Kirsten joins Cyber London from Seedcamp, one of Europe’s most well regarded pre-seed and seed investors, and will take overall responsibility for Cyber London programmes and their delivery. As General Manager at Seedcamp, Ms Connell oversaw the development and expansion of its highly respected academy programme and its early-stage investments. She brings with her a wealth of experience and offers Cyber London participants access to her outstanding network among European start-ups, investors, and technology professionals.
Kirsten said: “I’m delighted to be joining Cyber London. As I’ve learned at Seedcamp, the UK has tremendous innovation potential, and it’s an exciting time to be involved in the cyber security sector. I’m looking forward to helping to grow Cyber London into a globally-recognised centre of excellence in the development of cyber security companies.”
Kirsten participated in the judging and selection of the latest cohort of companies to be offered places in Cyber London’s programme. The successful candidate companies will be announced as they take up their places at Cyber London from mid-December 2015 for its second programme.
Cyber London’s first programme, which took place between April and July 2015, hosted six pre-seed companies, providing a springboard for development of both their technologies and businesses.
Chris Wallis, co-founder of http://Intruder.io which graduated from Cyber London in July, commented: ‘CyLon was the best possible start we could have had for our company. Intruder was founded shortly before the accelerator began, and CyLon gave us both the platform and the rocket fuel we needed to launch our business. From the network of people we were introduced to, to the mentoring and review sessions which kept us on track and pushing forwards, the whole experience taught us more than we would have learned from years of going it alone. Also, the opportunities that have opened up through being involved with the accelerator have been mind-blowing.’
Alex van Someren of Amadeus Capital Partners, a co-founder of Cyber London, said: ‘We are thrilled to have Kirsten helping us to operate and develop Cyber London. The success of the first Cyber London programme has proven the value of bringing together the brightest new cyber start-ups and providing them with the skills, knowledge and contacts that they need to get to the next stage of their growth. We’ve been impressed with the progress to date of participants in our first programme, and we can’t wait to see how the candidates for the second Cyber London programme perform.’
