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 Cambridgeshire based Partner operating in the Venture Capital 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.
Hermann Hauser
Co-founder, Director, and Venture Partner of Amadeus Capital Partners
Hermann Hauser co-founded Amadeus Capital Partners in 1997 with Anne Glover and Peter Wynn. In his long and successful history as an entrepreneur and venture capitalist, Hermann has founded or co-founded companies in a wide range of technology sectors. These include Acorn Computers (where he helped spin out ARM), Active Book Company, Virata, Net Products, NetChannel and Cambridge Network Limited. He was a founder director of IQ (Bio), IXI Limited, Vocalis, SynGenix, Advanced Displays Limited (acquired by Cambridge Display Technology), Electronic Share Information Limited, E*Trade UK and has supported many other start-ups. Hermann’s successes at Amadeus include: CSR plc (LON: CSR); Entropic Research Laboratory (acquired by Microsoft in 1999); Solexa (acquired by Illumina in 2007); and Icera (acquired by Nvidia in 2011). He is currently a non-executive director of XMOS, a company that is revolutionising re-configurable silicon chips; Intune Networks, a pioneer in the field of Optical Packet Switch & Transport; Tobii, the world leader in eye tracking and gaze detection; Plastic Logic, the first company to commercialize flexible plastic transistors (currently used in computer displays); and Cambridge Broadband Networks, a leader in point-to-multipoint wireless backhaul products. Hermann holds an MA in Physics from Vienna University and a PhD in Physics from the University of Cambridge. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics and of the Royal Academy of Engineering, and an Honorary Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge. Hermann holds honorary doctorates from the Universities of Bath, Loughborough and from Anglia Ruskin University and was awarded an Honorary CBE for ‘innovative service to the UK enterprise sector’ in 2001. In 2004, he was made a member of the Government’s Council for Science & Technology. In 2012 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society in recognition of his contribution to the translation of science into business, and in 2013 a Distinguished Fellow of BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT. Austrian by birth, Hermann speaks German, English and conversational Italian and French.
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About Amadeus Capital Partners, Intune Networks, XMOS: Amadeus Capital Partners caters to the technology sector with seed, early, and later stage venture, and private equity investments.
Alex van Someren
Managing Partner of Amadeus Capital Partners
Alex van Someren is a serial IT entrepreneur and CEO with two exits through IPO, nCipher pls (acquired by Thales SA), and ANT plc (acquired by Espial plc). He grew up near Cambridge, UK and worked at Acorn Computer on the BBC Microcomputer and its successor the Acorn Electron. With his brother, Dr. Nicko van Someren, he co-founded nCipher with venture capital backing to develop internet security products using advanced cryptography. The company became a world leader in IT security, counting major banking, finance and governments among its customers. He subsequently raised a total of £14 million in VC before he led the company as CEO to an IPO listing on the London Stock Exchange in 2000 (LSE:NCH) at a £350 million valuation. nCipher plc was sold to Thales SA in 2008. Alex lives in Cambridge, UK and is married with three children. He was appointed an Entrepreneur in Residence at the Judge Business School, University of Cambridge in 2005. He has authored several books on computer applications and microprocessors, including the first published book on the ARM RISC chips, which was also pirated in Japanese. During 2019, Alex will be the Visiting Clore Innovation Professor at the Royal College of Art, London.
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About Amadeus Capital Partners, Creative Destruction Lab (CDL), CyLon, Seldon: Amadeus Capital Partners caters to the technology sector with seed, early, and later stage venture, and private equity investments.
Kerry Baldwin
Managing Partner, co-founder of IQ Capital
Co-founder/Managing Partner of IQ Capital, a Cambridge based, deep tech focused, early stage venture capital investor, which invests in Machine Learning, AI, Data Science and Data-based propositions and IP based on disruptive algorithms. IQ Capital invests £1-5m in the first round and subsequently adds further capital through follow-on investments, IQ Capital is actively seeking Series A with rich deep tech IP at the core. Kerry has 20 years in early stage Venture Capital both in the UK and Europe starting with VTL in 1997 (the first investor in Autonomy), KVS amongst other deep tech investments and had numerous successful exits including to Yahoo, Sun Microsystems and other secondary sales. In 2006 she co-founded IQ Capital raising a £25m fund, followed by a £50m fund in 2015 with British Business Bank as a key investor. The fund has enjoyed exits to Google, Huwaei and Becton Dickinson. She specialises in Competitive Intelligence, Product, Strategic Marketing and team dynamics.
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About Cambridge Judge Business School, CybSafe, IQ Capital, The British Private Equity & Venture Capital Association: IQ Capital is a Cambridge & London -based VC firm investing in early-stage deeptech companies.
Ed Stacey
Managing Partner of IQ Capital
Co-founder and Managing Partner of IQ Capital, a Cambridge based, deep tech focused, early stage venture capital investor, which invests in Machine Learning, AI, Data Science and Data-based propositions and IP based on disruptive algorithms. IQ Capital invests £1-5m in the first round and subsequently adds further capital through follow-on investments, IQ Capital is actively seeking Series A with rich deep tech IP at the core. In 1997 Ed co-founded Venture Technologies, a predecessor of IQ Capital. Having invested £31m in 22 investments, the fund achieved a number of highly successful exits and delivered over 30% net IRR to its investors. Successful exits included three flotations, (including Autonomy plc, the first technology company on EASDAQ), a secondary purchase, and a number of trade sales to companies including Sun Microsystems, Veritas and Yahoo. Post 2002, when Venture Technologies portfolio was fully realised, Ed advised a private UHNWI syndicate on the execution of over 15 investments and advising on sustainable growth strategies and maximising shareholder returns. During his time with IQ Capital, Ed has been responsible for the technology side of portfolio companies, investment strategy and, as a member of the Investment Committee, general investment activity. Ed is currently in on the board of Speechmatics and serves as board observer in Privitar, Biobeats, Oxford Space Systems, SenseEye and CPS. His IQCF1 exits include Imsense (Apple, 2010) and Rosslyn (AIM, 2014). He holds an MBA from Manchester Business School and a BSC in Physics.
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About IQ Capital, The ID Co.: IQ Capital is a Cambridge & London -based VC firm investing in early-stage deeptech companies.
Max Bautin
Managing Partner of IQ Capital
Max has worked in venture capital since 2001, first building seed stage investment business at NW Brown and then co-founding IQ Capital in 2007. He has led investments in over two dozen high-technology companies – including Phonetic Arts (Google), Sirigen (BD), Neul (Huawei), DanioLabs (Summit), Quotient (EKF), Reevoo, Novacta and Transversal – and currently represents IQCP on the boards of Grapeshot and Stillfront. Max started his career in Millicom, a corporate investor into mobile telecom companies in developing countries. He holds a BSc in Economics from the University of Maryland and an MBA from the University of Cambridge.
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About IQ Capital: IQ Capital is a Cambridge & London -based VC firm investing in early-stage deeptech companies.
Patrick Round
Venture Partner of Forbion Capital Partners
Before joining NorthSea Therapeutics, Patrick Round was CMO and CEO of Xention Limited which conducted all the development work for Dezima BV which was acquired by Amgen. Before Xention he was Senior Vice President of Development at Cambridge Antibody Technology when it was acquired by Astra Zeneca. He also served as Director of Development at Celltech, Director of Clinical Development at Glaxo Wellcome and started his pharma career as a medical adviser at Novo Nordisk in 1991 in the UK and later in Denmark. He has also worked as CMO for a number of Biotech start-up companies. He received his medical degree from Charing Cross Hospital Medical School in London in 1982, became a Fellow of the Royal College of Anaesthetists in 1990 and a Fellow of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine in 2005
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About Forbion Capital Partners, NorthSea Therapeutics: Forbion Capital Partners is a private equity and venture capital firm for making investments in buyouts.
Jerome Joaug
Partner of Aster
Jerome is a serial entrepreneur who founded Cambridge Nanosystems, a leading graphene nanomaterial supplier, at the age of 24. He worked previously in the energy industry on the implementation of smart grids and renewable energy integration in France and the UK. After this first exit, he advised and invested in startups primarily in the areas of Cleantech and Education. In early 2017, he founded Nymbly, a company aiming at deploying low power Internet of Things solutions for Smart Cities and Smart Environment applications. The company was acquired at the end of 2017 by ARM. Jerome completed his training at the Ecole Polytechnique (Paris) and the University of Cambridge Judge Business School.
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About Aster: Aster is a Venture Capital firm, partnered with more than 60 teams of entrepreneurs that are transforming markets with disruptive offers.
