#108 Maria Dramalioti-Taylor, Beacon Capital

Today we are happy to welcome Maria, founding managing partner of Beacon, a London-based fund that invests with a laser-sharp focus in enterprise tech venture across Europe. Maria is an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at INSEAD Business School and serves on the Committee of the Chairs in Emerging Technologies as well as the Enterprise Hub of The Royal Academy of Engineering. She is also angel investing and on the board of a number of fast growing companies. This greek engineer used to fence the foil so watch out for her ripostes! In this episode you’ll learn:– How Beacon accelerates the J-curve by focusing on capital gap of founder secondary investments at pre-series B to complement their pre-series A primary investments in enterprise tech– Why off-cycle founder secondaries are an integral part to build a strong ecosystem that can generate 1 bn€ exits - and why the big sovereign LPs need to wake up to this– How Maria thinks the preference stack, discounts and terms for secondary transactions– The three core stakeholders of putting together a secondary transaction and how to make them reach an agreement that all see as a win-win– Why the founder CEO is central to putting together a secondary transaction