Neha is an entrepreneur and finance professional with diverse experience, from investment banking, private equity and start-ups. She has a unique combination of fundraising experience from top tier financial institutions and has experience in co-founding, leading and running a previous start-up. She has global experience from London and Mumbai and has worked with teams, clients and investors across Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas.

Neha began her career in the investment banking division of Morgan Stanley in Mumbai in the early 2000’s. In 2006, she was recruited as part of the core team to establish Lehman Brothers’ investment banking division in India. In 2010, Neha rejoined Morgan Stanley’s technology investment banking team in London, before joining the fundraising team at Actis Private Equity, the leading global pan-emerging markets firm. In 2012, Neha co-founded and was COO at Vizibee, an aggregated quality mobile video platform, for original short video from Publishers, including the BBC.

Valto Loikkanen is the Co-Founder and CEO of the Grow VC Group. Valto is a serial entrepreneur who has started several companies across Europe and the US in the web and mobile fields. At the age of 24, Valto started and grew his first company VTG Worldwide, selling custom mobile phone covers, from the ground up into an international business with a turnover of over 100 million FIM.

Forward-thinking and always seeking the next big web and mobile success, Valto became fed up with the lack of transparency and openness in the startup funding process. He saw that with Web 2.0 taking hold, a lack of transparency no longer works in helping the Internet’s shining stars find their grounding, which was one of the drivers behind him co-founding the Grow VC Group.

Jouko Ahvenainen is a serial-entrepreneur, e.g. Co-Founder and Chairman of Grow VC Group, a pioneer in new funding solutions, including equity p2p investments. He participated in changing US finance regulation, getting the Senate and President to allow crowdfunding and has worked with EU finance regulation. Jouko started his work with crowdfunding models in 2008.

Jouko is a founder, partner and board member in several innovative digital finance companies, like Crowd Valley, Crowdbaron, Kapipal, Grow Advisors and Commoditarian. Jouko is also a member in the Transatlantic Economic Forum SME Access to finance group, and has been an advisor for US, European and Asian investing and finance programs.

Jouko started his first software business when he was 16 years old. Jouko is on the boards of various start-up companies, and is a co-founder or seed investor in 11 companies.Earlier he co-founded data analytics businesses. Before his serial entrepreneur career Jouko held senior positions at technology firms including Cap Gemini, Ernst & Young, Powerwave Technologies Inc. and Nokia. Jouko has vast experience of international business in Asia, Europe, and North America; he has lived and worked in the UK, the US, Finland, Malaysia and run businesses in Hong Kong.

An insightful and accomplished IT professional with a comprehensive knowledge in network and systems Engineering and Security initiatives. Adam participates in the planning, analysis and implementation of solutions in support of business objectives. He has a proven ability to plan, deploy, administer and maintain infrastructures for diverse organisations including Fortune500 companies: Google and Deutsche Bank. Adam is the founder of Keyless.io a startup company based in Australia. He is also an early stage angel investor (Vuxid, Wide.io), board member/advisor (newsph.org, Likha, UVnewschool, PC International, SneakPic, Sprout Booth) a startup mentor for multiple StartupWeekends and Lean Startup Machine events in South East Asia.

Tom brings his expertise in identifying and developing growth opportunities, partnerships, products and strategic initiatives. He has worked with startups and established corporates to develop and launch new businesses in the digital sector. Tom is experienced in supporting cross-functional teams (Product, Operations, Sales) for companies in the US, EMEA and Asia Pacific.

Tom previously worked for several diversified international providers of banking, financial, advisory and investment services(Macquarie, Ingenious). He was responsible for developing a range of investment offerings, from private equity investment to structured investments under the government sponsored EIS and VCT schemes.

James is an accomplished finance professional with proven research and sales experience after several years as a research analyst at multiple top tier financial institutions. Moreover, James brings an entrepreneurial background after several years as a volunteer entrepreneur consultant at Endeavor Global where he advised entrepreneurs in developing economies on business plan strategy.

In 2011, James began his career in the equity research division of Barclays Capital in New York following companies in the U.S. financial services sector. In 2014, James was recruited to join the global investment research division of Goldman Sachs where he expanded the scope of his coverage to include the European financial services sector.

Outside of the workplace, James volunteers his time as an E-tutor at the School of Leadership - Afghanistan in Kabul and as a SAT prep instructor at Apex for Youth in New York. James received a Bachelor of Science from Fordham University where he graduated Summa Cum Laude.