About Us
Wisdom Works Ventures
We provide technical and business consultancy and sources of investment funding to AI Startups that will be the next generation of successful AI businesses of the future.
Our Story
Founded by Professor Andy Pardoe, Wisdom Works Ventures was started to find and support the AI startups that have something unique and innovative from a technology perspective.
Our focus is exclusively on Artificial Intelligence startups. When founded in 2018 we only worked with UK based startups, but now we work with Startups globally and have USA and European startups within our Portfolio.
We are the only specialist AI Ventures firm with deep technical and business expertise in the field, dedicated to support the next generation of AI companies.
Our Founder
Professor Andy Pardoe is the founder and CEO of Wisdom Works, a specialist AI consultancy that helps UK based AI start-ups to accelerate their innovation, growth and business success on the global stage. Our’ consultative approach is underpinned by its funding, business and technical advisors and partners that enables the next generation of AI entrepreneurs to scale up for success. Andy works only with the best AI start-ups, from idea to seed to Series A, and partners with founders to help their businesses grow.
Andy is an experienced CTO and CEO, having worked across a number of industry sectors. He has over 25 years expertise of global change programmes delivering complex technical transformations including, Enterprise Scaled AI delivery and commercialisation. His focus is on driving client adoption and demonstrating the value to clients of applying intelligent solutions within their technology landscape. Previously, he was Principal Director for Artificial Intelligence at Accenture Digital with a focus on delivery across multiple industry groups including Financial Services, Health & Public Safety and Telecoms, Media and Technology. Andy has knowledge of the organisational, ethical, governance and cultural challenges of AI adoption.
Andy is the chair of the Deep Tech Innovation Centre at Warwick Innovation District, where he advises deep tech founders, who want to create a sustainable business built on AI or emerging technologies.
Andy is an Expert Advisor to the British Government’s All-Party Parliamentary Group on Artificial Intelligence and is listed by IBM Watson in the Top 30 of AI Influencers globally. He has three degrees from Warwick University (BEng, PhD, MBA), and an Honorary Professorship.
Andy is a thought leader in the field of AI, developing new frameworks to help monitor the progress of advanced artificial intelligence capabilities, including areas of cognitive and conscious computing. In 2020, Andy was an advisor to the film documentary, ‘We Need to Talk about AI’ and co-author of ‘The AI Book’.
Denis Oakley – Lead Startup Mentor
In 2021 I was the top-rated mentor at 500 Startups, whose portfolio includes 41 companies valued at $1B+ and 125 companies valued at more than $100 million. I was also one of the top mentors, out of 3000+ at MaGIC and GrowthMentor.com as well as mentoring at the Warwick Deep Tech Innovation Centre and Leicestershire Startups.
I have been a judge at Jack Ma’s African Business Heroes and MaGIC’s Grill and Chill as well as multiple hackathons and startup events.
As an entrepreneurial mentor, I have worked with intrapreneurs at companies such as Siemens, Petronas, Sime Derby and Telekom Malaysia as well as thousands of entrepreneurs over the last two decades in almost every field imaginable including EdTech, Blockchain, FinTech and AI.
As an intrapreneur at Mott MacDonald, I was part of a management team that created a new business generating $5 million of revenue in its first year, and my first startup reach $2 million in its first year, was a national finalist at HSBC Startup Stars and then had a brutal 5 year successful battle for survival due to the global financial crisis.
My clients have raised over $100 million in VC and Angel funding and have been invested in by companies such as Sequoia, YC and 500 Startups. I have scaled high growth operations by 5X, increased sales by 60X in a 2-month period and helped clients to develop world-leading positions in search and social media.
I am a Fellow of the RSA, a member of the Institute of Directors, have an MBA from WBS (a global top 10 business school), a philosophy degree from the University of Bristol and am writing a book for startups on how to design disruptive business models. Over 1/2 million people have read or watched my business model content.
Our Values
We have three core values that drives our focus and interactions
Innovation
We believe that innovation is the core driver of sustainable value for any technology company. Our focus on novel business models, technology solutions and customer experience is most important to us.
Fairness
We approach business with a highly competitive but respectful and fair perspective. We demonstrate this ethos with every interaction we have.
Collaboration
We know that without collaboration we are unable to drive value to our portfolio companies and so are always inclusive with partners, corporates and advisors to ensure we are finding the best opportunities and advice for our cohort startups