128 Founding and building a female-led VC firm with Jessica Rasmussen of Two Magnolias

Welcome to EIS and VC Navigator, the podcast for UK Venture Capital. I'm your host Brian Marissa. Today's guest is Jessica Rasmussen, whose co-founder and CEO of Tube Magnolius. We ask about the opportunity and challenges of founding one of the few female lead VC firms in the UK, as well as how and why they develop their investment philosophy. It's a great conversation with someone who has an unusual perspective for venture capital. If you join the podcast, don't forget you can subscribe through all good podcast services or players or following the link in the show notes. If you've any suggestions for future topics or guests, then you can email us and inquire us how many co-gob or calm. Without any further ado, enjoy the conversation with Jessica. So welcome to the podcast Jessica. Thank you for having me. It's very nice to be here. It's great to have you here. Usually I start by asking people, "Tell me about yourself." I'm going to talk a little bit about your story because I think it's a very interesting one. But we might just jump a little bit to where it's the end and the sense in that. You run Tube Magnolius or your CEO or Tube Magnolius. So it might be worth telling us briefly what Tube Magnolius is so we can get a sense of where we're going. Sure, of course. Absolutely. Very happy to do that. The Tube Magnolius is a venture capital fund based in the UK. My co-founder and I, my co-founder Marie and I set up Tube Magnolius as a sort of extension of our angel investing activities in 2021. And our first fund opened in 2022 and it closed in 2024. We are an early-stage investor. We invest along two verticals. The first one is the transformational economy. There are solutions which new solutions which are redefining old economy problems. And the second vertical is human health. And we do everything within human health except for drug discovery. So those are our two clear verticals. The other sense that you need to get from Tube Magnolius is that we have a very clear lens on underrepresented founders. And by underrepresented founders, I mean by gender and ethnicity in the main. So you will understand Brian because you've been in this world for a while and some of your listeners will know female founders and female entrepreneurs in the UK and those who are ethnically diverse obtain very low single-digit investment from venture capital funds typically. And this has to change. And we see it as a huge opportunity. It's a sort of gaping hole in the venture capital investing environment. But we at Tube Magnolius see it as a huge opportunity because these founders are often overlooked. And that is the basis of Tube Magnolius and the way in which we invest. Yeah, and we will definitely come back to those topics later on. But I think three wide a little bit. You mentioned about this started off as an angel investing. How did you actually get into angel investing? Well, it's really interesting actually. We were both marine. I were both in investment banking. We were both global market specialists. I spent my last 10 years at Bank of America and that's where Marie and I met. She was there for six years. So in 2019, both was left back of America for different reasons. But we came together and we're looking at ways of sort of giving back into grassroots into the grassroots economy in the UK. One of the wonderful things about the UK is we have this sort of vast, well known globally for our angel investing network and obviously the test advantages that come with that. So what we did is we joined the UK BA, which is the UK UK's trade body for angel investors. That was a brilliant window into angel investing because it showed us all of the various angel groups that exist around the UK. So it also gave us access to companies that were pitching to angels. So that's very early stage companies that were not quite ready for venture capital investing, but who were not quite in the sort of friends and family initial sort of very early envy pieces. So it's in the little day, diverse a little bit, but needed a bit more of a sort of individual angel investing investment sort of profile. And that's what we did. And we did that for a couple of years. And all the while we were researching what was happening in the venture capital in the UK was a relatively nascent industry versus if you look to places like the US. So we thought there was a very big opportunity for us to get involved as financial services, professionals, but also as female investors of which there are not very many in the UK. Well, professional investors. Yeah. Well, even non-professional investors, I think there's a definite shortage. So you mentioned using the UKBA as almost like a syndicate in itself rather than joining a syndicate. Is that right? It's not a syndicate. It's a trade body. Yeah. And you have to pay for membership. And within it, it has all of the majority of the main regional UK angel syndicate. You know, when I say that, all of the region, you know, there were the angels and syndicates in the region. It also has a lot of the female syndicate. It has syndicates in the devolgnations that are members. So it is a membership body. It's very much like the British venture capital association of which we are members now, of course, because we're a venture capital fund now. But it's just a safe space where you can access all of the information around angel investing. It also gives you all of the training and the background and the information about what is angel investing and how does it work? It's sort of technical terminology. It takes you through EIS. It takes you to BCT. So there's a big knowledge base and like a database of information. But the critical point is that they have access to founders and they host the sort of founder angels syndicate connectivity. And that was just an easy way for us to get involved. Yeah. Yeah. So it gave you some easy access to deals, which I think is one of the key things to get started here. Yeah. Yeah. So what inspired you then, I mean, sort of like giving back, you could do that very well as an angel, I'm sure. What inspired you to actually start a venture capital firm? Well, I mean, you know, as I said to you earlier, it was sort of all about the opportunity gaps on what was happening and what was not happening in venture capital in the UK. If you think about it, there was some really horrific stats in 2024, you know, 1.8% of venture capital funding went to female founders, less than 1% went to ethically diverse founders, you know, 93% of capital is controlled by one demographic, you know, 60% of capital is controlled by people that went to flagship, future universities. You know, I mean, very, very high octane, very niche slither of financial services, which is defined itself by a very sort of one, you know, monochromatic view of who should run it, who should control capital, where should the capital go? What we call it is a meritocracy, you know, people who control the capital are sort of kind of investing in people that look like themselves. We thought, you know, Marie and I, we look completely different from, you know, the existing demographic. We are completely different. We have complete different backgrounds and we have, you know, gender differentiation, we have educational differentiation. So we thought the industry needed more diversity and that's why we're just an opportunity for us. And we, I think we were right. And that, by the way, is now accelerated. There are many more venture capital funds being set up by women by sort of, you know, ethnic, you diverse, investors, et cetera. So that sort of part and path is now very vibrant and is increasingly so, which so we were, we felt, you know, vindicated, but we thought it was the right decision. Also, the deal flow needed diverse investors. So it was just, you know, let's make the environment, the ecosystem, venture capital, more diverse, that founders were asking for it. They were asking for female investors on their cap table. They were asking for diversity of thought. That was a real, if you like, tailwind, you know, it was sort of wind in our sales that sort of accelerated, accelerated our progress. Having said that, it is not easy to do. I was going to say because it seems to me that you, you, you talk about this gap and with the best world of the gap, you know, you may not like the reasons, but the gap is kind of there a bit for a reason, which means that. Yeah. There's a challenge to fill it. Absolutely. And, you know, I often say that if we knew then what we know now, the decision might have been very different. I don't think that we would have thought, well, you know, because we're braving up and strong enough and we have 50 years of financial service experience between us. We would have still gone for it, but it is a very difficult, complex environment to navigate, especially the sort of venture capital fund that we've set up, which is a principle investing GPLP structure. It is not a VCT, it doesn't depend on sort of, you know, the EIS flow, which is not, I mean, you know, is it is also complex. but at least there's a natural flow because there's tax advantage you've been involved. So we don't carry any of that. Can I ask, is this like a side issue? But why did you then choose the GPLP rather than the EIS VCT route? There are some incredible benefits for private investors of a couple of reasons. There's some incredible benefits for private investors for investing in a VCT and they're very obvious or accessing EIS. The tax incentive that the government, UK government, you know, a successive government has had is probably one of the world's best tax incentive schemes for early stage companies. You know, this ability to invest and get tax breaks if you're high end tax payer, then you know, that's a very attractive immediate composition to the tax payer, right? And there's some who's investing. The problem is, is there restrictions on EIS and VCT investing? There are restrictions around how you can manage that money, the time you have to deploy money because obviously HMOSE are watching S-Pushes in BCC if you're raising EIS money for EIS investing, you know, you have to deploy that money because HMOSE is refunding the investor, right? So you can't just sit on it. You don't have time necessarily to wait for the right investment. You have a you under pressure. And the other thing is you have you can't do anything for three years. That's one of the things you have to be invested for a number of years. And that's fine. And that's, you know, we expect that to be similar for us. But that lack of flexibility and the ability to liquidate and the liquidation rights is something we thought, you know, look, that there are investors who are very good at that and you know, experienced in that. And by the way, that's a very strong and vibrant market. We felt that we wanted to build a different type of fund that was sort of globally, you know, that could go up against some of the incumbent GPLP structures. We wanted to truly, you know, be a principal investor with our own deployment schedule without being sort of under pressure or forced. And the other thing is, you know, we want to attract institutional investment. Institutional investors don't they're not looking for those. You know, they have different incentives. So our second fund, SunSpire, which we're sort of very close to launching, is an institutional fund. And we'll only, you know, I mean, in the main, in the majority, we'll be funded by institutional investors. So that's kind of that was all that was our focus. So they're not, they're complimentary, you know, what we do and what AI's funds do, they're complimentary, but there's slightly different norms. So we were talking about the challenges that you had sort of getting going and setting up, setting things up. So, you know, did you find your gender actually a barrier at all? So Marie and I have been in sort of financial services for many years. I mean, I've, I left, I've been in financial service for 30 years. So and in trading rooms the whole time. So if you can imagine what trading rooms were like in 30 years ago compared to. I was in them. Exactly. Over the thing. Of course. Yeah, you tell me that. Yes, of course. So it was a very different environment. And as I became more senior and as I was involved as, you know, I got to Bank of America and I was involved in being able to influence how dealing, you know, that, our dealing looked, you know, we, you know, diversity was a very big topic and particularly Bank of America. I would suggest all of the US banks were very, very focused on sort of, you know, equality and ensuring there was a balanced approach to all of the decisions that were being made. And we had some very, very senior women that were sort of leading the charge at board level and at sort of, you know, operational level. So we had seen, we have seen the transformation of this. What we didn't realise is how utterly untouched the venture capital and private equity, what private equity less are actually. There's some very senior women in private equity in the UK, but certainly venture capital, how utterly untouched it was by this sort of transformation within financial services. And it comes back, it's not because of the incumbents, you know, doing a bad job. Maybe, maybe that was the case. I think the industry has to take responsibility certainly for what happened in the time when we were not there. But it's also about women wanting to do those jobs and wanting to access and be involved in sort of high risk, high octane parts of financial services, which venture really is. You know, you'll take a lot of risk, you know, you're investing other people's money in, you know, in early stage and you know, the stats around early stage, you know, it's seven out of 10. I'm being, I'm now being gracious here of early stage venture capital, all venture companies don't make it. Yeah. You know, they don't make it after five years. So it's a very high risk job. So so we were faced with an incumbent ecosystem that was very one demographic and it was very close. So we had a real difficulty in navigating what we were supposed to do because there's no book. There's no rule book. When you say I'm going to set up a venture capital fund, no one goes, oh, here's a book. Have a read. Go for it. You know, here are the lawyers, here are the service providers, here are the appointed reps head to teams. This is what the FCA requires. This is what the compliance requirements are. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. If you want to do this, these are the boxes you have to take. Go for it. We had to build that because that's we had to build it to navigate that ourselves. And we came across two types of people. Those that were sort of a little bit busy doing their own thing and kind of had to write what we're busy investing. And then we had those who were really, really keen to hold our hand and navigate us. Through the whole process. And we really appreciate that. We really appreciate those people who, and we can, we would, we will name them, you know, when we, you know, because from day one, they, they open the doors to the lawyers, to the accountants, to the auditors, etc. You know, it takes a large community of people to help you through that. So in that respect, I don't think we had a block because we were women. Where we did face this block was that we have 50 years of financial services, experience behind us, Marie and I, working for top tier banks and asset managers in the UK. I've worked at top tier global banks all my life. And Marie has worked at asset managers and in, in, in global investment banks. But when we came to venture and we decided to do this, the in ecosystem, we set us to zero. So they, they, they counted everything you've done before. They said, basically said, what are you doing here? You have no experience. And we were like, well, we kind of do. And we might actually have quite a lot more experience than you do in this taking. And operations, I mean, between Marie and I, we have 42 years of FCA regulatory experience. IE, we've been regulated by the FCA combined 42 years. There's probably nobody else in venture capital in the UK that can claim that as a dream. Because it's, you know, I mean, it's, it's a huge number of years where we, we worked with the net for a framework. So it was definitely not zero, but our peer group, some of our peer group definitely thought, well, you know, they don't know anything. Yeah. And I say, as a, that's not a unique experience. I mean, we had a guest about two or three years ago and he was talking about he's set up a GPLP fund that was moving to IS. And fun enough, the people in the IS were saying this GPLP stuff doesn't, we're not going to count that as your track record because it's, it's different. And it's like, well, hang on. He's just been doing the thing that he's about to do in the US. But somehow there's this narrow silo thing that goes on. I think, I think, well, I think that the industry is very protective and protectionist. And they actually talk about wanting to expand the industry and welcoming new commas and making sure we expand and making sure we've got more investors, making sure there's more capital trying to compete with the US, which by the way, we have a long way to go. I mean, they're venture capital ecosystem is on fire. They have, they're ticket size there, it raises their speed, their approach to diversity now. They have funds investing just in black founders, funds investing in female founders. We have funds investing in LGBTQ. They are really very, very active and they really understand it and high net worth individuals in the US really understand it. We have a very long way to go here. But with this protectionist lens that we have, there's no way we can get there. If we don't just fling open the doors and say, come on, it is difficult, it is complex, but we're going to help, we need more investors. As more investors will allow founders to scale quicker, it will allow the good companies. And remember, we do know there are good companies and companies that aren't going to make it. We know there are companies a well-run and companies that aren't. I mean, you know, let's be honest about it. We want the good companies to scale and grow and then grow fast and stay in the UK and not get to a certain stage and then be bought out by a US fund because they're the only ones with the capital. I mean, we have to build a whole capital stack in the UK and that we can only do that by flinging open the doors. Yeah, I mean, certainly it's there's several entrepreneurs I know whose recent editor is almost well, we'll build it to a certain stage and then we'll go to US and get US money and particularly in, I mean, you mentioned that Medtech area and I think that in particular is an area where the UK feels it can only take it so far. I think, you know, the back of our minds, we are ambitious, but we need to be braver about the size of our ambition and that's kind of in many ways. If you look at two magnolias, what we are very proud of and what Marie and I say to ourselves is it does take some backbone and you need to be brave to do what we've done, but you know, if we don't do it, who's going to do it and by us doing it, it hopefully will stimulate other people doing it and we know that there are others that we are following and then there are other people who are like looking at us and coming in our slipstream and wanting to do it also. So we're very, you know, we do understand that it takes a change in mindset. One of the other things that I was interested in asking you about was the ease of, as a potential talent, the ease of raising money for the areas you're investing because again, you mentioned regions and sort of under invested founders, both of which are not probably, I definitely not attracting them, I really could of. And if you're raising those investor area, how easy is it for you to actually get sort of limited partners interested in those sort of investments? It's not easy because it's a very, we have a very clear and strong message, so it separates people into those who want to and those who don't. We're not a general venture capital firm, we're not generalists, we have a stated sectoral strategy, we have a stated lens strategy on who we want to back and it's very clear. So we automatically separate the LPs out and LPs can decide for themselves. We hope, we hope that limited partners will take a look at our strategy, which is incredibly clear and say, you know what, we want to diversify our portfolio because what we're saying is you don't have to put all your money with two magnolias, we are part of a diverse five-strips. If you want to back underrepresented founders in the UK, we are very clearly a fund that does that and we stand out as a fund that does that. We're not a fund that originally said we were generalists, oh now the trend is moving towards female founders, okay, we're going to say we're investing in female founders, we're not trying to layer our strategy because the market is moving. A little bit like people are some of our peer group because their experts in this field and they have some expertise, we'll say, you know, we're now we're investing in AI or we're a deep tech investor or we'll totally get it, trend is their valuations that their money is pouring in, we totally get it, we aren't that. We're not doing that, we're clearly stating what we're involved in, their own vibrant, wonderful brilliant companies that are scaling in the transformational economy, whether it's new material, circularity, energy transition, any of these things and you know, we're very clear that that's where we want to invest our funds, you know, human health, there's a huge amount of activity in human health as you know in life sciences which are, you know, new diagnostic tools, you know, mental health applications, social impact solutions and you know, all of these things are what the next generation is requiring. So you're right, it's not, when it's not straightforward, it's not saying, you know, you're a general, we're a generalist, you see fun and weak, where today we are investing in defense and AI, where you think, oh that's not, you know, okay, we are very much who we are, but as a portfolio, I think we fit very nicely. Yeah, yeah, and I think the important thing is that there is, to my mind, there's a clear investment case for looking at these things as well. Exactly, there is a very clear investment case and if actually if you look at the size of these economy, like if you look at the size of these sectors, human health and life sciences is exploding. I mean, you know, you can put two trillion, three trillion, four trillion, five trillion, I mean, who knows where human health is going to be, the way in which we diagnose and treat human beings over the next five years? You know what they say Brian, so if you survive the next five years, if you're healthy for the next five years, you will most likely extend your life by 15 years because the medical profession is moving so quickly. So you know, globally, we think that there's going to be cure for cancer because of the speed at which AI and then the onset of quantum computing, which will dramatically change the speed at which diagnosis and drug discovery takes place. Cure for cancer, people are saying is, you know, sometimes in the next three years. So if in five years time you can extend your life by 15, what they're saying is if you survive 10 to 15 years, there is a possibility that actually life will be extended to the point where we can choose the point at which we will leave. You know, this is that. I mean, that's the type of sort of almost star wars type, human tree that people have and this is not a joke. I mean, you know, Jensen Huang, he came out yesterday with two days ago, and he was talking about robots and cognitive ability, cognitive ability for robots. He was asking you know, when is that going to happen? And most people, most people in the audience thought that he would say, well, that's in five years time. He said, next year, within 12 months, there'll be robots that will have a cognitive ability. So when you talk about the investment case for the transformational economy, you know, you couldn't really even put a number on it from our perspective. Yeah. And also meant for the under vested founders as well, I think you can make investment case for having those as part of your part of the tool. I think that's even more important because it's not appreciated perhaps the way that some of the health things you do that. Yeah, no, I totally, I mean, look, the underrepresented founders are a brilliant subset of the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Why? Because they don't really have the ability to access venture capital funding. Why? Because typically, they don't have access to the networks. Those networks are changing now and they'll, you know, look more vibrant sort of networks all over the country that are stimulating this connectivity. Because they don't have access to the funding, what do they do? They bootstrapped for longer. So their companies are actually built on better stronger foundations because they manage their cash flows more aggressively. And, you know, they're tight. I mean, you know, to put it bluntly, they don't spend their money because they don't, they can't raise money very easily. So what you have is a very strong companies with very deep ability to manage their cash flow. And so when we do come across these companies, we think, wow, you've scaled and you're at revenue with almost no funding. We're going in a back here. We're going to back you big. That's kind of that's your and also, by the way, they tend to typically be valued about 25 to 30% lower than other, than the other sort of demographics. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it can easily sound like an oberina, but yeah, finding these things when they're don't have access to network that has access to the capital is. Yeah. And that's why, and that's why Marie, I mean, in particular Marie, we're both, I mean, obviously, we both, we're both GPs of the fund, but Marie is in charge of our top of fund on sheers, our head of origination. And she has huge outreach all over the UK into the devolved nations and into the regions. And so we are everywhere. We are in the grassroots and we will be more as our second fund launches because we have to go and find them. We can't always expect everybody to come down to London and say, here I am, you know, I'm like, because founders don't have time for that. So we want to be present. So what steps do you want to give us an idea of a couple of steps that you are actually taking to sort of find, you know, saying you're out there is one thing, but, you know, how do you actually find these people? How do you find these people? No, I mean, we would just, I mean, look, you know, let's take a bell fast as a, let's say Northern Ireland, right? We really like Northern Ireland as a devolved nation. We think it's the most advanced of all of the devolved nations with regards to the, you know, organisation of how they, you know, their founders, their founders can sort of tap into capital. Now that's local capital. Up until now, Northern Ireland has been very much self-funded. So the universities invest or the, and the universities incubate and then they invest. And then there are some local funds which are very active. And then you have the British business bank that has given Northern Ireland a pot of money also, which is very full with thinking and then you have, you know, Northern Ireland invest and you have various trade bodies that sort of bring founders and capital together. So we were invited. We went, I mean, I went to Northern Ireland three times in 2025. We've been to Northern Ireland five times in total over the last two years. So we are on the ground. And then when you go and you're on the ground, you find, you find founders or they find you. So that's how it happens. I mean, you know, it's no more complicated than that. You have to be there. And then, you know, once you're there, people, people find you believe me, Brian, you know, people are very good at finding you. Somehow, and they're very kind of finding email address as well, which is like, we're learning how that happens, but maybe it's obvious. So yeah, the smell of money. Yeah, it's very, it is very, very, very, very invite to. So one of the challenges for companies of Egypt has always a sense that if you're in London, you have this huge support around you. Rightly or wrongly, and there's perception, the regions, that is there to a lesser extent. I'm not saying there's nothing, but or even if it's an incorrect perception, and certainly a lot of, you know, I mean, I live in Edinburgh. And there's a fair amount of support locally here. But, you know, I think there's definitely places where there's less support for sort of new companies or consumers. What's your experience of that and how do you kind of help with that? The problem is we can't do everything. We can't solve all of the problems. And we are not a network. We're not a social enterprise. We're not a trade body. So, you know, we have to be careful that it's, it's kind of not our job. However, however, I think historically, the way you framed it, framed what you said is a historic, I think that was right. When we look back over the last two, three, four years, I think that's right. Now, however, I think particularly with the new government, the government's tenure industrial strategy, and the way in which they are reorganising the sort of regions into innovation zones and innovation harms. If we get that right, if they get that right, but if we as a community get that right and we can kind of develop these innovation harms, that will be very, very good. For local companies and for local founders. It's a push and pull. It's not all our problem in a way, you know, to really best respect it, right? We show up. We go. Marie is all over the country. She's all over, you know, she goes to sort of leads and Sheffield and speaks at events and she was in Wales and Cardiff. This year we've got a whole programme of things. We're doing something you will see there's some announcements coming out of the next two, three months. You know, two magnolias will be very present all over the country and in various competitions and stuff. But that's what we're doing. The founders also have to be, you know, they have to hustle. It's both sides. So, you know, we're not going to solve all of the problems. We can't possibly do that. But the government and local networks, which are very apt to particularly the angel networks. I mean, if you look at some of the angel networks in the North England, for example, lifted angels, you know, run by Helen and her team. You know, they do, they put on brilliant events. I've been to a couple, Marie's been to a couple. We've travelled specifically to go and talk on panels there. You know, we've absolutely committed to these. And so the founders need to go. Yeah. Yeah. Because funds are showing up. It works both ways. And you mentioned earlier about your feeling as the trend that the market is moving in your direction in the sense that, you know, it's better for female band. Some of the stats over the last year to probably have not progressed as we would like. And that's one of two suggesting things we've maybe gone backwards in the last year or two. And certainly there's a sense perhaps more in the air that D.I. was this fad that's passed. Do you think that there's a danger of that? That's the case. Do you think? You know, I along with everyone else, kers and reads all of the rhetoric that comes from governments all over the world. Government calm, governments go all of those of us who've been in, you know, in around for a few governments. You know, we understand that things sort of move and change, you know, depending on who's leading. But, but I actually think the world is moving away from, I mean, you know, governments are important, but it's what you do. You know, with the power that you have that makes the real difference. So many funds might say, oh, the US is saying that D.I. is not so important. Therefore, you know, it's not so important. All you can just choose to make the right decisions that are in your power. So, so yeah, you can hide behind other people's rhetoric, or you can just get on with it and do the right thing. You know, I mean, that's what you choose. So I don't think that is a, if the industry chooses to move that way, it's because they're choosing to move that way. No one's telling them to move that way. And it is the wrong thing to do. And you're right, Brian, you know, in 2024, we were, yes, last year when the stats came out about 20, 2024, the number of investments in FEMA founders went down, not up. And all the drum beating for this is the UK for all the drum beating for all the shouting for all day blah, blah, blah, the numbers went down. So we have to take responsibility for that as an industry as two magnolias, you know, our fund one, which was a proof of concept fund a small fund, 100% of our companies had an underrepresented founder. Now, in fund two, which will be a much bigger fund, we will be changing the numbers because of the size of deployment that we'll be able to put into market. But we can't do it alone. People have to decide what the right thing is to do. Now, we do know that the funds are hiring in more diverse background and more diverse. You know, people analysts all the way up to portfolio managers to whatever. So I know that the investor base is changing. But it's a decision. I mean, you know, it's sort of, I think too many people look at, uh, uh, yeah, as if somebody's telling them to change the way they are and no one is like, you should, you should just do the right thing. I get crazy. It's such a, it's such an odd, it's such an odd view. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, as far as I didn't review somebody last year for the podcast, I'm going to talk about the podcast was basically why is women venture capital still a thing? Because it seems to me, I'm just baffled. I mean, yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's important to talk about it because the issues still remain. But the reason why we set up two magnolias is to show that the only way we can change the numbers is by doing and not by talking. Yeah. But when we do it, we have to do it. I mean, you know what I mean? We have to actually do it. So, yeah. And we're doing it across the board. So while the executive chair of two magnolias, um, you know, you'll start to see these announcements come out in the next two to three months, you know, is, is a woman. One of our chairs of our advisory board, the transformational economy is a woman, very senior woman, both chairs of our investment committee are women, you know, we have two female GPs. So at the very top of our organization at two magnolias, it is, it is start full of very, very senior experience women. So we just chose to do that. I mean, there are lots of wonderful men that we work with and we'd love them and it's great and it's fabulous. But we chose to do that because, because we want to change the numbers. And people say, you know, how many women in investment decision making positions in the UK less, less than 20%. It's, it's crazy. So I'm glad to see somebody doing something about it anyway. I mean, we can only do so much. But I don't follow. Or people will be brave enough to say, yeah, you know, why not just let's just do it. You just have to worry about what a government is thinking or saying, you know, a few thousand miles away, isn't it madness? Like just do the right thing. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And you mentioned there about your second fund. You know, three years on since you raised the first one, how's your, how does your experience compare now compared with the first fund? Well, I mean, I mean, you know, we're in a very different position. We're raising an institutional fund. We have secured a cornerstone investor that is we've secured that now. So, you know, we're well on our way. So it's a very different experience. And but you need to go through those steps of gaining understanding how to run a fund. You know, it's not easy. I mean, you know, even just setting up the legal entities. That's fine. That's five percent of running a fund investing the actual process of investing the actual sending the money. That's the last five percent. Everything else in between is a hugely complex. We're probably 67% of the fund running a fund is operational. It's not investing related. So this is the sort of thing that many people don't understand. So yeah, we have that experience now. We were very comfortable and very confident in what we're doing and how we do it. And we have the right partner. So that's. We had to do what we did in with fund one, but but. But now we're we're in a different position completely. Excellent. Well, it sounds like you're in a much better position. So I hope that continues. - Well, we hope so, yes. - Yes. Well, I'd like to do now is turn to our favourite questions. So we'll edit these briefly because you're in a slightly different position of some of our other guests, but we'll throw that you in and get your thoughts. So what was the most recently publicing announced investment you made? And why do you make it? - Well, our last investment for Fund One, for our Fund One was Move True, which is a fantastic sports company based in Belfast, run by a female founder called Nemi McGregor. We led the investment on that round. We were the lead venture capital investor and we invested, I mean, there are many reasons, but the heart of the problem that she's trying to solve is she's trying to ensure that elite athletes prevent injury. And what they're doing is they're starting with ACL, so lower body injury prevention. But what they're doing is biometric, biomechanic testing on pitch, on pitch and whilst training. So this is not sort of lab testing, athletes sort of, you know, is your gate right, is your stance right? This is on pitch whilst they're training. So it provides instantaneous algorithmic biomechanic data that sports scientists, physiotherapists, et cetera, can watch whilst they're elite athletes are training. Why is this important? This is important because sports teams all over the world spend so much money on their elite athletes, but many are benched because of, you know, on pitch. - Please follow a sport, see a number of people who are athletes right now. - Ningly injuries that happen during training, but when they're actually on pitch in a game, suddenly something happens. ACL tears or something happens and bang, there are for six months, season over. That's the first thing. The second thing is it's very important for female athletes, particularly female soccer athletes, who, and many people don't realize this, but women are six to eight times more likely to have an ACL tear than a man, just because of the physiology, right? So when you look at, for example, the women's world cup, soccer world cup that occurred a few years ago, there was something like 25 elite female footballers that were benched, they couldn't participate. I might even be under, under playing that number because they couldn't participate due to ACL. So ACL in female soccer players is incredibly common, and it's all to do with muscle length and all to do with the physiology of women versus men, which we all know is different. So this is a clear solution to try and ensure that sports scientists and physiotherapists have that data and allow athletes to change the way in which they're training and which they're approaching their sport before injury occurs. - Yeah, well, if ever comes public, I'm probably needed because I'm pruned to these after a few injuries myself. - No, I mean, they are selling them. I mean, it is a B to B play for now, but they're senses, they're like apple tags. You put them on your training equipment and all the feedback is there. So it's incredibly powerful. People who run marathons, all of kind of. - Yeah, sounds exciting. - It's very exciting, yeah. - So in the classic VC-traumverate of market products and management, we know that they're all important, but what for you is the most important? - When we're investing in a company, when you invest in early stage companies, the most critical fulcrum, if you like, for investing or not, investing is the founder. The way in which you need to think about it is the way in which we think about it is not, 'cause 99% of founders are great salespeople. So they can sell their market, they can sell their product, they can sell, you know, kind of. And everyone, the intention when you sell up a company is you want it to do well and you have your real belief in what you're doing and, you know, we have a very sort of de-risk strategy. We sort of, we're de-risking our investment process all the time. But ultimately, it's about the founder or the founding team. And it's all about the sort of approach they have how they're gonna build their business and they quit and their determination. And the investments that have not done so well for us and the one or two that have impaired, you can clearly see the difference, you know, there are differences, there are very clear differences. For us, it is by far the number one. - Tell us about the time you failed and what you learned from it. - When you say failed, like to think that failure's not an option, but there are clearly have been very challenging types. Look, you know, one of the things that at two magnolias, we were at a real crossroads. When we raised our first fund and it was, as I said, a proof of concept fund, it was mainly our money and, you know, our sort of, you know, friends and family, equivalent, you know, high networks, et cetera. And we invested that fund and all the while we were looking to raise an institutional fund. Where's it an institutional fund from that base? Is incredibly difficult. So we had, we chose one strategy, which is one investor, one cornerstone investor that we knew was a very large corner, the largest cornerstone investor in the UK and we absolutely went for it. We just put all of our eggs in one basket. There was only a plan A, there was no plan B. And that plan A, we expected to execute in 80 months. It took us sort of three years. Now that challenge was incredibly difficult and at certain points in that sort of journey, we were looking failure. We were, we were staring at failure in the face because, you know, when you, when you only look, run after one horse, if the horse decides to bolt, we had to be very clear about how we were going to navigate that. And there were many times that we were not back from that Brian and we had to stand up and we had, we went again and we chased them down and we, and we went back and we said, no, this is the story, this is why. And it took us three years, but we did it, but we came very, very close to failure because when you're building these funds, no one's paying you. No one's, there's no money that's dropping from heaven going, yeah, here we go, you know, like me. Marie and I put all of our savings, all of our personal capital into chasing plan A. So we came very close, but we were, we, we, we managed to do it at, you know, and nothing that's probably the most relevant, you know, current issue that we had is that we thought something was going to take 80 months, it took three years and we came very close to not doing it. Also, yeah, yeah, well, I'm glad you pulled through in the end. Yeah, so we, let me say. I can imagine. So as regular as listen to him and I would read it and always looking out for ideas, are any books out there you like and would recommend? I mean, I really like the Trillion Dollar Coach. I like that. I don't know that one. Oh, you, you know, that is a must read. And in fact, I always have a copy of it on my desk because. The listeners, she has just shown me a copy on the screen. I, I, I think it is one of the books that all people who are wanting to run businesses should, should read. It's written by Eric Schmidt and you know who Eric Schmidt is, but I think that it actually talks about Bill Campbell and how he helped some of the, the most successful founders in Silicon Valley really build their businesses. And it's a small, it's a thing, but I really like it. Excellent. Well, I'm, I, that sounds really interesting. I shall definitely have to get it on my shopping list. So if anyone's find out more about what you're doing at two Bengaliers, where should they go? If you're a founder and you want new feel that you fit within our pillars and our lens, feel free to go to our website, www.tumagelius.co.uk. And there is a form that you can fill in. Please fill that in and you will go into our pipeline and we do respond to everyone. And the difference with us is that we are a GP led filter. So you will not be filtered by an analyst, you will not be filtered by anybody like AI, what, you know, Marie will, we'll read every single application. So you will get access as a, but, but obviously if you're not right for us, or the timing is not right, you know, we, we, you know, we will tell you. If you are a potential LP and you would like to look at two magnolias, then my suggestion by as they get in touch with you and then maybe you can forward on those emails. We are in our fundraise for our second fund. I mean obviously they're very, it's an institutional fund, so there's some qualifying points, but if you are a professional investor and you can designate as a professional investor, then yes, very much we have many professional investors who are now fully engaged with two mangurlies and want to be part of our second fund because they want to have access to these companies. So yes, those are the two areas. And that would be delighted to pass anything. Yeah, that would be great. I mean, I think if you don't mind, I think that would be a good way of doing it. That would be absolutely fine. So thank you very much to the cover on today, Zestica, and talk about what you're doing. It's been really interesting finding out what's been going on and getting you views on market. No, that's how it goes. We've been really interesting talking to you as well, Brian. Thank you very much for having me on and I wish you well for the rest of the year. Thank you. Good luck with your fundraise. Thanks a lot. I hope you enjoyed Zestica's interesting perspective on venture capital. In some way she is both an insider and an outsider. As usual, you can get full show notes with links at harmanacode.com/podcast. You can subscribe to podcasts and all good podcast service and players or through the link in the show notes. If you like what you hear them, please tell a friend or colleague or because they're reviewing your favourite podcast app, we can be contacted and enquire at harmanacode.com. Thanks for listening and we'll be back in two weeks' time.