Julie MEYER

Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Ariadne Capital

Julie Meyer has 17 years of experience with high-growth technology businesses in Europe and the United States, bringing to life industry standards and mobilising a generation around the promise of pan-European, Internet-enabled businesses. Ariadne Capital (www.ariadnecapital.com) , her fourth venture for which she is the seed investor and chief executive, is a global investment and advisory firm, which invests in early stage private companies and advises later stage private and public companies undergoing significant growth or change. As Chief Executive, she is responsible for the overall general and financial management of the firm.
In 1998, Julie established First Tuesday, the largest global network of entrepreneurs, which ignited the Internet generation in Europe. Julie drove the expansion of First Tuesday to 100+ cities and 500,000 registered users worldwide - with no marketing spend. From an initial cash injection of £50,000 of her seed capital, she built an internationally recognised, entrepreneur-friendly community dubbed, “the best-known networking brand in the IT world,” by the media. First Tuesday was sold for $50 million in cash and shares in July 2000 to Jerusalem Global Ventures.
Named a Global Leader of Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum, Julie Meyer was awarded Entrepreneur of the Year Award in October 2000 by Ernst & Young U.K., has raised more than $100 million of capital for start-ups in Europe [lastminute.com, ArcCores, WGSN] in addition to overseeing the documented $150 million of seed capital found for start-ups through First Tuesday.

In 1998 and 1999, Julie was one of the early team at NewMedia Investors [which became NewMedia Spark, an early stage investment firm, in October 1999]. Earlier in her career, Julie helped to market the PowerPC Initiative for Motorola Semiconductor Products Sector where she consulted from 1994 to 1996. She has also consulted for Hewlett Packard and 3Com in France from 1988 to 1993. Julie earned an MBA from INSEAD and a BA degree from Valparaiso University. She also studied in Cambridge, England in 1986. She has lived in Europe since 1988.