Welcome to the LBS StartHub blog, hosted by the Institute of Entrepreneurship and Private Capital (IEPC) at London Business School. This platform is open for the School's entrepreneurship community and the wider London ecosystem to share experiences, observations, perspectives and research. We invite you to read, comment, share, and enjoy! If you have content proposals, please do get in touch with us: iepc@london.edu.

Introducing the LBS Launchpad 2026 Cohort

We are excited to announce the London Business School Launchpad 2026 Cohort. Launchpad is London Business School’s startup pre-accelerator programme, organised by the LBS Entrepreneurship Club and supported by the Institute of Entrepreneurship and Private Capital. The programme helps some of the most ambitious founders at LBS transform early ideas into viable, scalable businesses. The […]

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Anna Autti, blond woman in black top facing forwards.

Beyond Valuation: Lessons from Financing the Entrepreneurial Business

Understanding entrepreneurial finance is not just about spreadsheets and valuation models. It involves judgement, incentives, and making difficult decisions under uncertainty. After transitioning into private equity, Anna Autti (MBA2026), discovered that the most valuable lessons came from analysing real-world dilemmas, the very challenges founders face every day. Drawing on her experience across M&A law, corporate […]

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Third Time’s the Charm: Why HackLBS 2026 Was the Best One Yet

Two weekends ago, the atmosphere at London Business School shifted. The usual quiet of Nuffield Hall in the North Building was replaced by the frantic energy of 48-hour sprints, late-night coding, and the unmistakable buzz of people building something from nothing. This was my third time attending HackLBS, the flagship hackathon-style event hosted by the […]

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Women wo start companies increase their earning by 22%

The Founder’s Premium: How Women Boost Earnings by Founding Companies

When women start companies, they earn far more than they would have in a salaried job. New research reveals that women who leave salaried jobs to start companies see a 22% earnings boost—far higher than men’s 8% gain. By bypassing biased workplace structures, entrepreneurship allows high-ability women to capture the value their skills deserve, narrowing […]

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From LBS to Forbes 30 Under 30: How Mohamed Mohamed Is Building Smart Bricks

Mohamed Mohamed is the Founder and CEO of Smart Bricks, an AI-powered real estate intelligence platform, and a Forbes 30 Under 30 Middle East 2025 honouree. Since founding the company in 2024, Mohamed has raised approximately $5 million in pre-seed funding, backed by Andreessen Horowitz, 500 Global, Sanabil Investments, Techstars, and angel investors from OpenAI, […]

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The workers you let go today may be the founders you compete with tomorrow

When companies lay people off, they rarely imagine they might be creating their next competitors. In this piece, Dr Bukky Akinsanmi Oyedeji, Assistant Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at London Business School shows how layoffs don’t just release workers, they can also release future founders. When companies announce layoffs, attention usually turns to the immediate […]

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From Eczema to Exit: Joanna Jensen on Building Childs Farm (and Knowing When to Let Go)

Last week I hosted a conversation with Joanna Jensen, founder of Childs Farm. Joanna’s story is well-known in consumer brand circles. She turned a personal need (gentler skincare for her daughter’s severe eczema) into a category-leading brand and exited with a £40 million deal. What made this session valuable, however, was getting to see how […]

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Inside the Room: What Enterprise 100 Reveals About Early Stage Investing

Recently, I attended an Enterprise 100 (E100) event near campus. For those unfamiliar with the group, E100 is one of the UK’s longest running angel investment clubs, founded in 1999 and historically associated with London Business School. While it operates independently today, many of its approximately 100 active members are LBS alumni, and the group […]

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The Double Challenge of Reinvention: Why True Innovators Must First Unlearn

True reinvention rarely begins with learning something new. It begins with letting go — of habits, assumptions, and routines that once delivered success but now constrain possibility. From IKEA to RELX, this article explores why deliberate unlearning is the overlooked discipline behind lasting organisational transformation. When Michael Jordan stepped away from basketball in 1993 to […]

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The Institute of Entrepreneurship and Private Capital is part of London Business School.