Week 16: Vivian Chan, Sparrho

The third installment of 52 Founders in London takes place at Shack15, the datascience hub in Shoreditch, where I chatted with Vivian Chan, PhD, cofounder and CEO of Sparrho, another brainchild of Entrepreneur First. Sparrho combines human and artificial intelligence to help users track science, in real time to accelerate the pace at which science is currently innovating. Preparing for this interview was like going down the rabbit hole in Alice in Wonderland, as I spent hours combing through topics that felt as though they were right out of my imagination. Sparrho’s addicting content left me intrigued to meet its PhD founder, but Vivian turned out to be more lively than the scientist I had envisioned beforehand. With parents who worked in education and grandparents who worked in publishing, founding Sparrho seems to be a natural progression of her childhood. Yet listening to her time spent at Cambridge and working in VC, Vivian exudes the constant curiosity that makes me love working with founders, and I’m thrilled to share her story with you all today.

Stage 👉 Seed
Location 👉 London
Industry 👉 EdTech

“There are two drivers that have dictated my decision making in life so far: am I always learning and am I making an impact in the world.”

In this episode you’ll hear about:

• Why innovation tends to happen at the cross-section of disciplines, and how Sparrho is helping foster that innovation
• Vivian’s childhood growing up in Australia (with parents working in education and grandparents in publishing) where she discovered a love for science
• The “contained chaos” that happens when getting a PhD at Cambridge, and the opportunities for leadership that were there
• Why the occupational and cultural diversity in London will continue to drive problem solving and lead to the creation of more startups
• The state of entrepreneurship and venture in Australia
• How learning to program gave Vivian an appreciation for logic that went beyond her education in science

Be sure to check out the end of the episode, where Vivian succinctly sums up the best piece of advice she’s ever received, the question she’d want to ask Elon Musk, and why she’d want to interview small-scale entrepreneurs.

Have a founder I should interview? Email me at crissy@52founders.com. Enjoyed the intro music? Check out Broke for Free to hear more.