Ben Honan is the investment lead for Climate KIC, Europe’s climate innovation agency and community. Focusing on financial innovation, Ben and the team have now made more than 100 seed stage investments in cleantech start-ups across Europe and are in the process of launching three new VC funds this year on deep tech, circular economy and carbon removals. Drawing upon his own first-hand experience of natural disasters in Australia, Ben has a passion for using innovation as a way to enable decision makers to take action in the messy middle where the options aren’t clear and the future is deeply uncertain.

Jo Slota-Newson is a venture capital investor and Managing Partner at Almanac Ventures. Jo helps to build companies founded on scientific innovations, which will be critical to growing stronger, more resilient, decarbonised industries of the future.
Jo started her career as a research scientist in electronic materials at the University of Cambridge and the University of British Columbia. She has worked in technology commercialisation for 19 years including in operational roles, such as serving as Chief Technology Officer for an early stage photovoltaics company.
Jo holds MA, MSci and PhD degrees in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge and the Chartered Financial Analyst designation, and is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics.

Philipp Spenger leads data and analytics work at the European Investment Bank, where he built the data platform underpinning a €5bn investment programme. As an early member of the EIB team advising the EIC Fund, he designed the data strategy for Europe’s largest deep-tech portfolio and established the enterprise-wide governance framework for investment data across the organisation. He now leads the team advancing a data-driven venture capital model, leveraging data, analytics, and AI to scale investment operations and portfolio intelligence. Philipp is passionate about the transformative potential of emerging technologies and their ability to unlock better decisions and outcomes.

Akira Kawachi is a Director at JETRO Startup focused on startup scouting, sector-specific program curation, and investor and accelerator engagement. He helps global partners navigate Japan’s startup landscape, identify relevant emerging companies, and build meaningful connections with founders and ecosystem stakeholders.

His current coverage spans healthcare and life sciences, climate and energy, agri-food, and impact. Drawing on five years in Chicago and leadership roles across JETRO, he brings a practical cross-border perspective to startup discovery and ecosystem collaboration.