Simon Barnes is a co-founder and managing partner of Circadia Ventures LLP. Circadia has £55m under management in the form of two venture funds backed by Tate & Lyle the global food ingredient company. He has a background in life sciences venture capital, first with the London office of Atlas Venture and subsequently with GIMV Venture Capital. He has focused on investing in early stage life sciences ventures throughout his career. He currently serves as a director of Aquapharm Biodiscovery Ltd. (UK), Allylix Inc. (USA), Lumora Ltd. (UK) and Fugeia NV (Belgium). Simon was trained as a scientist and has a first class honours degree in Natural Sciences and a PhD from The University of Cambridge. He spent two years as a NATO Research Fellow at The Rockefeller University in New York, before becoming Head of The Laboratory of Cotton Biotechnology in Singapore. He holds an MBA with Distinction from Imperial College Business School, later joining the faculty as a lecturer and becoming Director of Imperial’s Entrepreneurship Centre for three years. During this time he taught the MBA courses in entrepreneurship and venture capital, published a number of research papers and case studies in the field and co-authored ‘Raising Venture Capital’ (Wiley 2006). He returned to the VC industry in 2006, founding Circadia Ventures with David Atkinson.