Simon Blakey

Chair of the Investment Committee

2019 - Current

London-Based Playfair is a generalist seed-stage Venture Capital Fund. Playfair was founded and funded by Angel investor, Fede Pirzio-Biroli. As a result, its distinctive approach takes the best aspects of angel investing  - enthusiasm, empathy, hands-on experience and speed of decision-making -  with the professionalism of a fund that is able to write larger cheques, make follow-on investments and has a bigger team and wider network of contacts.

Board Member

2023

Angel Investor

2018

Cambridge Angels is a group of investors with extensive experience of founding, growing, mentoring and financing early-stage ventures across a wide range of technology sectors including biotechnology, semi-conductors, engineering, software and many others

Investment Committee Member

2014

The Angel CoFund is a private sector entity, established with the dual objectives of providing both direct investment to high potential SMEs, enabling them to unlock their growth potential; & supporting the development of the UK business angel market, by encouraging syndication & best practice. It was designed & established by a consortium of private & public bodies with expertise in business angel investment. [funded by the Regional Growth Fund & the British Business Bank] With an Investment capacity of £100M The fund is able to make initial equity investments of between £100K & £1M in to SMEs alongside strong syndicates of business angels, with an upper limit of 49% of any investment round. It will only make investments alongside Syndicates of business angels, who must be investing in a given business for the first time. Any final decision to invest will be made by the independent Investment Committee of the fund based on the detailed proposals put forward by business angel syndicates.

Managing Director

2000

Avonmore is the private investment vehicle of brothers Simon and Michael Blakey who are seed/early stage equity investors in the UK. Further details: www.avonmoredevelopments.com

Board Director

2016

Ventrata has developed an enterprise-level, mobile-first, point of sales system for attractions, tours and activities that is live across numerous clients in the US, Europe and Asia. Clients include Big Bus Tours, Historic Tours of America and RATP Group.

Board Member

2000

The Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts is an art gallery and museum located on the campus of the University of East Anglia, Norwich, England. The building, which contains an unrivalled collection of over 3,000 pieces of world art, including many Francis Bacons, Giacomettis and Henry Moores which sit alongside important art from Africa, Asia, North and South America, the Pacific region, medieval Europe and the ancient Mediterranean. It puts on a rolling schedule of important exhibitions of both national and international importance. The Centre is the first major public buildings to be designed by the architect Norman Foster, completed in 1978 and considered an early masterpiece. The building became grade II* listed in 2012

Trustee and Treasurer

2022 - 2024

Ian Parry was a photojournalist who died while on assignment for The Sunday Times during the Romanian revolution in 1989. He was just 24 years of age. The Ian Parry Scholarship was created in order to build something positive from such a tragic death. Each year they hold an international photographic competition for young photographers who are either attending a full-time photographic course or are under 24. https://www.ianparry.org

Board Director

2016 - 2022

Chattermill provides next generation AI text analytics tools for any type of company customer feedback data, be it tweets, customer surveys, reviews or blog posts and then provides clear, actionable metrics in a user-friendly package. It's customers include the likes of Transferwise, Uber, Deliveroo, Nutmeg and Hello Fresh

Board Observer

2020 - 2022

The Vinehealth app allows people living with cancer to track their symptoms, manage their medications and understand their care.

Chairman

2011 - 2020

Specle.net is the UK's leading publisher-verified advert specification website. Its free-to-access, centralised database of tablet, Digital-Out-of-Home and print advert technical specifications allows advertisers to quickly develop, check and deliver campaigns to multiple publishers across many media formats. Specle was sold in an MBO in July 2020.

Member, Advisory Board

2009 - 2011