I TELL Jemma George we should meet in her office. “I don’t have one,” she says. How very modern.

So we meet in the Cumberland hotel, a vast space of sharply angled designerdom, newly opened near Marble Arch. George sits in the window of the coffee bar, teapot and mug to hand, guiding me in by text, before greeting me with a surprisingly firm handshake.

We are meeting to talk about IP Live, her new company, floated on the Alternative Investment Market this summer, and already corralling together an interesting bunch of backers. Media investor Chris Akers, failed Co-op bidder Andrew Regan, stockbroker Charles Peel, and racehorse trainer John Hammond are believed to have stakes. Former Jaeger owner Richard Thompson, a couple of American entertainment moguls and most recently Schroders, the firm’s first institutional investor, are confirmed.

That’s quite a tally for something that is little more than an idea, with just a toe dipped in the water so far. But it’s a cute idea — IP Live wants to invest in stage and arena shows that can be rolled out worldwide, filling the glut of big venues that sit desperate for product (I’m paraphrasing her pitch here) and capitalising on the booming demand for live entertainment.

To that end the company has already bought minority stakes in Billy Elliot — The Musical, Diana: A Celebration (a touring collection from the Althorp estate), and Wonders of the Human Body, a gruesome exhibition of anatomical specimens preserved by “plastination”. More will follow, including its own productions.

Can it work? Think Lord of the Dance, the Irish toe-tapper that has toured worldwide and grossed more than $800m (£415m) between 1996 and 2002, and you get the picture. Then add in the fact that Martin Flitton, former business manager for Lord of the Dance, is business development director of IP Live, and you can see why City noses might be twitching.

But what does chief executive George know about showbiz? Just 30, trained at Rothschild and a former small-companies specialist at Investors Chronicle and Citywire, she says IP Live is the logical culmination of where her interests were leading her — a yen to bring the creative and commercial together, a clutch of contacts she had made, a knowledge of how the best small businesses are built, and a desire to run her own show.

“I met Martin when I was on Investors Chronicle and we got on well. At the time there were plans to float Unicorn, the company behind Lord of the Dance. The growth story for that company was new product, new intellectual property, and new shows. Then the flotation didn’t go ahead — you will have to ask them why — and Martin later left, but the two of us decided, why not do it anyway?”

That was three years ago. The delay since then came from getting the right structure in place. “We had to work out how we could do this in a manner that would work, and on the way we bumped into Richard Thompson.”

Serial investor Thompson, whose family used to own QPR football club, wanted to merge the venture with another of his companies, but finally underwrote the issue when IP Live floated. Now he sits as key backer (16% stake), non-executive director of the firm, and introducer of valuable contacts. Hence that interesting shareholder list.

“What we hope to show as we move forward,” continues George, “is that we take on more of a managerial role in the shows we back, whether through owning the intellectual property, or having the live rights to the intellectual property. What we have done with the first three ventures is demonstrate that we can work with big partners on strong product that already has international appeal.”

She talks confidently, precisely, like Martha Lane Fox without the jokes. As with the Lastminute.com founder, George attended a boys’ public school at sixth form — Haileybury — and has the same toughened, loquacious front.

Tall, slim and striking, immaculately turned out in flecked tweed trouser suit, she looks unflappable but confesses that, actually, this is the bit of being boss with which she is least comfortable: handling the press.