Bootstrap4F
Bootstrap4F is an initiative designed to channel financing to the highest-performing, balanced, and female-led and diverse-led teams in the UK venture ecosystem.
Team
Ms Kinga Stanislawska
Partner
Kinga has 25 years of finance and investment experience, working in venture as GP, and as a Board and Investment Committee member, in private and public institutions. She has made personal investments in VC funds and startups. Kinga founded European Women in VC, the largest community of female venture capitalists in UK and Europe. She co-founded Experior VC, the first female led VC in Europe, co-established the EIC Fund, the largest deep tech fund in Europe with a target AUM of £2.9B, where she was involved in 150 investments in the first 2 years. Kinga was an independent Investment Committee member at Sturgeon VC and advisor to NGP Capital. She was a Board member of the European Innovation Council for nearly 7 years (3 terms) and Management Board Member at the Polish VC Association for 5 years. Prior to this she was working in investments and financings at the EBRD in London, investment banking at ING Barings and Citigroup (London and New York) and as global head of technology at Raiffeisen Investment in Vienna. Kinga is fluent in English, French and Polish. She is a graduate in management from University of Manchester and from Institute d’Etudes Commerciales Superieures in Strasbourg and has a law degree from University of Warsaw. She is also a graduate of TMGP at Harvard Business School.
Dr. Matthias Ummenhofer
Partner
Matthias has been engaged over two decades in the technology and entrepreneurial ecosystem as investor, mentor, advisor and board member and his contributions to building and financing a European Venture Capital Ecosystem have been widely recognized. Matthias has founded mojo.capital raising and managing Mojo Digital One (MDO), the first hybrid tech fund in Europe following both a fund of funds and direct investment strategy, capitalising on the digital transformation. MDO invested category-leading growth-stage tech companies of which some are already exited or listed at multi-billion valuations such as eg. iZettle, Wise, Auto1, Wefox, Tink, Jobandtalent or Hometogo. The fund is fully invested. Prior to founding mojo.capital, between 2000 and 2014, Matthias has been building and leading European Investment Fund’s Venture Capital business. He has been involved with some of the most dynamic and successful Venture Capital Fund Managers and Business Angels and Family offices to emerge in Europe in that period. He made investments in 156 VC funds, 107 if we exclude life science funds and was on investor advisory boards of 45 funds. Under his leadership, EIF’s VC business grew substantially, with over EUR 4.7bn committed. He initiated, raised and managed major third- party VC Fund of Funds and co-investment mandates such as the ERP-EIF Dachfonds, the UK Future Technologies Fund, the Dutch Venture Initiative (DVI) and the Luxembourg Future Fund. He also pioneered the European Angels Fund, nowadays one of the most important and successful business angel co-investment schemes globally. Matthias joined EIF after working from 1997 to 2000 at the European Investment Bank (EIB) where he advised a member of the Executive Board (Vice President Wolfgang Roth) after having done project financing transactions in the infrastructure sector. Matthias holds a B.S. in Technical Economics (Technische Volkswirtschaftslehre) from the University of Karlsruhe, a M.S. in International Finance from the University of Aix-Marseille II, a post-graduate degree in Transport Economics and Logistics Management and a Ph.D. in Business Administration from the same University.
Ms Kasia Piasecki
Platform and Operations Partner
Kasia is the managing director of European Women in VC (EWVC), the largest community of female venture capital and growth investors across Europe. For her impact work reshaping the venture ecosystem for women, Kasia was named one of Forbes Top 10 “Women of The Year” in 2024. Kasia started her career in investment banking, working in M&A at Lazard, debt advisory at Rothschild, and strategic advisory at Berenberg, where, after the financial crisis, she also played a key role in establishing the newly formed division. After banking, Kasia entered the entrepreneurship space, founding ENNBOW, a brand at the forefront of sustainable and women-empowering apparel, which she grew for over a decade, punctuated by advancing climate mitigation measures along the entire value chain and developing innovative e-commerce features. Kasia is an ambassador for numerous organizations for women. Her contributions to the growth of Perspektywy Women in Tech Summit were essential to reaching tens of thousands of attendees last year. Kasia created numerous foundational educational programs and was a lecturer of entrepreneurship at Cologne Business School. She is an advisor and investor in a femtech startup and climate tech impact VC fund. Kasia is fluent in Polish, German, and English. She graduated Economics at the University of Bonn.
Ms Stephanie Heller
Partner
Before co-founding Bootstrap to support ground-breaking tech businesses, Stéphanie’s career includes founding, building and sitting on the board of several successful technology and financial companies in Zurich and London, such as the award winning fintech start-up Fractal Labs (sold). Stéphanie takes her experiences as a founder and parlays that into working with Bootstrap ’s portfolio founders in a pragmatic way. Bootstrap ’s philosophy of providing debt financing for growth companies was nurtured between 2008 and 2012, when Stephanie, the managing partner for Bootstrap was responsible for the private equity assets of Cape Capital AG – a Zurich-based multi-asset manager and family office, investing in a whole spectrum of companies, from start-ups to mature businesses. Driven by the belief that more capital should be directed to entrepreneurs and innovation, Stephanie founded The Real Economy Effect (TREE) in 2012 to help family offices manage their private equity investments. TREE managed a portfolio of c. $350M in more than 30 growth equity and technology investments. Stephanie initially built her financial foundation and expertise in the London based M&A team of Deutsche Bank, where she specialised in the Industrials Sector. She also worked in Paris for French investment bank Calyon, within the Credit Risk Ratings team. Stephanie is fluent in French, English and German, and is a graduate of HEC Business School in Paris where she majored in Finance and took executive business law classes at Universität St Gallen Management School.
Ms Fatou Diagne
Partner
Fatou was a founding partner of The Real Economy Effect (TREE) in 2012 where she was actively involved in managing private equity portfolios on behalf of family offices and multi-asset managers. Fatou started her career as an investment banker at Citigroup in their London and Johannesburg offices, where she spent over five years advising European and emerging markets clients on cross border M&A, high yield debt and equity financing and leveraged buyouts. Her experience includes time spent as a strategic advisor to the CEO of SFR, France’s second largest mobile operator, as well as a stint at Standard and Poor’s in London in the African sovereign credit ratings team. Fatou was part of the founding team that set up the African Risk Capacity, a $100M sovereign risk insurance facility against drought in 25 countries. In recent years, Fatou has also been featured on Forbes top 100 Women in Tech in France. Fatou draws on her experiences in finance and as an entrepreneur when sharing her ideas and guidance with Bootstrap’s portfolio of founders in the hope that they shake up the industries they are in. Fatou is fluent in French, English, Spanish and Wolof, and graduated from the HEC Business School in Paris where she majored in Finance and holds a BSc in Economics and Finance from the University of Calgary.
Mr Alex Branton
Investment Committee Advisor
Advisor to FOF and independent Investment Committee member (UK based) – has over a decade of investment industry experience as both a GP and LP. Alex is GP at Nodem secondaries fund and at Sturgeon VC (USD 300m in AUM). Prior to that he helped establish Columbus Point (a high-profile tech-orientated global equity manager) and was on the emerging markets team at Cambridge Associates. Alex holds a BA in Industrial Economics from the University of Nottingham and an MSc in Development (economics) from the London School of Economics. Alex has also completed academic stints at Hong Kong University, Shanghai Jiaotong University and Korea University. Alex is fluent in Mandarin Chinese.
Fund Finance and Operations Team Led by:
Shailen Modi
COO
Shailen Modi is Chief Operating Officer at Bootstrap. He is a UK qualified accountant with over 25 years of experience in operational and financial roles in the alternative asset management sector. He was most recently the COO at DPI, a private equity firm with a geographical focus on Africa. Prior to that he was COO at Avery Row Capital, a private market multi- asset investment platform with an investment focus on emerging, frontier and disruptive markets, and group Chief Operating Officer at Cube Capital, an asset management business with both liquid and illiquid investment strategies across Emerging and Frontier Markets. He started his investment career at BNP Paribas Asset Management, where he was the Chief Operating/Financial Officer of a joint venture hedge fund business with Fauchier Partners. During his career he was also appointed the COO, and board advisor, at a French wireless technology business as well as the anchor investor in a medical technology firm.
