Pleased to hear that Barry Vitou and Danvers Baillieu, those tweet-crazy, social media levering, early-stage cheerleaders of the London tech scene have left wherever they were before and have moved to Pinsent Masons to play a leading role in their technology practice.

A few things set the pair apart:

• Their peculiarly hard to spell (for me anyway) French sounding surnames belie their status as true English gentlemen.
• They set up Bootlaw, the legal bootcamp for startups.
• They were some of the first lawyers I know to use Twitter and they are actually pretty good at it. (In fact the pair are such a double act that they even seem to have about the same number of Twitter numbers):

@danversbaillieu

• 3,128Tweets
• 1,511Following
• 1,473Followers
• 76Listed

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@bazv

• 4,990Tweets
• 1,291Following
• 1,459Followers
• 75Listed

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We like Barry and Danvers and are excited about their move. It was only a matter of time before their enthusiasm for startups and early stage businesses was going to mean they would find a new home in a firm that had more corporate interest in the early stage technology space. Winston and Strawn are a class act but their expertise is primarily in working with much larger US corporates which must have been unbelievably tedious for two go-getting enthusiasts.

Congratulations Pinsent Masons on landing a couple of top guys who have made a lot of friends in the startup world. We look forward to seeing what they do next.

Our 4th BLN ‘Future of SaaS Business Models’ discussion dinner offers business owners and senior executives from some of the UK’s most dynamic software companies, to share ideas and experiences, and spend time thinking about working on, not in, their business.

BLN discussion dinners are run under the Chatham House Rule and draw key participants in business ecosystems – incumbents, investors and growing entrepreneurial enterprises – together to meet and discuss important and pressing issues about the future of their industry in a relaxed, informal and fun atmosphere.

Outcomes for our attendees have included:

• Business Relationships – partners/customers/suppliers
• Market intelligence from other leaders in their field
• Opportunities to profile raise at leading industry events, publications and blogs
• Personal opportunities for advisory boards, NEDs

Participants in previous events in this series have included founders/CEOs/senior executives from companies including: Iris Software, SalesForce, Alfresco, Grove Group, OmPrompt, FoxIT, xCalibre, Corebridge, AVEVA Group, Xbridge, 2e2, Kaspersky Lab, Symantec, Cloudsoft and Huddle; as well as European VC and PE investors including Index, Gresham, Wellington Partners, Balderton and Intel Capital.

This dinner is supported by: Deloitte and Erevena

There are many opportunities to attend networking events but we like to think that The BLN events are both high quality and a little different. You can see feedback from previous attendees here.

Please note that by applying we CANNOT guarantee a place, although we do our best to accommodate relevant individuals. Our priority is always to ensure that our guests are relevant to the specific discussion/sector focus.

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For further information, please contact us directly at: info@TheBLN.com

We are pleased to invite you to participate in some of the best entrepreneur and investor networking in London in the offices of Taylor Wessing, City of London on March 16th from 18.00.

In a discussion moderated by the excellent Rory Cellan-Jones, BBC Technology correspondent, we will debate the question, ‘Should the UK should worry if ARM and Autonomy were the last big UK technology businesses?’

Speakers: Stephen Allott, Sherry Coutu, Ben Holmes, William Reeve.

Drinks: 18.00

Discussion: 18.45 followed by networking drinks.

Extra pre-event workshop masterclass: Prior to CEO Tales, from 17.00, we have a very limited number of places (16) available to attend a workshop masterclass, led by David Grundy & Dan Hyde of Erevena, strategic search for the technology sector. This session will help you consider the key human capital issues you face in scaling a global software business. If you would like to be considered to attend this, please note your interest on registration.

‘Should the UK should worry if ARM and Autonomy were the last big UK technology businesses.’

Rory Cellan-Jones – Moderator

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Stephen Allott

Stephen Allott is a technology business leader and social and business entrepreneur. He is currently chairman of Red Gate Software’s Council of Advisers. Red Gate are a 200 person privately owned software company based in Cambridge and are officially the best small software company to work for in the UK. Stephen co-founded his own business, Trinamo Ltd, a management consultancy for UK technology companies and founded a non-profit: the Cambridge Computer Lab Ring which is an association for Cambridge computer science graduates. He is a member of the Ring Governing Council. Stephen is a graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge and has worked for Xerox, Sun Microsystems, McKinsey and Micromuse, where he led their NASDAQ IPO and was President, CFO and a main board director. He has chaired 7 technology company boards and is a quondam City Fellow of Hughes Hall, Cambridge University.

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Sherry Coutu

Sherry Coutu is an experienced executive, former CEO and angel investor who now serves on the boards of companies, charities and universities. The companies she serves range from fast growth private early stage to public and boards with turnover more than £ 1 bn. As an entrepreneur, Sherry established two businesses in the financial services industry. The first (acquired by Euromoney) has operations in more than 70 countries. The second (acquired by AMP) was floated in 2000 on London and Nasdaq and valued at more than $1 billion before being acquired.

Sherry loves working with great entrepreneurs solving problems that matter. Her current portfolio of interests include sitting on the boards of Cambridge University and Artfinder, the advisory Boards of Linkedin, Harvard Business School European Council, NESTA and Cancer Research UK. Her investments usually include ‘databases’, as a common theme. These range from movies (Lovefilm) to real-estate (Zoopla), energy consumption (Alertme), clean energy (New Energy Finance), water pressure (i20), investments (covestor), professional contacts (Linkedin), builders (mybuilder), to how to get pregnant by monitoring trends in body temperature (CTC). Her latest ‘exit’ was New Energy Finance (acquired by Bloomberg).

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Ben Holmes

Ben focuses on the software and internet sectors and has been actively involved with many of the firm’s consumer and media investments. He currently sits on the boards of Just-Eat, Mind Candy, Netlog, Notonthehighstreet, Rebtel, Stardoll and Shapeways. He was previously a Director of Playfish (Electronic Arts). Prior to joining Index Ventures, he worked at the NewMedia Spark investment fund, before becoming Vice President at EO plc, a Spark portfolio company in the consumer financial services sector. Previously he spent four years at OC&C Strategy Consultants, advising firms in the retail and IT sectors. He has a Masters degree in Engineering, Economics and Management from Oxford University.

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William Reeve

William is a serial entrepreneur who has built and exited two leading internet businesses. The first, Fletcher Research, became the UK’s leading internet research firm before Forrester Research (NASDAQ: FORR) bought it in 1999. William’s second business, now trading as LOVEFiLM.com, grew organically and by acquisition to become the leading international online film rental business before Amazon acquired it (still in progress). At LOVEFiLM.com, which was backed by several leading venture capital firms including DFJ Esprit and Index Ventures, William served in a variety of roles including President, Managing Director, acting CEO and COO. William serves as Non-Executive Director with several other high-growth companies including Paddy Power (ISE:PLS), Zoopla, Graze and True Knowledge. A former McKinsey consultant, William has a first class Masters degree from Oxford University.

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CEO Tales is sponsored by Taylor Wessing and Erevena.

CEO Tales is kindly hosted by David Mardle, Partner, Taylor Wessing.

Please note, speakers may be subject to change. Rights of Admission Reserved.

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Our 4th BLN ‘Future of Digital Media’ discussion dinner offers business owners and senior executives from some of the UK’s most dynamic media, software and technology companies, to share ideas and experiences, and spend time thinking about working on, not in, their business.

BLN discussion dinners are run under the Chatham House Rule and draw key participants in business ecosystems – incumbents, investors and growing entrepreneurial enterprises – together to meet and discuss important and pressing issues about the future of their industry in a relaxed, informal and fun atmosphere.

Outcomes for our attendees have included:

• Business Relationships – partners/customers/suppliers
• Market intelligence from other leaders in their field
• Opportunities to profile raise at leading industry events, publications and blogs
• Personal opportunities for advisory boards, NEDs

Participants in previous events in this series have included founders/CEOs/senior executives from companies including: Admob, Mind Candy, Telegraph Media Group, Playphone, Associated Northcliffe Digital, LoveFilm, Diagonal View, All3Media, MTV, Channel 4, Tweetmeme, Net-a-Porter, Playfish,  eBay, Tesco, Bango; as well as European VC and PE investors including Index, Gresham, Vitruvian Partners, Accel, Balderton and Intel Capital.

We are delighted to have the support of Deloitte and Taylor Wessing for this dinner.

There are many opportunities to attend networking events but we like to think that The BLN events are both high quality and a little different. You can see feedback from previous attendees here.

Please note that by applying we CANNOT guarantee a place, although we do our best to accommodate relevant individuals. Our priority is always to ensure that our guests are relevant to the specific discussion/sector focus.

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For further information, please contact us directly at: info@TheBLN.com

Our 6th BLN ecommerce discussion dinner offers business owners and senior executives from some of the UK’s most dynamic ecommerce companies, to share ideas and experiences, and spend time thinking about working on, not in, their business.

BLN discussion dinners are run under the Chatham House Rule and draw key participants in business ecosystems – incumbents, investors and growing entrepreneurial enterprises – together to meet and discuss important and pressing issues about the future of their industry in a relaxed, informal and fun atmosphere.

Outcomes for our attendees have included:

• Business Relationships – partners/customers/suppliers
• Market intelligence from other leaders in their field
• Opportunities to profile raise at leading industry events, publications and blogs
• Personal opportunities for advisory boards, NEDs

We are delighted to have the support of Deloitte and goetzpartners for this dinner

Participants in previous events in this series have included founders/CEOs/senior executives from companies including: Spreadshirt, LoveFilm, eBay, Waitrose, Figleaves, Graze.com, Tesco, House of Fraser, Glasses Direct, Viagogo, Isabella Oliver, Skimlinks, MedicAnimal, Net-a-Porter, I Want One of Those, MyDeco, and eCommera.

There are many opportunities to attend networking events but we like to think that The BLN events are both high quality and a little different. You can see feedback from previous attendees here.

Please note that by applying we CANNOT guarantee a place, although we do our best to accommodate relevant individuals. Our priority is always to ensure that our guests are relevant to the specific discussion/sector focus.

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For further information, please contact us directly at: info@TheBLN.com

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With all the excitement about Yuri Milner’s extraordinary move to invest $150,000 in convertible loans to each Y-Combinator winner in the US, it would be easy to forget that the Russian entrepeneurial ecosystem is only just emerging. We were privelidged to play host to five companies that came over to the UK last week with the Russian Venture Company to meet entrepreneurs, investors, advisers and companies who might be able to help them develop their businesses in the UK. We also put them through a mini-Springboard for two days courtesy of Jon Bradford.

Thanks to everyone involved in hosting, meeting, mentoring, tutoring, listening and advising. It was great to see so many people from the UK get involved and we were delighted to hear that so many of the investors and advisers that did get involved ended up with tangible opportunities as a result.

We ran a competition over the week for the clumsiest Russian to English  translation. Our two favourites were:

• Some small present back – bribe.
• Low cost peoples – the working class.

For a sense of what the Russian entrepreneurs thought of the week, and of the UK in general, check out Evgeny Kozlov’s Twitter stream. Evgeny was one of the entrepreneurs on the trip and runs a biotechnology business, a mobile phone business and a social media business. He has over 80,000 Twitter followers that received his stream of Tweets back to Moscow and beyond. I ran the stream through Tweetdeck translate.

I put some of the Tweets I like best in bold.

Evgeniy Kozlov on Twitter. Follow Evgeny on Twitter.

• Night London is beautiful, yes http://twitpic.com/3ut84f
• It is useless to talk about high moral character of the collective person who has access to the ravine proxy.
• An interesting model of motorcycle on the street in the cityhttp://twitpic.com/3usdhc
• I just ousted @ ryanlsnider AS the mayor of Crowne Plaza Hotel on @ Foursquare ! http://4sq.com/9aEaE6
• I just ousted Dave A. AS the mayor of Cambridge Judge Business School on @ Foursquare ! http://4sq.com/9Uahiq
• I just ousted Deryck C. AS the mayor of Cambridge University Engineering Department on @ Foursquare ! http://4sq.com/buQVRu
• The old Russian way with a hidden transfer of five pounds of worked!