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 United Kingdom based Founder operating in the Angel Investment space. If you think a Founder 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.
Stuart Marks
Founder and Chairman of L Marks
Stuart Marks is a successful entrepreneur who has built and sold four businesses over the past 25 years. They have spanned several sectors including CRM, location-based services and digital media. Every company applied innovation to challenge existing business models. Stuart has worked with a diverse and international customer-base including Sainsbury’s, British Airways, Unilever, Vodafone, BMW and various government agencies across the world. His previous company, ITIS Holdings plc, was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was Europe’s leading provider of real-time traffic information and connected car technology. The first company to commercialize crowdsourced data from GPS devices and mobile phone networks, Stuart sold the firm in 2011 to Washington-based INRIX before going on to establish L Marks to invest in the entrepreneurs of tomorrow.
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About a2om international, L Marks: L Marks is the trusted partner for global businesses, powering corporate innovation and fuelling growth
David Mickler
Founder of QVentures
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About QVentures: QVentures is a Venture Capital firm providing direct investment opportunities and fund management.
Matt Hagger
Founder & CEO of E-Man Venture Labs
English born entrepreneur and investor in the technology space. He is widely regarded as one of the country’s most influential product directors with a focus on customer behaviour, user experience and logic, winning many awards for his work, as a founder or consultant/advisor to major global consumer brands and high paced start ups. At only 21, Matt created Net Sorcerer; the first real-time desktop news alerts platform in the UK, winning a patent & innovation award from the UK’s DTI, raising investment in excess of $500,000. The platform was later adopted by Sky News/Sports to deliver breaking content in real-time. Matt creates and incubates technology out of his startup studio e-Man labs whom he Founded after graduating from business school aged 21. The company now boasts 7 figure turnovers with a small but dedicated team of 26. E-Man is incubating AR game Snatch and doctors on demand service, Zoomdoc. Both set to launch out of beta in Early 2017. Matt is in the Co-Founding team and was an initial shareholder, in both. Matt is an investor and Co-Founder of Bizk.it a business tools platform for start ups and small business owners. He also has an investment in Redeemia, which launched in September 2012 and followed this with investments in Pocket High Street, Juxtafeed, Burn This (acquired by BodyBoard), 123 Friday and Octane Inc in 2014. In 2016 Matt invested in ANA, Wise Amigo, Zoomdoc, 123 Friday and Snatch. Matt was the Founder and CEO of Samsung Ventures funded, Zkatter, in San Francisco until 2013 and now he spends his time based London with offices in Los Angeles as he works on the launch and scale of a start up called Doppels, based in Venice Beach. Matt remains the company’s Co-Founder and CEO.
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About E-Man Venture Labs, Snatch: e-Man is a start up studio and launches 3-5 companies per year
Eugene Kouumdjieff
Co-Founder of E-Man Venture Labs
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About E-Man Venture Labs, Redeemia: e-Man is a start up studio and launches 3-5 companies per year
Severine Balick
Partner & Co-Founder of Middleland Capital
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About Middleland Capital: Middleland Capital is a private investment firm focused on global early-stage technology opportunities.
Scott Weavers-Wright
Founder, CEO & Partner of Haatch
Scott is best-known for founding one of Britain’s largest e-commerce businesses Kiddicare.com which was subsequently acquired in cash for £70m, by Morrisons, one of the UK’s largest supermarkets. Reaching 6th on the Retail-Week Power List, Scott is regarded by many as one of the UK’s most innovative business professionals in retail. After the Kiddicare acquisition, Scott became Managing Director and Chief Architect for Morrisons.com and has a wealth of experience in building and scaling large e-commerce businesses across the UK, most notably Kiddicare.com. Founding Haatch, Scott has invested in, and developed businesses in the areas of ad tech, B2B SaaS (software as a service) and retail tech within the FMCG market including Elevaate, founded in 2014, enabling supplier monetisation programs across retailer websites.
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About Haatch, Kiddicare: Award-Winning Investors from Pre-Seed to Exit. Investments via Haatch Angel and our SEIS, EIS & Follow On funds from Haatch Ventures.
Fred Soneya
Co-Founder & Partner of Haatch
Fred was responsible for a number of high profile, large-scale innovation projects across one of the UK’s largest e-commerce businesses Kiddicare.com and post-acquisition, supermarket giant Morrisons. Fred created award-winning, digital customer experiences bridging the online-offline gap in one of the UK’s largest grocers, Morrisons. This included the launch of browse and order points, mobile payments and electronic shelf edge labels powered by early stage technology companies. To achieve this Fred worked with cutting edge early stage technology start-ups to integrate and piece together award-winning customer experiences. Co-founding Haatch in 2013, Fred runs the investment process end-to-end and works with portfolio businesses in advisory and board roles.
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About Haatch: Award-Winning Investors from Pre-Seed to Exit. Investments via Haatch Angel and our SEIS, EIS & Follow On funds from Haatch Ventures.
Robert Sansom
Founder of Cambridge Angels group
Dr. Robert Sansom is the Board Chairman of Netronome Systems Inc. He is an active angel investor and mentor to start-up businesses in the UK and US. He is a Member of the Board of Directors of Azuro, Inc., a start-up developing tools to reduce power requirements on integrated circuits; Tenison Technology, which delivers software tools that enable hardware and software engineers designing integrated circuits to work together; Fetch, Inc., which delivers tools and services that integrate Internet-available data sources; and Ubisense, Ltd, which is the market leader in indoor, 3D location-detection systems. In September 2001, he Co – Founded, and currently is Chairman of, Cambridge Angels, a group of seasoned technology and bio-technology entrepreneurs who invest in and mentor technology start-ups in the Cambridge area. In 1990, Dr. Sansom Co – Founded FORE Systems, a data communications company which became the leading developer of ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) networks. Dr. Sansom was initially responsible for FORE’s finance and business strategy, including raising venture capital, then ran the software engineering group, building it up to a team of 200 engineers, and finally became responsible for technical strategy as Chief Technology Officer. Dr. Sansom was also a Member of the Board of Directors of FORE. In 1999, when it employed over 2,000 employees and had annual revenues of over $600 million, FORE was sold to Marconi (previously GEC plc) for $4.5 billion. Dr. Sansom continued as Marconi’s Chief Technology Officer until April 2000. Dr. Sansom has a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, USA. An M.A. in Computer Science from the University of Cambridge, England.
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About Cambridge Angels group, Creative Destruction Lab (CDL), Myrtle Software: The Cambridge Angels are a group of high-net worth investors who have proven experience as successful entrepreneurs in internet, software,
David Cleevely
CoFounder of Cambridge Angels group
David Cleevely (FREng, FIET) is an entrepreneur and international telecoms expert who has built and advised many companies, principally in Cambridge, UK. He has invested in over 35 companies (including Neul). David was founder and former Chairman of telecoms consultancy Analysys (acquired by Datatec International in 2004). In 1998, he co-founded the web based antibody company Abcam (ABC.L) with Jonathan Milner and was Chairman until November 2009. In late 2004 he co-founded the 3G femto base station company, 3WayNetworks, which was sold to Airvana in April 2007. He has been a prime mover behind Cambridge Network, co-founder of Cambridge Wireless, co-founder and Chairman of Cambridge Angels and is a member of the IET Communications Policy Panel. For 8 years until March 2009 he was a member of the Ofcom Spectrum Advisory Board. From 2001 to 2008 David was a member of the Ministry of Defence Board overseeing information systems and services (DES-ISS, formerly the Defence Communications Services Agency).
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About Cambridge Angels group: The Cambridge Angels are a group of high-net worth investors who have proven experience as successful entrepreneurs in internet, software,
Doug Richard
Founder of Cambridge Angels group
Doug Richard is a successful entrepreneur with 20 years’ experience in the development and leadership of technology and software ventures. Doug featured in the first two TV series’ of Dragon’s Den. He is the co-founder of the Cambridge Angels and Chairman of the Conservative Party Small Business Task Force. Between 1996 and 2000 Doug was President and CEO of Micrografx, a publicly quoted US software company. Prior to that he also founded and subsequently sold two other companies: Visual Software and ITAL Computers. Doug holds a BA in Psychology from University of California at Berkeley and is a Juris Doctor at the school of Law, University of California at Los Angeles. In 2009 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Essex for his contribution to the teaching of Entrepreneurship; and was also the Guest Lecturer on Entrepreneurship at Cambridge University for the Nanotech Masters and PhD programmes. Working with Brightpearl, Doug provides a strong link to the SME community as well as bringing a broad range of international industry experience to the board.
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About Cambridge Angels group, School for Startups Romania: The Cambridge Angels are a group of high-net worth investors who have proven experience as successful entrepreneurs in internet, software,
Amber Ghaddar
Founder of AllianceBlock
Amber Ghaddar is one of the three founders of AllianceBlock. The DeFi startup building the world’s first globally compliant decentralized capital market. Prior to this, Amber held various leadership positions at JP Morgan, in sales, structuring and trading where she spearheaded the macro systematic trading strategies team. She holds 3 masters and a PhD and is a graduate of McGill Canada and HEC France. Amber is a thought leader on participative capitalism and the creator of calibrocracy which she discussed in various events (WEF, TEDx, UNWomen, BBC, Bloomberg…).
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About AllianceBlock: AllianceBlock leverages proprietary AI-technology to rate both corporates and investors.
Stephen Welton
Founder,CEO of Business Growth Fund
Stephen Welton has over 20 years of experience in the development capital and private equity industry. He joined Business Growth Fund (BGF) after 10 years with CCMP Capital (formerly JP Morgan Partners) a global private equity firm. Stephen was a Founder Partner and member of the investment committee. He has extensive experience as an investor working with private companies, most recently as Chairman of Edwards, the global engineering group headquartered in the UK. Before this, he was Chairman and CEO of TV Travel Shop prior to its successful sale to a global media group. He also has 10 years of UK private equity and growth capital experience as Managing Director of Barclays Private Equity and at Henderson Ventures, which he co-founded. In January 2013, Stephen joined the advisory group formed specifically to guide the UK government on the direction and priorities of the proposed Business Bank, a Government funded institution looking to provide lending and support to small and mid-sized businesses. He started his career in banking, has a law degree from Durham University and is a qualified Barrister-at-Law. Stephen became Chief Executive of BGF in 2011 and is responsible for overall strategy and day to day management of BGF, as well as chairing the Investment Committee.
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About Business Growth Fund: Business Growth Fund is an influential investor in small and mid-sized businesses.
Laurent Laffy
Founder and Executive Chairman of SeedLegals
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About Prepay Technologies, SeedLegals: The simple way for companies to complete the legals needed to raise investment and distribute equity
Anthony Drogon
Founder & CTO of SeedLegals
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About SeedLegals: The simple way for companies to complete the legals needed to raise investment and distribute equity
Sean Stiefel
Portfolio Manager & Founder of Navy Capital
Sean Stiefel founded Navy Capital in 2014, where he manages a long/short portfolio structured to minimize beta to the overall market by using bottom-up and fundamental analysis. Prior to founding Navy Capital, Mr. Stiefel was a research analyst and trader for Northwoods Capital Management Partners, a global long/short fund with a fundamental value and special situations investment strategy. Mr. Stiefel had previously served as an associate within an equity long/short fund at Millennium Partners, and he began his career as an equities trading analyst for Barclays Capital. He is a graduate of the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business.
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About Navy Capital: Navy Capital is focuses on identifying attractive opportunities within the legal cannabis space.
Harry ‘Tomi Davies
Co-Founder and President of African Business Angel Network
Harry Tomi Davies (TD) is a versatile technology business leader, keynote speaker and advisor with over two decades of outstanding experience building large-scale, national and regionwide IT infrastructure projects across Africa. He has held a variety of executive and non-executive leadership roles with influential global brands like Ernst & Young, Marks & Spencer, Elf, Sapient and the One Laptop Per Child project. Over the last decade TD has looked after a growing portfolio of Africabased tech-enabled early stage businesses and is the Founder of the Lagos Angel Network (LAN). He is also President of the African Business Angel Network (ABAN). He is a seasoned technology strategist and project development expert with significant market intelligence, research and project management skills. Author and regular keynote speaker with a substantial network of connections globally including on most major social media platforms. He is an inspiring thought leader TD is a volunteer to a number of non-profit organizations and Guest lecturer at the Pan Atlantic University’s Enterprise Development Centre. His rich and varied experience has been leveraged by organisations for advisory services, speaking engagements and nonexecutive board roles at companies like MBO Capital Limited (Private Equity), TextNigeria Limited (Telecoms) and Sproxil Nigeria (Anti-Counterfeit Technologies)
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About African Business Angel Network: ABAN is a non-profit association that seeks to promote a culture of Angel investing across Africa.
Gianluca D’Agostino
Co-Founder of The Techshop
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About AppQuality, Artemest, Bango, Contents.com, Direttoo.it, Emotion Network, Endeavor, Fanbytes, Italian Angels for Growth, Mukako, OnMobile, The Techshop: The Techshop is a venture capital and private equity firm that invests in B2B digital startups.
Mike Lebus
Founder & Director of Angel Investment Network
Mike Lebus is the Co-Founder and Director of Angel Investment Network Ltd, the world’s largest business angel network with over 400,000 members and 30 networks covering over 80 countries worldwide. He is also a regular author and blogger on topics related to angel investing and raising capital. He has a Master’s Degree in German and French from the University of Edinburgh.
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About Angel Investment Network: Angel Investment Network angel investment platform, funding platform, startup investment, entrepreneurs, angel investors,
James Badgett
Co-Founder of Angel Investment Network
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About Angel Investment Network: Angel Investment Network angel investment platform, funding platform, startup investment, entrepreneurs, angel investors,
Prakash Pilley
Co-Founder of Innovify
Founder at Innovify
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About CodeMonk.ai, Innovify: Innovify is a digital venture studio enabling startups and corporates to convert their ideas in to Most Lovable Products
Ruchit Jani
Co-Founder of Innovify
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About Innovify, Matangi Industries LLP: Innovify is a digital venture studio enabling startups and corporates to convert their ideas in to Most Lovable Products
David Forbes-Nixon
Co-Founder,Chairman & CEO of Alcentra Group
David is the co-founder, Chairman and Chief Executive of Alcentra. David chairs the Alcentra European Investment Committee and acts as Senior Portfolio Manager of Alcentra’s distressed/Special Situations funds and Strategic Credit Fund. He also acts as Senior Portfolio Manager of the Special Situations business. David sits on the Executive Committee of BNY Mellon Investment Management and the BNY Mellon Operating Committee.Prior to founding Alcentra, David worked at Barclays Capital from 1995 to 2003 where he was Managing Director, Founder and Chief Investment Officer of Barclays Capital Asset Management, a wholly owned subsidiary of Barclays Group Plc and the predecessor firm of Alcentra. Whilst he was at Barclays he set up the par loan trading business and served as a Director of the Loan Market Association (LMA) and chaired the LMA Valuation Committee.David worked at Bankers Trust from 1992 to 1995 where he was a Vice President and head of European leveraged loan distribution and prior to that worked at Chemical Bank from 1987 to 1992 in New York and London in the structured finance and loan syndication departments.David graduated from Birmingham University with a BSc (Hons) in Chemical Engineering.
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About Alcentra Group: Alcentra is a global asset management firm focussed on sub-investment grade corporate credit.
Anthony Lyall
Managing Director and Co-Founder of Lyall Ventures
Anthony Lyall is the managing director and co-founder at Lyall Ventures.
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About Lyall Ventures, NOTWICS: Lyall Ventures is an angel investment company that focuses on travel and travel technology start-ups.
Lars Kroijer
Founder & MD of AlliedCrowds
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About AlliedCrowds: AlliedCrowds combines technology, data, and finance to scale the sustainable development goals.
Ryuji Yasukagawa
Co- Founder of Corrob
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About Corrob: Corrob is an online platform to help Angels and VCs manage their deal flow process better by enabling a customisable.
Elio Assuncao
Founder of Venture Capital World Summit
Serial entrepreneur with over 15+ years experience in technology analysis, artificial intelligence development and venture capital investment events. Passionate about Innovation with an open mind to What is Next, with a reputation for knowledge and where others look for inspiration and ideas. Pioneer in creating a personal vast online international network of key global players, which has enabled the vision to create the Venture Capital World Summit Series of events. Has been organizing events since 2012 (including Hero Business Club) and thus helped many businesses and entrepreneurs to develop and grow at all levels. Also a director at Startup Grind.
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About Venture Capital World Summit, Venture Capital World Summit: Venture Capital World Summit, World Series Seasons of Investment Conferences. Global community for Investors and Investees. .
Alex Philips
Founder of Advenjo
Founder at Advenjo
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About Advenjo: Advenjo Unveils A Social Networking Platform For Travel Enthusiasts
