Best Startup
At Best Startup UK we track over 130,000 UK startups and over 500,000 people who hold key positions in these companies. We use this directory of startups to highlight top employees, founders and board members we think deserve more appreciation than they are currently getting.
This list showcases the top London based Partner operating in the E-Commerce space. If you think a Partner is missing from this list, feel free to contact our editor on editor@beststartup.co.uk.
The individuals on this list have been included because of exceptional performance in one of the following categories:
- Innovation – Operating as a key part in an extremely innovative business or startup.
- Growth – Operating as a key figure in the growth and upscale of a market leading business or startup.
- Management – Showing exceptional management skills.
- Societal impact – Putting their business on the map for their positive societal or environmental impact.
Our Data – We source our data from OSINT (open source intelligence) and public directories such as Companies House UK, Crunchbase, SemRush and many more. The data from these sources should be treated with a degree of caution and verified yourself.
Cyrus Akrami
Head of Brand Partnerships of Faire
Cyrus Akrami is the Global Head of Market Development for Workplace by Facebook. He joined Facebook in 2017 to help organisations build a more connected, next-generation workplace. He is responsible for relationships with business associations, new market development, and the growth & awareness strategy across the Americas, EMEA, and APAC. Prior to joining Facebook, Cyrus worked in a variety of B2B roles at Dropbox, including opening the company’s London offices in 2015. He started his career in investment banking at Goldman Sachs. Cyrus is a graduate of Dartmouth College.
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About Endeavor, Faire: Faire is a company that helps retailers find and buy wholesale merchandise for their stores.
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Rob Barr
Partnerships & Growth of Recharge
Rob Barr leads the agency partnership program at ReCharge, a recurring billing company for Shopify. In his role, he initiates and leads partnership deals with Shopify’s leading sites and Plus partners in the U.S., U.K., Australia and other regions. Prior to joining ReCharge, Rob was a sales engineer at Synthesio focused on driving sales to Fortune 500 companies in the EMEA. He holds a bachelors degree in Politics from Sheffield University.
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About Recharge: Recharge offers subscription management software for e-commerce businesses.
Chloe Bartle
People and Culture Partner of Trouva
Chloe Bartle is the People and Culture Partner at Trouva.
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About Trouva: Trouva, the online destination for unique products from the best curators around the world
Alan Vaksman
Founder and Managing Partner of Digital Horizon
Alan is the Managing Partner and co-founder of VC and Venture Builder, Digital Horizon. He is also Director at a number of fintech startups including YesGrowth, SteadyPay and ANNA Money UK.
Alan has over 20 years’ experience in the financial sector, having held senior roles at international banks and leading consulting companies in South Africa and Europe including PWC, KPMG, Goldman Sachs and First National Bank. He has lived and worked in numerous countries around the world, and this experience has made Alan a passionate advocate for immigrant-led businesses.
Alan is also a successful startup co-founder. Since founding Digital Horizon, Alan has built and exited Factorin, a blockchain trade finance platform digitizing processes across buyers, sellers, and banks and Aximetria, a Swiss crypto financial services provider. His experience also includes investing in Monday (IPO), Lemonade (IPO), Market Kurly, Carta, Relativity Space and others.
Alan has an economics and psychology bachelor’s degree, a postgraduate law degree from the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa and an MBA degree from NYU Stern School of business (USA), LSE (UK), HSE (France) under TRIUM eMBA program.
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About Digital Horizon: Digital Horizon is a next generation venture capital firm headquartered in London.
Digital Horizon has substituted the traditional approach to venture capital investment for its ‘new age’ methodology, which accelerates return on investment at every stage, minimizes risk and maximizes profitability. Digital Horizon supports and empowers passionate founders, especially migratory and diverse talents, who are creating enduring and meaningful start-ups.
Digital Horizon manages two multistage funds, a growth fund and a venture builder, and predominantly focuses on the fintech and enterprise software sectors. Its funds have invested in a portfolio of successful start-ups including Klarna, Lemonade, Monday.com, Ably, and Bolt.
Digital Horizon was founded in 2018 by Alan Vaksman, a venture capitalist and banker with over 20 years of experience in UK, Europe, and Africa. It now employs almost 100 specialists with expertise in VC, IT and product development.
Constantine Louloudis
Head of Partnerships of Let’s Do This
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About Let’s Do This: Let’s Do This is an online marketplace that features almost every endurance event on the planet.
Spyro Korsanos
Founder & Managing Partner of Fuse Venture Partners
An award-winning corporate advisor, investor and dealmaker, Spyro Korsanos is the founder and Managing Partner of Global Venture Partners. Global Venture Partners invests in the consumer internet sector and provides strategic advice and corporate finance for technology ventures. Since 2014, Spyro has led over 40 e-commerce transactions, valued at $2bn, which have created more than €1bn in capital gain. As a global development advisor, Spyro has been instrumental in the impressive growth of Delivery Hero, foodpanda and various Rocket Internet-backed businesses. Global Venture Partners has recently invested in Kurly, the Korean online grocer, and pet tech platform Felcana, based in the UK. Spyro was awarded TMT Rising Star in 2017. Previously, he held corporate strategy and investment roles with Sky, Liberty Global and Cable & Wireless. Spyro started his career as a corporate lawyer at Gilbert & Tobin and holds an MBA from INSEAD.
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About Fuse Venture Partners: FUSE VENTURE PARTNERS Investors in, and advisors to, investors and ventures in the high-growth internet space
Cliff Hinrichs
Venture Partner of Fuse Venture Partners
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About Fuse Venture Partners, Steele Ventures: FUSE VENTURE PARTNERS Investors in, and advisors to, investors and ventures in the high-growth internet space
Ryan Collins Thomas
Head of Strategic Partnerships of Shoprocket
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About Shoprocket: Sell from your existing website, social media and more, in minutes
Paul Smith
New Business Director Partnerships of JustPremium
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About JustPremium: The World’s most innovative Rich Media Marketplace – We bring creativity to digital advertising
Ali Beklen
Founder and Managing Partner of HotelRunner
After working for several financial institutions and IBM, Ali Beklen co-founded HotelRunner with Arden Agopyan, with the ambition of converting the long-tail accommodation sales and distribution management from offline to online at global scale. For the last 10 years, he has been advising many organizations and initiatives focusing on digital transformation of the travel industry globally. He has publications in international refereed journals and conferences about service and cloud computing. He is Advisory Chair for Software Service Computation at the International Academy, Research and Industry Association. Beklen holds an M.Sc. in Computer Engineering and a B.A. in Economics. He is also a PhD candidate in computer engineering.
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About HotelRunner: SaaS enabled B2B network for accommodations and travel agencies to find, contract, connect, and transact with each other online.
Arden Agopyan
Founder and Managing Partner of HotelRunner
Arden Agopyan is an experienced entrepreneur and business development executive with a proven track record. Prior to founding HotelRunner, he led IBM’s Cloud Computing Software technical sales and market creation activities across Central and Eastern Europe, Russia, Middle East and Africa. His areas of expertise also include international team management, business execution, strategic marketing and financial management. As a talented hacker coming from software development background, along twenty years of business experience in technology, Arden is a Ph.D. candidate in Finance, holds a BSc in Computer Engineering degree and an MBA. Arden speaks five languages and is also Advisory Chair for Cloud Computing at International Academy, Research and Industry Association and co-author of a book, academic journals and articles.
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About HotelRunner: SaaS enabled B2B network for accommodations and travel agencies to find, contract, connect, and transact with each other online.
Marion Feldhofer
SVP Corporate Partnerships of Green Man Gaming
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About Green Man Gaming: Green Man Gaming is a global pure play e-commerce and technology business in the video games industry.
Talal Cheaib
Partner / Operations Director of Slidr
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About Slidr: SLIDR is a dynamic pricing technology allowing customers to buy products/services at prices always lower than retail
Cynthia Nadal
Head of Partnerships of KIDSORTED
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About KIDSORTED: KIDSORTED is a technology platform for kids activities and services.
Ruth Mortimer
Managing Partner of Econsultancy
Ruth Mortimer is Managing Partner for Econsultancy, which provides digital transformation services through content, research, training, capability work and data. She was formerly the director of the award-winning Festival of Marketing and content director for Centaur Marketing, which comprises Marketing Week, Econsultancy, Festival of Marketing, Creative Review, Design Week, Celebrity Intelligence, Fashion/Beauty Monitor, Year Ahead and Foresight News. She is a PPA award-winning writer and author of five books on marketing. She is regularly asked to host events for brands such as Google and remains on the advisory board for the Festival of Marketing, which under her tenure, featured high profile figures such as Apple founder Steve Wozniak, 13 simultaneous stages, an awards scheme, a gig and a partner fringe programme.
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About Econsultancy: Econsultancy publishes research, analysis and advice on digital marketing, social media, e-commerce, SEO, mobile and tech for businesses.
Giga Zulmat
Head of Partnerships of Earthmiles
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About Earthmiles: Track and be rewarded for your healthy and fit activities. Get exclusive deals on the widest range of fitness products.
Maya Bogle
Founder and Head of Agency Partnerships of Talenthouse
Maya Bogle is one of the Founders of Talenthouse, a platform dedicated to developing creative talent around the World with the technology to become the largest source of creative solutions for brands. Talenthouse meets the rapidly growing demand amongst brand owners to deliver these solutions at speed, at scale, with cultural relevance and at competitive cost. Maya is championing this cause and has over 25 years experience in media. She speaks regularly at conferences including Cannes Lions, Social Media Week New York, AdWeek Europe, Crowdsourcing Week Singapore, the London F.ounders Conference, Tech City Insider, the Media Summit Manchester, Ibiza Music Video Festival, Silicon Beach EU, NOAH and numerous educational establishments.
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About Talenthouse: 14.6 million strong global creative community power leading brands globally
Roheel Ahmad
Managing Partner of Forsyth Barnes
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About Forsyth Barnes: Executive Search & Senior Interim Specialists within Fintech, Software & Etail industries.
Sarah Bardsley
Partnerships Manager of SNAPCAM
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About SNAPCAM: Our mission is to make it easy and affordable to have beautiful photobooks delivered direct to your door.
