Lena Fischer
Head of Platform, London
Lena Fischer runs DSD Invest's platform team, the group that works with portfolio companies on everything outside the board meeting. Since joining in 2018 she has built the firm's founder network, its programme of small peer dinners, and the shared playbooks on hiring, pricing and fundraising that companies use after the first cheque.
Lena was chief operating officer at a software company in London, which she helped grow from twenty people to three hundred. She is usually the first call when a founder needs an introduction to a customer, a lawyer or another founder who has dealt with the same problem. She keeps the playbooks short on purpose and rewrites them when they stop matching what founders actually run into.
Lena spends her holidays walking long-distance footpaths and is about two-thirds of the way along the South West Coast Path.
- Previously
- Chief operating officer at a London software company
- At DSD Invest since
- 2018
- Office
- London
Writing
Playbooks · August 12, 2026
Running a board meeting that helps you
A practical guide for founders to board meetings that earn their time: the pre-read, the agenda, how to reach decisions, and how often to meet.
Nadia Mensah and Lena Fischer
Playbooks · February 11, 2026
The first eighteen months after a seed round
What to do with the eighteen months after a seed round closes: where the money should go, what to measure, and when to start thinking about the next raise.
Hana Weber and Lena Fischer