Maria is the Founding Partner at Openseed VC, first investors of up to $150k in experienced operators as they start their technology companies. Maria is an operator turned investor herself, and specializes in backing operators-turned-founders building tech startups as early as day zero.

Before transitioning to investing, a better part of the first decade of her career was spent scaling multinational technology startups like Uber and Branch.co in leadership roles such as Country Manager and General Manager.

Prior to Openseed VC, Maria was a Fund Manager at Octopus Ventures First Cheque Fund (a '10m pan European pre-seed fund) and before that, was the Managing Director of the Oxford Seed Fund - now Europe's largest student led fund.

She is a Mentor at the Creative Destruction Lab Oxford, was a mentor at the European Innovation Council, and currently sits on the Board of Advisors of the TechNation Libra in the United Kingdom.

Maria holds an MBA from the University of Oxford, a BSc. in Computer Science from Covenant University, and is also a certified Chartered Accountant with the ACCA in the United Kingdom.