Megumi Ikeda

Megumi Ikeda is a European technology investor who, in January 2025, became a General Partner at Ode Growth Partners — a venture firm (headquartered in Stockholm, with offices in London and Copenhagen) that invests in founders building "mission-critical technology for critical industries" and frames its work around planetary and societal resilience. She joined founding partners Miriam Grut Norrby and Tim He, bringing decades of cross-border corporate-venture experience to the firm's early- to growth-stage European strategy.

For over a decade prior, Ikeda was Managing Director of Hearst Ventures and General Manager of Hearst Ventures Europe, where she led the media conglomerate's European investments and non-organic acquisitions from London. Under her leadership, Hearst Ventures deployed more than $1 billion into companies across media, business information, and technology, with a portfolio spanning consumer brands and B2B platforms. Before Hearst, she ran the European arm of the Peacock Equity Fund — the ~$250M venture vehicle backed by GE Capital and NBCUniversal — and earlier handled corporate M&A and distribution deals at NBCUniversal.

Ikeda began her career in Tokyo as a financial reporter for Dow Jones, covering the earliest days of the dot-com boom, and worked as an international business manager at Wired in San Francisco. She holds a bachelor's degree from Columbia College, Columbia University, and an MBA from UCLA's Anderson School of Management. She has also served as a senior advisor to DLA Piper's Law& venture initiative and guest-lectures on venture and entrepreneurship at London Business School. She lives in London along the Thames with her husband and two children.

• Stage & type: Early- to growth-stage European technology companies; at Ode, a focus on "mission-critical software for critical industries." At Hearst she operated as a strategic corporate investor writing meaningful growth checks (portfolio cumulatively >$1B).
• Sectors: B2B SaaS, business information/data, fintech and insurtech, AI/data science, e-commerce and payments infrastructure, media/technology.
• Founder-team focus: "I always watch the founding team dynamic. Does the CEO talk over the CTO — or vice versa?" She weighs communication ability heavily: "Your communication abilities reveal leadership potential and prove you'll sell your vision when recruiting."
• Ambition test: Her signature advice, especially to female founders — "Don't be afraid to think big. No one wants to invest in a small business."
• On corporate VC: "There is even more variety in the CVC world than in traditional VC, so you need to do your due diligence" — a caution to founders to understand a strategic investor's motives.
• Diversity commitment: An active supporter of female founders (via HearstLab and mentorship), she notes: "I try to always take the extra time to give feedback, or take that call or meeting, or reply to that email."