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 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.
David Mickler
Founder of QVentures
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About QVentures: QVentures is a Venture Capital firm providing direct investment opportunities and fund management.
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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.
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
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.
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.
