Stephanie Heller
Before co-founding Bootstrap Europe to support ground-breaking tech businesses, Stéphanie’s career includes founding, building and sitting on the board of several successful technology and financial companies in Zurich and London, such as the award winning fintech start-up Fractal Labs. Stéphanie takes her experiences as a founder and parlays that into guidance and direction to Bootstrap Europe’s portfolio founders in a pragmatic and compassionate way.
Bootstrap Europe’s philosophy of providing debt financing for growth companies was nurtured between 2008 and 2012, when Stephanie, the managing partner for Bootstrap Europe was responsible for the private equity assets of Cape Capital AG - a Zurich-based multi-asset manager and family office, investing in a whole spectrum of companies, from start-ups to mature businesses.
Driven by the belief that more capital should be directed to entrepreneurs and innovation, Stephanie founded The Real Economy Effect (TREE) in 2012 to help family offices manage their private equity investments. TREE managed a portfolio of c. $350M in more than 30 growth equity and technology investments.
Stephanie initially built her financial foundation and expertise in the London based M&A team of Deutsche Bank, where she specialised in the Industrials Sector. She also worked in Paris for French investment bank Calyon, within the Credit Risk Ratings team. Stephanie is fluent in French, English and German, and is a graduate of HEC Business School in Paris where she majored in Finance and took executive business law classes at Universität St Gallen Management School.
Fatou Diagne
Fatou was a founding partner of The Real Economy Effect (TREE) in 2012 where she was actively involved in managing private equity portfolios on behalf of family offices and multi-asset managers.
Fatou started her career as an investment banker at Citigroup in their London and Johannesburg offices, where she spent over five years advising European and emerging markets clients on cross border M&A, high yield debt and equity financing and leveraged buyouts.
Her experience includes time spent as a strategic advisory to the CEO of SFR, France's second largest mobile operator, as well as stint at Standard and Poor's in London in the African sovereign credit ratings team. Fatou was part of the founding team that set up the African Risk Capacity, a $100M sovereign risk insurance facility against drought in 25 countries.
In recent years, Fatou has also been featured on Forbes top 100 Women in Tech in France.
Fatou draws on her experiences in finance and as an entrepreneur when sharing her ideas and guidance with Bootstrap Europe’s portfolio of founders in the hope that they shake up the industries they are in.
Fatou is fluent in French, English, Spanish and Wolof, and graduated from the HEC Business School in Paris where she majored in Finance and holds a BSc in Economics and Finance from the University of Calgary.
Humphrey Nokes
Humphrey Nokes was the founder of ETV Capital - pioneers in Growth Debt asset classes in Europe in the late 1990s. Humphrey has raised and invested well over €300 million in more than 200 transactions in 120 VC-backed technology, biotechnology and healthcare companies across Europe.
Earlier in his career, he co-founded Quartz Capital Partners, where he completed numerous capital raising rounds (both both public and private equity) for technology and life science companies in the UK, France, Denmark, Belgium, Italy, Ireland, and the US.
Prior to that, Humphrey was employed in the Capital Markets Group at Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc in London on the Bond arbitrage desk.
Previously Humphrey was a Member of the Board of Brainpower NV which was subject of an IPO on the Deutsche Borse - subsequently sold to Bloomberg.
He was also a non-executive Director of SearchSpace PLC which was sold to Warburg Pincus.
Humphrey has sourced and advised on three University spinouts as well as completed over 20 IPOs on various European stock markets. He is a Director of Cygna Negra Ltd a specialist IP database company, and was a member of the U.K. Government Department of Trade and Industry Mission to report on high technology start-ups in the US, Israel, Taiwan, and Malaysia. He served as a member of the advisory board of Kernel Capital, an Irish Based VC.
Humphrey is a graduate of Trinity College Dublin, Ecole Europeenne des Affaires Paris and London Business School.
Eliott Saba
Eliott’s dedication to supporting scale-ups started in Uganda where he completely revamped the financial operations of a medical procurement distribution company.
Eliott’s entrepreneurial spirit continued to grow during his time as Vice President at Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) where he was one of the UK’s longest standing members on the Venture Debt team. Eliott also co-established the first European fintech-focused team at the bank where he won ‘EMEA deal of the year’, acted as a judge on several fintech-focused competitions and grew his clientele three-fold during his time at the innovative bank.
Eliott’s experience living in seven countries has shaped his personnel ethos - to immerse himself into every project and give it his all. Through this experience he is able to empathise with Bootstrap Europe’s portfolio of founders and guide them to further financial success.
Sami Osborn
Previously, Sami was an Investment Banking Analyst at Barclays in their Sustainable and Impact Banking coverage team in London. Sami has executed multiple technology transactions with a focus on climate impact. Notably, he advised Haffner Energy SA on their IPO, SFC Energy AG on their rights issue, Ams AG on their acquisition of Osram Licht AG, and Brusa HyPower AG on their equity private placement.
Sami holds a BSc in Mathematics from Imperial College London, where he was on the Dean's List of Academic Excellence. He also holds a MSc in Finance from Imperial College Business School, where he was a Brilliant Minds scholar. At Imperial College, Sami was Treasurer of the Entrepreneurs Society, raising funds from VC sponsors and organising events surrounding start-ups.
Kas De Silva
Prior to joining Bootstrap, Kas was Partner and Chief Operating Officer at Blackmoor Investment Partners, where he was responsible for investor relations, fund raising, finance and operations.
Kas was previously the Head of Fund Reporting at Investindustrial where his role included responsibility for the finance, operations and investor relations of five private equity funds with c.€5bn of AuM. He was also responsible for systems implementation and was a member of the valuations committee.
Kas was a Portfolio and Valuations Manager at 3i Plc, where he was responsible for the quarterly investment portfolio valuations process and financial management for a portfolio of investments.
In his prior roles, Kas led numerous projects that have driven operational efficiencies from the perspective of both the Fund and Investment Manager.
Kas is a Fellow of the Association of Certified Chartered Accountants. He also has a degree in Engineering and Business Studies from Warwick University and was awarded a Certificate in Sustainability for Finance awarded by the ACCA.
Denise Trumpfheller
Denise joined Bootstrap following a successful career at Citi where she was a Director in its Debt Capital Markets Origination team in London advising on and executing European and Yankee bond issuances for large European corporate clients. These have included some jumbo financings (Heineken's acquisition of Asia Pacific Breweries, ZF Friedrichshafen's acquisition of TRW) as well as some of the first corporate Green Bonds in Europe (Unilever, Alliander) and hybrid bonds (VW, KPN). Prior to this, Denise was advising global industrial companies in Citi's London M&A team working on a number of high profile transactions, including VW's merger with Porsche.
Denise is a qualified Chartered Accountant having worked at Ernst & Young's audit and transaction advisory practices, serving large global insurers, such as Lloyds of London, Aviva, Resolution and Allianz.
Denise’s broad financial experience and insight into processes and operations across a wide variety of companies has influenced her love for building an organisation from the ground-up.
Denise holds degrees from the University of York and London School of Economics, with a stint at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma in Mexico City.
Jonathan Young
Jonathan has twelve years of experience in finance and management across restructuring, turnaround investment, corporate development, and corporate finance.
Before joining Bootstrap as portfolio manager, he worked at THM Partners, a restructuring and value delivery adviser in London, for three years. He advised boards on reset strategy, cash flow management, and business planning. He joined THM Partners from IVC Evidensia, where he managed over 250 acquisitions across eleven countries. Before IVC, Jonathan was an associate in a turnaround PE fund where he operated interim management roles at the fund’s portfolio companies.
Jonathan began his career at Deloitte in New York and London, where he became a qualified accountant. He graduated from Brigham Young University with a Master’s degree in accounting.
He now applies his commercial diligence, investment appraisal, restructuring, and execution skill set to growth debt investments.
Robert Uren
Robert joined Bootstrap from KPMG's Asset Management Audit department, where he qualified as a chartered accountant (ICAEW). Robert has a wealth of experience working with institutional investors across a variety of asset classes, primarily in the real estate and VC/private equity spaces. He has led teams through multiple client projects, with extensive work completed over portfolio performance, valuation of assets and equities, and the assessment of the back office and finops effectiveness. Robert utilises this experience to bolster the finance, operations and portfolio monitoring functions at Bootstrap. Robert also holds an LLB in Law from the University of Newcastle and a MA in Global Political Economy from the university of London.
Bindi Karia
Bindi is incredibly passionate about all things related to startups in Europe and connecting the dots between Investors, Founders, Corporates and Government. As a result, she has worked in and around technology startups for most of her career.
As a Consultant (PwC Consulting), in a Corporate (Microsoft BizSpark /Ventures), as a Startup employee (Trayport), as an Advisor (Startup Europe, Startup Weekend Europe, Tech London Advocates), as a Connector (GQ UK, the IoD and Evening Standard have all recognised this) and until recently, as their Banker (Silicon Valley Bank). Bindi joined Silicon Valley Bank as Vice President II, where she focused on building out SVB's early stage banking efforts in Europe, as well as driving the Bank's relationships with Corporate and Emerging VCs.
Bindi currently sits on the Advisory Boards of six startups, as well as Digital Advisory Board of Shop Direct plc (£1.9bn t/o business), the Advisory Boards of European Innovation Council, Startup Europe (EU), Tech London Advocates, Ambassador for Innovate Finance, and just finished a term as trustee for TechStars Startup Weekend Europe.
Bindi is a strong advocate for promoting Women in Tech, and as such, six of her Advisory Board roles are for women-founded businesses. She was born in the UK, raised in Canada, her entire family is from Kenya, but she now passionately calls London her home.
Sinikka Démaré - In Memoriam
Sinikka brought her strategic mind to Bootstrap and wealth of experience in risk management and asset allocation as well as private assets and impact investing.
Sinikka Demaré served as a Venture Partner at Nextech Invest Ltd - a life science fund specialising in Oncology and sat on the board of Schroder Adveq, the private equity specialist.
Prior to this, Sinikka was the Managing Director at Ortec Finance, whose Swiss office she founded in 2007. During her time at Ortec, Sinikka was responsible for strategic asset allocation and investment consulting for pension funds, insurance companies and other asset and private wealth managers as well as having direct responsibility for several large institutional investors.
For 20 years before joining Ortec, she held leading positions in corporate finance, business and pensions fund management at Dow Chemical. Sinikka obtained her Master of Science in Economics from the Business School of Helsinki and is a Chartered Financial Analyst.
Sinikka was twice elected by the ai-CIO magazine as one of the top 25 global consultants.
Didier Cowling
Didier Cowling joined Bootstrap Europe as Scientific Advisor in 2021. He started his career as an investment analyst, first at Nomura and then at HSBC, forming a highly rated pharma and medtech team. He then moved into industry to be Director of Business Development at Phairson Medical Ltd. In 2000, he co-founded Kuros Therapeutics AG, which was successfully sold in 2002. Subsequently, he co-founded Kuros Biosurgery AG, which worked on developing a number of drug/device combination products. In early 2016, Kuros Biosurgery merged with Cytos Biotechnology and was renamed Kuros Biosciences AG, becoming public on the Swiss Exchange. As a serial entrepreneur and board member with over 30 years of broad experience in the field, Didier brings to Bootstrap his deep knowledge of the medtech industry and hands-on start-up experience.
Matthias Ummenhofer
Under Matthias’s leadership from 2001-2014, the European Investment Fund’s technology investment business grew to over €4.7bn committed in or alongside more than 260 funds, Business Angels, and Family Offices who invested in about 3,800 technology companies.
Matthias had a key role in raising and managing major third-party investment mandates such as the €1bn ERP-EIF Dachfonds, the GBP 200m UK Future Technologies Fund (UKFTF), the €150m Dutch Venture Initiative (DVI) and the €150m European Angels Fund (EAF) for co-investments.
Prior to joining the EIF, Matthias worked at the European Investment Bank (EIB) as advisor to an Executive Board member, and executed project financing transactions in the infrastructure sector.
His experience includes his time spent in France as a consultant in the transportation and logistics sector, and founded the research unit "Logistics & Environment" at the University of Aix-Marseille II, and acting as Director for the "Environmental Application Division" of the Society of Logistics Engineers (Hyattsville, USA).
Odile Rundquist
Odile studied Biochemistry in Fribourg and pursued her diploma work in Oncology at the Scripps Institute in San Diego. She then completed a PhD on HIV infection and gene therapy at the Medical Centre University in Geneva. In 2004 she moved to the financial industry and was an healthcare analyst for 12 years in several banks (Lombard Odier, Vontobel, Helvea-Baader Bank), covering pharmaceutical and biotech companies. Since March 2016, she has been the scientific advisor of a large healthcare family office in Switzerland and sits on the Board of Amazentis, a Swiss biotech company since December 2017.
