Rob
Holmes

I have spent close to two decades working at the point where new technology meets the real world — and where that work can deliver something beyond commercial return. The question driving me has always been the same: why does the gap between what a project promises and what it actually delivers exist, and what does it take to close it? Increasingly, that question has a second part: and does it leave things better than it found them?

That thread runs from my early career in civil engineering — introducing digital technologies to improve how transportation networks function — through to building EU R&D consortiums, co-founding a health data company spun out of academic research, and growing a $200M pipeline of sustainable infrastructure projects seeking decentralised finance. In each case the work was the same at its core: helping serious organisations bridge the gap between technical possibility and commercial reality, in sectors where getting it right actually matters.

Today I work across clean energy and impact-focused Web3 ventures — leading growth and BD for Suno, which is building financial infrastructure for solar projects, and working across RampRate's portfolio of NGOs, impact organisations, and enterprises. Impact is not a marketing layer for me. It has been the consistent orientation across every role I have taken.

Within Inside Startups, I bring that same orientation to the founders I work with — combined with the experience of navigating the transition of building a new life in Barcelona, moving from employee to freelance, and becoming a father, all at the same time. That period taught me more about sustained performance under pressure than anything else I have done. It is also why I know that looking after yourself is not separate from building something that lasts. It is part of it.