Barry Downes

Barry Downes is an experienced technology investor, entrepreneur and technologist with extensive domain experience in Artificial Intelligence, Security Technologies and Immersive Technologies. Barry is Managing Partner and Co-Founder of Sure Valley Ventures, which he founded in 2017. He is a software founder turned investor, having founded several technology businesses throughout his career, including FeedHenry, a leader in mobile cloud technologies, which was sold to Red Hat/ IBM in 2014. Previously, Barry was CEO of the leading academic software research and futurist institute, the Walton Institute, which worked with many of the top Silicon Valley and European global software companies on advanced technology research and futurist projects. He is also an advisor to the European Commission’s European Innovation Council, which is focused on developing Europe’s next unicorns with an allocated budget of over €1 billion. Barry holds a BSc in Applied Computing from Waterford Institute of Technology, an MBA from Smurfit Business School, University College Dublin and executive qualifications from Henley Business School in the UK, Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Massachusetts and Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkley, in Venture Capital. He is also a Certified Investment Fund Director (CIFD), awarded by the Institute of Banking (IOB) and is registered with the FCA.