Creator Fund

Jamie Macfarlane built a pan‑European, student‑led network of 40+ student investors sourcing PhD‑level AI, robotics, life sciences and quantum startups, backing 50+ companies that raised $250M and helping scientist‑founders transition.

Ben Stewart is a first-year PhD student at Imperial College London working on the application of machine learning to chemical experiment design, including small molecule synthesis and small-scale manufacturing, in collaboration with the pharmaceutical industry. His work centers on data-driven and physics-driven computational models for scientific discovery. He earned an MSc in Chemistry from the University of York, which included a year of research at the University of Sydney's quantum computing lab.

Erica Olsen is a PhD student in Engineering at the University of Cambridge, where her research is on minimally-invasive biosensors. Prior to Cambridge, she worked at NewYorkBIO, connecting early-stage biotech founders with investors and industry contacts.

Fabian Bäzner is a PhD student at the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing, researching how exercise affects metabolism in relation to age-related diseases. He previously worked as a Venture Creation Analyst at Apollo Health Ventures and holds a B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Molecular Medicine. His interests center on aging biology and translating scientific research into healthcare applications.

Serial entrepreneur and co-founder of Founders Factory.

Mantas Bakšys is a second-year PhD student at the University of Cambridge working on AI for mathematics (AI4Math). He has research experience at OpenAI and AWS ARG, and was a researcher at Project Numina, a startup focused on AI-driven mathematical discovery. His work centers on applying AI to accelerate scientific discovery.

Marguerite Colin is a PhD student at the MRC Toxicology Unit in Cambridge, where she studies the toxicity of nucleic acid-based therapeutics in cardiac models in collaboration with industry. She has prior experience in early-stage life sciences investment and works in molecular biology and drug discovery. She holds a BSc from Imperial College London and an MPhil in Therapeutic Sciences from the University of Cambridge.

Matea Marosevic is a PhD student at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), where her research covers biocatalysis, electrochemistry, and materials science applied to C1 chemistry and pollutant degradation, with a focus on scaling and commercialization. She has entrepreneurship training and works on connecting laboratory research with market applications. Her interests include life sciences, biotech, and clean tech.

Merve Elmastas is a PhD candidate at Karolinska Institutet studying adipose tissue metabolism through molecular and transcriptomics methods. She earned a BSc in Molecular Biology and Genetics from Boğaziçi University and has worked in both academia and biotech, with a focus on translating research into healthcare innovations.

Oskar Bohn Lassen is a second-year PhD student in Machine Learning at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), where he builds graph neural networks as surrogate models for physical simulators and applies them in reinforcement-learning environments for control and policy work. He holds a Bachelor's and Master's in Operations Research and Machine Learning, and previously studied law for a year and worked as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company. His interests include applied ML in pharma, legal tech, scientific computing, and finance.

Pietro Mello Rella is a PhD candidate in Control Theory and Robotics at EPFL. He previously worked as a Control System Engineer at maxon. His interests center on developing reliable control and navigation algorithms for mobile robots.

Sergio Loarte Castro is a PhD candidate in Quantum Computer Science at QuTech (TU Delft), researching the role of satellites in the future Quantum Internet, connecting quantum information science with space engineering. Before his PhD, he worked for six years as a space engineer at Airbus, contributing to NASA and ESA projects with a focus on scientific interplanetary missions.

Sofia Gilardini is a DPhil student in Probabilistic Machine Learning at the University of Oxford, where her research centers on building generalisable models that quantify and manage uncertainty for reliable real-world predictions. She has worked on computer vision and automation at Apple and on robotic control at a MedTech startup. She holds an MPhil in Machine Learning from the University of Cambridge and a BEng in Electrical and Mechanical Engineering from the University of Edinburgh.

Toomas Erik Anijärv is a PhD student at Lund University in Sweden, originally from Estonia, focusing on neuroimaging to study early functional and structural brain changes along the Alzheimer's disease continuum. He has a background in electrical and biomedical engineering and interests in medical technology and preventative medicine. He previously co-founded a SaaS startup and draws on that experience to advise new founders.

Al Giles is a Venture Partner at Creator Fund. He has held executive and leadership positions focused on scaling technology-enabled companies across multiple geographies.