BEACON TEAM
Maria Dramalioti Taylor
General Partner
An independently-minded investor, with strong conviction in European tech and a successful track record over 10 years of angel-investing. A Greek engineer with operational experience across Ernst & Young and Arthur Andersen leading technology strategy & operations
She is on the board of portfolio companies, organisations such as Included.VC, is an EIR at INSEAD Business School and serves on the Committee of the Chairs in Emerging Technologies as well as the Enterprise Hub of The Royal Academy of Engineering
Past investments: Lifebit (Board), Epignosis (Board), Ometria, Topia, NumberEight (Board), Vaticle (Board), Code Kingdoms
Tom Canning
Partner
Tom Canning, a Canadian engineer by education, built his career in senior sales management positions across Silicon Valley and the UK helping deliver emerging technologies to the global enterprise market
Before joining Beacon he was Vice President at Canonical Group Ltd., (Ubuntu, Open Source Linux) ) leading the company’s Global IoT business across OEM, ODM and key Silicon partners
He has been a contributor to industry publications on topics from open source and edge computing to the future of IoT and is an avid vintage car collector
Zach Alexander
Principal
Zach is a go-getter who likes to make things happen. A long-time believer in the transformational power of technology, he’s dedicated an entire career to developing and investing in it.
Starting out at Canonical (makers of the leading open-source platform Ubuntu), he worked with the senior management team to drive strategic growth in Cloud and Connected Devices, as Commercial and Finance Analyst. Whilst there, Zach started an angel syndicate to support millennials who want to invest in early-stage tech.
Past investments: CoGo, Veremark, Owlgaze, Polyloop, Poolside
Nicola Zuidewind
Operations
With over 20 yrs of experience in senior business administration and client services, Nicola supports the Beacon team with day-to-day operations and coordination.
An exceptional communicator, with an eye for the finest of details, and a diverse set of business skills; the world of Venture was the next logical step in her career.
Dynamic and fast-paced environments make her tick. Look no further.
ADVISORY TEAM
Chris Tottman
Advisor
EXITED ENTREPRENEUR, GROWTH STRATEGIST AND SAAS EXPERT
Boris Lavrov
Advisor
PRODUCT, DATA SCIENCE AND FINTECH EXPERT
Athanasios Papagelis
Advisor
ENGINEERING, PRODUCT AND GTM EXPERT
BEACON FELLOWSHIP
The Beacon Fellowship is an opportunity for young professionals with a science, engineering or economics degree to research, debate fiercely, co-author and publish an opinion piece that can help the entire startup ecosystem.
It could be a review of an emerging tech; or a significant market and geo-political event which you believe will alter the course of the tech ecosystem.
The project runs typically over 12-weeks, it’s flexible — does not interfere with your day job! — and remote, aimed at young professionals across Europe. While there is no monetary remuneration, both parties, you and the Beacon team, are investing time and resources to develop a view-point and share it with the wider community.
We want selected candidates to come away from this experience with a new set of skills along with fresh perspectives and ideas which they can use in real world applications.
You will typically commit half a day a week to research, draft and discuss your ideas and progress with the Beacon team. Due to full time employment and on-going studies, this takes place over the weekends and holidays — hence the importance of being passionate about the topic.