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TEAM PROFILES

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Ed Bardos

Partner & COO

 

  • I have always considered myself business-minded and risk-positive, which did not always sit naturally in my decades as a lawyer, but I think the discipline involved serves as a solid foundation for considering investment decisions. I also have the utmost respect for founders who have taken the personal initiative and risk to start a business. I think it’s invaluable to have sat both on the investment side and on the founder side, as I have.
  • I’ve had the entrepreneurial bug from as early as I can remember. My earliest foray was to create and sell a newspaper at secondary school called ‘The Stun’. Much later, I began my career as a corporate finance lawyer working in London and Tokyo at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer before moving in-house at Lehman Brothers. Post-bankruptcy, I became Head of Legal, EMEA, for Neuberger Berman, as part of the MBO of Lehman Brothers’ asset management business. I left in 2012 to co-found a hospitality business that grew to four sites with 80 staff and £2m+ turnover.
  • In 2018, I decided to return to investing, to utilise the skills and experience I built on both the investment side and the founder side. This decision led to co-founding Volution.
  • We are a small and nimble organisation and I am inspired by the fact that we have genuinely built a team ‘by founders for founders’. I am excited about growing the business and helping the companies we invest in to grow too, and I am proud that we are taking creative but tangible initiatives to promote ESG initiatives within venture investing.