An EstBAN study trip to London at last!

In 2020 we were supposed to go to Istanbul for an annual EstBAN study trip. Study trips are something we’ve been organising at least once a year and it is a fantastic opportunity for EstBAN members to get to know each other a bit better, form trust and share war stories. We’ve taken angels to get to know the different startup ecosystems in Tel Aviv, Amsterdam, Reykjavik, Helsinki, but obviously the plan to go to Turkey got cancelled when COVID started its world tour.

Luckily it seems that time has moved in a vortex meanwhile and the study trip in London seems to be like no time has been missed. 4 intense days of meetups with different ecosystem players was a blast!

We toured  not only London, but took a whole day to see Cambridge – Trinity Science Park, St John’s Innovation Centre, got a full overview of what makes Cambridge a place of 22 unicorns and more. Among other connections, met with 19 venture capital funds for lunch one day, organised by Playfair, and got an overview of UK angel and VC investing tax systems. We visited Founders Factory and to top it off – spent a great time in Estonian Embassy in London and at the ambassador’s residence alongside with Funderbeam. We couldn’t have done it without partners, as it always is – better together. Thankful to the great team of Invest in Estonia who brought the Estonian angels a bit closer to each other as well as to the local London startup scene.

Unfortunately the spots were limited to this trip, but be sure to stay in tune for the next plans to come. We’ll be resting a bit and then starting to think where to go next with suggestions by our angels more than welcome.