MO
Director / 01 LondonMOMaya Okonkwo
Co-founder & Creative Director
Ex-BBC Films producer. Spent a decade making founders look human on camera before Palooza existed.
Brand · Film · Stagecraft
The team & the room
The people behind the spotlight
— and the cheques.
Six directors run the circuit. Eight anchor investors fill the front row. Together they make Palooza the most useful sixty seconds in a founder's year.
06
Directors
018
Anchor investors
02200+
Investors per show
03$48M
Deployed by alumni
04 Directors · 01
The people running the room.
Operators, producers, programmers. Six directors with one unreasonable standard for what a pitch night should feel like.
IV
Director / 02 LondonIVIdris Vance
Co-founder & CEO
Operator turned showrunner. Sold his last company to Stripe at 32, then went looking for a better way to pitch.
Vision · Capital · Growth
LS
Director / 03 LisbonLSLina Sørensen
Director of Programming
Curates the founders, the rooms, the running order. The reason every Palooza night feels inevitable.
Casting · Curation
TM
Director / 04 New YorkTMTheo Marchetti
Director of Investor Relations
Twelve years at Sequoia and Index. Brings the cheque-writers — and tells us which ones actually mean it.
LPs · Funds · Allocators
AP
Director / 05 SingaporeAPAisha Park
Director of Film
Two-time Cannes Lions winner. Turns 60 seconds of stage time into the most-watched founder film of the week.
Film · Distribution
RC
Director / 06 São PauloRCRafael Costa
Director of Global Events
Ran live ops for the Olympics opening ceremony. Now choreographs every Palooza house — to the second.
Live · Production · Touring
The room
The investors on the front row.
These eight write the cheques that change a season. Every Palooza show is curated around them — and the 200+ allocators they bring with them.
$48M
Deployed into Palooza alumni · Year 01
No warm intros required. If the room loves the founder, the cheque tends to follow within ninety days.
Investors · 02
Eight cheques. One stage.
Anchor partners across pre-seed to growth, four continents, every sector that matters this year.
EHLP / 01
Elena Hartmann
Partner · Early Stage
Index Ventures
Backs founders who can hold a room. First cheque into three Palooza alumni unicorns-in-waiting.
- Cheque
- €1–8M
- Stage
- Seed → Series A
London
MLLP / 02
Marcus Lin
Partner · Consumer & AI
Accel
Twenty years writing Series A cheques in London and SF. Hates a deck. Loves a story told without one.
- Cheque
- $3–15M
- Stage
- Series A
San Francisco
PSLP / 03
Priya Shetty
Principal · Fintech
Balderton Capital
Came up at Monzo. Now backs the next wave of European fintech from pre-seed through B.
- Cheque
- £500k–6M
- Stage
- Pre-seed → Series B
London
JVLP / 04
Jonas Vermeer
General Partner
Atomico
Skype mafia alumnus. Writes the room before he writes the cheque — Palooza is his favourite scouting ground.
- Cheque
- €5–25M
- Stage
- Series A → C
Amsterdam
YELP / 05
Yara El-Sayed
Managing Partner
MENA Growth Partners
Closed the largest growth round in MENA last year. Brings the Gulf into every Palooza Final.
- Cheque
- $10–50M
- Stage
- Growth
Dubai
KWLP / 06
Kenji Watanabe
Investment Director
SoftBank Vision
Operator-investor. Built two companies before he wrote a cheque. Now Asia’s most-tagged Palooza guest.
- Cheque
- $15M+
- Stage
- Growth · Late
Tokyo
SRLP / 07
Sofía Reyes
Partner · LatAm
Kaszek
Latin America’s most respected early-stage cheque. Co-anchored the São Paulo show before doors opened.
- Cheque
- $2–10M
- Stage
- Seed → Series A
São Paulo
AGLP / 08
Aaron Goldberg
Founder & CIO
Goldberg Family Office
Third-generation operator. Allocates a quiet $300M across founders he meets in rooms like Palooza.
- Cheque
- $1–20M
- Stage
- All stages
New York
Want in?
Join the team — or join the room.
We're hiring producers and curators across London, NYC and Singapore. And we're always opening seats for serious cheque-writers.