Eileen Burbidge

Who they are

Eileen Burbidge is a Partner at Passion Capital — a Computer Science grad from Illinois who co-founded Passion Capital in 2008 and also co-created White Bear Yard, the East London co-working space that incubated Monzo and GoCardless.

Person

Eileen took a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1993 and cut her teeth in Silicon Valley — engineering and product roles at Sun Microsystems, Apple, GTE, and Verizon Wireless through the late 1990s dot-com era. She moved to Europe in the early 2000s, joining Skype as one of its early employees before the Microsoft acquisition made it a household name, then did stints at Openwave and 12 Entrepreneuring. She co-founded Passion Capital in 2008 — when the London seed ecosystem barely existed — with Stefan Glaenzer and Robert Dighero, and co-founded White Bear Yard in 2011, an East London co-working space that helped launch Monzo and GoCardless. Alongside the fund she served as HM Treasury's Special Envoy for Fintech and as Chair of Tech Nation (then Tech City UK), shaping the public policy backdrop her own portfolio companies operate in. She also sat on the board of Currys plc as Non-Executive Director and ESG Committee Chair. Possibly — she has stepped back from the day-to-day Passion Capital partnership as current leadership lists Robert Dighero, Andrew Jenkins, Will Orde, Sarah Stafford, and Greg Bennett; she hosts 'The New Everyday with Eileen Burbidge' podcast and speaks publicly on fintech, UK tech ecosystem building, and early-stage hiring. The through-line: operator-to-investor, always at the institutional seam between tech founders and the public bodies that regulate or fund them.

Company

Passion Capital's freshest move is the April 2026 close of Passion IV, its fourth seed fund, at €46 million — fully backed by private investors and structured with two SPVs for deployment flexibility, targeting AI, FinTech, and Enterprise Risk startups across Europe. That close came on the back of a strong 2025: the firm distributed €72 million to LPs — more than any previous fund — driven by multiple exits including Ravelin, Tillo, and Xelix, plus the headline event of GoCardless being acquired by Dutch payments firm Mollie for €1.1 billion in December 2025. In February 2026 the firm also participated in a $75 million Series C for Lassie. Passion IV is Article 8-aligned under SFDR, a deliberate credential as the European regulatory environment tightens around ESG disclosure. Across fifteen years the fund has backed 107 companies, produced 3 unicorns, and recorded 21 acquisitions.

Market

Passion Capital sits at the seed end of European venture, competing for the earliest UK and European tech deals against Seedcamp, LocalGlobe, Balderton Capital, and Atomico — each with overlapping focus areas but different stage and check-size profiles. The firm's 2026 thesis centres on AI, FinTech, and RiskTech at a moment when the European tech ecosystem is seeing increased deal volume in those sectors and founders are navigating tighter SFDR and AI safety regulation. Geopolitical de-globalization and divergent regulatory frameworks are reshaping how European funds position themselves, and Passion's Article 8 structuring for Passion IV is a direct response to that pressure.

Network

Eileen co-founded Passion Capital with Stefan Glaenzer and Robert Dighero; Malin Posern was also a long-standing partner at the firm. Her most prominent board relationships are at Monzo Bank, Marshmallow, and PolyAI, where she has served as investor director and board representative. She also holds a director seat at Fertifa, the reproductive healthcare and employee benefits company.

Stefan Glaenzer· Co-founder, Passion Capital
Robert Dighero· Co-founder and Partner, Passion Capital
Malin Posern· Partner, Passion Capital

How they likely show up

Multi-decade tenure building and running Passion Capital from its 2008 inception → thinks in fund cycles and long portfolio arcs, not short-term deal-by-deal wins.
Hybrid role pattern — operator, investor, government envoy, and board director simultaneously → comfortable context-switching across very different power structures in the same week.
Served as HM Treasury Special Envoy for Fintech while actively investing → likely sees policy fluency as a competitive edge, not a distraction.
Co-founded White Bear Yard (a physical co-working space) alongside a fund → tends to build the infrastructure others need rather than just writing cheques.
Hosts 'The New Everyday with Eileen Burbidge' podcast and speaks publicly on early-stage hiring, fintech, and ecosystem building → comfortable being on record with opinions, not just behind the scenes.
Board roles spanning Currys plc (ESG Committee Chair), Monzo, Marshmallow, PolyAI, and Fertifa → operates credibly across listed-company governance and early-stage startup boards at the same time.

Conversation tips

→ Reference a specific Passion Capital portfolio company she's been on the board of — Monzo or PolyAI — and ask about the board experience rather than the investment thesis; she's a practitioner, not just a capital allocator.
→ The GoCardless/Mollie exit is a natural conversation anchor — a company she helped incubate at White Bear Yard sold for €1.1 billion. Ask what that outcome felt like from inside the boardroom.
→ She lived through the dot-com bubble at Sun and Apple, then built the London seed ecosystem from near-zero — draw on that history rather than treating her as a generically 'experienced VC'.
→ She speaks openly about early-stage hiring and firing (Speedinvest talk, CEO role at Fertifa) — if you have a people-leadership challenge, that's a genuine shared interest.
→ Don't skip the policy angle: her time as HM Treasury Special Envoy for Fintech is a real part of her identity, and she'll engage substantively on how regulation shapes the UK tech stack.

Toolbox

Openers

Open on White Bear Yard — she co-founded the East London co-working space in 2011 that incubated both Monzo and GoCardless, and GoCardless just sold to Mollie for €1.1 billion. That's a very specific origin story for a major European payments exit.
Reference Passion IV's April 2026 close — €46 million, fully private-backed, Article 8 SFDR-classified, targeting AI and FinTech. It signals a deliberate bet on regulated European deal flow at a time when most funds are chasing unregulated AI hype.
Mention her 2023 Sifted podcast appearance on 'crisis talks at Monzo' — she went on record about the internal dynamics at one of the UK's most high-profile fintechs. It shows you've engaged with her own account of the hard moments, not just the wins.

Discovery questions

Passion IV is Article 8-aligned — how much does SFDR framing actually change which founders you back versus which you pass on, or is it more about LP optics?
You were at White Bear Yard when Monzo and GoCardless were starting out — looking at the GoCardless/Mollie outcome, what did you see at seed stage that made you back them when most people didn't know what open banking was?
You ran the HM Treasury Fintech Envoy role while actively investing — did proximity to policy ever create tension with your portfolio, or was it mostly a net advantage for founders you backed?

Avoid

Don't treat her primarily as a 'women in tech' spokesperson — while she advocates on diversity, her public record is deep on fintech policy, early-stage board governance, and fund construction, and leading with the diversity angle flattens a much more specific expertise.

Make it yours