The Mentor Network connects industry experts, exited entrepreneurs, and well connected investors with promising Pre-Seed to Series A stage founders, to mentor on a long term basis. 

Our mentors are experts in relevant fields who having ‘been around the block’, want to give back to and develop the startup community. We recruit knowledgeable and trustworthy mentors through a careful application process to find those who are truly keen to see early stage companies grow. The Mentor Network aims to benefit the ecosystem as a whole through knowledge sharing and a commitment to diversity and inclusion.

Why Become a Capital Enterprise Mentor?

Becoming a mentor is perfect for anyone looking to increase variety in their work through interesting conversations with up and coming entrepreneurs: We would aim for you as a mentor to learn and grow from your mentee as much as they would from you. As a mentor you would have exclusive permission to publicly use the Capital Enterprise Mentor Network logo on your website and LinkedIn page, or any other comms. Capital Enterprise mentors also receive access to brilliant networking opportunities, both with the best and brightest upcoming startups, and with fellow industry experts and thought leaders at our quarterly mentor meetups.

In most cases, we would ask you to commit your time pro bono.

We look for mentors who are…

• Impactful: Able to genuinely add value to our founders through shared knowledge and useful connections
• Reliable: Able to follow through on their commitment to their mentee and genuinely happy to help
• Open: Able to listen and learn as much as they guide and advise; mentoring is so often a two way street.
• Authentic: Direct, truthful, and who take their own advice as readily as they give it
• Trustworthy: Committed to confidentiality where necessary, and ready and able to support their mentee
• Values: Committed to giving back, sharing knowledge for the benefit of all, and encouraging diversity by helping underrepresented founders and young people

How it Works

We ask mentors to sign up to the mentor network itself, rather than individual programmes as a mentor, with the ability to opt out at a later date if necessary. Once you have joined, we will reach out to you with opportunities on a rolling basis when a relevant startup or promising founder comes through one of our programmes who we feel you would be a good match for. Following an initial conversation for you to meet each other, Capital Enterprise will facilitate the terms of your mentorship going forward.

The time commitment for each mentorship will be agreed between you and Capital Enterprise at the beginning of a mentorship or programme. We do not set a blanket minimum time commitment, as we recognise this will change depending on your mentee’s needs: we simply ask you to abide by your commitment at the start of the relationship. For example, a typical commercial project’s commitment might be a minimum of one hour a week for 3 months to speaking to your mentee – but, the details and extent of this would be worked out between you and your mentee.

Participating programmes include:

• Onetech’s Pioneer, Pre-accelerator, and mentoring programmes
• IdeaLondon residents and Cap AI programme members
• Any of our commercial programmes for prestigious companies and institutions we’ve partnered with who are as committed as we are to growing the UK’s startup ecosystem.

We also have opportunities for mentorship outside London through our regional activities. We are happy to facilitate requests to be excluded from mentoring on certain programmes, or vice versa, exclusively mentoring on one or a few of our programmes.

Sign up to be a mentor

If you feel you fit the bill to be a great mentor to an exciting up and coming startup, you can apply to be one by filling out the application form below.

Following this, based on whether we think you’ll be a good fit for our startups we’ll be in touch again to formally confirm you have been accepted to the mentor network. We may also reach out 

Please contact arianna@capitalenterprise.org with any questions.