This November some of America’s most successful tech entrepreneurs will be visiting the UK to take part in ‘Silicon Valley Comes to the UK’.
Part of London & Partners, London’s international promotional organisation, SVC2UK brings together the top entrepreneurs and VCs from Silicon Valley, with students, early-stage CEOs, serial entrepreneurs, and policymakers in the UK to inspire entrepreneurship, innovation, and economic prosperity.
Taking place between 6-9 November 2018, 10 events will be held across London and Cambridge, featuring speakers including Reid Hoffman (SVC2UK co-founder, founder of LinkedIn, and partner at Greylock Partners), Megan Smith (Shift7), Sarah Hunter (Google X), Ruzwanar Bashir (Peek), Cal Henderson (Slack), Nicole Quinn (Lightspeed Ventures), and Bob Goodson (Quid).
The week of events will launch in Cambridge on Tuesday 6th November at Cambridge University with a discussion exploring the role of humanity in understanding technology and a masterclass for start-ups and students in Cambridge on Wednesday 7th November.
The programme then moves to London for an afternoon session at Bush House in partnership with The Entrepreneurship Institute at King’s College London, with a range of speakers including Reid Hoffman discussing AI and humanity.
The ever-popular Good Growth Summit for women entrepreneurs returns on the 8th November when CEOs can enjoy a morning of inspiration, peer to peer mentoring and valuable networking with entrepreneurs from Silicon Valley. This is followed by another masterclass in scaling a business at Rise London.
The week culminates with the annual CEO Summit on Friday 9th October, which will be held in collaboration with Pitch@Palace and Entrepreneur First. This year 10 Pitch@Palace alumni and 10 Entrepreneur First members will be invited to participate in the CEO Summit, bringing together some of the UK’s foremost programmes for entrepreneurs from start-up to scale-up. At this flagship event, the 2018 Scale-Up Club cohort will also be announced, and those businesses will be mentored by serial entrepreneurs from the US and Europe.
Reid Hoffman, SVC2UK co-founder, founder of LinkedIn, and partner at Greylock Partners, commented: “I am delighted to be attending this year’s SVC2UK. When we founded the programme our aim was to encourage entrepreneurship in the UK, building a global network of founders and CEOs who could encourage and inspire each other – an aim we have exceeded beyond all expectation. I look forward to the conversations we will have at this year’s summit.”
Sherry Coutu, SVC2UK co-founder and entrepreneur: commented: “SVC2UK goes from strength to strength and the list of speakers and attendees who give up their time to be with us each year never ceases to amaze me. The calibre of entrepreneurs joining the Scale-Up Club has always been phenomenal and I am looking forward to meeting our next cohort and watching them grow.”
Janet Coyle, Director SVC2UK at London & Partners commented: “London and Silicon Valley share common values of innovation, creativity and free thinking. SVC2UK provides us with a fantastic opportunity to promote even greater collaboration between two of the world’s leading hubs to grow and scale a business. By working together we can encourage the next generation of companies and entrepreneurs whose ideas could change the world. Over the years a host of incredible companies have benefited from being part of the SVC2UK community and I look forward to connecting more scale-ups this year to our incredible network and support them to go on to achieve their ambitions.”
This year’s SVC2UK is supported by partners including Mastercard, Barclays, Google (Campus London), Softbank Investment Advisors, Buzzacott, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, Herbert Smith Freehills, GBx, BaileyFisher Executive Search and FieldHouse Associates.
