Eileen Burbidge

Who they are

Eileen Burbidge is Founding Partner at Passion Capital — a B.Sc. Computer Science graduate from Illinois who was an early Skype employee, co-founded White Bear Yard (the East London co-working space that incubated Monzo and GoCardless), and launched her own podcast, 'The New Everyday with Eileen Burbidge'.

Person

Eileen took her B.Sc. Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1993 and spent the next fifteen years as an operator — engineering and product roles at GTE, Sun Microsystems, Apple, and Verizon Wireless, then business development and marketing at Openwave, Yahoo! Europe, and 12 Entrepreneuring, before landing as an early employee at Skype. That Skype stint is the hinge: it brought her to London and into European tech just as the scene was forming. She co-founded Passion Capital in 2008 with Stefan Glaenzer and Robert Dighero — an early-stage London VC that has since backed 107 companies including Monzo, GoCardless, Marshmallow, and PolyAI. Alongside the fund she co-founded White Bear Yard, a co-working space in East London that became a physical launchpad for several of those companies, and she served as UK Treasury Special Envoy for Fintech and Chair of Tech Nation, embedding herself in policy as well as capital. She sits on boards including Monzo, Marshmallow, PolyAI, Fertifa, and previously Currys plc (as Non-Executive Director and ESG Committee Chair). Possibly — she also founded NFG Ventures in 2026, signalling a new chapter alongside her long Passion Capital tenure. She hosts 'The New Everyday with Eileen Burbidge' podcast and speaks publicly on fintech, early-stage hiring, reproductive health, and diversity in tech.

Company

Passion Capital's freshest move is closing Passion IV in April 2026 — its fourth seed fund at €46 million ($55 million), fully backed by private investors and structured with two SPVs for investment flexibility, targeting AI, FinTech, and enterprise risk startups across Europe. By early 2026 the firm had already deployed Passion IV capital into 13 startups. The 2025 vintage was strong: GoCardless, a Passion seed-era company, was acquired by Dutch payments firm Mollie for €1.1 billion in December 2025, and the firm distributed €72 million to LPs — more than in any previous fund. Additional exits from Ravelin, Tillo, and Xelix, plus growth rounds in Attio, PolyAI, Lassie, and Marshmallow, rounded out the year. The firm also led a €1 million pre-seed round in 2026 for Tapaya, a Prague-based payments infrastructure startup.

Market

Passion Capital competes in the London and European early-stage VC market against Seedcamp, LocalGlobe, Balderton Capital, and Atomico, all of which overlap on sector or stage. Its differentiation is a tight focus on seed-stage AI, FinTech, and RiskTech — a bet that is well-timed given the rebound in European AI and FinTech deal volumes in 2025–2026. The broader environment for European seed funds is shaped by Article 8 SFDR alignment requirements, elevated regulatory scrutiny in financial services, and geopolitical dynamics pushing capital into regionalized, compliance-aware strategies — all of which Passion Capital has positioned itself to navigate with a specialist, private-LP-backed fund.

Network

Eileen's closest professional collaborators at Passion Capital are co-founders Stefan Glaenzer and Robert Dighero, and fellow partner Malin Posern. Her board footprint connects her directly to the leadership of Monzo Bank, Marshmallow, PolyAI, Fertifa, and Butternut Box — a network that spans neobanking, insurtech, conversational AI, and reproductive health.

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

How they likely show up

Long tenure at Passion Capital since 2008 (founded it) → thinks in fund cycles and decade-long company arcs, not short-term sprints.
Former operator across GTE, Sun, Apple, Skype before moving to VC → brings product and engineering intuition to investment decisions, not just financial pattern-matching.
Served as UK Treasury Special Envoy for Fintech and Chair of Tech Nation → comfortable in policy rooms and public advocacy; likely reads regulatory shifts as strategic signal, not noise.
Sits on multiple active boards simultaneously (Monzo, Marshmallow, PolyAI, Fertifa) → used to context-switching between domains and prioritising high-leverage interventions over operational detail.
Hosts her own podcast and speaks at events on early-stage hiring, fintech, and reproductive health → comfortable being a public voice, engages with ideas in conversation as much as in writing.
Possibly — founding NFG Ventures in 2026 alongside Passion Capital → high agency, not content to sit still even within a successful long-running institution.

Conversation tips

→ Reference the GoCardless/Mollie exit specifically — it closed in December 2025 at €1.1 billion and was a signal moment after years of building; she'll have a perspective on what the exit validated.
→ Ask about the Passion IV thesis rather than generic VC market views — the fund has a specific AI/FinTech/RiskTech focus and she just closed it, so the conviction is fresh.
→ She was inside Monzo during 'crisis talks' (per public accounts) — if you want to discuss board governance or founder support, she has lived examples she's spoken about publicly.
→ Don't treat her as a pure investor: she was an operator for 15 years and still serves on operating boards. Engage her on what it's like to run companies, not just back them.
→ She speaks publicly on reproductive health and inclusion in tech — both are genuine professional commitments, not just talking points, so engage seriously or don't raise them at all.

Toolbox

Openers

Open on the Passion IV close in April 2026 — she just finished raising €46 million fully from private investors with two SPVs attached, which is a deliberate structural choice worth asking about.
Mention White Bear Yard — she co-founded the East London co-working space that physically incubated Monzo and GoCardless, and it's a concrete expression of her thesis that community and capital go together.
Reference 'The New Everyday with Eileen Burbidge' podcast — she built her own platform and uses it to discuss topics that matter to her; naming it signals you did more than a LinkedIn skim.

Discovery questions

Passion IV is already deployed into 13 startups — how has the AI investment frenzy changed how you evaluate seed-stage founders versus when you were writing first checks into companies like Monzo?
You were at Skype as an early employee, then built a fund that seeded GoCardless — how much of your conviction in payments and fintech traces back to what you saw at Skype in those early years?
You've chaired Tech Nation, served as Treasury FinTech Envoy, and now run an Article 8 SFDR-aligned fund — where do you think UK and European policy is actually helping founders versus where it's creating friction?

Avoid

Don't open with generic 'what's your investment thesis' questions — she has answered that publicly many times and it signals you haven't done the work; go specific or go home.

Make it yours