Venture Capital

Having spent the last 5 years working in fast-growth AI businesses (Faculty AI & CHAPTR AI) I am uniquely positioned to support Venture Capital on the Commercial Due Diligence and Growth potential of early stage businesses.

Faculty headlines (2019-22):

  • Member of management team growing the startup from 60 to 250 people

  • Personally delivered £2.5m in sales and originated/grew the Consumer and Private Equity team from 0 to 20 people

  • Considerable experience in commercial model of Consulting vs AI Software

CHAPTR headlines (2022-24):

  • Strategic startup within larger group (15k employees)

  • Growth advisor to CEO, CPO & CTO

  • Helped scale the team from 0 to 25 people

  • Owned growth & product-market-fit strategy

  • Case study 4 - Fractional Head of Strategy

Value Proposition

Commercial Due Diligence

One week project

  • - Market Research & Analysis (assisted by safe use of AI tools)

    - Review of Pitch Deck / Investment Memorandum / Financial Projections / Revenue Breakdowns

    - Competitive Analysis

  • 1. Overall Red/Amber flags

    2. Growth and Efficiencies potential (AI focus)

    3. Defensibility

    4. Impact of AI Trends on Business Model

    5. Perspective on Product Market Fit

    6. Relevance of Data/AI to Founder vision

  • 10-15 page written document (MS Word format)

Darryll Colthrust (CTO, CHAPTR)

“CHAPTR is the new entertainment business that I have co-founded, alongside Philipp Nastaly (CEO) and Andy Landle (CPO).

Calum Mackenzie has been instrumental in guiding and supporting our thinking around the Generative AI strategy within our organisation. I worked with Calum during his time at Faculty AI in 2021 as I was building out an AI strategy. Within a short period of time, he had gained the trust of the executives within our programme and showed his business acumen.

At the earliest opportunity after setting up our business, I reached out to Calum and asked him to join the setup of the business and guide us through the murky waters of Generative AI. This is an emerging technology that will affect every single industry in some way and we needed his background expertise and forward-thinking mindset to help shape our strategy.

Calum has a great perspective on the future of AI within a number of different industries.”