By invitation Alternative investments — the 2026 Summit · Second edition
Where world-class capital builds enduring value.
Two curated, invitation-only days in Cambridge — a full day of sessions and an evening soirée on Thursday, and a leisurely Friday morning on the river.
Registration closes Tuesday 23 September. Every guest is approved; the guest list is never shared.
Summit
Thursday 24 September 2026
The programme
Thu 24 – Fri 25 September
Admission
By invitation · every guest approved
Your place is held for you
Invited guests enter their code and a few details — the place is confirmed on the spot. No code yet? Request an invitation and we’ll follow up personally.
The invitation
The Cambridge X-Launch Alternative Investment Summit gathers the world’s leading allocators and the managers and companies they back — convened over two days in one of the world’s great university cities. It is intimate by design: credible content by day, and the relationships that matter around it.
2026 marks X-Launch’s second year bringing the Summit home to Cambridge — building on the inaugural gathering, where many of the conversations begun in the room have continued well beyond it, and growing from a single day into two full days of content and considered company.
Across the two days you will find yourself among principals and chief investment officers of single- and multi-family offices, senior figures from private banks and wealth managers, founders and partners of leading managers, and the teams behind headline pre-IPO and public companies. The room is deliberately curated and screened for fit — quality of relationships over headcount.
a full day of sessions and an evening soirée on Thursday — a wider room, with a private space reserved for our distinguished guests — and a leisurely Friday morning on the river. Content is only ever half of it; the days are built around the conversations in between.
80+
A proven room. Our inaugural 2025 gathering welcomed more than eighty single- and multi-family offices, private banks and wealth managers to Cambridge during Cambridge Tech Week. The 2026 Summit is the second edition — deeper, and by invitation.
The rhythm of the two days
Serious content in rooms built over the centuries for considered conversation — and the time around the sessions to meet people properly.
Thursday 24 September
09:15 – 16:00 · registration from 08:45
A full day of sessions at a historic Cambridge college — eight conversations, panels and firesides, on one stage with no parallel tracks. Lunch is hosted with the room.
Dress code: business professional
Thursday evening
18:00 – 23:00
As the sessions close, the evening moves to a formal soirée in a private museum hall. Academics, founders and economists join for the evening, with a private space reserved for our distinguished guests.
Dress code: formal
Friday 25 September
from around 09:00 · farewell lunch until noon
A leisurely morning of punting along the River Cam, gliding past the Backs of the historic colleges, followed by an unhurried farewell lunch — the softest possible landing to two considered days.
Selected guests · weather permitting · dress code: casual
A detailed, timed itinerary — with venue addresses and travel notes — is shared with confirmed guests.
The programme — Thursday, hour by hour
Thursday 24 September. Doors and arrival tea from 08:45; the stage opens at 09:15 and closes at 16:00, with tea morning and afternoon and a hosted lunch. One stage, no parallel tracks.
Opening
Ella Xing, Founder, X-Launch
Fireside
Constantine Yannelis, University of Cambridge, in conversation with Tim Davis, London Stock Exchange Group
Panel
Chair: Michael Kitson, Cambridge Judge Business School · Collin Janich, BGR Group · Siddharth Shankar, Komerz
Fireside
John D’Agostino, Coinbase, in conversation with Derrick Tee, X-Launch
Fireside
Moderator: Alain Bindels, Basel Investor Forum · Alastair Beresford, University of Cambridge · Simon Goldman, AlbionVC
Panel
Moderator: Samir Ceric, Ceric & Co · Maurizio Attisani, ESL FACEIT Group · Stephen Domingo, Okapi Sports · Sasha Ryazantsev, Velocity Sports Partners
Hosted by X-Launch — the room together at one table.
Panel
Moderator: Michael Cameron, Icon Asset Management · George Chen, PolyInvest · Callum McCormick, Corner Capital Management
Fireside
Sir Vince Cable, former UK Business Secretary, in conversation with Mary Hockaday, Master of Trinity Hall
Fireside
Bernard Sabrier, Chairman of Unigestion and Vice Chairman of Sagard, in conversation with Ella Xing, X-Launch
The evening soirée follows from 18:00 — a wider room, with a private space reserved for our distinguished guests.
Every speaker appears before the whole room — and stays in it: the same lunch, the same soirée, the same conversations as every guest.
Programme and timings are indicative and may change for weather or venue reasons; confirmed guests are notified of changes. Speakers appear in a personal capacity; affiliations are shown for identification only.
The programme — on stage, by name
The voices confirmed to date — chairs, allocators, academics, founders and policymakers, listed alphabetically by first name. Further names and full session line-ups are announced on a rolling basis.
Moderator · The research frontier
Basel Investor Forum
Convenor of the Basel Investor Forum — a community of investors convened in Basel; on investing in healthcare and longevity.
Fireside · The research frontier
Head of Computer Science & Technology, Cambridge
Professor of Computer Security, head of the Computer Laboratory and Robin Walker Fellow at Queens’. Researches the security and privacy of large-scale systems and mobile devices.
Fireside · Mission-driven ownership
Chairman, Unigestion · Vice Chairman, Sagard
Vice Chairman of Sagard Holding; Chairman of Sagard MENA and Sagard Private Equity Solutions; Chairman of Unigestion Holding One and U Wealth. President of Children Action.
Panel · Secondary markets
Partner, Corner Capital Management
Late-stage AI, infrastructure and media investor for leading families and sovereign funds; formerly led Republic’s Middle East team.
Panel · Geopolitics & capital
Vice President, BGR Group
Advises US and multinational clients in energy, critical minerals and technology on Washington policy and market access. Formerly ExxonMobil and Hitachi; Cambridge MBA.
Fireside · The route to listing
Janeway Professor of Financial Economics
Deputy Director, Janeway Institute; formerly Chicago Booth and NYU Stern. AQR Young Researcher Award; Leverhulme Prize 2025.
Joining the online edition
Head of Global Investment, Infore Group
Senior Investment Director at Infore Group, a Fortune China 500 company, leading its international investment; formerly cross-border M&A at COFCO and HNA. Cambridge alumnus.
The anatomy of a fund failure
Head of Strategy, X-Launch
Leads corporate strategy, investments and partnerships at X-Launch, with a background spanning fintech, computer science and management consulting.
Your host · Opening — the state of alternatives
CEO, X-Launch
Founded X-Launch, a secondary fund and private-markets platform for pre-IPO companies and hedge funds, at King’s College, Cambridge, after a decade as a quant trader and private-equity consultant.
Panel · Secondary markets
Managing Partner, PolyInvest · Senior Advisor, X-Launch
Thirty years on Wall Street — Caxton, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, UBS and AIG. Founder and CIO of PolyInvest, New York.
The anatomy of a fund failure
Head of Strategy, Coinbase Institutional
Former Head of Strategy of the New York Mercantile Exchange; subject of two New York Times bestsellers. Lectures in fintech at Oxford, MIT and Columbia.
Chair · A less orderly world
Master, Trinity Hall, Cambridge
Controller of BBC World Service English until 2022; earlier Head of the BBC Newsroom. Board member of the British Library; author of Kafka, Love and Courage.
Panel · Sport & entertainment
Chief Technology Officer, ESL FACEIT Group
Led FACEIT’s development for over a decade and its technology integration with ESL; co-founder of BlackDuck AI and co-owner of Ravenna FC.
Panel moderator · Secondary markets
Partner, Icon Asset Management
Two decades in equity derivatives and hedge-fund strategies; works with US family offices and institutions; advises PolyInvest. Formerly BofA Merrill Lynch and Deutsche Bank.
Panel chair · Geopolitics & capital
Associate Professor, Judge Business School
Macroeconomist; Assistant Director of the Centre for Business Research and Fellow of St Catharine’s. Works on trade, innovation and economic policy, and the megatrends reshaping places and policy.
Panel moderator · Sport & entertainment
Chairman, Ceric & Co
Seventh-generation family-office chairman; investor across sport and emerging technology. Former elite athlete and club chairman, now acquiring and transforming sports teams.
Panel · Sport & entertainment
Chief Financial Officer, Velocity Sports Partners
Oversees the finances of the owners of Burnley FC and RCD Espanyol; formerly on the board of Everton FC.
Panel · Geopolitics & capital
Global COO, Komerz
Serial entrepreneur and trade-finance expert who built one of the world’s largest brand-portfolio companies to exit; now leads Komerz across the UK–India corridor.
Fireside · The research frontier
Partner, AlbionVC
Invests in therapeutics, delivery systems, diagnostics and devices. Cambridge neuroscience PhD after eight years at Goldman Sachs JBWere; joined Albion in 2015. Fellow Commoner of Queens’.
Panel · Sport & entertainment
Chief Executive & Founder, Okapi Sports
Building media rights, analytics and club equity across African sport; co-owner of Nairobi City Thunder, the first Kenyan club in the Basketball Africa League.
Fireside · The route to listing
Head, UK Primary Markets, London Stock Exchange
Leads AIM and Main Market IPOs across the Midlands, East Anglia, Cambridge and Oxford, and healthcare listings nationally; on the team delivering LSEG’s Private Securities Market.
In conversation · A less orderly world
Former UK Business Secretary
Business Secretary throughout the Coalition government; former Liberal Democrat leader and MP for Twickenham. Once Shell’s Chief Economist; author of Eclipsing the West.
Who’s in the room
Screened for fit, not headcount — three groups, convened deliberately so that capital, managers and companies meet in the same considered room.
Principals and CIOs of single- and multi-family offices, private banks and wealth managers, and select institutional allocators and HNW investors.
Founders and partners of leading managers, pre-IPO and secondaries specialists, and marquee hedge funds — many already on and around the cap table.
Investor-relations and senior teams of headline pre-IPO and public companies — on stage in the mega-cap and technology sessions.
Geography · confirmed guests travel from
Confirmed so far — further guests are confirming; a fuller picture follows on confirmation.
Admission
Invited guests register with the code from their invitation. Everyone else can request an invitation — we review every request personally.
Limited Partners
Complimentary
Family offices, private wealth and institutions attend as our guests.
Summit day
£1,350
Thursday — sessions, lunch and the evening soirée.
Two-day pass
£1,500
Both days, including Friday punting and the farewell lunch (subject to availability).
Evening soirée
£400
Thursday evening only, by invitation code. Venue details go to registered guests.
Partner and screened guests receive invitation codes that set the price automatically — complimentary codes confirm on the spot, paid tickets go to a secure Stripe checkout.
Registration closes Tuesday 23 September 2026.
Educational only
Content and networking — not investment advice or an offer of any kind.
Chatham House Rule
Discussions are held under the Chatham House Rule.
Confidential
The guest list is kept confidential and is never shared.
Programme
The detailed programme may adjust for weather or venue reasons; confirmed guests are notified of changes.
For information only — not a financial promotion, investment advice or an offer of securities. The summit provides educational content and networking. Attendance is by invitation and subject to approval; the guest list is confidential. Full venue details are shared with confirmed guests in their joining instructions. The detailed programme may change for weather or venue reasons and is not guaranteed as published; confirmed guests will be notified of any changes.
