Shows
The Elite Business PodcastWhat It Really Takes to Go Global | Elite Business Live Global Panel HighlightsThinking about taking your business international? Discover what it really takes to grow beyond borders in this inspiring and practical session from Elite Business Live.
In the final panel of the “Global: Crossing Borders and Breaking Barriers” series, four global business leaders share hard-earned lessons on international expansion—from strategy and structure to empathy and authenticity.
Panellists:
•Jade Buffong-Phillips – Founder, Main Hookup
•Pavlo Phitidis – Global strategist & business builder
•Lucie McLeod – Founder, Hair Syrup
•Philippa White – Founder & CEO, TIE Leadership
Hosted by Ollie Barrett, this conversation blends actionable advice with personal stories of challenge and growth—covering everything from city-by-city rollout strategies to how to lead wi...
2025-08-1147 min
Inclusive STAGES: Building Healthy Arts SpacesWhy We Still Can’t Find a Stylist Who Gets Our Hair with Jade Buffong-PhillipsWhat if your biggest barrier to belonging in a theater space was the hair that grows naturally out of your head?In this candid and eye-opening conversation, Jade Buffong-Phillips of Mane Hook-Up shares why textured hair in theater is more than a beauty concern. It’s an issue of equity, access, and care. From backstage realities to industry-wide gaps, Jade unpacks the overlooked details that define whether artists truly feel seen and supported.This one’s honest, affirming, and full of real-world insight.Enjoy the episode, friends!Check out the...
2025-08-0535 min
The Raise PodcastEp 9: Lessons from Juniver's pre-seed roundEmilie’s Fundraising JourneyEmilie Faure is the Co-Founder of Juniver, a platform that provides science-based recovery programs for disordered eating, to help people reduce urges and get back to living their lives. Emilie and her team have closed a $1.2m pre-seed round last year, which was arguably one of the most challenging fundraising environments in the past decade.The problem: disordered eating can take place in many shapes and forms, and it requires proactive care and management to help those who are suffering from it to recover. While therapy can be incredible, it is oft...
2024-10-0850 min
The Raise PodcastEp 8: Lessons from Vendoir's Pre-Seed RoundOshoma Zekiri is the co-Founder of Vendoir, an event planning platform that aims to make event planning stress-free, sustainable and inclusive. Since starting the company in 2020 (just before lockdown), Oshoma and his team have closed several crowdfunding rounds through platforms like Crowdcube and Seedrs. Join us as we talk about their experience of fundraising on this episode of The Raise. The problem: with the number of vendors it takes to get an event off the ground, event planning can often be time consuming, stressful and (more often than not) goes over budget. The solution: Vendoir i...
2024-09-2438 min
The Raise PodcastEp 7: Lessons from Bloomful's Seed RoundDupe’s Fundraising JourneyDr. Dupe Burgess is the Founder of Bloomful, a platform that delivers digital, holistic and therapeutic support for women’s gynaecology conditions. Since starting the company in 2021, Dupe and her team have closed a funding round and we’ll talk about how they achieved that in this episode of The Raise. The problem: with women receiving less health monitoring, often being misdiagnosed and having their concerns dismissed within the reals of traditional healthcare settings, they are taking fewer visits to the GP and struggling to find an alternative. The soluti...
2024-09-1048 min
The Raise PodcastEp 6: Lessons from TECH1M's Pre-Seed RoundTommie’s Fundraising JourneyTommie Edwards is the Co-Founder of TECH1M, a recruitment automation and skills assessment platform that helps businesses attract, evaluate and hire quality candidates, allowing their users to hire exactly as they want to, in one platform. The problem: small businesses often have to hire quickly but they end up having long, painful recruitment process that are split across several platforms. From sifting through applications to running interviews, collecting feedback and running assessments, it can all feel like a chore. And, what’s worse is, the majority of platforms that solve this...
2024-07-0951 min
The Raise PodcastEp 5: Lessons from Finalrentals £370k Pre-Seed RoundAmmar’s Fundraising JourneyAmmar Akhtar is the Founder and CEO of Finalrentals, based in Cardiff, UK. A car rental brand and a digital eco system, currently operating in 32 countries and expanding quickly. In 2023 alone, Finalrentals has expanded to 14 countries under Ammar’s leadership.The problem: around 56% of all global car rentals are provided by local car hire companies. Local car hire companies are often recognised for their personal customer service and their local knowledge. However, they lack the resource and expertise to invest in digital advertising or technology platforms to grow sales or to oper...
2024-06-2553 min
The Raise PodcastEp 4: Lessons from a Stealth mode pre-seed roundTom’s Fundraising JourneyTom is a data scientist with a decade of building companies under his belt (in travel tech and ed tech), and has spent a great deal of time building AI models for high risk environments. Tom’s team are building their company in stealth mode — which means the company name is still private — and they’re building a platform that will ultimately help product teams around the world run the right product experiments that lead to the better results. The problem: product teams often struggle to identify which experiments they should be running. 9/10 teams are workin...
2024-06-111h 02
The Raise PodcastEp 3: Lessons from Yoxly's bridge roundDanae’s Fundraising Journey With almost a decade of experience as a Medical Doctor, Danae and her co-Founder, Judson, launched Yoxly just over four years ago to tackle some of the stigmas surrounding sexual health and wellbeing. What started as an at-home STI testing kit company, has turned into educational content and a community of over 1 million people who trust and depend on Danae and her teams sexual health advice. The problem: sexual health care is really fragmented and still entrenched with stigma and shame. Leading people across the globe to not fully understand the ins and ou...
2024-05-2849 min
The Raise PodcastEp 2: Lessons from Motley's pre-seed funding round & winding downCecily's fundraising journeyCecily is a second time entrepreneur. Her first company was VC backed B2C Jewellery company Motley London. Motley was known for fine jewellery at insider prices. Built on a new operating model for the jewellery industry, they worked directly with the world’s best independent designers and ateliers to bring brilliant design to the market - without the markupsThe problem: Jewellery is expensive and the mark-ups often out price every day women.The solution: Motley created it’s own supply chain and made jewellery from silver (not gold) which substantially reduced the p...
2024-05-1451 min
The Raise PodcastEp 1: Lessons from Yesterday's pre-seed roundMillie Marconi & Kat Suy’s Raise JourneyBoth Millie & Kat have been in the start-up space for the last 5+ years, they both applied to a Antler’s VC start-up accelerator program with very little expectation of anything to come from it. It was pre-seed, they were both solo founders and happened to be enrolled in the same cohort. The two formally met, hit it off, started working together and quickly formed their ideal problem/solution and got to work building out the business plan of a VC backed business. * The problem: Hiring is still i...
2024-04-3050 min
The Raise PodcastIntroducing The RaiseWelcome to the very first episode of The Raise!Every fortnight, I’ll interview pre-seed and seed stage Founders who have closed a funding round in the past 12 months to uncover actionable advice to help you as you fundraise.Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/all-good-folks/summertime-jam.License code: E5NWOET0IHW2B1YV Get full access to Inside Small Giants at www.insidesmallgiants.com/subscribe
2024-04-1501 min