Yvonne Bajela

Yvonne Bajela

The Linklaters Funder of the Year was presented by Nisha Katona to Yvonne Bajela, a venture capitalist who specifically invests in companies led by underrepresented entrepreneurs. She is a founding member and principal at Impact X Capital, and to date she has invested over £170m in various start-ups across Europe, Middle East and Africa. Previously the youngest investment manager at Mitsui & Co. across the group’s 90,000 global employees, she has risen to success acting as an advocate for entrepreneurship and female empowerment, and regularly delivers talks and workshops on women in leadership and how to scale early-stage companies. Her work is directed towards ultimately seeing a VC industry that is not characterised by disparities in funding, and seeing people from all backgrounds getting funded at all levels, specifically ensuring more funding goes to female and Black funders.

Yvonne Bajela said,

“It’s an honour to win the Funder of the Year prize, I’m extremely privileged to work with incredible entrepreneurs every day, who are making a significant contribution in changing the world. Without them, I wouldn’t be here today. I would also like to express my gratitude to Women of the Year for its invaluable role in recognising women’s achievements over the decades and for helping to open closed doors to enable women to contribute their talents to society.”

Linklaters said,

“We’re delighted to see Yvonne Bajela win the Funder of the Year Award. Much deserved given Yvonne’s impressive efforts to invest in underrepresented entrepreneurs across Europe and her contribution to promoting diversity and inclusion in the industry.”