Rate My Exceptional Promise Application

Stage 1
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Hi everyone,

I’m looking for feedback on my Exceptional Promise application. I have approximately 4 years of professional work experience as a finance professional in venture capital (Analyst → Senior Associate).

I’m applying for the visa because I’m currently on the High Potential Individual visa, which is expiring next year. As the only London-based employee at my firm, I lead all VC-related efforts in the country.

I hold a BA in Economics from a top-rated US non-Ivy university.

Recommendation Letters

VC Managing Partner (Firm A) - former executive at a British oil & gas corporation.
VC Managing Partner (Firm B) - great track record of high-growth investments globally
VC Parner (Firm C) - former C-suite executive at one of the largest British banks and previously co-founded a VC-backed company.

MC:

Evidence 1: Outside of your normal day-to-day job role, you established, led or were a senior contributor to a large technology-led industry initiative, evidenced through reference letter(s) from global senior project executives.

[ACTION] Organized a networking/pitch event with 100+ attendees in the UK.

  • Reference letter from the managing director of the accelerator (he’s also one of the LORs).

Evidence 2: You have evidence of speaking at high-profile digital technology sector events, or specialist events for your particular field in the digital technology sector, as evidenced by reference letter(s) from leading industry expert(s) describing your work, or as evidenced by news clippings or similar evidence (including event size/attendance estimates where possible).

[ACTION] Spoke at an online conference about early-stage fundraising with more than 240 attendees.

  • Reference letter from the organizer.

Evidence 3: You have held or hold a significant expert role participating on panels, or individually, assessing the work of others in the same field or a field of specialisation related to the digital technology sector.

[ACTION] Judge at one of the largest demo days in the UK. Selected the most promising startups to pitch at the event.

  • Reference letter from the organizers.

OC2 (Advancement)

Evidence 1: Launched a media project about the space industry (not related to work). I’ve done interviews with high-profile stakeholders and authored articles on space technologies and industry trends. The project has ~15,000 subscribers and ~4,000 weekly readers.

  • Snapshot confirming the number of subscribers.
  • Several PDFs of the articles/interviews that I’ve authored.

OC3 (Impact)

Evidence 1: Led investments in at least a dozen European (inc. UK) companies. Will specify the names of the companies and the amounts invested.

  • Several PDFs of funding announcements AND/OR reference letter from my employer.

Should be enough? Thank you for taking the time to read!

2

You need atleast 2 evidence per criteria. Your optional criterias just have 1 each which won’t suffice.

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Thank you! Do you think I can use one of the MC evidence for OC2 or OC3?

4

You can use in OC2 perhaps but then your MC is will fall weaker. Usually a split of 4-3-3 in MC and 2 OCs is a good split

Is the online conference considered a leading one in digital technology?

You can split the investment leading stories in 2-3 diff investments to create 2-3 different evidence documents in OC3

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Thanks for the prompt response!

I can’t find any mention of the requirement to provide at least 2 pieces of evidence for OC in the Tech Nation Guide for Promise applicants. Are you suggesting that I should try to cover all the bases because my profile doesn’t exactly fit the “product-led digital technology” background?

The online event was hosted by one of the leading VCs in Central Asia in partnership with one of the leading Startup Hubs in the region. While it’s a new initiative, I guess it could be considered a leading one.

OC2:

  • Organized 2 online spacetech pitch events. Can’t recall exactly but at least two of the startups were European/UK-based, and they pitched to at least 40 investors. To emphasize, spacetech is outside the scope of my day to day work.

OC3:

  • This is doable. Thank you for the suggestion.
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It is in your interest to provide more evidence. If one one of your Optional criterion is considered not sufficient then the application will not be successful.

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