Table for Ten

Built for investors. (We host monthly dinners for investors and some founders, DM for more)

Founded in 2024, Table for Ten is built around the theme of connections, relationships and people-first.

For years, the ecosystem has been riddled with backroom dealings, exclusive clubs and non-inclusive investments.

We're not changing that.
We're just different.

Co-founder - Operating Partner

Twinn Health

With Twinn’s advanced AI and MRI technology, you gain early insights into potential health risks like cancer, long before symptoms appear. Get ahead of the curve—because having the facts today means a healthier tomorrow.

Chief Revenue Officer

Squared

Squared - We make ​founders better ​fundraisers.


I also help with:

- Fractional COO/CCO (Paid)
- Startup Advisory (Paid/Equity)
- Idea to Revenue (Paid)

Clients include:
- TOSHI
- Bodo
- Evermile
- Klymb
- Deliverwize
- XeroE
- Voyage
- Cobi
- UProspr
- PediVan
- Hatch

Founder

UProspr

Connecting employers with talented people, without bias.

UProspr Language Bias Decoder helps you instantly decode hidden stereotypes in your text, catapulting your recruitment process towards true diversity.

The tool is perfect for recruiters, talent managers, and business professionals who want to make a difference.

Strategic Advisor

Cobi

Cobi, is your personal money guru, one that is a tap away living on your smartphone to help you understand your money and spend it wisely. Achieving financial independence is challenging and not understanding money makes that 10x harder, Cobi is here to make financial journeys simple and help you enjoy the things that matter most to you along the way.

Hatch Enterprise UK

Hatch Enterprise supports underrepresented entrepreneurs to develop the knowledge, confidence, and skills needed to launch and grow a business. They do this through delivering workshops, events, and 1-2-1 volunteering support, connecting entrepreneurs in a vibrant supportive community, and building networks and partnerships with other organisations who share our vision.

Operations Consultant

Jumpstart

Mentor

City, University of London

Professional Mentor

Curve Club

Curve Club is the only private members club exclusive to founders. Backed by prominent angel investors and launched in 2023, Curve is an exclusive community of high calibre founders and investors looking to stay ahead of the curve.

Founding Member

Operations Nation

Operations Nation (ON) is a community-powered digital ecosystem designed to showcase the people, systems and processes that power our businesses and make the world go round. The Community Advisory Board assists ON with bringing the ON Community to the next level and making sure that the community leaders always serve in the best interest of the group. 

As members of the Board, we 
- Give feedback on the day-to-day running of the community, along with ideas for the future and how to implement them
- Share our thoughts and perspectives on making the community work even better for everyone
- Advocate for the community and connect them to the ON Team
- Assist in sharing information with the community
- Provide our support and knowledge on specific projects

Community Advisory Board Member

Hey! You listened!

I'm Rayan 👋🏼

This is how I spend my weeks:

- I have breakfast with founders and investors
- I advise early stage startups at a board-level (for equity)
- I advise early stage startups on a practical level (for £250/month)
- I am building the future of angel investing (see Table for Ten)
- I help founders understand how to become better fundraisers (see Squared)
- I host 1:1 founder retreats just outside London (They're £1.5k - ask me about them)

And solve bunch of other things. Just message me, I'm usually responsive.
Please don't DM decks, use https://www.tableforten.ventures/apply-now to submit.

ps. You can also probably get my attention if you talk about CrossFit 🏋🏻‍♂️ or Yoga 🧘🏻‍♂️

Angel investing is broken and it’s not because there’s no money.


I’ve spoken to 14 angel investors this month.

Half said, “too early.”
The other half said, “too late.”
All of them said, “send the deck.”

Angel investing in the UK right now is weird.

We’ve got:

founders building quietly with zero safety net
angels sitting on EIS reliefs like it’s gold
everyone pretending they’re waiting for the 'right round'

Meanwhile, rounds aren’t closing, they’re drifting.
Six weeks becomes six months.
Momentum dies.

And the irony?
The same angels are posting on LinkedIn about 'supporting the next generation of founders.'

Here’s the truth:
It’s not the money that’s missing.
It’s courage.

The courage to back messy early things.
The courage to not need a co-investor.
The courage to say 'I’ll lead.'

If you’re an angel and this stings a little. Good.
We need more angels with conviction, not spreadsheets.

What’s the smallest cheque you’ve ever written that made the biggest difference? 

Mine was £100 on Seedrs (RIP)

Rayan 🎈

British founders don’t brag. And that’s exactly why they’re broke.


We build great products.
We hate talking about them.
We tell people what we’re working on, but whisper it like it’s a state secret.

I’ve met founders with £1M ARR who still say:
“Yeah, it’s going alright.”

Meanwhile, across the pond, someone with a landing page and a logo is pitching it like it’s the next AI revolution.
And they’ll get funded.

We’ll sit in Shoreditch coffee shops and complain about valuations.
They’ll announce a $3M pre-seed with a GIF.

The difference isn’t the idea.
It’s volume.
Confidence.
Narrative.

You can build quietly, but you still need to speak loudly.

If you’re building in the UK and haven’t posted about it in months…
stop being polite.
Say what you’re proud of.
Tell people what’s happening.

Because investors aren’t psychic.
And LinkedIn doesn’t reward humility, it rewards visibility.



ps. We* - I hope I embody British culture and humour, but I'm aware I look as Bahraini as they get 😆

It’s 6pm in London.
The city’s winding down, but every founder I know is still on Slack.

Half are fundraising.
Half are hiring.
All are pretending everything’s fine.

If today felt heavy, you’re not behind.
You’re just building something that doesn’t exist yet.

Close the laptop.
Walk home.
Tomorrow’s another round.

The passport, the driving licence, the bill in your name. What if you had none of them?


That question came up over breakfast with Chloe Coleman, founder of Vouchsafe.

We were talking about identity, not in the philosophical sense, but the practical kind that decides whether you can open a bank account, claim benefits, or prove your right to work.

In the UK, our entire verification system depends on two documents: a passport or a driving licence. For most of us, that’s simple. 

We have one. We upload it. Done.

But for millions of people, those documents don’t exist.

Think of someone newly arrived in the UK. Or someone who’s never needed a licence. Or anyone whose name isn’t on a utility bill because they move frequently or live in shared housing. 

Without the right paperwork, the system simply locks you out.

That’s where Vouchsafe comes in.

Chloe and her team are building a verified digital identity that can draw from multiple trusted sources: proof of address, alternative ID, verified references. It helps people access essential services without being trapped by outdated requirements.

Her idea was born from seeing, first-hand, how bureaucracy can strip people of support. When access to welfare or housing is blocked by missing documents, the consequences aren’t technical, they’re human.

In just two years, Chloe has raised over £1 million to build Vouchsafe. It’s a testament to the appetite for innovation in digital identity, but also a reflection of her resilience. 

She spoke candidly about the barriers she faced during fundraising, and how much work there still is to do to make the investment world truly equitable for female founders.

We ended the conversation talking about the future of identity. Countries like Singapore and Bahrain have long relied on national digital IDs. The UK, meanwhile, is still debating what its version could or should be, most recently with the proposed 'BritCard'.

Walking away, I kept thinking about how invisible identity can feel when you have it, and how powerful it becomes when you don’t.

Thank you as ever to Vestd for supporting our series!


-----


If you're a founder keen to meet, I'd love to have breakfast with you in London. Link to waitlists are in my featured section. Naturally, I can't meet with everyone, but I'll always try to make time to speak!


Breakfast with Founders 🥐

It’s Saturday.
No pitch decks.
No Slack pings.
Just a coffee and a slow train somewhere quieter.

The loudest work I do usually comes from the quietest moments.

We glorify 80-hour weeks,
but the truth is:
most breakthroughs don’t happen in meetings,
they happen in pauses.

Sometimes you need to zoom out to move forward.

So if you’re building this weekend,
build some silence in too.


For me, I’ve had my flat white and now sat on an train (that left on time!) out of Euston to visit family in the Chilterns.

One thing I'd do to raise for my startup now? Throw away and delete my pitch deck.


Go for one week on the same mission naked.

No, not without clothes.
Without the deck.

Let the opportunity live and breathe for what it means to you and not on the slides.

The best founders I've met that I'd invest or have invested in always got me asking the questions, digging into wanting more. 

Optimising for a pitch deck is different to optimising for conversation.

Want to try it?

1. Have three conversations with slides - just talk about the problem, your why and your learnings. It'll come, I promise.

2. Record 90 seconds of yourself talking about your why - it'll be painful, it's worth it.

3. Write down three investor questions you want asked and reverse engineer the narrative around it. You can design things to work in your favour. (This whole game is around marketing and optics)

4. Tell the story to someone outside of the startup space. It's why the 'mom/mum' test works.

5. Send your deck after, not before. Slides leave people to interpretations and assumptions - get in before that and make them obsessed with you.


Now keep your clothes on and go pitch nude. 


ffs, these analogies don't always work 🫠

Product progress rarely looks impressive.



You fix one bug.
Re-word a headline.
Change a button colour.
Then spend 40 minutes testing it.

No big launch.
No announcement.
Just invisible progress that compounds.

That’s the real product grind -
the quiet improvements that make everything feel smoother,
but no one ever notices.

The irony?
That’s also where loyalty comes from.

If users never notice your updates,
you’re probably doing it right.

Every early founder I know has spent hours in “strategy sessions.”


Whiteboards.
Sticky notes.
Post-its saying “vision, mission, values”.

And after three hours, what do we have?
A photo of a whiteboard no one will ever open again.

Startups don’t need strategy meetings.
They need decisions.

The best strategy is usually obvious.
but people overcomplicate it because “simple” doesn’t feel smart enough.

Here’s what I’ve learned:

Most “strategic alignment” is just avoiding accountability.
Most “long-term planning” is just people scared to execute.
And most “next steps” get forgotten before the tube home.

If your company needs a full-day offsite to decide what to do next,
you probably already know the answer.

You’re just afraid to say it out loud.

The time is 16:45.


I’m meant to be cleaning the dog baths.


In the corridor hacking away with Lovable on a another side project. This time a little more meaningful.

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Startup valuations are vibes, not maths.


We like to pretend valuations are logical.
That they come from a model, a forecast, a spreadsheet.

But most early-stage valuations are just vibes.

The investor’s mood.
The founder’s confidence.
The market’s hype cycle.
And the fear of missing out.

You can have two identical startups: same traction, same revenue, same team.
One raises at £3M.
The other at £12M.
The difference? Narrative.

Valuation is just the price of your story.

When the market’s hot, everything sounds like a rocket ship.
When it’s not, even great startups look “too early.”

So stop obsessing over what number’s on your deck.
Build something undeniable.
Then make sure people feel it.

Because investors don’t invest in spreadsheets,
they invest in momentum, conviction, and a founder who makes £10M sound inevitable.

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