We are Blackdown - founders who design, build and advise.
Between us we’ve co-founded a dozen companies spanning everything from homewares and hyperlocal news to intelligence tools and tonic water. We’ve pitched on both sides of the Atlantic, scouted for startups and helped run angel networks and accelerator programmes.
We’ve had real jobs too; B2B and B2C, corporate and SME. At Blackdown we help business owners avoid the mistakes we’ve made along the way, through honest advice and hands-on work.
Charles Osborne
Charles’ career began in digital marketing almost twenty years ago, running search engine, content and social media campaigns for big brands like Bank of America, Barclays, Electronic Arts and Porsche.
This was followed with several years working for the UK Foreign Office based out of the British Embassy in Copenhagen, working as a Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) adviser across the tech and renewable energy sectors.
From helping build out the offshore wind supply chain to connecting pension funds to infrastructure opportunities the experience and exposure were invaluable. Hosting trade missions, briefing Ministers and Ambassadors, speaking at events large and small, public and private and interacting at C-level were better than any business school syllabus.
Projects to connect Nordic and Baltic tech startups to UK based venture capital investors were what really captured Charles’ imagination however, and set him on his own entrepreneurial journey.
From getting the UK government involved in commissioning iOS apps to selling a side hustle website to a coworking space operator, it was building things from scratch that would drive the next decade of his career. Subsequent work as a venture scout involved sourcing startups for investors, followed by a stint assisting with operations and expansion of a global FinTech accelerator programme.
Work with a UK family office saw him setup an ambitious aviation venture that mixed vintage warbirds with helicopters in the skies over the south of England, where he met Blackthorn co-founder Rhianne.
Charles’ own endeavours include a hyperlocal news service, an online marketplace for used cars, a low sugar tonic water venture, a knowledge graph platform and product prototyping studio.
Most recently he’s been focused on projects including the development of data centres to support artificial intelligence in collaboration with NVIDIA and SuperMicro, scoping electric propulsion opportunities for Rolls-Royce and monitoring developments in drone and other defence technologies for private clients.
Rhianne Jacklin
Rhianne’s a high flyer in the truest sense, having started her career at a helicopter company specialising in flights over the Great Barrier Reef.
Seeing one of nature’s great marvels firsthand (and learning about the reef’s fragility) left a lasting impression, and set her on a career trajectory that would re-focus on nature and conservation.
After a stint working for a family office’s aviation hangar in the UK, Rhianne worked for a charitable foundation specialising in arts and conservation. This provided the inspiration and headspace to start the first of her own ventures - an e-commerce company designing, producing and selling sustainable homewares.
Establishing her own prototyping studio gave Rhianne space in which she could finally bring her own ideas to life. From textile products to tableware she built up a high cadence of New Product Development (NPD), prototyping in-house and working with outsourced suppliers for production.
From learning to programme CNC lasers to personally selecting lumber from sawmills and digging into Fairtrade certifications of Indian cotton producers - she demanded the highest levels of verifiable sustainability throughout the entire supply chain, for every product. And continues to do so today!
Alongside her own homewares business Rhianne spun up a portfolio of clients within the conservation sector, offering a range of sales, marketing, communications and consulting services. Customers have included rewilding pioneers the Knepp Estate - where Rhianne oversaw marketing and communications for Isabella Tree, and work with a local ecology consultancy.
The Ecology Co-op’s entire communications effort is led by Rhianne, with an exit for the founder (to a Swedish venture capital fund) coming soon after she revamped the company’s web presence, collateral and external communications. She also led the successful submission of a winning bid for the company’s largest ever contract - with Historic Royal Palaces - which will see the team performing an array of surveys at iconic sites including the Tower of London, Hampton Court Palace and Kensington Palace (a residence of the British royal family).
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