William McQuillan

Founding Partner at Frontline Ventures

Speaker

William is a Founding Partner at Frontline Ventures, Frontline is an early stage venture capital fund with €170m under management and over 70 investments across Europe and the US. He was the youngest Partner of a European VC fund when Frontline was founded.

After leaving university, William was one of the founding employees of Ondra Partners, a start-up investment-banking boutique. Ondra grew from a four-person team, to have over 70 people in London, New York and Paris, and within 18 months was named top investment banking boutique globally by Euromoney. This experience made him realise his passion for rethinking an industry and led him to Co-Found Osmoda, a fashion e-commerce company creating a new way for young, up and coming designers to sell online. At the same time, he was a Global Ambassador and Trustee for the Sandbox Network, a community of almost two thousand innovators under 30. It was through Osmoda and Sandbox that he saw the difficulties for great founders fundraising in Europe. This inspired him to join Will Prendergast and Shay Garvey to set up Frontline, a fund that would improve early-stage venture capital in Europe and enable him to support these entrepreneurs.

William is a keen adventure traveller and lover of art. He is based in London with his partner Marine, who is an entrepreneur herself, and their son Atlas.