Harry Briggs

Who they are

Harry Briggs is Managing Partner at OMERS Ventures — co-founded both Firefly Tonics, a healthy energy drink sold in 35+ countries before its PE exit, and BGF Ventures, a £200 million UK-focused fund that backed Paddle and Gousto.

Person

Harry read Psychology (1st Class) at University College Oxford, then moved into strategy consulting at McKinsey and an early stint at Hutchison 3G before turning operator-founder: he co-founded Firefly Tonics, a healthy energy drink that reached over 35 countries before being acquired by PE firm Langholm Capital. That founder detour fed directly into venture — he moved into early-stage investing, spent time at Balderton Capital, and then co-founded BGF Ventures, a £200 million UK-focused fund whose portfolio includes unicorns Paddle and Gousto. He joined OMERS Ventures as Managing Partner in January 2024. The through-line is someone who has sat on both sides of the table — built and sold a consumer brand, built and ran a fund, and now deploys institutional capital. He's a regular on the agri-food tech circuit, speaking at AgriFutures evokeAG in Melbourne (February 2026), the World Agri-Tech Innovation Summit and Future Food Tech Summit in San Francisco (both March 2026); agriculture as a lever for planetary health is a recurring public theme. He chairs the Create Streets Foundation and is a founding advisory board member of Diversity VC.

Company

Harry joined OMERS Ventures in January 2024, bringing his BGF Ventures pedigree into the Canadian pension giant's European operation. OMERS Ventures is the venture arm of OMERS, one of Canada's largest defined-benefit pension funds, backing technology companies across North America and Europe. Harry runs the European practice from London as Managing Partner. His public activity in early 2026 — panels at World Agri-Tech and Future Food Tech, plus the evokeAG appearance in Melbourne — signals the team is actively sourcing in agri-food tech as a core theme alongside its broader enterprise and consumer tech mandate.

Market

OMERS Ventures competes for European and North American deals against other multi-stage institutional funds and dedicated agri-food tech investors. The agri-food tech segment Harry visibly prioritises is attracting growing institutional attention, with climate-linked investment theses converging on the space. As a pension-backed vehicle, OMERS Ventures can write larger cheques and hold longer than typical independent GPs, which shapes how it competes for later-stage rounds.

Network

No named edges are available in the current claims. Harry's public engagements in 2026 — evokeAG, World Agri-Tech, Future Food Tech — put him in regular contact with agri-food founders and co-investors active on those circuits. His founding role at Diversity VC and the Create Streets Foundation chairmanship extend his network into the UK civic and diversity-in-tech communities.

How they likely show up

Co-founded Firefly Tonics and BGF Ventures alongside an investor career → high agency; he builds things rather than just backing them, and will likely engage more deeply with operational founder problems than a purely financial investor would.
Oxford Psychology (1st Class) → probably pattern-matches on people and team dynamics as much as on market size; expect questions about founder psychology and team composition.
Three agri-food tech speaking engagements in the first three months of 2026 → he is deliberately building a public position in the sector, not just attending passively — likely to have strong, developed views worth drawing out.
Hybrid role-type pattern (founder, partner, operator, investor across career) → comfortable context-switching; he'll follow a conversation that jumps between market thesis and operational detail.
Possibly — medium tenure shape across prior roles suggests he moves when the institutional moment has passed, not before — he's not a job-hopper but he won't stay static either.
Chair of Create Streets Foundation and founding board of Diversity VC → takes on governance and institution-building responsibilities outside the day job; signals someone who cares about structural outcomes, not just deal returns.

Conversation tips

→ Reference one of his 2026 agri-food panels specifically — he has been visibly active in the space and will engage substantively if you ask what he actually heard or learned there rather than just complimenting his attendance.
→ His founder background (Firefly Tonics, BGF Ventures) is a real differentiator from most pension-fund VCs — asking what it changed about how he evaluates founders will get a more honest answer than asking about investment thesis in the abstract.
→ He has a Psychology degree; frame problems in terms of human behaviour and team dynamics rather than purely financial metrics and you'll likely get more traction.
→ Don't treat him as a pure financier — he co-built a consumer brand and a fund from scratch, so operational specificity will land better than high-level market framing.

Toolbox

Openers

Open on Firefly Tonics reaching 35+ countries before its PE exit to Langholm Capital — he built and sold a consumer brand before moving into VC, which is unusual, and he'll have a clear view on what founders underestimate about scaling distribution.
Reference the AgriFutures evokeAG panel in Melbourne (February 2026) — he posted about it as a 'fascinating conversation' and it's the most recent public signal of where his thinking on agri-food tech is right now.
BGF Ventures backing Paddle and Gousto is a concrete proof point worth naming — he co-built a £200 million fund that produced at least two unicorns, and asking what those bets had in common will surface his actual investment framework.

Discovery questions

You co-founded BGF Ventures and backed Paddle and Gousto — looking back, what did those companies have in common at the point you wrote the first cheque that you wouldn't have seen without the Firefly Tonics experience?
You've been on panels at evokeAG, World Agri-Tech, and Future Food Tech all within a few months in early 2026 — what's the gap between what founders in agri-food tech are pitching and what you're actually looking to back?
OMERS is a pension fund with a very long time horizon — how does that change the way you underwrite a European early-stage deal compared to how you operated at BGF or Balderton?

Avoid

Don't treat the OMERS Ventures role as a conventional VC position and pitch purely on returns — he's a two-time founder and fund-builder who chairs a civic foundation, and transactional framing without genuine engagement on his agri-food or diversity theses will fall flat.

Make it yours