Octopus Ventures, a London, UK-based venture capital investor, recently added Stephen Morana as a Venture Partner.
Morana brings with him 20 years’ experience working with some of the most successful UK digital businesses such as Betfair, Zoopla and boohoo.com.
In his role as Venture Partner, he will be supporting Octopus Ventures’ portfolio businesses in their growth strategies. Having been integral in three British businesses achieving unicorn status, and driving two to IPO, the high-growth companies will benefit from Morana’s first-hand experience in scaling up an organization. Morana will be working with a variety of Octopus’ portfolio businesses to advise them on growth and how to manage the challenges that accompany it.
Morana held a number of executive roles at Betfair over a period of ten years helping guide the business through its IPO in 2010, then took up an executive role at Zoopla Property Group in 2013, helping scale and professionalize the business, leading to an IPO in 2014, the acquisition of uSwitch in 2015, and a valuation of close to £2 billion today.
Today, he holds a number of NED roles at organizations including boohoo.com, the fashion brand which is now worth over £2 billion; GVC Holdings, the FTSE 250 gambling business which operates such brands as bwin and partypoker; Satellite Solutions, an AIM-listed communications company specializing in rural, last-mile and emergency communications via satellite and wireless technology; and the Open Data Institute, which, co-founded by Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Nigel Shadbolt, aims to inspire governments and corporates to innovate with data.
Part of the Octopus group, Octopus Ventures is a London and New York based venture capital firm, focused on identifying talented entrepreneurs and investing from £250,000 to £25m in a first round of funding and looking to follow in subsequent rounds.
In recent years, they have backed the founding teams of over 60 companies, including Conversocial, graze.com, LOVEFiLM, Property Partner, Secret Escapes, Sofar Sounds, SwiftKey, Swoon Editions, Uniplaces, tails.com, Zoopla Property Group and Zynstra.
FinSMEs
28/07/2017