TechNation200 Almanac 2015/16

TechNation200 Almanac 2015/16 | TCi Dinners
Food for thought
Sometimes, you just have to
take the evening off, break
bread and refl ect on what
it is that you do.
That’s why every month,
TechCityinsider hosts a monthly
invite-only business networking
dinner at its Shoreditch offi ces.
These dinners, which have been
running since 2012, bring together
folk from the tech startup business
community to share ideas and get
to know each other better.
They are a chance for members
of our 500-strong TechCityinsider
Network to meet face to face,
away from the offi ce. Our expert
partners, from City University
London, Grant Thornton,
Knowledge Transfer Network,
NatWest, Tech London Advocates,
Vitamin T and Williams Powell also
attend.
The dinners are fi rst and
foremost informal affairs, but we
always follow a theme. This helps
inform the editorial content that
Since starting work covering the London tech startup scene in 2012,
TechCityinsider has hosted a monthly business networking dinner. These
events have grown in influence to become real agenda setters.
follows on TechCityinsider.net in
the weeks that follow.
Themes during 2015 included
Food Technology, Digital
Democracy, Big Data, The Internet
of Things, Adtech/Mediatech,
Retail Technology, Smart Cities
and two women-in-tech-themed
dinners: Rising Women Stars and
Women Backing Women. Every
one our meals generated serious
food for thought.
Finding guests from our network
for the Rising Women Stars
network was easy – we’ve shared
lots of stories of women founders
since we started – but getting
the list down to a manageable 20
was tricky. In the end we settled
for a list that included founders
from Grub Club, WonderLuk,
KweekWeek and Buzzmove.
The response to that dinner
led to a provocative feature being
published on TechCityinsider by The
Dots founder Pip Jamieson, arguing
for more women to back more
women entrepreneurs. That piece,
among our most shared of the
year, led to the follow-up Women
Backing Women gathering.
Jamieson was among the
entrepreneurs around the table
and was joined by the founders of
Fluency, Frugl, Andiamo and others,
alongside investors from Cabot
Square Capital, Potential Female
Founders and Angel Academe,
whose head, Sarah Turner, urged
more women to get into investing.
At our Adtech-Madtech
gathering, we heard from
branding and advertising sage
Rod Banner, who offered us
his wisdom on the rise and rise
of data-driven advertising and
marketing technologies. Others
there included Affec.tv and
Growth Intelligence, which are
both changing the advertising and
marketing game.
Onfi do told our Data dinner
guests about the growth of online
background checks and how that’s
set to disrupt a sector shrouded
in mystery and ineffi ciency, while
Datasift gave us a glimpse into
its new work with Facebook,
accessing its fi rehose for new
levels of marketing analytics.
2015 was also, of course,
election year. An excellent Digital
Democracy night heard from the
likes of Bite the Ballot and Vote for
Policies on political engagement,
while Coadec and Futuregov
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