Ventures, an incubator where he led the project that became Yelp, and co-created the RSS standard. He has also served as a venture capital partner and currently works in product at a stealth-mode company.

Kate Sampson is the founder of Merinn Advisors LLC and brings over 25 years of insurance industry experience across traditional insurance, insurtech, and venture capital. She previously held senior leadership positions at Marsh & McLennan, built technology-enabled insurance operations at Lyft, and served as a venture capitalist with Anthemis investing in technology companies. She currently serves as an independent director and strategic advisor focused on AI governance, cyber risk oversight, and digital transformation.

Katie Palencsar is a founder who sold a data SaaS, leads a ~$50M fund described as the largest early-stage women's fintech fund, and applies a venture-studio, hands-on support model.

Alexander Mayall is an Investment Principal at Anthemis, working on early stage investments across the UK and Europe. Before joining the firm, he spent two years in backend development and software infrastructure, which he now brings to evaluating companies from a technical and product perspective. He previously co-hosted the Futurology Podcast tied to the /r/Futurology Reddit community and created YouTube content on emerging technology, mathematics, and science. He holds a BA in Physics from St. Catherine's College, Oxford, and an MSc in Cybernetics from the University of Reading.

Elizabeth Davis is a Partner at Anthemis focused on early stage investments across Europe and North America, and leads the Anthemis Female Innovators Lab Fund, a $50mn fund backing early stage female founders and co-founded teams at the intersection of financial services and technology. Before Anthemis, she worked in sustainability, impact, and advertising, including roles at The Coca-Cola Company and Worn, and built brand platforms for companies such as Aflac and LG. She holds an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth and a B.A. from the University of Notre Dame.

Jeremy Brown is an investment Principal at Anthemis, where he invests in early-stage companies applying AI to regulated industries, with an emphasis on energy and climate across Europe. A former geophysicist, he has invested in Silicon Valley, Berlin, and London, previously heading investments at a London pre-seed deep tech fund, working as an early-stage investor at Foundational in Berlin, and starting his venture career at Plug and Play Ventures. Before venture he was an academic and enterprise software product manager at an energy services company in the Netherlands, and he holds a Ph.D. in geophysics and an MBA from Stanford.

Marin Cauvas is a Partner at Anthemis, where he sources, evaluates, and executes investments and supports portfolio companies. He has expertise in financial services, particularly asset management and alternative lending, along with operational experience incubating startups in the space. Before Anthemis, he was an Investment Associate at Santander's fintech arm Innoventures, worked on the Alternative Finance team at Liberum Capital, and began his career at BlackRock's alternative investment division. He holds a master's in investment management from CASS Business School and a bachelor's in finance from the European Business School.

Sophie Winwood is co-founder and CEO of unlock VC, a community platform and annual summit for women in venture capital that facilitates networking events and provides training and resources to investors. With seven years of venture investing experience, she has been recognized on the Innovate Finance Women in FinTech Powerlist multiple times and was identified as a rising star in venture capital by Business Insider in 2023.

Mark Dowds is founder and CEO of RESPONSIBLE, a fashion technology company focused on reducing new product consumption. He serves as chairman of MANTIS, an AI software company in the trucking sector, and as a venture partner at Anthemis Group. Dowds co-founded several technology companies including Trov, an on-demand insurance platform acquired by Travelers Insurance, and ServiceCloud, which was acquired by Salesforce, and he is co-founder and chair of Ormeau Labs, a Belfast-based technology innovation hub.

Amy Nauiokas is the Founder, Group CEO and General Partner at Anthemis, a venture firm she co-founded that focuses on the fintech industry and has invested in more than 250 companies. She began her career in financial services with senior roles at Cantor Fitzgerald and Barclays, and is also the founder of the production company Archer Gray. She holds a B.A. in International Studies from Dickinson College and an M.A. in International Business from Columbia University.

Bukie Adebo Umeano is an Investment Principal at Anthemis, where she sources, evaluates, and executes early-stage deals in fintech and embedded finance. She previously worked in consulting as a Strategy and Operations Consultant at Deloitte and a Brand Strategy Director at Ogilvy Consulting, co-founded a credit-building business called Liza, and was an investor at WomensVCFund focused on Series A and B companies with women in senior leadership. She holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BBA from Emory University's Goizueta School of Business.

Hana Charnley is an investor at Anthemis. She previously worked as an analyst at First Republic Bank in New York within its Tech/VC group, advising startups and venture firms on depository, cash management, and lending needs. She holds a degree in Economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, with a concentration in Management and a minor in Anthropology.

Briana van Strijp is a CEO who rose from a Chief People Officer, bringing 20+ years in culture and organizational design, D&I fintech recognition, SPAC COO experience and CultureTech advising.

Gavin Holland pairs executive-search leadership and venture-platform expertise, scaled a firm into a billion-dollar manager, and now builds an investment arm atop a search platform to back founders and boards.

Georgia Haigh has over a decade of experience in venture capital and high-growth startups across Europe and North America. At a $1B AUM VC firm, she designed platform strategy for five investment funds, managed a portfolio ecosystem of 100+ companies with global LPs including Visa and UBS, and executed 11 early-stage investments in fintech, climatech, and risk management sectors. She held operational roles at FREE NOW and Onefinestay, where she led service delivery, team scaling, and international expansion initiatives, and has advised over 100 early-stage female founders on a pro-bono basis while maintaining an interest in addressing the gender funding gap.

Leslie Campisi is the co-founder of Beginners, an agency focused on storytelling for entrepreneurs. She previously served as CMO at startups and venture capital firms. She is currently a member of the Alliance for Principled Tech.

Natasha Naidoo is a General Partner at ByteSized Capital, which she co-founded to invest in AI founders operating in regulated industries. Her background spans cell biology at Berkeley, product scaling in African agritech, and early-stage investing at Anthemis. Her work has focused on identifying leverage points for systemic change across biology, agriculture, and technology sectors.

Swarnali Mitra is a financial products builder and investor with experience across carbon removal, working capital financing, and enterprise solutions. Her background spans roles at CUR8, Credit Suisse, Anthemis, BDC Capital, and Deutsche Bank, with technical training in electrical engineering and applied expertise in economic policy and capital markets. She currently focuses on opportunities in the resilience space and advises founders on enterprise deployments and expansion into India and Southeast Asia.