Carlos Espinal
London, United Kingdom · Angel InvestorCarlos Espinal is a Managing Partner at Seedcamp and a long-time early-stage investor known for backing European founders from pre-seed onward.
Publicly listed VC backing European founders from Series A onward with follow-on capital.
London, United Kingdom
Venture Capital
Series A+
/united-kingdom/venture-capital/draper-esprit
No portfolio startups have been linked yet.
Carlos Espinal is a Managing Partner at Seedcamp and a long-time early-stage investor known for backing European founders from pre-seed onward.
Sherry Coutu CBE is a prominent angel investor and entrepreneur known for championing the UK’s scale-up ecosystem. Originally from Canada, Coutu moved to the UK and in 1994 founded Interactive Investor, an online brokerage, which she led to an IPO in 2000. After exiting that venture, she became a full-time angel in 2000 and has since invested in 50+ tech companies, focusing on consumer internet, education, and fintech startups. Coutu has been an early backer of notable UK startups like Zoopla and LoveFilm, and holds LP stakes in several venture funds. Beyond investing her own capital, Sherry Coutu is famed for her advocacy of “scale-ups” – mid-stage companies poised for high growth. In 2014, she authored the landmark Scale-Up Report for the UK government, highlighting the economic importance of helping startups grow into larger firms. This led her, alongside LinkedIn’s Reid Hoffman, to found the ScaleUp Institute in 2015 – a nonprofit that provides resources, mentorship, and policy advocacy for scaling businesses. Coutu also founded Founders4Schools and Digital Boost, initiatives connecting students and small businesses with experienced entrepreneurs. She remains an active non-executive director on multiple boards – past roles include serving on the boards of the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG), the University of Cambridge Finance Board, and Pearson plc. In the angel community, Sherry Coutu is respected not only for her investments but for her mentorship and network: she often provides board-level guidance and operational mentorship to founders. Appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2013 for services to entrepreneurship, Sherry Coutu is a pivotal figure helping UK tech startups navigate the jump from startup to scale-up.
11x is the breakout star of the UK's agentic AI wave, known for building "digital workers" that replace full job functions rather than merely assisting them. Founded in 2022 by Hasan Sukkar, the company frames its product as autonomous employees rather than software tools. That positioning is controversial, but it resonates with revenue teams seeking to eliminate manual drudgery and scale outreach without linear headcount growth. The flagship product, Alice, is an AI Sales Development Representative that can source leads, research accounts, craft highly personalized outreach, and follow up continuously. In late 2024, 11x launched Jordan, a multilingual AI phone agent that conducts real-time voice conversations for qualification and support in more than 30 languages. Together, these agents can run a large portion of the outbound funnel end-to-end, from initial outreach to handoff, with human oversight focused on high-value exceptions. By early 2026, 11x had exploded in valuation after a Series B led by Andreessen Horowitz, a rare win for a UK-first startup. The company processes millions of interactions for high-growth tech companies such as Otter.ai and Airwallex and is expanding its footprint in San Francisco to preempt US-based competitors. The roadmap centers on "digital teams" that coordinate multiple agents across tasks: one agent identifies a lead, another calls, a third negotiates logistics, and a final agent drafts the contract. This orchestration layer is the company's strategic bet on becoming the default system for revenue operations. The company's roots include Y Combinator's Summer 2023 batch, which accelerated its US network and credibility, and its UK engineering base sits in the London Bridge tech hub. Investor support spans US and European capital: a16z led the Series B, Benchmark led the Series A, Lux Capital participated early, Quiet Capital backed growth, and 20VC provided influential local support. In 2026, 11x is the UK's most visible play on AI-native revenue teams, aiming to become a category-defining platform for autonomous sales operations.
Founded 2000. VC and growth equity firm investing across Central and Eastern Europe in technology and media; notable exit SALESmanago and recent investment in Evrotrust.
AdMagica is a generative AI platform for e-commerce ad creative production, with corporate presence in London and core operations in Tbilisi. The product helps performance marketing teams generate, resize, and test conversion-oriented creatives faster across social channels, reducing creative fatigue and production overhead. The company emerged from the 500 Eurasia Batch 9 ecosystem and targets European commerce brands.
Europe's largest cell and gene therapy event. Price: about GBP 2000; startups often access subsidized exhibition pods. Strong for biotech founders and manufacturing partners.
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