Meet the 7 new members of Atomico Angel Programme: Amsterdam’s Christina Caljé is one of them

London-based Atomico, an investment firm that focuses on helping disruptive technology companies scale globally, announced on Thursday, November 10, that seven new members have joined its Atomico Angel Programme.

Atomico’s Angel Programme gives the upcoming generation of European angel investors the ability to collaborate with the most aspirational early-stage startups. The venture capital investments made by Atomico’s angel investors highlight the range of founder talent in Europe as well as the expanding digital ecosystem. For Atomico, the programme is an important connection to the community at the pre-seed and seed stage.

The company says, “Our newest additions bring a wealth of experience and expertise to the 2022 cohort, and we are excited to welcome them to the programme as they help unlock the next generation of Europe’s entrepreneurial talent.”

Meet the seven new members of Atomico Angel Programme

Atomico says it is proud to welcome seven more exceptional individuals to the 2022 cohort. These individuals include:

Kim Fai Kok

Kim is a founding member of Framtid. Before starting Framtid, he was a member of the Truecaller founding team and worked as director of communications, overseeing the company’s marketing and communications from the beginning. He assisted in the launch of the Truecaller app in 15 nations throughout the US, LATAM, Europe, Africa, and Asia, and witnessed the company grow from a few thousand to 280 million active users globally. Since 2018, Kim has advised numerous business owners and entrepreneurs while being an active angel investor with a focus on both B2B and B2C opportunities.

Kerstin Bock

Kerstin is the CEO and co-founder of Openers, a small communications firm in Berlin that collaborates with a number of unicorn tech firms, such as Sorare, Pipedrive, Spotify, Pleo, and others. The largest deeptech fund in Europe, the European Innovation Council (EIC) Fund, counts her as a frequent mentor and counsellor. With the Atomico Angel Programme, Kerstin plans to continue her hands-on angel investing in early-stage startups in a variety of industries, such as climate technology, food technology, and health technology, with a focus on diverse founding teams.

Dharmesh Malam

Dharmesh is a member of the founding investment team of Marcho Partners, a technology hedge fund, where he also oversees their Entrepreneur-in-Residence programme and community located in London, as well as their Foundation Fund-of-Funds investing in up-and-coming international seed funds.

Dharmesh co-founded and held the position of CEO at Y Combinator-backed BigCalc, a software business that specialised in algorithmic trading simulations, after working as a quant developer at Fidelity and Blackrock. Later, he co-founded YC-backed full-stack 401k provider Octavewealth, where he served as CTO and is still a board member. He has a special love for infrastructure, fintech, and cryptocurrencies.

Russell Smith

Russell has a background in marketing and has worked for organisations including Wise, Adobe, Monzo, and BlockFi. He is currently an angel investor who focuses on assisting early-stage businesses in growing through advertising, positioning, and product-led development. 

Russell managed Monzo’s first advertising campaigns while serving as the company’s director of marketing, bringing in more than 2.5 million customers in a single year. He has backed companies including Qatalog, LayerZero, and Oasis and is eager to share his knowledge with a new wave of mission-driven startups. 

Christina Caljé

Christina has founded and grown firms in Europe and the US. She is an experienced entrepreneur in the finance and technology sectors. Christina expanded her focus to the investing arena when her video marketing technology firm, Autheos, was acquired. Here she addresses negative funding dynamics in the European tech ecosystem.

Currently, she serves on the boards of many accelerator programmes, venture capital funds, startups, and governmental organisations. She has directly supervised more than 40 startups. With a focus on issues of financial empowerment, energy transition, and climate protection, Christina’s investing goal is to enhance society from a social and environmental standpoint. 

Alec Dent

Alec co-founded Weezy in 2019, an on-demand grocery store. Weezy launched its service in London, Manchester, Bristol, and Brighton after raising more than $20M, and the company successfully exited to Getir in late 2021. Before recently joining the company’s global strategy team as a Director, he served as General Manager of Getir’s French division.

Before joining Weezy and Getir, Alec worked at startups and scale-ups such as BlaBlaCar and Drover with a focus on operations, marketing, and strategy. He makes investments in businesses that cater to consumers, particularly those that leverage the circular economy, as well as in B2B services that make the lives of operators simpler. 

Faye Maidment

Faye is a venture capitalist, metaverse thinker, and cultural researcher. She has led investments in sectors including virtual world platforms, digital fashion, web3, and virtual beings. Faye has previous experience as an Associate at gaming fund BITKRAFT and pre-seed generalist firm Unshackled Ventures. 

She also contributed to the online culture newsletter High Tea. With a particular focus on businesses that enable and enhance expression inside the metaverse, Faye is thrilled to be joining Atomico’s Angel Programme to continue investing in early-stage innovators in Europe.

Brief about Atomico

Founded in 2006, Atomico invests in ambitious tech founders at Series A and beyond with a particular focus on Europe, leveraging deep operational experience to supercharge their growth.

The firm has partnered with over 100 ambitious teams, including those at Klarna, Supercell, Graphcore, Compass, MessageBird, Masterclass, Attentive Mobile, Pipedrive, and Hinge Health. Currently, Atomico has $4B in assets under management.