This article is part of a series profiling members of our Scout community aligned with our Inclusive Alpha® investment approach.
Ada Ventures scout Jasmin Thomas recognised Jonathan Bean’s potential at a Founders Factory event right away. His start-up Materials Nexus uses AI to find alternatives for advanced materials, like metallic compounds, that reduce or eliminate the need for rare earths. “It’s complicated deep tech,” she says. “But ultimately, he was able to explain what he was doing in four consecutive sentences that made complete sense.”
Jasmin met founder Elissa Brunato at a Wired Impact Event. Her start-up Radiant Matter produces sustainable options for embellishment components used in the fashion industry. Like Materials Nexus, Radiant Matter has scientists at its helm; the team is currently developing a range of biodegradable material solutions with structural colour, creating metallic-like vibrant colour effects made from renewable and abundant cellulose.
Despite her interest in deep tech, Jasmin does not have a scientific background. Nor does she think it necessary. She bases her investment recommendations on a different set of criteria. “Do they have the right team structure and people in place so that if their invention is possible, they’re going to be the ones to achieve it?” she says. “I’m never going to understand it from a deep-tech perspective because they’re university lecturers and I don’t share the same passion for academia”
It is Jasmin’s atypical background that has made her such a good fit for the Ada Venture’s Scout programme. Ada’s Scout programme is one of the central tenets to the Ada Ventures inclusive investing strategy. We want to find incredible, diverse founders who may have otherwise been overlooked. And by providing training and opportunities to scouts who may not fit the traditional profile of an investor, we think we can find these founders.
Look around you, there’s no denying that most people working in venture capital come from similar backgrounds. Jasmin is typically forthright about this about the impact of this. “In the UK, you have to come from one of the big four, or some sort of consulting background or investment banking,” she says. “People in this industry hire themselves, they all think the same and it’s a replication.” Jasmin does not fit this mould. Despite having the grades, she decided not to go to university unlike most of her peers at her academically-minded state school: “I am a doer and I have to learn through doing, not from listening.”
She went straight into recruitment, where she helped silicon roundabout start-ups grow their teams in the early 2010s. There, she learnt: “What a good founder looks like, what exceptional looks like, and what the potential and ability to grow from zero to one hundred looks like,” she says. But her life took an unexpected turn. After being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2015, she became interested in different approaches to the condition, including CBD therapy. She founded Ohana, a plant-based skincare company in 2016. But regulatory challenges in the CBD industry meant that she soon felt she could make more impact by helping other start-ups. The founder experience gave her an added perspective. “Running my own start-up gave me an operational view,” she says. “It also means I can ensure that their deck, their financial model and vision is aligned with what a VC looks for.”
When I first met Jasmin at a networking event two years ago, I was immediately impressed by her ability to network and build community and her attitude. As she puts it: “I have a loud voice. I have what I think is a confident voice. Wherever I’m operating, I have to bring that voice to help other people.”
Jasmin’s mixed heritage means that she can act as a role model as well as build closer relationships with a diverse set of founders. She’s Irish, Trinidadian, Nigerian and German. “Maybe that’s where the confidence comes from,” she says dryly. “I can tap into resources and pools of deal flow, people and communities that Ada would not necessarily see themselves.”
It is this skill which makes Jasmin such a torch bearer for the Inclusive Alpha® approach. This approach means that an inclusive lens is prioritised at every stage of the investment process, from selecting scouts to sourcing the start-ups to strategy and portfolio support. We believe this drives both investment performance and positive impact. In our first fund, Ada Scouts helped us reach, at seed stage, 10 times more all-female teams and six times more all-Black teams than the UK benchmark.
Jasmin became a scout in mid 2023. The flexibility Ada’s Scout programme offers is a big draw for her. Being able to dictate when she works is key to managing her health and her family. I ask her what she thinks she has in common with the other Angels and Scouts she’s since met in the Ada Ventures ecosystem. “We all come from unique, very interesting perspectives,” she says. “What we all have is diversity of thought, which is something severely lacking from the VC industry.”
Ada Ventures believes passionately that diversity in all its forms will have a positive impact on our investors’ bottom line. Jasmin has a similar philosophy which she puts into practice. Both Materials Nexus and Radiant Matter have diverse founding teams. She is particularly enthused by the latter’s female CTO, Cyan Williams. “Everything I do in my career has a very strong thread of supporting female founders,” she says.
Again, it is her unique background and experience which has led her to this point of view. When working with Barclays in 2012 on initiatives to increase women in C Suite positions, she realised how few women applied for these types of roles. She puts it down to a lack of aspirational figures. “You have to see it to believe that you can be it.” Ada Ventures wants to make those kind of dreams a little more of a reality.
