Sonali De Rycker and Niklas Zennström join TechCrunch Disrupt London, Dec 5-6

TechCrunch Disrupt London is happening once again this December and we have some of the most iconic entrepreneurs and thought leaders in the tech industry lined up to speak. The two-day conference runs December 5 to 6 in the Olympic Village’s Copper Box Arena and features Startup Alley and Startup Battlefield where one startup will take home £30,000. You can buy early-bird tickets for Disrupt London here, but hurry!

We’re delighted to start announcing our first speakers for the event and the first ones are pretty well-known.

Sonali De Rycker

Sonali De Rycker joined Accel in 2008 and helps lead the London office. Sonali focuses on consumer, software and financial services businesses. She led Accel’s investments in Avito (Naspers), Lyst, Spotify, Wallapop, KupiVIP, Calastone, Wonga and SilverRail. She is also an independent director of Match Group, Inc (public). Prior to Accel, Sonali was with Atlas Ventures. She grew up in Mumbai and graduated from Bryn Mawr College and Harvard Business School.

Niklas Zennström is CEO and Founding Partner at Atomico. He is an experienced entrepreneur, previously co-founding and managing globally successful technology companies including Skype, Kazaa, Joost and Joltid.
In 2006 Niklas created Atomico to help entrepreneurs primarily outside Silicon Valley to scale their businesses domestically and globally. It has so far invested in more than 50 companies on four continents, and Niklas works closely with a number of leaders of portfolio companies so that they benefit from his own experience as an entrepreneur.

Before starting Atomico, Niklas co-founded Skype, where he held the position of CEO from its inception until September 2007. In 2005, Skype was sold to eBay Inc for $3.1bn, the largest European venture capital exit to date. Subsequent to this, Skype was bought back by a consortium that included Niklas, and was sold to Microsoft for $8.5 billion cash in 2011.

In 2006, Niklas was recognised by Time Magazine as one of its 100 Most Influential People, and he has received numerous awards for entrepreneurship including being voted Entrepreneur of the Year in the European Business Leaders Awards (2006), the KTH Great Prize from the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden (2009), the Oxford Internet Institute’s Lifetime Achievement Award (2011), H.M. The King’s Medal (2013), and the Gold Medal from the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (2013).

In 2007, he co-founded Zennström Philanthropies, where he is actively involved in combating climate change, improving the state of the Baltic Sea and encouraging social entrepreneurship. Niklas is also a keen yachtsman, and has won three Mini Maxi World Championships and one TP52 World Championship with his yacht racing team Rán.

TechCrunch Disrupt is a big event, and, of course, we’ll have parties. Lots of ’em!

Extra early bird tickets are now available to purchase for the discounted price of just £800 a piece. Or sign up with a co-worker and you can save an additional £100 off each ticket with our multi-ticket (2+) discount. You can get your tickets at this price until September 16.

For all you students out there, the deal is about to get even sweeter. We have a limited selection of student tickets to Disrupt London 2016 for just £100 plus VAT, provided you have both a valid university ID and current transcripts.

To reserve your £100 student tickets to Disrupt, simply send a copy of your transcripts showing your current enrollment status, as well as a copy of your university identification card to students@beta.techcrunch.com. Once you’re approved, we’ll send you instructions for how to complete your registration.

Our sponsors help make Disrupt happen. If you are interested in learning more about sponsorship opportunities, please contact our sponsorship team at sponsors@beta.techcrunch.com.