About Us

Our Work

Pitch Guide

Get in Touch

About Us

Our Work

Pitch Guide

Get in Touch

Our Story

Our Story

Hey 👋 I'm Lisa, Founder and Managing Director of ZebraFarm.


Ruben, my co-founder, and I started ZebraFarm in 2020, as the world was turning upside down. We'd both spent years working inside startup ecosystems. We knew founders were struggling and we wanted to do something. So we started helping: by putting together free resources, sharing the frameworks we'd developed, giving founders advice.

Over time, we started working more and more with startup support programmes. Our experience going through an accelerator with our first business, our work supporting a variety of programmes as Entrepreneurs-in-Residence, combined with my PhD on accelerator design, led to our discovery that we're uniquely positioned to help people run more effective programmes. We bring the research, the founder experience, and the operational know-how to make it all work in practice.

Today, ZebraFarm designs and delivers startup programmes for universities, accelerators, VCs, and ecosystem builders across Europe and the Middle East. We're a small team, intentionally. Every programme gets our full attention.

Hey 👋 I’m Lisa, Founder and Managing Director of ZebraFarm.


Ruben, my co-founder, and I started ZebraFarm in 2020, as the world was turning upside down. We’d both spent years working inside startup ecosystems. We knew founders were struggling and we wanted to do something. So we started helping: by putting together free resources, sharing the frameworks we’d developed, giving founders advice.

Over time, we started working more and more with startup support programmes. Our experience going through an accelerator with our first business, our work supporting a variety of programmes as Entrepreneurs-in-Residence, combined with my PhD on accelerator design, led to our discovery that we’re uniquely positioned to help people run more effective programmes. We bring the research, the founder experience, and the operational know-how to make it all work in practice.

Today, ZebraFarm designs and delivers startup programmes for universities, accelerators, VCs, and ecosystem builders across Europe and the Middle East. We’re a small team, intentionally. Every programme gets our full attention.

The Team

Dr Lisa Portz

Programme Architect & Managing Director

Lisa designs and leads every programme we work on. She’s worked with thousands of founders, SME owners, and students across organisations including the London School of Economics, Imperial College London, ETH Zurich, Startupbootcamp, Impact Hub, and in5 Dubai.


She holds a PhD in Entrepreneurship from Imperial, where her research focused on how to design programmes that genuinely meet founders’ needs. She’s also a Visiting Lecturer across three Imperial departments: the Business School, Dyson School of Design Engineering, and Faculty of Medicine.


Before ZebraFarm, Lisa was Chief Commercial Officer in the early days of ORB Innovations, a SportsTech company acquired in 2023. She brings the rare combination of academic depth and sharp operational instincts, and a strong bias for getting things done.

Mallika Kumar

Strategy & Operations Associate

Mallika keeps our programmes running. She manages operations from recruitment through to post-programme evaluation: stakeholder coordination, digital workflows, programme tracking, logistics to ensure founders and participants have a well-supported experience.


Before joining ZebraFarm, she was Programme Coordinator for LSE Generate, the entrepreneurship centre of the London School of Economics, where she oversaw end-to-end operations. She holds an MSc from LSE and brings five years of experience across communications, advertising, and programme management.


She’s systems-driven but people-first. Exactly the combination you want running your programme operations.

Ruben Portz

Traction & Growth Advisor

Ruben is the COO of Novabook, a fast-growing AI-native accounting firm for startups, currently supporting over 1000 startups.


Ruben was previously Head of Growth at Seneca Learning and Growth Lead at VC firm Forward Partners. Seneca's product was grown to be used in >90% of schools in the UK, before the company was acquired by GoStudent for $50M in 2022.


Ruben has also taught entrepreneurship at Imperial College and the London School of Economics, supported hundreds of startups as an advisor and over 26,000 on Udemy.


At ZebraFarm, Ruben advises on programme design and delivers growth sessions.

Our Network

Our “Expanded” Team

Beyond the core team, we bring in trusted partners, specialist facilitators, and coaches depending on what your programme needs. Whether that’s pitch coaching, growth workshops, or sector-specific expertise, we assemble the right people.

We've worked with

We've worked with

Why Zebras?

Do you know how many startups can actually become unicorns?

Less than 1% of startups ever raise venture capital, and of those, only about 0.07% reach that $1 billion valuation. And yet, so much of the startup world is designed as if that's the only version of success worth chasing.

We think differently and believe all startups and SMEs deserve real support. A side hustle that generates £100K a year. A team of ten that grows steadily and never needs to raise a round. Or a business that raises, grows and sells for 60 million. Now, that wouldn't be a terrible outcome, would it?

These businesses are sometimes called zebras. They focus on (financial) sustainability over hype, and real progress over vanity metrics.

That's what ZebraFarm is named for. It's not anti-unicorn. It's pro-business-variety. And it shapes how we design programmes: we build for founders at every stage, with every kind of ambition. What matters is that the programme actually helps them move forward.

Let's get to know each other.

Let's get to know each other.

Let's get to know each other.

Get in touch.

Get in touch.

Get in touch.

How we support startup programs