Bill is a Venture Partner at SOSV, supporting, mentoring, and investing in companies and startups at all stages of growth. Bill founded SOSV’s life sciences practice in Europe, running the first complete life sciences startup development on Earth in Cork, Ireland—SynBioaxlr8r (later IndieBioEU Cork and then RebelBio at Imperial College London), which focused on entrepreneurs building technologies in or around the field of synthetic biology. Bill’s investments at SOSV include Perfect Day, Synthace, CyGenica, Hyasynth, AlgiKnit, Carverr, MavenHut, Silicon Republic, Restored Hearing, and Storyful (acquired by NEWS Corporation). Bill is also the lead investment partner on SOSV II (Ireland Fund) and is responsible for sourcing and managing investments for that fund with the Irish government.
Bill brings a wealth of experiences to SOSV, both in the public and private sectors. A co-founder of CoderDojo, a free global network formed to assist young people with learning computer programming, Bill also co-founded XING, a pioneering enterprise social networking platform. Prior to these endeavors, Bill served as COO of Davnet, a telecommunications carrier.
Bill serves as a special diplomatic envoy for St Kitt’s and Nevis, with an emphasis on sustainable development and the environment, and founded WeForest, an NGO that has planted over five million trees globally. The author of three books, Bill has been a speaker at global events such as The World Economic Forum, The Globe Forum in Sweden, TED, and TEDx, and at institutions such as The London School of Economics and The House of Commons.