The rest of the 100 (in alphabetical order): Julie Cranston, executive director, Cove Fund II

As executive director of the $14m seed capital vehicle Cove Fund II, based at University of California (UC) Irvine, Julie Cranston has responsibility for dealflow tracking and investor relations.

Having reached its initial close in January 2018, Cove Fund II aims to invest in up to 25 seed-stage companies based in southern California over the next four years. It will focus on the technology and life sciences sectors and, in particular, on businesses that are “rapidly scalable”. The fund is co-managed by Mike Benvenuti, Howard Mirowitz and Paul Voois.

Cove Fund II is headquartered in the Cove accelerator and incubator service at UC Irvine Applied Innovation. Its predecessor, the $6m Cove Fund I, began investing in 2015 and has 16 companies in its portfolio.

In addition to her role at UC Irvine, Cranston owns and runs Cranston Group, a business process service provider aimed at startups and small companies.