Niall Santamaria

Chief Investment Officer at Laidlaw Scholars Ventures

📍 United Kingdom, United Kingdom🔄 Updated September 2026💼 6 investments📅 8 years investing🗓 Last invested Sep 2021
VC🌍 United Kingdom
6
Total investments
0
Early stage
4
Mid stage
0
Late stage
8y
Years active

Portfolio

5 investments · sorted by recency
All investments
Early stage
Mid stage
Late stage
Board Member
Sep 2021
Snappy Shopper delivers food, drink and household goods from local convenience stores directly to customer’s door from as little as 30 minutes. Promising contact-free and same day delivery, Snappy Shopper has disrupted the traditional online grocery shopping pattern and vastly become a household name with over 105k users. Working with leading brands such as SPAR, Nisa, Co-Op, Premier and hundreds of independently owned stores, Snappy Shopper provides an additional sales platform to the sector. Customers using Snappy Shopper spend an average of £27, that’s 261.93% more than the convenience store average, and top performing stores are achieving home delivery retail sales of more than £10k per week. If you're interested in joining our team, please see more on our website. Don't forget to download Snappy Shopper from your app store today!
Board Member
Nov 2020
BLAST is on a mission to take esports to the next level of global entertainment. We excite and invite billions of fans to join the esports revolution. We create live and digital experiences - from tournaments that pack out major arenas around the world to great content that’s guaranteed to blow your socks off. We work with some of the world’s best game publishers and brands to elevate their properties into amazing esports experiences - having delivered tournaments, content and shows in a variety of games, including: Counter-Strike, DOTA 2, Rainbow Six Siege, VALORANT, Apex Legends, FIFA 2022 and Fortnite. BLAST creates, produces, broadcasts and distributes premium esports entertainment underpinned by industry-leading technology - whether this be in the shape of intimate broadcast studio shows, packed-out arena events in all corners of the globe or top-class multi-platform content. The esports entertainment company has worked across a number of popular titles and delivered tournaments, content and shows in a variety of games, including: Counter-Strike, DOTA 2, VALORANT, Apex Legends and Fortnite. These shows have been watched on a global scale in 18 languages and across over 150 territories around the world.
mid stageEntertainment
Board Member
Nov 2020
OTHERWORLD takes people from city centre locations on fantastic adventures in premium, multi-sensory virtual reality. Already the UKs most popular location-based VR experience, weve welcomed over 250,000 dimension-hoppers to the best that virtual reality has to offer, including Adele, Skepta, KSI and Fnatic.
Board Member
May 2018
AMA is the leader in Dynamic Creative for audio. We deliver customized, data-driven, dynamic ads on the worlds largest audio platforms. By using any combination of contextual and audience-level data we can dynamically serve the most relevant and actionable ad to each listener. With over 10 billion ad impressions served to date, our platform automates the delivery of ‘platform-intelligent’ ads across all audio formats including streaming, podcast, and broadcast radio. Founded in 2015 with offices in New York and London, we have delivered personalized ads across the globe for leading brands such as Google, Uber Eats, Amazon, McDonalds, American Express and Meta. Find out more at amillionads.com
Board Member
May 2018
Hoop - the incredible app that helps parents and kids to find activities. We will only list healthy activities, classes or events on our app. Prior to Covid19, Hoop was used by over 1,000,000 families. I'm re-launching it in 2022 so parents can get this amazing resource back. It's the best. It really is! ... Tim (Dad, CEO)
mid stagePublic Health
Experience · 10 entries
All (10)
Investments (6)
Board (5)
2021
Chief Investment Officer
Sep 2021
Laidlaw Scholars Ventures (LSV) is a for-profit initiative investing in start-ups founded and run by Laidlaw Scholars. Backed by $50m, LSV accelerates Good Businesses by financing growth, providing support services, delivering extensive training and development, and bringing a network of expert advisors and mentors to guide portfolio businesses. All profits from LSV will be returned to the Laidlaw Foundation to invest in its educational programmes designed to break the cycle of poverty, reduce inequality and develop a new generation of ethical leaders. Our portfolio includes: • Sable is a digital bank that allows marginalized Americans and new immigrants without a U.S. financial history to open accounts and build their credit scores quickly. • Sool is a drinks company that introduces traditional Korean alcohols with a modern twist to US and Asian audiences. • CardiaTec is a drug discovery company that leverages AI and large-scale multiomic data to identify novel targets for cardiovascular disease.
Board Member
Sep 2021
Snappy Shopper delivers food, drink and household goods from local convenience stores directly to customer’s door from as little as 30 minutes. Promising contact-free and same day delivery, Snappy Shopper has disrupted the traditional online grocery shopping pattern and vastly become a household name with over 105k users. Working with leading brands such as SPAR, Nisa, Co-Op, Premier and hundreds of independently owned stores, Snappy Shopper provides an additional sales platform to the sector. Customers using Snappy Shopper spend an average of £27, that’s 261.93% more than the convenience store average, and top performing stores are achieving home delivery retail sales of more than £10k per week. If you're interested in joining our team, please see more on our website. Don't forget to download Snappy Shopper from your app store today!
2020
Board Member
Nov 2020
BLAST is on a mission to take esports to the next level of global entertainment. We excite and invite billions of fans to join the esports revolution. We create live and digital experiences - from tournaments that pack out major arenas around the world to great content that’s guaranteed to blow your socks off. We work with some of the world’s best game publishers and brands to elevate their properties into amazing esports experiences - having delivered tournaments, content and shows in a variety of games, including: Counter-Strike, DOTA 2, Rainbow Six Siege, VALORANT, Apex Legends, FIFA 2022 and Fortnite. BLAST creates, produces, broadcasts and distributes premium esports entertainment underpinned by industry-leading technology - whether this be in the shape of intimate broadcast studio shows, packed-out arena events in all corners of the globe or top-class multi-platform content. The esports entertainment company has worked across a number of popular titles and delivered tournaments, content and shows in a variety of games, including: Counter-Strike, DOTA 2, VALORANT, Apex Legends and Fortnite. These shows have been watched on a global scale in 18 languages and across over 150 territories around the world.
mid stageEntertainment
Board Member
Nov 2020
OTHERWORLD takes people from city centre locations on fantastic adventures in premium, multi-sensory virtual reality. Already the UKs most popular location-based VR experience, weve welcomed over 250,000 dimension-hoppers to the best that virtual reality has to offer, including Adele, Skepta, KSI and Fnatic.
2018
Board Member
May 2018
AMA is the leader in Dynamic Creative for audio. We deliver customized, data-driven, dynamic ads on the worlds largest audio platforms. By using any combination of contextual and audience-level data we can dynamically serve the most relevant and actionable ad to each listener. With over 10 billion ad impressions served to date, our platform automates the delivery of ‘platform-intelligent’ ads across all audio formats including streaming, podcast, and broadcast radio. Founded in 2015 with offices in New York and London, we have delivered personalized ads across the globe for leading brands such as Google, Uber Eats, Amazon, McDonalds, American Express and Meta. Find out more at amillionads.com
Show all 10 entries ↓
Investment activity
2018–2021 · 6 investments
201832020220211
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