Where Ambition Meets Opportunity

Tech Veteran ▪️ Serial Entrepreneur ▪️ Angel Investor ▪️ Former VC & Investment Banker

Francois is a seasoned tech entrepreneur, investor and a former investment banker.
After building 7 companies, joining the startup-to-NASDAQ IPO ride, experiencing one bankruptcy and everything in-between, Francois has a thing or ten to share.
He has raised over $200m for his startups, and has been mentoring startups for years, with an ability to be both very founder friendly and very direct, being known for his no-BS and practical approach.
His experience includes RealNetworks, Polycom, Symantec, The Cloud Wifi, and co-founding Speed Ventures, Europe’s first accelerator ($70m, 28 companies, 4 IPOs).

Nina Dremelj is focused on the 50M plus deep – tech Fund, being established as the first Slovenian-Croatian deep tech fund called Vesna and started with operation in 2024. She is the president of Business Angels of Slovenia and a Vice president of the European Business Angel Network. As president of the angel network in Slovenia, she works closely with the Mediterranean angel network as a board member, Czech Depo Ventures, Swiss Verve Ventures, 0100, Danube Angels and others. Her greatest passion is to help entrepreneurs turn their ideas into real, successful businesses. In the last 5 years, she invested as a super angel in more than 18 companies with an average investment multiple above 5x. In 2021, under the auspices of business angels, she helped set up the first daFUND venture capital fund, supported by business angels and also invested in it.

Highly experienced and driven business executive with over forty years of experience in running business units for companies including Lucent, Nokia, Qualcomm and others across a demanding and diverse region in Asia and the Pacific theatre. The passion and ability to identify solutions to business issues in the corporate sector are now skills being deployed in Croatia as he works with a variety of start-up companies across a varied field of industries. Having a Croatian background his desire is to see young companies in Croatia be able to compete and succeed on the same footing as our counterparts in other nations across the globe.

Cosmin Ochisor is a Partner at GapMinder VC with over a decade of experience in venture capital, specializing in early-stage deep-tech startups. Passionate about the CEE startup ecosystem, he actively mentors founders, connects them with investors and corporate partners, and supports various startup programs and events. Cosmin focuses on B2B, enterprise, and consumer-focused platforms, leveraging his expertise in software products. He led GapMinder’s Fund I investments in Frisbo, Smart Dreamers, Veridion, DeepStash, Machinations, Innoship, and Planable. Previously, he was an Investment Manager at Deutsche Telekom’s Hubraum.

Peter Balogh is an entrepreneur and investor, founder and CEO of STRT Holding, one of the region’s most active early stage investors with close to a hundred investments. He’s also known for his role as a Shark on the Hungarian version of Shark Tank. With a passion for supporting and mentoring startups, he built and exited NNG, a global leader in navigation systems. He began his tech career early, starting programming at the age of seven, and later co-founded one of the first mobile gaming companies. Today, Peter focuses on helping entrepreneurs grow and succeed.

Bogdan is the General Partner of Underline Ventures, a venture capital firm that partners at the earliest stages with Eastern European founders building high-growth startups with global ambitions. Also, founder of the How to Web Conference, one of Europe’s leading startup and innovation events, Bogdan is advising early-stage startups on raising capital, building useful products, or crafting great pitch decks. Previously Partner with Gecad Ventures, entrepreneur (founded and exited Conectoo, an enterprise email marketing service), he was involved with MVP Academy, MVP Angels, TechHub Bucharest, and 3TS Capital Partners.