How do I raise the capital to fund my entrepreneurial venture? What sources of capital should I target? What assistance can I expect from investors? In this panel, angel investors, venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, and public servants discuss issues surrounding the financing of new business.

Alex Hoye has co-founded GoIndustry plc from the proverbial napkin, nurturing it from bootstrap, product development stage through to its current status as a publicly-listed, 17-country market leader in the sale of industrial assets.

Since taking GoIndustry public for over $100m in 2006, Alex has been encouraged by and encouraging the wave of entrepreneurial inspiration capturing Europe. To this end, Alex acts as angel investor, principal or mentor in internet-based and consumer brand projects. Some of these include Seedcamp.org, where he is chairman of the Advisory Board, home repair marketplace Buildersite.co.uk, where he is chairman, and edgy Faction Skis, which he co-founded. Alex is a trustee of the Venture Partnership Foundation, which applies venture methods to the social sector, is an officer of London’s YPO chapter.

Aside from investing and advising, Alex is nurturing two stealth mode internet projects.Alex cut his teeth at McKinsey & Co. and Disney, building analytical, restructuring, finance, and M&A skills. He has worked out of the UK, Germany, the US and Latin America, speaking the respective languages to varying degrees. While obtaining his BA from Stanford and MBA from Harvard, ever the entrepreneur, he co-founded the wine club at both.

For over twenty years, Ross Ahlgren has been heavily involved with entrepreneurs, high-technology, change and success in a high-paced environment. For the last ten years, he has been a leading figure in the creation of a venture debt market outside the US.

Mr. Ahlgren’s destiny was already being shaped during his days at University of Texas, where he was part of a team that pioneered research into successful entrepreneurs, which led to several papers in the academic press and eventually to the adoption of new entrepreneurial coursework at the university. During his subsequent MBA at Carnegie Mellon University, he continued an entrepreneurial focus with an emphasis on technology, marketing and finance.

Upon leaving Carnegie Mellon, Mr. Ahlgren joined American Airlines where he was a member of the team that built the first Yield Management Systems, an innovation that is now not only integral to the running of airlines, but many other diverse businesses as well.

While at American Airlines, Mr. Ahlgren was offered a role within American International Group (AIG) to work directly with the CEO. Over the years, Mr. Ahlgren took on a variety of roles for the company, working as an internal consultant while also helping to start up a software company within their data center. After selling the software company, Mr. Ahlgren was tasked by the CEO to head up AIG’s global re-engineering project. Upon completion, Mr. Ahlgren was selected to move to Paris as part of a new senior management team that turned around the fortunes of a long-suffering European region, radically restructuring its core operations and helping it to grow into a profitable $1B+ operation.

After more than ten years at AIG, Mr. Ahlgren decided to reinvent himself by becoming a founding member of Europe’s first venture debt firm, European Venture Partners (EVP) in 1998. At EVP, he played a major role in the vision of the company as well as the creation of a European and Israeli venture debt market. Many of EVP’s early investments – in Bookham Technologies, among others – were very successful, thus ensuring the viability of EVP’s endeavours and allowing the company to flourish. The success of EVP’s second fund has already surpassed that of the first and the third fund, now re-named Kreos Capital, looks set to continue the trend. With over €215M invested in 2007 alone, Kreos have surpassed the €600M-invested milestone since foundation. Such success during a highly turbulent decade in Venture Capital is Mr. Ahlgren’s greatest achievement.

Ross is happily married with one incredible daughter and a crazy dog.

Eileen is a director at Kennet Partners. Prior to joining Kennet in 2006, Eileen was an associate at Amadeus Capital Partners. Earlier in her career, she managed product development teams at Openwave and AllAdvantage.com and was part of the founding engineering team of semiconductor IP and consulting firm PDF Solutions. She is currently a director of STS and an observer on the board of Sequans Communications.

In the past, she served as a board observer on the boards of Artimi, Chipidea Microelectronica (acquired by MIPS Technologies), Forth Dimension Displays and Plastic Logic. Eileen holds a degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT and an MBA from London Business School.

Henry has been an investment manager with CCF since its inception and is the first point of contact for the fund.  Previously he was a management consultant with Bain & Co where he worked across a number of sectors, including luxury goods and retail, primarily on business strategy. Prior to joining Bain, Henry studied Modern Languages at Oxford University, and is currently a business mentor with the Prince’s Trust.