Latest news with #TimRowe
Forbes
5 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
Venture Cafe Launches In London With Invention Agency Backing
Venture Cafe founder and Advanced Research and Invention Agency chief of staff, Dan Cole on stage in ... More London Earlier this month, around 270 people - most of them startup entrepreneurs - gathered at the Jellicoe Building in London's King's Cross area to mix and mingle at the newly launched Venture cafe. The first Venture Cafe was launched in 2009 as a place where entrepreneurs working within the Cambridge Innovation Center in Massachusetts could meet regularly, get to know each other and exchange ideas. Since then, Venture Cafés have opened their doors in 20 locations across the U.S., Europe and Asia. The London location marks the first step into the U.K. by the not-for-profit Venture Cafe Global Institute, so when I spoke to founder Tim Rowe, I was keen to find out what his organisation was bringing to the party in a city in which ecosystem building has been a way of life for more than a decade. As Rowe explains, he has been planning to bring the Venture Cafe concept to London for a number of years. It was an obvious location. 'You know, some people might refer to London as the capital of the world. I think it's more diverse than any other city in the world, and that's really important when you're building a startup and you need to sell your products everywhere. So there was no question about whether London was interesting. It was just a matter of when we could come here.' A first attempt - which got as far as a letter of intent - fell victim to the COVID epidemic. However, the idea was revived when Britain's newly-minted Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA) offered to sponsor the weekly events. With the funding in place, the first meeting took place on May 15. As Rowe sees it, the purpose of Venture Cafe is not simply to bring people together but also to create a space where new opportunities can be developed with personal relationships as the catalyst. 'When people within the innovation community don't know each other, they can't help each other and they can't start companies together,' he says. 'They can't do all the things that need to happen in an entrepreneurial community.' Equally, businesses may well struggle if they don't know how to find VCs or engineers. So, Venture Cafe provides a space where they can meet. And that, at least in part, is the rationale behind the funding from the Advanced Research and Invention Agency. Set up by the U.K. government's Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, the agency is tasked with supporting transformative technology projects. As ARIA's Chief Product Officer Pipply James said in a canned quote, the agency's mission aligns with the Venture Cafe concept. 'Breakthroughs happen when different people, ideas, and disciplines collide. That's why we're partnering with Venture Café: to create open, energising spaces where founders, researchers, investors and innovators can meet, collaborate, and spark the next wave of world-changing ideas,' she said. But here's the thing, London - and the U.K. in general - now boasts a pretty mature innovation ecosystem. In practice, that means there are many forums and organisations that exist to support entrepreneurs and introduce them to their peers. At a local level, there are networking groups. Nationally, organisations such as Tech Nation and Barclays Eagle Labs offer opportunities to connect. The same is true of innovation centres, such as Plexal in East London and there is no shortager of numero accelerators. Nevertheless, Rowe sees space for new forums. 'I haven't heard anyone say there isn't a space for this, " he says. 'I have heard a lot of excitement about what we're doing.' One important element of Venture Cafe, he says, is the fact you are never far away from a meeting. 'There is something unique about what we do, and that's the regularity and intensity of what we do. We do it weekly,' says Rowe. 'And I think there's something fundamental about that. For instance, there is no major world religion, as far as I know, that doesn't meet weekly.' To some degree, the concpt sits in a complementarty space to others working within the ecosystem. For instance, one attendee was startup accelerator operator, Growth Studio. 'Our accelerator programmes, and the success of our cohort founders, are heavily influenced by our ability to meet in person and get first-hand access to industry leaders and understand their markets and priorities. Events like this break down the barriers,' said co-founder Paul Finch. Will it catch on with time-poor London entrepreneurs and VCs? Well, the first event attracted 273 people. Evidence from elsewhere suggests that the figure will grow as word spreads. The last meeting in Tokyo attracted 1,000 people, while in Boston and Berlin, attendance was put, respectively at 500 and 440. With sponsorship from ARIA, the events - which include themed nights around specific sectors - are free. Rowe hopes and expects attendance to be on a par with other centers.
Entrepreneur
16-05-2025
- Business
- Entrepreneur
Face-Time Revolution
A grassroots global movement that began with a keg and a hunch lands in London - and it might just reshape the way Britain does innovation. Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. You're reading Entrepreneur United Kingdom, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media. In a world hooked on Zoom links and algorithmic serendipity, the most quietly rebellious thing you can do as an innovator is turn up - in person, on a Thursday, and just… talk. In an age of remote work, hyper-digitised networking, and LinkedIn messages chased by calendar links, the most radical act in innovation might just be showing up in person. Not for a pitch. Not for a panel. But for a conversation. Weekly. Without fail. "It's kind of weird, right?" says Tim Rowe, Chair of the Venture Café Global Institute, whose non-traditional, anti-corporate spin on innovation culture has quietly threaded together cities across the globe - from Tokyo to St. Louis - with one simple idea: meet every week, face to face. "All religions that have a gathering of some sort do it weekly. Have you ever heard of a religion that says we meet monthly? It just doesn't do that." Because weekly, in person, is how culture is built. Venture Café London, opening this week, marks the movement's first UK outpost - launched in partnership with the Advanced Research + Invention Agency (ARIA), the government's bold "moonshot" initiative to fund early-stage breakthrough science. London is just the start. Two more UK regional hubs are planned for autumn 2025. And if history is any guide, it could change everything. Rowe chuckles. "This is not rocket science. It's relatively simple stuff. In a world that's all about digital, it's kind of radical to say - come have a drink and talk to someone you don't know. But some magic happens." Beginnings: MIT, cheap space, and a culture of "why not?" Venture Café didn't start as a global movement. It started, as many good things do, with an empty building and a group of curious friends. "Twenty-five years ago, some friends and I that studied at MIT, we decided it would be interesting to get together and create a place for startups," Rowe says. "We all know about shared workspaces and co-working in 2025, but that didn't exist back then." They found a cheap space - rented to them by the university - and filled it with startups. "It started with 10, then 20. Today in Cambridge, Massachusetts, more than 450 people come - every Thursday." But they hit a problem. Inside the building? Incredible community. Outside? Nothing. "If you can't afford to be in the building or you're somewhere else in the city, then we just don't know you." So they opened the doors. "We said, all right, we'll get a keg and just open the space up and say anyone can come." People found investors. Co-founders. Life partners. The St. Louis Surprise The idea caught on. Someone from St. Louis visited and asked if they'd try it there. "I'd never been to St. Louis," Rowe says. "It's a smaller city…But we said, why not?" The result? More people came each week than in Cambridge. "About 500 people a week were coming together." "The light bulb went on," Rowe says. "Pretty much all religions that have a gathering of some sort do it weekly. There's something about weekly that seems to be hardwired into us. It works." Coming to the UK - and why ARIA said "yes" Venture Café didn't choose the UK randomly. It was invited — by ARIA. "ARIA is a really terrific, exciting concept," Rowe says. "It's modeled in some ways on the US ARPA... but it's gone beyond it." ARIA funds high-risk, high-reward science - the sort of things traditional investors won't touch, but which could change the world. The goal? Turn transformative research into real-world impact. And that requires a strong innovation culture. "As part of that, they want to make sure the platform in the UK is strong," Rowe explains. "They looked around the world for things that were being done elsewhere that weren't being done in the UK…and they called us." Rowe didn't hesitate. "We said we'd love to participate." Venture Cafe is not a pitch night. It's not a meetup. It's all of those things - and something else entirely. "The good news is that it's not that hard," Rowe says. "Everyone's been to a pub. Everyone chatted with people there." But at Venture Café, those people are founders. Scientists. Investors. Students. Inventors. Entrepreneurs. Dreamers. There are rules - no selling life insurance, for one! It's curated without being closed. Structured without being stiff. Respectful, inclusive, and deeply curious. And the results? "Every time I go to a Venture Café I'll meet three or four or five people where I'm like, I'm so glad I met that person," Rowe says. The Ghana story One of Rowe's favourite stories comes from a young man from Ghana. "He came up to me at a Venture Café and said, 'I've been visiting the Boston area, and I went and saw the shared wet laboratories that you have here in Cambridge. I think Ghana could really benefit from having a wet laboratory where scientists could develop new companies.'" Rowe sat with him for an hour, explained how it worked, and how to fund it. The man went home, came back six months later. "He said, 'I think we might actually be able to do this.'" Last week, Rowe got an email: the Ghanaian government is going to fund it. "These things happen," Rowe says. "They do." What it means for the UK The UK already has brilliant researchers. What it needs, Rowe says, is cultural normalisation of risk, conversation, and connections. "There's a great group called Startup Genome that has mapped ecosystems around the world," he says. "They measure when a graduate student comes out of university, how likely are they to know a venture capitalist who could fund them into a startup?" The answer? Connections matter. Hugely. "So let's say you're at the University of Cambridge and you have an idea, but you don't know anybody," Rowe says. "Then you're probably just going to sit on your idea." But if starting a company feels normal - if you're surrounded by people doing just that - itll make all the difference. "We think of it as a culture change or a culture intervention of sorts." Japan, Berlin… London People warned Rowe that Venture Café might not work outside the US. It has. "In Japan, they said, 'Oh, the Japanese don't like dealing with strangers, they're very serious,'" he recalls. "But our Japanese launch team would do skits every week - act out two people who didn't know each other, introduce themselves and talk about what they're doing." Now there are seven Venture Cafés in Japan. "Last week in Tokyo, we had 1,200 people," Rowe says. "Next week in Berlin, we're expecting 1,000 people. This is our first one in London today." Where next? Two more UK Venture Cafés are set to launch in 2025, locations yet to be announced. What makes a good city for one? "We typically focus on larger cities…amongst those, there are quite a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of people tinkering with science." London, with its dense ecosystem, will be the flagship. But Rowe is confident it will grow elsewhere. "I think the UK will get very comfortable with it very quickly." In a fast-changing world, new companies aren't just nice to have - they're essential. "Existing companies die around age 50 - quicker than humans do," Rowe says. "So for an economy to be healthy, it has to replace the companies it has." Most big companies can't reinvent themselves. But founders can. And Venture Café is where they might find the co-founder, the investor - or just the courage - to begin. "I have no doubt that the UK will find its own way of metabolising these opportunities," Rowe says. "There's already something very special here." So, if you're in London on a Thursday night, just follow the pulse - that's where ideas are turning into action
