I’m thrilled to formally announce Sophia Draper as our new Founders Associate. She began working with us earlier this year and is working most closely with me, focusing primarily on fundraising, investor relations and working with other members of our team across community management, the scout network and events. 

Sophia began her career as a graduate in data analytics at Morgan Stanley, before transitioning into thematic derivatives trading. Then she moved on to a role as a Founders Associate at a climate-tech start-up, where she assisted in scaling the company and helped raise a $3 million seed round. She then moved to VC as a visiting investment analyst at the early-stage venture capital firm Antler. 

We were impressed by her experience: she's data-driven, analytical and highly numerate. 

Sophia has already made life better at Ada in ways we wouldn't have expected - she organised for her sister to help us with the artwork for the new office, and it looks brilliant. 

You'll see more of Sophia over the coming months, and hopefully get to know her. 

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Over the last few months, she has hit the ground running, supporting us across: 

• Investor relations, including engagement with our LPs through curated events.
• Flagging up some of the most interesting companies from our funnel.
• Supporting the investment team to deliver our hackathon series and helping us source some of the best deals from the events.
• Assisting Michael by testing and collecting feedback from founders on our new AI-powered pitch deck review tool Deck Genius. 
• Helping Jasmin to manage the scout community, supporting scout events, calls and tracking scout deal flow.
• Supporting Diarra on sourcing partners for the bio-infrastructure thesis and market map and AdaCon 2025. 

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Sophia is particularly keen to concentrate on VC and investor relations in the future because she sees allocating capital to mission-driven founders as one of the most effective ways to drive meaningful impact. Sophia immediately struck the team as the right choice; she's more "we" than "I", and is a strong fit with Ada's values of winning and learning together. 

We're delighted to back Sophia as one of those emerging faces who'll be shaping the world of VC in the years to come.

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