John Brimacombe
Law graduate with MA in Computer Science from University of Cambridge. Currently working as Operating Partner at Sussex Place Ventures. as Executive Chairman at Linguamatics Ltd. and as Chief Executive Officer at Jobstream Group Plc.
| Headline: | Entrepreneur |
| Skills: | Business, English, Entrepreneurship, French, German, Languages, Law, Management, Marketing, Negotiation, Sales |
| Interested in: | Brainstorming, Finding business partners, Finding cofounders, Finding team mates, Meeting new people, Professional opportunities, Promoting my startups, Recruiting for my startup |
| Schools: | University of Cambridge |
WORK EXPERIENCE
| Employer: | Core VCT Plc (London) |
| Position: | Independent Non-Executive Director (Public Markets) |
| Time period: | January 2007 - Present |
| Description: | • Core VCT Plc is a general purpose investment fund listed on the London Stock Exchange with total funds under management of c. $50 million. I serve as an independent non-executive director with a focus on corporate governance, oversight of the manager and development of the investment portfolio towards liquidity. In July 2009, the VCT completed a complex merger with two other listed funds. |
| Employer: | Sussex Place Ventures (London) |
| Position: | Operating Partner (FSA Authorised) |
| Time period: | January 2006 - Present |
| Description: | • Sussex Place Ventures is the venture arm of the London Business School. As an Operating Partner, I provide general management skills and in-depth experience of market development to the portfolio. In 2007, I helped raise SPV’s latest general purpose fund and am now active in securing further investments and developing our portfolio companies. I currently serve on the Boards of the eCommerce service platform, Skimbit, and the cancer imaging start-up, Endomagnetics. My main investment themes include semantic technologies, social media, eCommerce and sensors. |
| Employer: | Linguamatics Ltd. (Cambridge UK) |
| Position: | Executive Chairman |
| Time period: | January 2006 - Present |
| Description: | • Linguamatics is an exciting, profitable, Cambridge-based start-up providing deep natural-language knowledge discovery tools for the global pharmaceutical industry. I joined as part-time Chairman to lead strategy development and international expansion and assist with key account management (including AstraZeneca, Merck & Pfizer). Since then I have led the company through 5X revenue growth (to approx. $4 million) without external funding, substantial team and product development, formalisation of software development and product management and the establishment of a successful US operation. |
| Employer: | Jobstream Group Plc (Cambridge UK) |
| Position: | Chief Executive Officer |
| Time period: | January 2006 - Present |
| Description: | • Jobstream Group Plc is a leading provider of specialist integrated private client and billings management software for the offshore financial services sector.
• I founded and grew the business from a standing start to over $2 million in annual revenue, 100 installations and 35 staff. I recruited and led a worldwide sales team focusing on London, Channels Islands and other offshore centres with major customers including PWC, KPMG and Rothschild. • In March 2000, in order to focus on a new start-up, nGame, I passed day to day management responsibility to the senior team that I had recruited and trained, remaining on the Board as a non-executive director. • At the start of 2006, I rejoined Jobstream as part-time CEO to focus on growing the value of the company. In the first full financial year, I achieved over 50% sales and 100% profitability growth and led substantial new blue-chip account wins. |
| Employer: | Kelway Holdings Ltd. (London) |
| Position: | Independent Non-Executive Director |
| Time period: | January 2007 - December 2009 |
| Description: | • Kelway is one of the fastest-growing mid-market IT resellers in the UK. I joined the Board as their first independent non-executive director. In 2007 Kelway (with turnover of approx. $50 million) acquired the assets of a major insolvent competitor and I helped the management team complete the transaction and integrate the business. I was subsequently involved in 2 further major acquisitions and helped the company recruit a Chairman, COO and Operations Director to support substantial growth. Kelway now has an expected run-rate for 2009 in excess of $250 million. I chaired the Remuneration Committee, participated in strategy development and mentored the CEO and senior team. |
| Employer: | Mforma Group Inc. (London / San Francisco) |
| Position: | President / COO & Board Member; SVP, Chief Strategist |
| Time period: | October 2002 - December 2005 |
| Description: | President / COO & Board Member (Oct 2002 – Mar 2005)
SVP, Chief Strategist (Apr – Dec 2005 ) • I was a core member of the executive team that created Mforma Group Inc. (now Hands On Mobile, Inc,) – a global leader in the emerging, high-value mobile entertainment sector. • As President, Chief Operating Officer and Board Member, my direct responsibilities included global content publishing and licensing (Activision Atari, Marvel, World Poker Tour); studio operations and handset porting; North American / EMEA / ASEAN / Korea sales and distribution and the development of the Mserver carrier-grade mobile entertainment platform. I led the company through hyper growth and was ultimately responsible for more than 250 staff and an annual budget in excess of $25 million. • In 2004 I was closely involved at all stages of a sector leading fundraising process which attracted a total of $84 million equity investment from leading venture firms including Draper Fisher Jurvetson, General Catalyst and Bessemer Ventures. • As part of our strategy of growth by acquisition, I successfully identified, acquired, integrated and rationalized four companies in the US, Europe and Asia and assisted with 2 major transactions in China. • I grew Monthly Revenues by more than 25X in just over 2 years excluding acquisitions. I was the executive sponsor for key relationships with Sprint PCS, AT&T, Verizon and Orange. |
| Employer: | nGame Ltd. (London / Cambridge) |
| Position: | Chief Executive Officer / Co-founder |
| Time period: | January 2000 - December 2002 |
| Description: | • I co-founded nGame as one of the world’s first publishers and distributors of games for mobile phones. I correctly predicted that the mobile phone would emerge as a major entertainment and media platform giving access to a global consumer marketplace of unparalleled scale.
• I successfully marketed the potential of this nascent market to the UK investment community and secured equity investment of in excess of $2 million. • I personally introduced the concept of mobile entertainment to mobile carriers with a particular focus on the market in North America which I foresaw would emerge as the single highest value component of the global market. I negotiated key distribution contracts and then recruited and led a sales team which secured distribution with many leading carriers. • In 2002 I negotiated the sale of nGame to the US market-roll-up vehicle Mforma Group and was appointed President/COO of the combined company. |
EDUCATION
| University: | University of Cambridge |
| Time period: | 1996 |
| Degree: | Computer Science, MA |
| University: | University of Cambridge |
| Time period: | 1987 - 1991 |
| Degree: | Law, BA |
INFORMATION
| Hobbies: | Sailing; Military & Political History; Walking |
| Memberships: | Former start-up mentor for NESTA (National Endowment for Science, Technology & Arts); former member Bank of England regional panel; Members Institute of Directors |
John's Startups (2)
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Linguamatics
Linguamatics provides an advanced real-time NLP-based data-mining platorm which is used by leading Life Sciences companies to answer high value qestions by extracting data, insights & relationships from large volumes of unstrutured knowledge.
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Skimlinks
Skimbit helps websites to monetise their content in a user-friendly way. Their main product is Skimlinks, which converts existing retailer links on a publisher's site into their affiliate link equivalents. We monetise blogs, forums and content sites.
John is Following (4)
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True Knowledge
True Knowledge is building a natural language question answering platform which can take in users questions and give back direct answers
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Twitter
Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?
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Hands-On Mobile
Hands-On Mobile is a global publisher of mobile lifestyle, games and personalization products targeting all market segments of the mobile handset marketplace
John's Contacts (1)
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Volker Hirsch
Volker is a Serial Entrepreneur and board-level Senior Executive with experience and strategic insight in digital media ecosystems. He is a Co-Founder of Blue Beck Ltd and a Strategy Advisor to Scoreloop AG.