Cyclist killed on Bow roundabout named as Venera Minakhmetova
Venera Minakhmetova - Credit: Archant
Work colleagues and friends have been playing tribute to high-tech entrepreneur Venera Minakhmetova, the young cyclist killed on the A11 Bow Roundabout in east London yesterday.
The 24-year-old Russian, who was living in Bethnal Green, was in collision with a lorry at 8.45am yesterday and was pronounced dead at the scene.
Venera, a technology start-up founder at Simple2Connect in Shoreditch, is believed to have been cycling west along the A11 towards Mile End when she was in collision with a lorry. The driver stopped at the scene and was interviewed by police, but there have been no arrests.
Venera’s Simple2Connect business produced an app which creates a geographical networking for digital start-up companies.
She created it with a friend, combining their corporate finance and video games backgrounds.
News of Venera’s death was greeted with shock at the Central Working business start-up centre in Shoreditch where she had set up her high-tech operation.
“This is the first I have head of Venera’s death,” said the centre’s Toby Payne. “I knew there had been a cyclist killed yesterday, but didn’t know it was her. It is tragic.”
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Venera was a popular figure at the centre. Polly Crawley, who looks after its public relations, said: “A lot of people knew Venera—she was well-known in the community.”
The centre in Bonhill Street near the Old Street Tech City roundabout, is expected to help 22,000 digital businesses during the next five years, offering young entrepreneurs like Venera the infrastructure to “create the connections, momentum and recognition” to expand and develop as a team. Central Working’s chief executive James Layfield was voted 2012 Entrepreneur of the Year.
Just hours after Venera’s death at Bow Roundabout, 1,000 people took part in a London Cycling Campaign protest vigil which brought last night’s rush-hour traffic to a stop at the accident spot.
Five people have now died on the roads in London in the past nine days, three of them along the A11 in east London. The latest was in Whitechapel late last night involving a double-decker bus, just hours after the vigil for Venera Minakhmetova.
Det Sgt Stuart Henson, from the Met Police Road Death Investigation Unit, said: “It is vital that we piece together the series of events which led to Venera’s tragic death. I am appealing to anyone who witnessed the accident to contact police.”
Anyone with information is being asked to call the witness appeal line on 020-8597 4874.
