Meet our team

True partners. Business builders. Sector expertise.

Our team collectively bring over 240 years of experience in financing, fundraising, building and scaling businesses through to exit.

We understand the joys and tribulations of building a business. Our domain expertise covers clean tech, biotech, fintech, and entertainment tech providing key access to support our portfolio companies’ growth.

George Nianias

Founding Partner & CEO

George brings over 30 years of experience in financial markets. Having started as a banker at Citibank London, he went on to become Head of Fixed Income Risk at SG Warburg and advised the Bank of England on risk themes. George was also Senior Debt Advisor to entities in the UK and across Europe. He set up and ran an East European SME private debt fund having invested over $1bn, which won a global award for Best Credit Fund in 2006. George served as a Board Member of JP Morgan EEMEA plc, holds a BA in Mathematics from Athens University and read towards a DPhil at Oxford University.

George Weir

Founding Partner & Head of Origination

George brings over 30 years of experience advising across both public and private markets. He is a high-growth business and new technologies specialist, having co-founded businesses, assisted early stage companies in raising debt, equity capital and in structuring joint ventures in a range of different industries internationally. George was formerly CEO of Strathclyde University Business Incubator and has advised numerous SMEs through scale up to exit. His expertise with the addressable market includes Strategem (Scotland), Enterprise Lab and Taylor Clarke. George holds an MBA from Strathclyde University.

Anthony Saint

Head of Credit

Anthony has 30 years of experience in financial markets, having formerly served as an Executive at S.G. Warburg, Republic National Bank of NY and British Arab Commercial Bank. He served as Global Head of Structured Credit at Standard Bank of South Africa for 10 years where he built an international SME lending business from scratch. Anthony has extensive start-up experience. He founded a tea business, an advisory company and was part of the senior management team behind the PE owned start-up Gatehouse Bank, a specialist lender. Anthony is a graduate of Oxford University and is a Sloan Fellow of the London Business School.

Candice Benson

Head of Operations

Candice brings 18 years of experience in financial services as an Operations and Administration specialist in the UK and The Netherlands. She was former Administrator at BNY Mellon London on the Hedge Funds desk, and worked in different roles in various different hedge fund companies before joining BNY Mellon. Candices holds a BA in Organisational Psychology and Sociology from the University of Cape Town.

Gahtan Vahidy

Partner

Gahtan brings 20 years of experience both as a buy and sell-side investment professional. He has experience in portfolio management, risk allocation and capital raising for alternative finance investment strategies. He began his career as a strategy consultant at PwC and went on to set up Tullett Prebon’s alternative Investment business in the UAE. Gahtan holds a BA from McGill University in Montreal.

Pamina Bou

Director

Pamina brings 15 years of experience in senior P&L roles across multinational and early stage tech companies. She is currently Head of Corporate Development at a mixed reality games development company. Pamina has a wealth of experience working on behalf of buy side funds across debt and equity strategies, and has been an active advisor to Family Offices across Europe. She is fluent in five languages and holds a BA from Oxford University and an MPhil from Cambridge University.

Stephen Robertson

IP Advisor

Stephen is Founder & CEO of Metis Partners, a global IP valuation firm providing IP valuation and monetization advice globally to business owners, insolvency & restructuring professionals, banks, private equity and VCs. He graduated with a degree in Law before qualifying as a Chartered Accountant with Deloitte. With 30 years’ experience in corporate finance, Stephen is the former Chair of the Licensing Executives Society (LES) Scotland and the LES Council Britain and Ireland. He has been recognized as one of the ‘World’s 300 Leading IP Strategists’ by IAM magazine.

Dave Ranyard

Games Advisor

Formerly Head of Sony PlayStation’s European flagship studio in London, Dave brings over 25 years of experience in the games industry. Over his career Dave has worked on blockbuster titles such as VR Worlds for PlayStation 4, billion dollar franchise titles such as SingStar, and an array of iconic IPs including Harry Potter, Peaky Blinders, and Sir David Attenborough. He serves on the board of several technology start-ups and is a long serving board advisor to the Games Developer Conference (GDC). Dave holds a PhD in AI from Leeds University.

Laurent Jeanmart

Strategic Advisor

Laurent brings 25 years of investment experience in alternative asset management. He is Founding Partner and Chairman of Katch Investment Group, a $1.2bn private debt manager. He was formerly Group Chief Investment Officer at Fidelis Insurance Holdings, where he oversaw $1.5bn of assets. Previously, he was Global Head of Investment at Platinum Capital Management, a global asset management platform, overseeing the firm’s actively managed funds. Laurent has also held positions at BNP Paribas, Lazard and GLG Partners. He is a graduate of INSEAD and a CFA Charter holder.