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 Lending 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.
Christian Faes
Exec Chair & Co-Founder of LendInvest
Christian Faes is the co-founder and Exec Chair of LendInvest, which is marketplace platform for property finance, and one of the leading Fintech businesses in the UK. The business has raised well over £1 billion in debt and equity, from institutions such as Atomico, the European Investment Fund, Citibank, HSBC, and the National Australia Bank. Christian comes from a legal background having practised as a real estate lawyer in Australia (Allens Arthur Robinson), and then in the UK with Clifford Chance and Deutsche Bank. In 2008, Christian co-founded the business with Ian Thomas, initially seeing an opportunity in the short term mortgage market. Christian is a keen advocate for the Fintech sector, and sits on the Government’s Fintech Delivery Panel; and founded and chairs the Digital Finance Forum. He is an active supporter and early investor in several startups, including Seedrs, Crowdcube and Onfido.
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About Faes & Co, LendInvest: LendInvest is the leading marketplace platform for property finance.
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Ian Thomas
Co Founder of LendInvest
A qualified chartered surveyor, Ian has many years’ experience of property valuation, mixed-use development and investment acquisitions in both the UK and abroad, previously holding senior positions at Ballymore and SEGRO. In 2013, Ian co-founded LendInvest with Christian, spinning it out of their previous business, Montello.Ian oversees all investment strategy and decision-making at LendInvest. He is a regular speaker at property industry events, a member of the MIPIM ProTech Advisory Committee and an active investor in several PropTech startups.
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About LendInvest: LendInvest is the leading marketplace platform for property finance.
Joel Perlman
Co-Founder of OakNorth
Joel Perlman is the Co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer of OakNorth – the next-generation credit platform that’s redefining lending to lower mid-market businesses (loans of $0.5m-$25m). Joel previously co-founded Copal Amba, an outsourced research company, and served as President for 12 years. During his time building Copal Amba, it grew to 3,000 employees across 11 countries and was acquired by Moody’s Corporation (NYSE: MCO) in 2014. Joel began his career at McKinsey & Company and has degrees from the London School of Economics and Georgetown University.
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About OakNorth, OakNorth Bank: OakNorth is the creator of the ON Credit Intelligence Suite – proven cloud software that transforms commercial lending
Daniel McPherson
Co Founder of Logical Glue
Daniel McPherson has founded and successfully exited several companies in the UK and US. He has made about 20 investments and is now also focused on incubating startups. Together with Tom Singh (founder of the New Look chain) Daniel has founded the Launch a start up launch pad, which is building some great companies.
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About Beacon Capital, Logical Glue: Logical Glue is a software company that creates products to analyze data for a business to predict profitable outcomes for a business.
Antoni Trenchev
Co-Founder of Nexo
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About Nexo: The World’s Leading Regulated Financial Institution for Digital Assets
Kosta Kantchev
Co-Founder & Executive Chairman of Nexo
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About Credissimo, Nexo: The World’s Leading Regulated Financial Institution for Digital Assets
Saul Greenberg
Co-Founder of MARLO
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About MARLO: MARLO is the world’s first lending platform for the $100 Billion+ ocean freight industry.
Salim Dhanani
CEO & Co-Founder of BigPay
Salim Dhanani is CEO & Co-Founder at BigPay
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About BigPay: Bringing fair and transparent financial services to Southeast Asia
Christer Holloman
Co-Founder & CEO of Divido
Christer Holloman is the CEO and co-founder of Divido (http://www.divido.com), a platform for retailers, lenders and payment providers that want to offer customers to pay anything in monthly instalments. Divido works with 500+ partners such as BMW, BNP and Mastercard. Prior to launching Divido, Christer set up Glassdoor.com in EMEA, now a billion-dollar Google-backed startup. Holloman holds an MBA from the University of Oxford.
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About Divido: Divido is a global white label consumer lending platform for financial institutions and multinational retailers.
Anders Hallsten
Co-Founder & CTO of Divido
Anders Hallsten is CTO and Co-Founder at Divido. Hallsten spent the last 10 years building e-commerce platforms for brands such as Hush Puppies and Fossil Watches.
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About Divido: Divido is a global white label consumer lending platform for financial institutions and multinational retailers.
Justin Floyd
Founder and CEO of RedCloud Technologies
Justin Floyd Recognised as a leading Entrepreneur for almost 3 decades Justin Floyd has founded and invested in a number of innovative businesses. Since 1987 he has been involved in companies that have included Vecta Software Corporation, a leading Cloud Business Intelligence company and the world’s first leasing exchange that generated over $2 billion in transactions over two years. Mr. Floyd is a trusted adviser to a number of Entrepreneurs who’s products and services are changing markets. He is the Founding Partner of RedCloud VC, an investment company that backs entrepreneurs in emerging and developing markets focusing on mobile, cloud and disruptive technologies.
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About RedCloud Technologies: RedCloud believe technology will universally change the way in which services are distributed & accessed by people in new digital economy.
Alexander Dunaev
Co-Founder & COO of ID Finance
In 2007, Alexander Dunaev graduated with honors bachelor degree from the University of Warwick with a degree in economics. In 2008, he received a master’s degree from the Imperial College London with a degree in mathematical finance. Alexander Dunaev is the Co-Founder of IDF Eurasia. In 2012, Alexander Dunaev left post occupied at Deutsche Bank and launched online lending service MoneyMan, and a year later he has founded fintech company ID Finance. Alexander is a Certified Financial Analyst (CFA).
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About ID Finance, IDF Eurasia: ID Finance is a FinTech company specializing in online lending in emerging and growing markets.
Anders la Cour
Co-Founder & CEO of Banking Circle
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About Banking Circle: Banking Circle offers its Members the capability to make and receive cross-border transfers in seconds at a low cost.
Laust Bertelsen
Founders & CEO of Banking Circle
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About Banking Circle: Banking Circle offers its Members the capability to make and receive cross-border transfers in seconds at a low cost.
Boaz Yaari
Founder and CEO of Sharegain
13 years of experience in the financial industry, from derivatives trading to portfolio management in banks and leading European Hedge Funds (Brevan Howard Asset Management, BlueBay Asset Management). During this time, Boaz discovered the inefficiencies in Securities Finance. It was out of this frustration that the innovative idea of Sharegain was born.
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About Sharegain: Sharegain is a capital markets fintech democratising the $2.5tn securities lending industry.
Stefan Boronea
CTO & Co-Founder of Proportunity
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About Proportunity: Proportunity is a financial services organisation made possible by technology.
Vadim Toader
CEO & Co-Founder of Proportunity
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About Proportunity: Proportunity is a financial services organisation made possible by technology.
Sho Sugihara
Co-Founder & CEO of Pave
Co-Founder and CEO at Portify.
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About Pave: The proper path to good credit
Ali Rami
CEO & Co Founder of Mansa
Ali Rami is a 21 yo French entrepreneur. He is the CEO & co-founder of Mansa. Mansa raised €20m so as to make access to credit easy for freelancers.
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About Mansa: Mansa allows freelancers and gig workers borrow money with fair pricing and a genuine user experience.
Benjamin Cambier
COO & Co-Founder of Mansa
Benjamin Cambier is a French entrepreneur. He is the co-founder & COO of Mansa. Mansa’s mission is to make it easy for freelancers to access credit offers.
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About Mansa: Mansa allows freelancers and gig workers borrow money with fair pricing and a genuine user experience.
Luke Townsend
Founder & CEO of Zorin Finance
Luke’s career began working for several media giants, including: Clear Channel, Dow Jones, GWR and latterly AOL UK. Having received numerous industry accolades, Luke went on to establish and back a number of tech related start-ups whilst simultaneously developing prime real estate in London. His frustration with the service he received from banks during this time led him to establish Zorin Finance. Luke continues to head the company as CEO and principal shareholder.
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About Zorin Finance: Zorin Finance is a Real estate company.
Juan Montalvo Bressi
Co-Founder & Chief Risk & Analytics Officer of Tymit
Juan Montalvo Bressi is the Co-Founder and Chief Risk & Analytics Officer of Tymit.
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About Tymit: Tymit is a provider of credit cards that offers financing purchases overtime and manages the monthly budget.
Michael Bristow
CEO and Co-Founder of CrowdProperty
Mike Bristow, CEO and Co-Founder of CrowdProperty (www.crowdproperty.com), the leading specialist property peer-to-peer lender in the UK. Actual property development and investment experience lies at the heart of CrowdProperty meaning hands-on, expertise-led due diligence and loan monitoring. Lending is focused on the SME property developer market, a key segment for supplying much needed UK housing stock, which is poorly and inefficiently served by traditional funding sources. CrowdProperty’s unique combination of data, analytics, tech, expertise, rigour, relationships, security, extent of value chain disruption and vision means we stand out in sustainably delivering a better deal to lenders and borrowers alike through high-quality, institution-grade lending with huge potential ahead.
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About CrowdProperty, Growth Strategy: CrowdProperty is a property project program that develops a peer-to-peer lending platform to facilitate short-term loans.
Paul Shea
Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Beechbrook Capital
Paul is co-founder and Managing Partner of Beechbrook Capital, where he is responsible for originating and executing private debt and equity co-investment opportunities. He sits on the Investment Committee for the Private Debt Funds and the UK SME Credit Fund. Beechbrook invests in the UK and Northern European lower mid-market by financing new buy out transactions or providing expansion or acquisition finance. Beechbrook have made over 45 investments to date and continue to benefit from a lack of debt finance from traditional providers to small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). Beechbrook has raised over €550m to date across four separate funds. Before starting up Beechbrook in 2008, Paul worked in the investment banking division of Schroders before joining MetLife to invest in European leverage loans, high yield bonds, mezzanine and private placements. He graduated from Oxford University in 1996 with an MA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics.
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About Beechbrook Capital: Beechbrook Capital provides mezzanine finance and equity co-investments to support buy-outs of businesses by private equity.
Nick Fenn
Co-Founder, Partner of Beechbrook Capital
Nick co-founded Beechbrook in 2008 with Paul Shea and sits on the Investment, Risk and Valuation Committees. He is a qualified ACA and spent 14 years in the banking industry, latterly at Mizuho Corporate Bank, where he was Head of Loan Syndication and of Mezzanine. He was also a member of Mizuho’s management team and sat on the investment committees of its asset management subsidiary.
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About Beechbrook Capital: Beechbrook Capital provides mezzanine finance and equity co-investments to support buy-outs of businesses by private equity.
Björn Lindvall
CEO / Founder of CreditSquare
Björn founded CreditSquare in 2013. The inspiration came from his experience working closely with entrepreneurs and family offices in running their investment portfolios. Björn has 8 years of investment experience from the Private Banking arms of Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley. He left Morgan Stanley in 2013 to start CreditSquare.
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About CreditSquare: CreditSquare is an advisory- and marketplace lending platform focused on providing SMEs with credit solutions.
Brett Shanley
CEO & Founder of Knoma
Brett is the Founder and CEO of Knoma, the Knowledge Market, offering a payment solution and marketplace for lifelong learning. He passionate about equipping people for the future of work and providing sound financial options.
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About Knoma: Knoma offers a payment solution and marketplace for lifelong learning.
Tim Slesinger
Founder & CEO of LendingWell
Tim Slesinger is Founder & CEO at OSG Records Management
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About easyStorage, LendingWell: LendingWell is the single platform p2p investment partner.
John Goodall
Co-Founder and CEO of LANDBAY
Prior to co-founding Landbay in 2013, John worked for an equity brokerage in the City of London. Before this, he co-founded and managed a leading financial services executive search consultancy. John has also spent some time teaching Economics, has an MBA from Imperial College, London, and a degree in Economics from Durham University.
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About LANDBAY: Landbay is a specialist Buy to Let mortgage lender using peer-to-peer technology to fund its loans.
Rhydian Lewis
CEO & Founder of RateSetter
Oversees strategy, manages the Executive Committee and represents RateSetter with external stakeholders. Rhydian founded RateSetter to provide a new investment choice that sits between savings and shares. He has pioneered innovations including the Provision Fund model, which makes investing simple and relatively low risk. He was awarded an OBE for innovation in financial services, specifically with regard to opening up access to returns to everybody. Prior to RateSetter, he spent six years at the financial advisory and asset management firm Lazard.
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About RateSetter: RateSetter is a P2P lending platform allowing users to lend and borrow money directly from each other according to their own interest rates.
Gerald Chappell
CEO and Co-Founder of Fintern
Gerald Chappell is the CEO and Co-Founder at Fintern. Prior to starting Fintern, Gerald was a partner at McKinsey where he lead the digital lending and credit analytics practices globally.
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About Fintern: Fintern is a lending startup looking to offer an AI-driven alternative to costly payday loans.
Liad Shababo
Founder and CEO of Wollit
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About iStay.com, Wollit: The UK’s most powerful financial membership
Daniel Gomes
Founder of Nexoos
Founder of Nexoos.
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About Nexoos: Nexoos is a marketplace lending platform that provides business loans by matching investors with quality businesses.
Jamie Beaumont
Founder of Playter
An entrepreneur with a background in helping businesses of all sizes scale and succeed. Having successfully run an agency in the past, Jamie is now Founder of Playter, the B2B BNPL platform enabling businesses to accelerate their hiring, super charge their product development, and unlock access to the latest tech today.
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About Playter: Playter is funding the community of startups and scaleups by helping them convert any invoice into Buy Now, Pay Later.
Theodor Chichirita
CTO and Co-Founder of Playter
Theodor Chichirita is the CTO and Co-Founder at Playter.
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About Playter: Playter is funding the community of startups and scaleups by helping them convert any invoice into Buy Now, Pay Later.
Andy Lee
Founder & Chief Product Officer of Sphonic
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About Sphonic: Sphonic is a Context-Broker that leverages 3rd party vendor data with a workflow engine to enable fraud prevention, AML, KYC
Michael Arnaldi
CTO and Founder of CreditSCRIPT
Michael Arnaldi is CTO of CreditSCRIPT. He has been active in the fin-tech industry for the past 5 years and has a strong background on full-stack development in the field of scalable and highly available financial applications. His personal goal is to improve the financial industry and he is also co-founder and CTO of MyMonexEx a London-based Blockchain-focused platform. Michael is enrolled in Computer Science faculty, University of Pisa.
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About CreditSCRIPT, MATECHS: CreditSCRIPT is an alternative credit investment platform that helps professional investors assess loans and portfolios.
Robert Stafler
Co-Founder and CEO of Fintex Capital
Robert Stafler is the founder of Wishopoly.
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About Fintex Capital, Wishopoly: Fintex Capital is a unique investment firm dedicated to alternative credit
Robert Pasco
Co-Founder & CEO of Plend
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About Plend: Building a better way to borrow, where people are no longer held back by their credit history
James Pursaill
Co-Founder & CTO of Plend
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About Plend: Building a better way to borrow, where people are no longer held back by their credit history
Emma Shaw
Co-Founder & Business Director of Library of Things
Emma Shaw is a Co-Founder & Business Director at Library of Things.
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About Library of Things: Library of Things is a start-up that lends out products from drills to sound systems to GoPros from smart borrowing kiosks.
Sophia Wyatt
Co-Founder, Co-Director of Library of Things
Sophia Wyatt is a Co-Founder, Design & Product at Library of Things.
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About Library of Things: Library of Things is a start-up that lends out products from drills to sound systems to GoPros from smart borrowing kiosks.
Davin Poonwassie
Co-Founder and Operations Director of Simple Crowdfunding
Davin was first introduced to crowdfunding in early 2013 and he spotted the opportunity that crowdfunding brings. At the end of 2013, Simple Backing, their first property crowdfunding platform focused on Peer to Peer Lending was born. After speaking to their customers, Davin soon realised that there was also a need to provide an Equity option, thus Simple Equity was formed. With a background in data, databases and information technology, Davin is well suited to this marketplace. Outside of crowdfunding, Davin is a business and property coach, helping others achieve their goals and aspirations. Davin is also a keen property investor, investing in parts of the UK and France.
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About Simple Crowdfunding: Simple Crowdfunding is a regulated peer to peer lending and crowdfunding platform, offering property finance.
