Julie Meyer

Julie Meyer is a leading investor and entrepreneur in digital, high-growth, early stage businesses around the world. She has driven many continent-wide initiatives for creating wealth and growth in the European economy. Julie believes that ‘Individual Capitalism’ is the force of the 21st century. She trusts people’s ingenuity to solve the world’s problems at both the macro and micro levels – and to expand prosperity. In 1998 Julie founded First Tuesday, the network of entrepreneurs which many credit for igniting the internet generation in Europe. It was sold in July 2000 for $50 million. She then founded Ariadne Capital in August 2000 to create a new model for the financing of entrepreneurship in Europe and the UK: that of “Entrepreneurs Backing Entrepreneurs”. The Industry Standard called it ‘the net’s next business model’ when it was founded.

Julie Meyer created the founding Investor Partnership of 62 leading entrepreneurs and business builders who are Ariadne Capital’s core shareholders and is the Managing Partner of the Ariadne Capital Entrepreneurs Fund and the Ecosystem Economics Fund which has just been announced of £150 m AUM. Ariadne Capital has backed many explosive growth companies including Skype, Zopa, Monitise and others. Julie has been awarded an MBE (Member of the British Empire) by the British Government for Services to Entrepreneurship. She has been named one of INSEAD‘s Top 50 Alumni, Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year, World Economic Forum Global Leader of Tomorrow, one of the TIME Magazine Digital 50, one of WIRED‘s 100, one of London’s 1000 Most Influential People 2010 & 2011 (Evening Standard), one of the Top 30 Most Influential Women in Europe by the Wall Street Journal, Europe, and one of Brummell Magazine’s 30 Inspirational Women 2014. She is on the Board of Directors of Vestergaard Frandsen, a for-profit humanitarian development firm, and INSEAD, her former business school, which named her one of their 50 Alumni Who Changed the World. The University of Warwick gave her an Honorary Doctorate of Laws in 2014. Julie’s first book ‘Welcome to Entrepreneur Country’ was published in June 2012, and won several awards, receiving positive reviews. She has a regular column in Forbes, and has a blog on the LinkedIn Influencer Program here. Her Linked In following is more than 110,000, and she was named one of their Power Profiles along with Richard Branson and David Cameron in January 2015.