Les Elby

Les Elby is a Partner and co-founder of Lighthouse Advisory Partners, a technology-focused corporate-development, growth-strategy and M&A advisory firm based in Cambridge and London. The firm's principals collectively bring 40+ years of experience and have completed 100+ deals, advising technology businesses and entrepreneurs on growth strategy, buy-side and sell-side M&A, commercial due diligence and voice-of-customer research, with the stated aim of maximising business value ahead of a sale or scale-up.

Before Lighthouse, Les spent more than two decades in the technology sector, holding senior leadership positions in Corporate Development, Strategy and Executive Management at AVEVA (the Cambridge-headquartered industrial software group), as well as advisory roles supporting the executive teams of technology firms. He is credited with helping a prior employer grow its business by around £40 million through an executed growth strategy.

Alongside his client advisory work, Les is an active mentor to start-ups and SMEs, helping them grow and increase their future value. Aggregator listings also associate him with a Non-Executive Director role at Harbour Assist (a marina/harbour management software company), though this is reported via third-party data rather than a primary source.

• Invests at the seed stage, typically as an angel / co-investor rather than through a traditional fund.
• Backs technology companies, with a clear pull toward digital health / healthtech ventures emerging from leading research institutions.
• Through Lighthouse, has pursued a model to co-build and co-invest in new ventures emerging from Oxford with the potential to transform patient care — partnering with US healthcare provider Cedars-Sinai to add clinical expertise and US commercial insight.
• Value-add leans on his core skill set: corporate development, M&A, and growth strategy — i.e., helping founders build companies that are positioned to scale and ultimately maximise exit value.
• Looks for companies with strong underlying research/clinical validation and a credible path to commercial scale.