Carmen Alfonso Rico Partner at Blossom Capital, prior to Blossom launched and led the pan-European strategy of Samaipata VC, a €100m AUM seed fund investing in digital platforms and marketplaces with offices in London, Paris and Madrid. Carmen is also the co-founder of two startups, an online fashion brand for pregnant women selling into the UK & US market and she previously co-founded a crowdsourcing journalism marketplace. Passionate about empowering early-stage entrepreneurs, she is a mentor at Techstars and co-chairs LMS (the largest community of marketplace founders in the UK). Carmen is a firm believer that diversity leads to better business decisions, she is also a founding member of the Fairer Funding Now campaign and was a mentor at Backstage Capital Accelerator.