Rodney Appiah

Managing Partner

2022 - Current

Cornerstone VC is a venture capital fund focused on a ‘people first’ investment strategy, investing at pre-seed and seed stage in UK technology businesses. Cornerstone VC was born out of Cornerstone Partners, a leading angel network for diverse founding teams in the UK. To learn more about Cornerstone VC, please visit www.cornerstonevc.co

Kauffman Fellow (Class 29)

2024

Kauffman Fellows is a lifelong learning community and network for people who represent the future of venture capital. To learn more about the Kauffman Fellowship, please visit www.kauffmanfellows.org

Co Founder

2018

Cornerstone Partners is the first angel syndicate in the UK focused on investing in businesses led by black and diverse founders. We focus our attention on this group because we believe that superior returns can be achieved by leveraging the inherent and acquired competitive advantage of black and diverse teams.

Chairman

2019 - 2022

Non Executive Director

2022

The UKBAA is the national trade association for angel and early stage investment, representing more than 650 members including angel groups, early stage VCs, family offices, investment platforms, accelerators and universities that collectively deploy more than £2bn per annum into early stage businesses.

Committee Member | Innovate UK Credit Committee

2021

The credit committee of Innovate UK Loans Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of UK Research and Innovation. Its role is to oversee credit risk related matters for IUKL and support the delivery of Innovate UK's Innovation Loans programme which provides funding of between £250k and £1.6m into UK SMEs.

Non Executive Director and Investment Commitee Member

2020

Launched in 2019, Conduit Connect is a regulated direct investment platform that focuses on connecting global high impact businesses with mission aligned investors. Leveraging the collective knowledge and capital of the Conduit community, Conduit Connect seeks to identify and scale the most promising mission-led businesses solving the pressing issues of our time.

Committee Member | LCCI Black Business Association

2020 - 2024

The London Chamber of Commerce Black Business Association exists to bring together black business owners and employees to create a purposeful outlet, enabling networking and promoting black entrepreneurs and business ownership in the capital.

Committee Member | LBG Black Business Advisory Committee

2020 - 2024

The committee will investigate the barriers to growth for the black business community, including via rigorous research of the whole business life cycle. Recommendations and research findings will be shared later this year and will underpin Lloyds Banking Group's future actions to ensure black led businesses have the best opportunity to start, grow, adapt and thrive.

Chair | London Under 35 Committee

2019 - 2022

From discussing the key challenges facing the UK economy, to engaging in high-level advocacy of the CBI’s campaign messages, the London Under 35 Committee ensures the views of a broad range of business leaders play an influential role in shaping the CBI’s policy positions.

Director

2018 - 2020

Foresight Group is a leading, independent infrastructure and private equity investment manager with £6.5 billion of current assets under management. Foresight private equity is one of the UK's leading and longest established investors in growing businesses, investing between £1m - £5m to support MBOs/MBIs, growth capital and equity release.

Senior Investment Manager

2016 - 2018