We are a team of entrepreneurs, scientists, engineers and operators with global experience, passionate about helping to build and bring ideas to market.

Richard Haycock

Co-Founder and CEO

Richard has been involved in technology businesses for 40 years and has been at the forefront of major paradigm shifts in the industry. He is an innovation driven entrepreneur and has wide experience of building and scaling businesses through new technology, venturing, and creating disruptive business models.

His most recent role was as a Senior Director of Oracle Corporation where he was part of the Global Enterprise Cloud team.

“I believe in working hard with the teams we invest in, the relationship has to add value beyond capital”

Sir Richard Olver

Co-Founder and Chairman

Sir Richard has 22 years of international senior leadership experience with multi-industry knowledge in energy, oil and gas, defence, media, financial services, private equity & government.

Sir Richard is currently an adviser to Clayton, Dubilier and Rice LLC, HSBC Holdings plc & serves as a UK Business Ambassador.

Sir Richard Olver served as Non-Executive Chairman of BAE Systems from 2004 until 2014. In this role he was responsible for major and far reaching changes to the company from board level down creating and overseeing a major move to a highly ethical organisation that has set the standard for defence companies globally. During this time the Company tripled in value.

Prior to joining BAE Systems, he had a 30+ year career with BP plc, his last position being Deputy Group Chief Executive in 2003 & 2004.
In the latter decade of this employment he was one of small top team that took BP from $16 bn value in 1992 to $200 bn value in 2002. From 2005 until 2015 Sir Richard Olver was a member of the Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Group. He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Institution of Civil Engineers and the City and Guilds London Institute.

Sir Richard was knighted in 2013 for services to business and contribution to UK corporate governance. He is a recipient of several honorary doctorates from universities in the UK.

He was awarded the 2015 President’s Medal by the Royal Academy of Engineering and in 2012 he was The Sunday Times Non-Executive Director of the Year.

Sir Richard lives by the River Dart.

Roger Killen

Investment Partner

Roger is a serial entrepreneur in the healthcare sector. He was co-founder in 2000 of Dr Foster Ltd, a data business built on benchmarking hospitals’ quality. He finally exited his position in the Company in 2015 in a trade-sale to Telstra (Vodafone of Australia).

He also founded and built a healthcare improvement company, The Learning Clinic Ltd (TLC). TLC was successful in opening and leading the market of electronic observations based on hand-held devices for nurses. TLC was acquired by a Symphony Group (US private equity) in 2015.

Roger was Royal Society Entrepreneur in Residence at Exeter University and is an advisor and / or non-exec to several of his angel investments in the healthcare sector. He maintains good contacts in local academia and with regional and national hospital Trusts.

Dr Harry Alexander

Investment Manager

Harry joined QantX from the Royal Society where he led their £3m Entrepreneur in Residence programme, placing entrepreneurs into academic institutions to support the translation of innovative ideas into spinouts. Whilst there, he supported a network of 300 leading scientists and entrepreneurs working on the boundary of academia and industry.

Harry has a technical background in polymer chemistry and material science, obtaining his PhD in 2015 at the University of Nottingham. He is also a self-taught Unity developer and launched a nano-games studio in 2020.

Dame Vivienne Cox

Investment Advisor

Vivienne has wide experience of business gained in the energy, natural resources, pharma and publishing sectors. She also has a deep understanding of regulatory, and government relationships. She worked for BP plc for 28 years, in Britain and continental Europe, in posts including Executive Vice President and Chief Executive of BP’s gas, power and renewable business and its alternative energy unit.

Vivienne was previously a Non-Executive Director of BG Group, Rio Tinto, Pearson and GSK and Lead Independent Director of the UK Government’s Department for International Development. She also has international experience as the Chair of the Supervisory Board of Vallourec SA from 2014 until 2021 and a Non-Executive Director at Stena AB.

Vivienne is currently Chair of Victrex plc, a Non-Executive Director at Haleon and at Venterra. She was appointed as Chair of the Rosalind Franklin Institute in 2018. The Institute is dedicated to transforming life science through interdisciplinary research and technology development.

Vivienne was awarded a CBE in the 2016 New Year Honours, and made a Dame in the 2023 New Years Honours list for services to sustainability, and to diversity and inclusion in business.

Dr Elizabeth O’Driscoll

Investment Advisor

Dr Elizabeth O’Driscoll is a Chartered Engineer with two decades experience of innovation. She has held a range of strategic and operational positions and has gained a unique perspective on the exploitation of innovation across a range of sectors.

As a passionate advocate of environmental sustainability Elizabeth has delivered the collaborative Net Zero 2030 plan for Exeter City Council and supported InnovateUK’s urban systems team with the development of a net-zero strategy. She works closely with industry leaders to help them build trust in emerging technologies, establish innovation frameworks that deliver their goals and create strong partnerships that can help prepare for the future.  

Key achievements include founding Exeter Velocities, an impact accelerator to access entrepreneurial responses to Exeter’s net zero ambition (35 startups, with over £6m raised and 3 acquisitions) and building the NorthStar innovation lab for leading public services software provider, Civica to explore how data and AI can enhance outcomes for citizens across health, education, social housing, and government (5 new products incubated).

Elizabeth currently works for Deloitte’s public sector consulting team.

Mark Yallop

Investment Advisor

Mark was until recently an External Member of the Prudential Regulation Committee at the Bank of England and Chair of the FICC Market Standards Board. He has held a number of senior roles in international finance including, COO ICAP plc, CEO UBS UK, COO Deutsche Bank. Mark also serves on the Board of OpenFin LLC, a US technology firm and is a Partner in Illuminate Financial Management, a UK based fintech venture capital business. Mark lives by the River Dart.

James Haycock

Investment Advisor

James is one of the country’s leading authorities on disruptive business strategy. As founder and CEO of Adaptive Lab, a design and innovation consultancy, he wrote a highly influential book entitled “Bye Bye Banks” and he has advised a wide range of companies on developing corporate innovation strategy. Adaptive Lab was acquired by Capgemini in 2018.

Tim Warner

Investment Advisor

Tim has been an IT consultant for over 30 years and has experience of two start-ups. He was investor and non-executive director of the local commercial radio station in Guildford and was the founder and Chairman of Certus Solutions. He has been responsible for some of the largest technology implementations globally and has worked on Oracle Cloud projects for both the UK & US governments. He is the Chairman of the UK Oracle User Group and HCM Special Interest Group and a member of the Oracle ACE community. He is a leading adviser to Oracle Corporation. In May 2018 Certus Solutions was acquired by Accenture. Tim now divides his time between the UK & Switzerland and is an active angel investor.

Nick Coleman

Finance and Operations Advisor

Nick has wide experience across venture capital deals, fund raising, finance, operations and compliance and sits on the Qantx Investment Committee. 

He qualified as a chartered accountant with KPMG and has spent the majority of his career working in tech, biotech and healthcare venture capital firms as CFO/COO and FCA compliance officer. 

Two years working at Advent Venture Partners was followed by seventeen years working for SV Health Investors, one of the top tier healthcare VC groups. 

More recently he has worked on a combination of consulting roles for tech companies and some interim assignments in sectors that include a family office, a venture debt and a diversity and inclusion business.   

Nick splits his time between Topsham in Devon, Newquay in Cornwall and London

Dr Penny Dash

Investment Advisor

Dr Penny Dash has worked in the healthcare industry for the last 35 years, leading change programmes across healthcare providers, local, regional and national health systems and suppliers from the pharmaceutical and medical technology industries. Penny works as Chair, NW London Integrated Care System and was until recently Senior Partner, Head of Healthcare for Europe at McKinsey & Company. She is the founder and director of the Cambridge Health Network – a discussion and networking forum for more than 500 senior executives from organisations working in health.

Penny started her career as a doctor, training in Cambridge and London, and is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. She trained in public health before going to the United States to study for an MBA at Stanford University, where she was a Fulbright Scholar. While at Stanford she worked briefly with Kaiser Permanente. Penny returned from the United States in 1994 to work for the Boston Consulting Group in London, leading strategy and change projects with blue chip companies.

In early 2000 she joined the Department of Health as Head of Strategy and Planning, working closely with Alan Milburn in the development of the NHS Plan.

Clive Swan

Investment Advisor

Clive has been building software products for 35 years, delivering across many major paradigm shifts. He is a software development leader with extensive experience of building application solutions, taking them to market and delivering customer success. At Oracle, he formed and led the global team responsible for developing Oracle’s cloud HCM suite. His most recent role was as Senior Vice President responsible for developing AI solutions across Oracle’s cloud enterprise application suite. He is now an active angel investor and advisor to software start-ups in a variety of different sectors, including HR, healthcare and property management.

Professor Patric Eriksson

Investment Manager

Patric is an entrepreneur who has spent most of his professional life creating innovation ecosystems that connect universities, start-ups, industries and investors. He holds a PhD in Virtual Manufacturing and founded his first company straight out of university, and he’s been a Director for a software company in the process of IPO.

Patric is the founder of Gothia Science Park and Incubator, which is considered one of Scandinavia’s most successful and has supported many start-ups making £10-100M exits. Gothia Science Park received the European Enterprise Development Award from the European Union in recognition of its achievements.

He is a co-founder of a seed capital firm and he was non-executive director and part of the founding team of Saminvest AB, a venture capital company with an investment of 5 billion SEK that was formed by the Swedish government. He has been an external non-executive director of the board for several £100 million companies and has insight into a range of sectors including media, banking & insurance, software and manufacturing.

Patric’s most recent role was as Professor and Deputy-Vice Chancellor of Research and Innovation at Falmouth University.

Charles Courtenay

Investment Advisor

Charles Courtenay is a Barrister and Partner in the Commercial & Regulatory Disputes team working between London and Exeter. 

His practice focuses upon intellectual property and other complex commercial disputes, with particular emphasis on cross-border, technology, and finance matters.  As a dual-qualified advocate (England and Wales in 1999, California in 2004), he has hands-on experience in courts and arbitrations across both the US and the UK.  Previously, he led the European IP disputes team at Latham & Watkins; he previously spent eight years litigating in Los Angeles, before relocating to London. 

Charles is also the Earl of Devon and, independent of his work at Michelmores, he owns and operates the Powderham Estate, near Exeter, focusing upon sustainable heritage and land management. In 2018, he was elected to the House of Lords as a Crossbench Hereditary Peer, where he champions the interests of Devon, and speaks on Technology, Heritage, Agriculture, and the Environment.

Matthew Gingell

ESG Advisor

Matt has been a solicitor for 15 years and is currently the General Counsel of The Oxygen House Group.

He is widely recognised as an innovator who is helping shape the legal profession as a force for good. Speaking regularly on ESG and sustainability matters he founded The Chancery Lane Project in 2019.  

He has been embedding ESG objectives into investments since 2014 and is the author of the climate contracts doctrine: ground-level commercial contracts creating global environmental outcomes. 

Matt is a Fellow of the Institute of Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability as well as a trustee of The Oxygen House Foundation, The Dixon Foundation, and The Chancery Lane Project.

Michelle Law

Chief Operating Officer

With 20+ years of global experience, Michelle has served as a Director of Strategy, COO, and M&A Director in financial services and as an NHS non-exec. Passionate about Type 1 diabetes advocacy and healthcare tech, she is based in Exeter and became QantX’s COO in February 2023. 

Paul Jewell

Investment Advisor

Paul joined the electricity industry after graduating in 1988.  He joined the South Western Electricity Board in the nationalised industry, now part of National Grid, and has experienced the changes through privatisation and market separation. 

In 1995 he was responsible for service delivery, operations, and performance in a geographical patch that covered most of Devon. In 2011 Paul became Policy and Innovation Manager.  He brought innovative solutions into a business-as-usual world whilst also leading the management of standards for an electricity distribution network. 

Paul’s passion is now supporting decarbonisation initiatives and lobbying for the development of electricity-based net zero developments.  His last major innovation before leaving National Grid was to create and establish the “Take Charge” EV charging solution at Moto’s Exeter M5 Services.

Paul is a Chartered Engineer and Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology.