PAULINE PROFILES
The billion dollar question: On the hunt for purpose-driven unicorns Simon Lovick (2008-13) speaks to Cameron McLain (2001-06) and Tommy Stadlen (2000-05), founders of purpose-driven venture capital fund Giant Ventures, about why they are investing in entrepreneurs solving the world’s greatest problems.
Cameron McLain (2001-06)
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very investor will know that discovering the next great startup is a billion dollar question – but it is easier said than done. They are so elusive and mythical that the investment community has appropriately dubbed them ‘unicorns’. Once teammates in the St Paul’s First XV, Giant Ventures founders Cameron McLain and Tommy Stadlen are on the lookout for the next startup unicorn. Yet unlike the social media and e-commerce giants that have dominated investment in the past decade, they believe purpose and impact-driven companies will be the next great startups to shape the world. “In 2021, we have some serious challenges ahead, be those pandemics or inequality or climate change, and governments alone aren't going to be able to solve these problems,” Cameron says.
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They believe entrepreneurs have the ideas, tools, and technologies to offer creative solutions to these problems; if successful, they will also produce great returns in the process. “We hope to lead an evolution of business’ role in the world, and within that, the role of investors and private capital,” Cameron adds. Entrepreneurial inclinations started early on for both Tommy and Cameron, stretching back to their time at St Paul’s. Cameron ran an eBay business out of his bedroom, while Tommy helped his older brother launch a tutoring agency, built off the back of cold-calling every parent in his St Paul’s year group. This ultimately went on to spawn Holland Park Tuition, now one of the UK’s leading private tutoring agencies. I ask if they ever talked about going into business together at that stage: both humbly admit that most conversations at that time were about who they were playing at rugby that coming weekend. But something certainly emerged from the mutual respect built from playing on the same rugby team, a very successful one at that. “We had a shared bond as successive Captains of Rugby that stood the test of time,” Tommy says. There is no doubt in either’s mind that this was the basis of a long term friendship, one which would ultimately end in them going into business together. Although, in the meantime, both had career ambitions and other entrepreneurial yearnings to itch. After graduating from Princeton, and working at a talent agency, William Morris Endeavor, Cameron founded a big data social analytics company called Beehive. Tommy also found himself drawn to the US. He
worked as part of then-Senator Barack Obama’s campaign for the presidential nomination, as a speech writer. After a spell at McKinsey, Silicon Valley came calling, where Tommy co-founded a photo app called Swing Technologies, which he ultimately sold to Microsoft. The sum of these entrepreneurial experiences had a profound impact on the pair. Both had gained first hand experience of what it was like to conceive, build, launch, and sell a business – a competitive advantage for their own personal investments “As former founders, we are hopefully more credible to the next generation of entrepreneurs and better able to identify talent as well as resilience,” Tommy says. Over a beer, Cameron came to Tommy with his idea to start his own venture capital fund oriented around purpose and impact. Sceptical at first, Tommy was soon persuaded. “Cam showed me we were at a tipping point in European technology, where there were so many great founders, as well as talent going to build these purpose-driven companies. Cameron saw this opportunity to be the purpose-driven VC.” Giant Ventures was born in July 2019. Launching Giant was much like building a startup, creating a brand, identity, and strategy all from scratch. The added benefit this time round? “Rather than being stuck on one product and one brand, you are meeting thousands of entrepreneurs every year,” Tommy reveals. Their own endeavours, along with their own mistakes and regrets along the way, were important points of reflection for Cameron and Tommy when building their own VC fund. The desire to make it purpose-driven came before anything else. “I wanted
