The rest of the 100 (in alphabetical order): Emma Lloyd, Sky
Sky, an entertainment and communications business in 22 million homes across the UK, Ireland, Germany, Austria and Italy, was under offer at an enterprise value of £18.5bn ($22bn) from shareholder 21st Century Fox and going through regulatory reviews in the spring, but this has yet to stop Emma Lloyd, director of business development, strategic partnerships and investments, or her team.
The £10.75 a share offer was more than 50% up on the £7 offer made in 2010 by Fox’s predecessor, News Corp, and reflected the growth of the company and ability to tap into future opportunities, including through venturing.
Sky’s Startup Investments & Partnerships unit started officially in 2013 after Sky made a few opportunistic investments. Lloyd then called in Marek Rubasinski as director of Sky Ventures in mid-2015.
Its early success over the past three to four years include five exits to date, including 1Mainstream, acquired in October 2015 by Cisco, and Elemental, acquired the same month for $269m by Amazon. Another successful deal was its investment in virtual reality (VR) startup Jaunt in 2013, which led Sky to set up its own VR studio, launch a VR app and strike a commercial deal with the startup.
Sky has investments in 19 startups in the US and Europe and in two boutique funds. Before her current role started in 2013, Lloyd had been director of emerging products and business development director since 2008, after joining from phone operator BT.
