Julie Meyer

Julie Meyer

Entrepreneur and Investor

Julie Marie Meyer, author of Welcome to Entrepreneur Country, published by Little Brown, is a prominent businesswoman and entrepreneur, known for building out the European Technology and Entrepreneurial Ecosystem since 1998. www.juliemariemeyer.com

Julie was born in Michigan, and raised in California, and has lived in Europe for 30 years (Paris, London, Malta, Zurich).

She was invited to be the first Dragon on the BBC’s Dragon’s Den in 2005, but declined, and accepted in 2009 to pioneer the online version which was to be much more interactive. This version also appeared on TV in 2010.

She has been on the Board of Vestergaard, the for profit humanitarian development firm, based in Lausanne, Switzerland for 10 years. Vestergaard has saved lives in Africa and the developing world for 25 years by delivering more than 1.6 bn malaria nets, food security and water purification products.

Julie received an MBA from INSEAD in 1997 where she was named one of INSEAD’s top 50 alumni of all time, and was asked to be on the Board of INSEAD for 6 years including their Finance and Administration Committee.

She is the Managing Partner of the Ariadne Capital Entrepreneurs Fund (ACE), and has recently founded VIVA Investment Partners in Zurich with Rene Eichenberger, a successful fund entrepreneur which acquired the Ariadne Capital Group and her ACE Fund. She is the CEO of VIVA.

She has been named a Global Leader for Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum in Davos, a Member of the British Empire for her Services to Entrepreneurship (MBE), and was given an honorary doctorate by Warwick University for developing Ecosystem Economics®.

She is known for backing some of the most explosive growth companies in Europe in the technology world. She founded the first pan-European networking platform for the Internet generation in 1998, and sold it to a subsidiary of Jerusalem Global in 2000 for $50 m.

She can be reached on jmm@vivacapital.co and @juliemariemeyer and at https://www.linkedin.com/in/juliemeyer1/