Dry Powder Open Mic. 21 jan. 2026

The Ministry, Borough | Workspace & Members' Club | South London

79-81 Borough Rd, London SE1 1DN, UK

No Fluff. Just VCs Pitching 💣🎤

We flipped the script last night.

Usually founders stand on stage and pitch to investors.

At Rare Founders we made investors pitch to the room.

And yes.

We used water guns to keep them to one minute.

My guest was Dan Bowyer from SuperSeed VC.

He is super noisy on LinkedIn and he knows his stuff.

We talked about where the money goes in 2026.

Here is what you need to know:

• 𝗗𝗲𝗳𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝗵𝘂𝗴𝗲. It is not about bombs. It is about resilience. It is food supply chains and energy infrastructure.

• 𝗛𝗮𝗿𝗱𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸. Software had its run but investors look at physical things now. Deep tech is winning.

• 𝗔𝗜 𝗶𝘀 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴. Enterprise companies will switch to open source models. They won't pay the big giants like OpenAI forever when open source is cheaper.

• 𝗙𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗿𝗮𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝘀 𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗱. Even VCs struggle to raise money right now. Dan called it a "soul sucking shit fest" .

• 𝗗𝗶𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗼𝗿 𝗱𝗶𝗲. If you are a VC you must be niche or you must be noisy.

Then the brave investors took the stage.

David Gilgur Blue Lake VC, Elyab Berhanu John Sergeant Strand Ventures, Zayn Sulaman Solid Bond, Sara Jones Carbon 13, Oscar Hoare Elm Venture Partners, and Allison Stuckless 𝗩𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗼𝗿 𝗖𝗮𝗽𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗹 pitched their funds. Allison even offered £50,000 if you find her a business to buy.

It was chaotic.

It was fun.

 The Ministry gave us the perfect venue for it.

Valeriia Milenina captured the best moments. She is the best! Contact her if you need a TOP photographer for your events!

I recorded the whole thing so you don't miss out.

The link is below.

Would you pitch your fund if I held a water gun?