Rose Lewis

Rose Lewis is a British early-stage investor and accelerator founder best known as a co-founder of Collider, a London-based accelerator focused on marketing and advertising technology ("MadTech"). Collider was launched with a founding team that included Andy Tait, David Prais, Ellen Bark-Lindhout, Mark Adams and Rose Lewis, and positioned itself as a bridge between adland incumbents and early-stage founders. Under her stewardship, Collider delivered five accelerator programmes, invested over £4m into 41 startups, partnered with major brands including Unilever, The Financial Times, dunnhumby and NBCUniversal, and expanded from the UK into Amsterdam in 2017.

Lewis came to accelerating and angel investing from a conventional venture and finance background. She has over 15 years' experience in early-stage fundraising, co-founded Pembridge Partners, and earlier worked at the venture firm 3i and the Creative Capital Fund. Investments associated with her earlier career include Optimad Media Systems, The Ministry of Sound and Cycling.tv. Before her investing career she held a commercial role as Head of Sales at Ziff Davis (then part of SoftBank). She has been an active mentor across the London ecosystem, coaching hundreds of founders through Collider as well as Seedcamp, IBM SmartCamp, Growth Accelerator and Oxygen, and served on BIMA's London Council. She has been a regular speaker and judge at Advertising Week Europe, Cannes Lions Innovation and VivaTech.

More recently Lewis's focus has shifted decisively toward sustainability and food systems. Her LinkedIn now describes work "transforming food systems and communities," and she is a Trustee of the Real Farming Trust and works with the Soil Association, leading the transition of Woodoaks Farm (on London's urban fringe) from conventional to organic farming. She studied at Imperial College London (2019–2020), consistent with this pivot into environmental and agricultural work. She frames this current work around tackling "the twin crisis of climate and biodiversity loss caused by industrial-scale food systems," bringing her startup-accelerator playbook to community-scale food innovation.

• Invests at the earliest stages (pre-seed/seed) in marketing, advertising, media and data-driven technology startups — the "MadTech" category Collider helped popularise.
• Uses a corporate-partnered accelerator model: pairs founders with major brands (Unilever, FT, dunnhumby, NBCUniversal) so startups can validate propositions and reach product-market fit with real customers.
• Backs founders who can navigate and sell into the marketing/advertising industry; her own commercial and fundraising experience means she values founders who are coachable on go-to-market and fundraising.
• Historically funded via SEIS/EIS-friendly structures (Collider ran Seedrs crowdfunding rounds), fitting UK tax-advantaged angel investing.
• Personal interest has broadened toward sustainable food systems, organic farming and agritech through her Real Farming Trust and Soil Association roles.