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 Finance 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.
Taavet Hinrikus
Founder and CEO of Wise
Taavet Hinrikus is co-founder and CEO of TransferWise. Prior to starting TransferWise, Taavet was Skype’s director of strategy until 2008, starting as its first-ever employee. One of the World Economic Forum’s Tech Pioneers, Taavet is an adviser to Prime Minister of Estonia on the digital agenda. He’s also a mentor and angel investor; his investments include Tweetdeck, Mendeley, OMGPOP, Property Partner, Sunrise, Improbable and Mapillary.
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About Wise: Wise is a money transfer service allowing private individuals and businesses to send money abroad without hidden charges.
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Kristo Kaarmann
Founder and CEO of Wise
Kristo Kaarmann is the co-founder and CEO of TransferWise, a peer-to-peer international money transfer business. The business is the first of its kind: it allows regular people to access the real mid-market exchange rate by cutting out traditional banking fees altogether. It charges only a tiny, totally transparent service charge. Prior to starting TransferWise, Kristo was a management consultant with Deloitte Consulting and PricewaterhouseCoopers. He worked with European banks and insurers to modernise their processes and systems. Stunned by their inefficiency, he teamed up with Taavet Hinrikus, then Skype’s director of strategy, to develop an entirely new system for moving money across borders. Kristo started his first business, an online investments tracking portal Investor.ee in 1999, when he was 19. Although the service was popular at the time, it never turned a profit and was acquired a few years later for an undisclosed amount (read: very little). Kristo is also involved in the organisation of Young Scholar Grant, where grants are given out to the brightest prospective university students of Estonia to study abroad in Europe’s best universities.
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About Wise: Wise is a money transfer service allowing private individuals and businesses to send money abroad without hidden charges.
Frederic Court
Founder and Managing Partner of Felix Capital
Frederic is the Founder and Managing Partner of Felix Capital. He has worked in the technology industry for the past 20 years, prior to Felix as General Partner with Advent Ventures in London, and previously as an entrepreneur. At Felix, Frederic works closely with Farfetch (NYSE:FTCH), goop, Mejuri, Yoobic, The Business of Fashion, Highsnobiety and Mirakl. He led the growth investments in Deliveroo and Peloton. While at Advent, Frederic led investments in Farfetch, Zong (sold to eBay), Vitrue (Oracle), Dailymotion (Orange), Qype (Yelp), Fizzback (Nice Systems) and Ubiquisys (Cisco). Frederic was named “Investor of the Year” in Europe by his peers at the 2012 Investor All Stars event. He was on the Midas List Europe 2017 and 2018. Previously he was an entrepreneur in France, building a VC-backed online marketplace for the textile industry, and before that a technology banker in London and New York with Lazard. A graduate of ESSEC in Paris and Bocconi University in Milan, Frederic is fluent in English, French, Italian and Spanish.
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About Adverity, Deliveroo, Felix Capital, Forter, La Ruche qui dit Oui, Moonbug, Oatly, Peloton: Felix Capital is a venture fund that focuses on digital commerce, digital media, and information technology companies.
Antoine Nussenbaum
Co-Founder of Felix Capital
Antoine is a Partner and member of the founding team of Felix Capital. He currently sits on the boards of TravelPerk, Papier, Frichti, Heetch and Urban Massage. He previously was a Partner at Atlas Global, a private equity fund originally part of GLG Partners. Prior to Felix Capital he has worked closely with various early-stage digital startups including Mirakl, Reedsy, 31Dover, Pave.com and actively helped them launch their businesses. He has also been involved since inception with Huckletree, a fast growing coworking operator dedicated to the European digital community which was started by his wife. Antoine moved to London in 2006 when he joined ABN AMRO as an M&A investment banker. Prior to this he was based in Paris and was part of the founding team of NT Valley, a software business aim at retailers. He started his career as a brand and intangible asset valuation consultant at Sorgem Evaluation. A graduate of ESCP European Business School and University Paris Dauphine, Antoine is fluent in English, French and Spanish.
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About AllPlants, Deliveroo, Felix Capital, Forter, Frichti, Lick, Mirakl, Oatly, Peloton, VanMoof: Felix Capital is a venture fund that focuses on digital commerce, digital media, and information technology companies.
Harry Stebbings
Founder of Stride.VC
Harry is the Founder of The Twenty Minute VC, the world’s largest independent venture capital podcast with over 100,000 listeners, partnerships with Mattermark and ProductHunt and guests from over 200VCs including the likes of Accel, Kleiner, Y Combinator, Benchmark and Index. He is also a contributor for TechCrunch covering all things startups and VC funding and has recently joined Jason Lemkin at Saastr to build out the platform and expand into new verticals.
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About Stride.VC, The Twenty Minute VC: Stride.VC is a venture capital firm targeting seed stage startups in the UK and France
Fred Destin
Founder of Stride.VC
Fred is the founder of Stride.VC.
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About Stride.VC: Stride.VC is a venture capital firm targeting seed stage startups in the UK and France
Damien Lane
Co-Founder & Partner of Episode 1
Damien Lane has spent the last 20 years investing in private companies, both in Private Equity where he was a partner with Electra Partners, then at Octopus Ventures where he was a senior member of the investment team. Having made a number of angel investments, Damien co-founded Episode 1 with Simon and Adrian in 2012. While at Episode 1, Damien has led investments in Carwow, Scurri, Touch Surgery, Attest and Zipcube and loves working with early stage teams of entrepreneurs; helping them develop their early stage startup into a fast growth enterprises capable of raising more funding from later stage investors. When he is not trying to help businesses to implement an optimal approach to growth, Damien can mostly be found running around Hampstead Heath or the Coastal paths of Great Britain. Having trained obsessively to run a 2:52 Marathon in 2015, he is now trying to dip below 2:50, in the spirit of continuous improvement. Damien has an MBA from Cambridge University and a Masters degree in PE from Oxford University.
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About Adludio, Episode 1, Scurri: Episode1 Ventures is a venture capital fund set up to invest in early-stage technology companies based in London, UK.
Ophelia Brown
Founder & Partner of Blossom Capital
Ophelia is the founder of Blossom Capital, an early stage venture fund that brings a wholly differentiated approach to investing. Blossom makes a small number of high conviction investments each year, which allows the team to work closely with their companies, helping them achieve their ambitious goals. Fascinated by user behaviour and design, Ophelia loves worked with founders with strong product DNA and design-oriented teams. Previously Ophelia was a GP at LocalGlobe and a principal at Index Ventures where her investments included Typeform and Robinhood. Ophelia is also the founder of ALT “Ambitious Ladies in Tech” – a mentor programme that matches junior women in technology start-ups with senior functional leaders to provide them with valuable coaching, skills development and networking. The network includes executives from some of the world’s leading tech companies like Amazon, Airbnb, Facebook, Google, Uber and many more.
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About Big Health, Blossom Capital: Blossom Capital is a venture capital and private equity firm that invests in consumer, enterprise, internet, and startup sectors.
Saul Klein
Partner & Co-Founder of LocalGlobe
Saul is a Founding Partner at Localglobe, a new seed fund focussed on helping London’s great most ambitious founders build game changing businesses. Previously, Saul was a Partner at Index Ventures from 2007 until May 2015. In 2012 David Cameron appointed Saul to be the UK’s first tech envoy to Israel and a Technology Business Ambassador. Saul is serial entrepreneur with two decades of experience building and exiting companies in the US, Israel and Europe. He has a passion for working with seed and early stage businesses. Most recently Saul co-founded Kano and Seedcamp, as well as a co-founder and original CEO of Lovefilm International (acquired by Amazon). He was also part of the original executive team at Skype (acquired by eBay).
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About Kano, Latitude, LocalGlobe, OpenCoffee Club, Platoon, Seedcamp, The Accelerator Group, Zinc.VC: LocalGlobe is a venture capital firm that focuses on seed and impact investments.
Steven Mendel
Co-Founder and CEO of Bought By Many
Steven has over 25 years’ experience as an actuary in financial services which has included leading Close Brothers Wealth Management during the launch of their non-advised offering; creating the world’s first art-focused wealth advice offering for Christie’s; working as part of the team that formed Barclays Wealth and heading the McKinsey UK Savings and Investment Group. Steven now runs Bought By Many which is disrupting the world of insurance through the innovative use of search and social media. (www.boughtbymany.com). In April 2019 Steven was included in the London Business School Review of 30 People Who Are Changing The World.
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About Bought By Many: Bought By Many is a pet InsurTech company that provides insurance products and a streamlined customer experience.
Guy Farley
Co-Founder and CTO of Bought By Many
Guy is the author of the first-generation technology used by Bought by Many. He now steers the tech ship in the right direction. Outside the office, he’s a devoted father of two and is looking forward to sharing his passion for sailing, climbing and skiing with his kids once they’re old enough.
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About Bought By Many: Bought By Many is a pet InsurTech company that provides insurance products and a streamlined customer experience.
Stefan Hobl
CFO & Co-Founder of Butter.co.uk
Stefan Hobl joined Butter.co.uk as CFO & Co-Founder in 2017.
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About Butter.co.uk: Butter lets you spread the cost of shopping from any online store with a simple monthly instalment plan. Download the app now!
Toby Coppel
Co-Founder & Partner of Mosaic
Toby Coppel is a Co-Founder and Partner at Mosaic Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm based in London. Toby has been in investing and operating roles in the internet sector since 1996. Prior to Mosaic, as a Partner at Virgin and an active angel investor over the past 4 years, Toby has made investments in companies such as Criteo, CreativeLive, Hailo, Pinterest and Transferwise and served on boards including Criteo, Virgin Care, Virgin Galactic, and Virgin Mobile (France). Toby was previously Senior Vice President of Corporate Development and Chief Strategy Officer at Yahoo! from 2001-2007 where he led the team that invested $1 billion into Alibaba for a 40% ownership stake in 2005 and acquired over 30 startups including Flickr, Inktomi, and Overture, for an aggregate of over $4 billion. Toby also ran Yahoo!’s European operations from 2007-2009, a $1 billion division of Yahoo! with over 2,000 employees. Prior to this, Toby was an Internet Investor at Windsor Media and Allen & Company and was a financial analyst at Goldman Sachs. Toby earned his MBA in Entrepreneurship from Harvard Business School and his M.A. in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from University of Oxford.
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About Creative Destruction Lab (CDL), Mosaic: We back founders who are reimagining the world. We invest $1-10m early, in those building daring adventures across Europe.
Simon Levene
Partner & Co-Founder of Mosaic
Simon Levene is a co-founder and partner of London’s Mosaic Ventures, the Series A focused venture capital firm with over $300M under management. He has spent 20+ years in tech on both sides of the Atlantic, in operations and VC. Notable investments include early bets on Etsy and Squarespace, each now worth several billion. Simon founded Mosaic alongside partner Toby Coppel in 2014, in order to bring their strong Silicon Valley networks and top-level experience to help Europe-based entrepreneurs that have global ambition. Simon began his career on the west coast, co-founding the international business of @Home Network (later Excite@Home). From 2001, Simon spent four years as VP Corp Dev for Yahoo!, moving back to Europe as the continent’s tech ecosystem was gaining momentum. As a VC, Simon joined Accel London as a partner in 2006. During his time at Accel, and later as an angel and venture partner at Index, Simon invested at Series A in Squarespace, Myheritage, ResearchGate, Shapeways, Appcard, Knewton, and Enfore; as well as Etsy and Fotolia at Series B. At Mosaic, Simon focuses on platforms, marketplaces, consumer services, consumerized SaaS and crypto/blockchain. He has led investments in Convoy, Nexar, Blockstream, Veriff, Lyvly and Clue.
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About CHECK24, Clue, Convoy, Docker, Etsy, Gameforge, Mosaic, MultiChain, ShipServ: We back founders who are reimagining the world. We invest $1-10m early, in those building daring adventures across Europe.
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
Dominic Perks
Partner, Co-Founder of Hambro Perks Ltd.
Dominic Perks graduated from Oxford University and went on to work as an investment banker at Morgan Stanley, and then as a Strategy Consultant at McKinsey. Dominic is a serial entrepreneur and investor with a growing portfolio of fast growth UK tech businesses. Founded by Dominic Perks and Rupert Hambro in 2014, Hambro Perks backs and builds fast-growth start-ups using SEIS (Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme) and EIS (Enterprise Investment Scheme) structures.
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About Hambro Perks Ltd., Takumi, Tootle: Hambro Perks is a London-headquartered international investment firm focused on private technology investing.
Rupert Hambro
Partner, Co-Founder of Hambro Perks Ltd.
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About Hambro Perks Ltd., ThePresent.Co: Hambro Perks is a London-headquartered international investment firm focused on private technology investing.
Andreas Weiskam
Co-Founder & Partner of Sapphire
Andreas is a co-founder and Partner of Sapphire Ventures. He serves as a board director or observer at Contentful, CurrencyCloud, Matillion, Retail Solutions, and Wandera. Andreas’ previous investments at Sapphire include: Criteo (NASDAQ: CRTO), DocuSign (NASDAQ: DOCU), Iovation (acquired by TransUnion), iTAC (acquired by Durr), Lavante (acquired by PRGX Global), LogLogic (acquired by TIBCO Software), Zend Technologies (acquired by Rogue Wave), and Voxeo (acquired by Aspect Software). Prior to Sapphire Ventures, Andreas held business development roles at SAP, co-developing the SAP enterprise services community and leading reseller partnerships with Virsa Systems and Mercury Interactive among others. Before SAP, he co-founded Zadu, a venture-backed instant messaging startup. Andreas holds a Diplom-Kaufmann (graduate business degree) from the University of Hamburg, Germany and an MLitt with distinction in management, economics and politics from the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. Andreas is a Kauffman Fellow and has lived in Stockholm, Hamburg, Munich and San Francisco. He is based in London.
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About Sapphire: Sapphire is a venture capital firm that partners with visionary teams and venture funds to build companies.
Ramez Sousou
Founder and Co-CEO of TowerBrook Capital Partners
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About TowerBrook Capital Partners: TowerBrook Capital Partners is a London-based investment management firm that funds European and North American companies.
Kevin Johnson
Co-Founder & Partner of Medicxi Ventures
Prior to co-founding Medicxi Ventures, Kevin was a partner with Index Ventures for 12 years, having joined the firm’s life sciences team in 2003. Kevin spearheaded Index’very first experimental asset-centric investment, in PanGenetics, which was later acquired by Abbott Pharmaceuticals. He was formerly on the board of directors of Versartis (Nasdaq: VSAR) and is currently involved with include Acutus and Levicept among others. Prior to joining Index, Kevin was with Cambridge Antibody Technology (CAT), where he was appointed Head of Research in 1994 and, in 1997, Research Director and Chief Technology Officer. He led the development of CAT’s platform technologies and their application in the discovery of a number of human antibodies, two of which are now on the market: Humira (Abbott Pharmaceuticals) and Benlysta (GlaxoSmithKline). Kevin was part of the management team that floated CAT on the London Stock Exchange; it was subsequently acquired by AstraZeneca.Kevin received a BSc in Molecular Biology from Edinburgh University and a PhD in Pathology from Cambridge University.
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About Medicxi Ventures, PanGenetics: Medicxi is a life sciences-focused investment firm.
Spencer Crawley
Co-Founder & General Partner of Firstminute Capital
Spencer Crawley is General Partner at firstminute capital. Launched in June 2017 and co-founded with Brent Hoberman, firstminute is a $100m global seed-stage fund, it is proud to count two institutional investors (Atomico and Tencent) and 29 founders of billion dollar technology businesses amongst its investors. Previous roles include Business Development at AppDirect (a San Francisco-based cloud commerce platform provider), Investment Associate at DMC Partners (Goldman Sachs spin-out Special Opportunities fund), and Analyst in the Moscow office of Goldman Sachs (in the Fixed Income, Currencies and Commodities division). Spencer studied History at Oxford University, did his MBA at INSEAD, and speaks fluent Russian and pidgin French.
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About Firstminute Capital: Firstminute Capital is an early-stage venture fund based in London, investing globally. Backed by 30 unicorn founders and global strategics.
Sarj Radia
Founder of The Access Group
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About The Access Group: The Access Group is a software consultancy and developer company that provides fully integrated business management software.
Barnaby Hussey-Yeo
Founder and CEO of Cleo
Barnaby Hussey-Yeo is Co-Founder & CEO of Cleo AI. He is a Data scientist with a diverse set of interests across machine learning, finance and technology. Significant experience with generating actionable insights from large scale data sets. Enjoy working on complex problems with little direction that require significant planning, critical thinking, and unique insights to solve.
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About Cleo: Cleo is a financial assistant designed for Gen-Z that is fighting for the world’s financial health.
Tim Jackson
Founder, CEO, General Partner & Partner of Walking Ventures
Tim Jackson is the Founder, CEO, General Partner & Partner of Walking Ventures & he attended University of Oxford in in 1983.
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About Walking Ventures: Walking Ventures is a seed fund which invests in early-stage Internet and other technology startups based in Europe.
Simon Cook
Co-Founder of Molten Ventures
Simon is the CEO of Draper Esprit and has been involved with the European Venture Capital industry since 1995. In 2006 he led the spinout of Cazenove Private Equity and acquisition of Prelude Ventures, in 2007 he completed the next stage of Esprit’s expansion plan, negotiating the partnership with DFJ to form DFJ Esprit and in 2009 helped lead the acquisition of 3i plc’s European VC business. In recent times Simon has continued to build the DFJ Esprit business, leading the fund raising and investment strategy for the DFJ Esprit III primary VC fund and through the further development of the VC secondaries business through the joint venture with Tempo Capital Partners. He has been involved with a number of Europe’s most successful technology start-ups. His past board roles include successful companies such as Lovefilm (Amazon), Cambridge Silicon Radio (IPO LSE), Virata (IPO Nasdaq), nCipher (IPO LSE) and KVS (Symantec). Simon currently serves on the Boards of Neul Limited and Horizon Discovery Limited. Previously Simon was a partner with Elderstreet Investments and a Director at 3i in Cambridge, and worked as a strategy and IT consultant at KPMG (where he established the Internet practice) and as a computer games developer during the 1980’s. Simon is a graduate of University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST).
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About Molten Ventures, Neul: Molten Ventures is Europe’s largest listed tech VC firm. We inject the most visionary companies with energy to help them transform and grow.
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
Michael Rosen
Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Future Positive Capital
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About Future Positive Capital: Future Positive Capital is an investment firm that invests in deep tech companies.
Anil Stocker
CEO & Co-Founder of MarketFinance
Anil Stocker is the CEO & Co-founder of MarketInvoice.Whilst working in financial services (Lehman Brothers) in his early twenties and spending time with many company CFOs, Anil realised how difficult it was for small businesses to raise the funding they needed to drive their business forward. His ambition was to use technology and data to completely reinvent how businesses go about financing their growth, and breathe fresh life into outdated financial products. Anil has led the growth of the company, team and its culture since launch. He was named in Forbes Magazine’s ’30 under 30′, and was recently invited to speak at No. 10 Downing St as a part of HM Treasury’s Fintech Week.
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About MarketFinance: MarketFinance is a FinTech company providing business finance solutions that help companies grow.
Pietro Bezza
Co-Founder and General Partner of Connect Ventures
Pietro is a tech founder turned early-stage venture capitalist. Pietro co-founded in 2011 Connect Ventures, a London-based Venture Capital firm who backs product-obsessed, mission-driven entrepreneurs at their seed stage. Investments Pietro led and work actively with include Citymapper, Typeform, Soldo, TrueLayer, Side and Forest. Before starting Connect Ventures, he was co-founder and CEO of Neo Network, mobile applications and content provider, acquired by Zodiak Media (De Agostini Group) in 2007. Pietro’s expertise is in category design, growth and branding. When he is not wrestling with his two kids, he plays ping-pong and tries to learn how to code.
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About Connect Ventures: Connect Ventures is a venture capital firm specialized in investments in seed, startup, series A, and early-stage companies.
Sitar Teli
Founder & Managing Partner of Connect Ventures
Sitar Teli is a founder and managing partner of Connect Ventures, a venture firm she and her partners started in 2012. Since its founding, Connect has invested in over 40 companies across Europe, including Fiit, Kheiron, Citymapper, Typeform, OurPath, and Soldo. Prior to starting Connect Ventures, Sitar was at Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures, where she led that firm’s investment in SoundCloud’s Series A.
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About Connect Ventures, Creative Destruction Lab (CDL): Connect Ventures is a venture capital firm specialized in investments in seed, startup, series A, and early-stage companies.
David Mickler
Founder of QVentures
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About QVentures: QVentures is a Venture Capital firm providing direct investment opportunities and fund management.
Denis Shafranik
Partner & Co-Founder of Concentric
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About Concentric, ERMAK Group, Supremum Capital: Concentric invests in software technology business in the financial services, mobility, real estate, industrial, and logistics sectors.
Steffen Pauls
Founder & Managing Partner of 7 Global Capital
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About 7 Global Capital, 7GC & Co. Holdings, MOMENTAR, Moonfare: 7GC is a boutique private investment firm investing in growth stage technology companies
Stephen Chandler
Co-Founder & Managing Partner of Notion Capital
Stephen Chandler is Co-founder and Managing Partner at Notion Capital. An entrepreneur, investor and company builder, with 20 years experience in forming, funding, running, advising and investing in technology businesses, he has been a co-founder of over ten businesses with involvement in dozens more, where he helped a number of leading tech companies develop and execute winning market strategies. He has primary responsibility for the external fundraising activities of the firm and is active in deal origination in SaaS, FinTech and eCommerce enablement in the UK and Nordic region. He is / was the Notion Capital representative on the boards of Tradeshift, Mojn, Selfnet and Star.
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About Notion Capital, SeedCloud: Notion is an early-stage venture fund that focuses on technology and cloud computing markets.
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.
William Christopher Currie
Founder of William Currie Group
Bill is the founder of the William Currie Group, which specializes in investments in the retail, e- commerce and tech sectors. Previously Bill was a top-ranked, multi award-winning retail analyst for Barclays (BZW), Hoare Govett and Charterhouse Securities, where he was Joint Managing Director. Current directorships include Eagle Eye Group PLC, Metapack Ltd, and LTS Group. Key past investments have included ASOS, QXL, The Hut Group, Zooplus, Caffé Nero and Anatwine
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About William Currie Group: William Currie Group is a private investment group that supports fast growing e-commerce and technology businesses.
Corrado Agusta
Founder and CEO of Agusta Investments.
Corrado Agusta is a Founder and CEO of Agusta Investments.
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About Agusta Investments.: Agusta Investments is a single-family office with an investment focus in direct real estate and technology ventures
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.
Andre Pienaar
Chief Executive and Founder of C5 Capital
André Pienaar is Managing Partner, Founder and Executive Chairman of C5 Capital, a specialist venture capital firm focused on cloud computing, big data analytics, artifial intelligence and cyber security. He is also a Mentor for C5 Nebula which aims to empower women aspiring to engage in the tech space. André founded C5 in 2014, to provide long-term support, private equity and venture capital to innovative cyber security companies. The firm is made up of a varied international team of investors and entrepreneurs and has offices in Washington, London, Munich, Luxembourg and Bahrain. A recognised expert on cyber law and cybercrime, André Pienaar started his career with Kroll in 1996 where he went on to hold the position of the company’s youngest ever Managing Director and also built and lead Kroll’s Africa & Natural Resources Division out of London prior to Kroll’s sale in 2004. Following this success, André Pienaar went on to launch G3 (which stands for Good Governance Group), an advisory consultancy which provided advice on regulatory compliance, risk mitigation and cyber security to its global client base. André is also a member of: • USIP (United States Institute of Peace) International Advisory Council • The National Council on White House History
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About C5 Capital, Haven Cyber Technologies, ITC Secure: C5 is a specialist technology investment firm that invests in cybersecurity, cloud infrastructure, data analytics, energy and space.
Frank Meehan
Co-Founder & Partner of SparkLabs Global Ventures
Frank Meehan is the Co-Founder and CEO at Equilibrium World.
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About Equilibrium World, SmartUp.io, SparkLabs Global Ventures: SparkLabs Global Ventures is a seed-stage investment firm.
Tommy Stadlen
Co-Founder & General Partner of Giant Ventures
Tommy Stadlen is the Co-Founder of Swing, which exited to Microsoft in 2017. Swing, chaired by Twitter founder Biz Stone, created the #1 App Store app Polaroid Swing. Tommy is the author of the international bestseller ‘Connect: How Companies Succeed by Engaging Radically With Society’, written with former BP CEO Lord Browne. He is a frequent media commentator and speaker on technology and long-term capitalism, including as an op-ed contributor to the New York Times and Financial Times, and guest on CNBC, Bloomberg and BBC. Tommy is a former McKinsey consultant with global experience advising leading companies and governments. He previously worked for President Obama. He graduated with First Class honours from Oxford, and holds an MSc (Distinction) from the London School of Economics. He is an advisor to NYU Stern School of Business and a One Young World Ambassador. Tommy has been recognised by the Financial Times as one of the top 50 Global Ally Executives and by Entrepreneur magazine’s Best Companies in America awards. He is an LP and venture partner at firstminute capital, an international seed fund.
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About Firstminute Capital, Giant Ventures, Swing Technologies: Giant Ventures is a multi-stage, thesis-driven firm backing purpose-driven founders.
George McDonaugh
Co-Founder, CEO and Managing Director of KR1 plc
I’ve been involved in blockchain technology since 2011. Before then I was an advertising copywriter for London based agencies. I have a masters degree in Anthropology and a further degree in Creative Advertising. I helped form one of London’s most popular blockchain meetups and co-founded kr1 in early 2016 and as such it become the first token focussed investment company in the world. We have the longest track record in the space and a global network of funds, developers and investors.
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About KR1 plc: KR1 plc (KR1:AQSE) is Europe’s leading digital asset investment company focused on decentralised and open-source blockchain networks.
Keld van Schreven
Co-Founder and Managing Director of KR1 plc
Keld is cofounder of KR1 UKs leading crypto investment public company. First investors in Melonport, Funfair, Rocketpool and Etherisc. Keld is advisor to IXLedger and previously cofounder of several web startups since 1995. www.kryptonite1.co
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About KR1 plc, MAMA: KR1 plc (KR1:AQSE) is Europe’s leading digital asset investment company focused on decentralised and open-source blockchain networks.
Victor Trokoudes
Founder and CEO of Plum Fintech
Victor Trokoudes CEO, Plum Former head of international at TransferWise a fintech unicorn – joined the company when there were 6 in London and left when they were 500+. Victor built and led a team of 25 who launched TransferWise in 25 new markets. Previously he founded and led PoS terminal reseller BlueBird in Europe as well as worked as a trader at Morgan Stanley. He studied economics at Harvard and has an MBA from INSEAD.
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About Plum Fintech: Plum Fintech is a developer of personal savings assistant solutions for customers.
Ajoy Veer Kapoor
Founder of Velocity Capital Advisors
Ajoy Veer Kapoor is a banker, private equity manager, angel investor, mentor and entrepreneur. His career and professional experience has been spread across the globe, giving him a unique overview and incisive micro-view of a range of different sectors. Ajoy began his career as a retail banker at Barclays Bank and migrated to treasury, investment banking and then on to senior roles within the management structure of Standard Chartered and HSBC. He left HSBC and founded The Saffron Group – an independent private equity house investing in India through a variety of listed, unlisted and managed funds. Ajoy created and led a team of 39 private equity professionals managing and fund raising over £200 million across three funds. The business was eventually acquired by ILFS, India’s leading private equity house. More recently, Ajoy has focused on expanding his personal portfolio, investing in and mentoring start-up businesses across the globe.
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About Velocity Capital Advisors: Velocity seeks to combine a deep consumer understanding with brilliant, innovative, useful business ideas.
Bil Bungay
Founder, Creative Director of Velocity Capital Advisors
Bil co-founded Beattie McGuiness Bungay (BMB), an advertising agency that went on to become one of the fastest growing agencies and considered one of the most creative advertising and marketing agencies of the decade. BMB went on to create nationally famous, highly effective campaigns for brands such as: McCain, Tui, Carling, and Virgin Money. Within three years of their establishment BMB had won Marketing Agency of the Year. Bil has a lifelong passion for innovation and creativity. His entrepreneurial spirit, combined with almost 30 years of creative and marketing experience, has helped him bring many ideas to fruition, for example Purple Bricks, and mentoring numerous early stage businesses. As deputy chairman of BMB, Bil maintains a strong connection with the agency he co- founded. Bil is a member of the Investment Committee.
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About Velocity Capital Advisors: Velocity seeks to combine a deep consumer understanding with brilliant, innovative, useful business ideas.
Ben Stanway
Co-Founder & Co-CEO of Moneybox
Ben is co-founder of Moneybox.Prior to Moneybox he co-founded Bloom & Wild, recently named by Deloitte as the second fastest growing tech company in the UK. In the ten years prior to Bloom & Wild Ben was an investor, first at Fidelity, then as part of the founding team of Habrok Capital, a $2bn global equity hedge fund.
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About Moneybox: Moneybox is a mobile savings and investment app that offers a range of saving and investment products including Lifetime ISAs and Pensions.
Peter Dubens
Founder and Managing Partner of Oakley Capital
Peter is currently the founder and head of Oakley Capital. Prior to founding Oakley, Peter was instrumental in establishing 365 Media as one of the UK’s leading online sports content providers. Peter subsequently led the sale of the company to BSkyB in December 2006 for £110 million. He was also Executive Chairman of Pipex, the AIM listed provider of integrated telecommunications and Internet services, where he led the strategic development and execution of 14 acquisitions building one of the UK’s largest broadband suppliers. Pipex was sold for £330 million. Peter has over 21 years of operating experience and over the course of his career has bought, sold and restructured over 40 businesses.
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About Oakley Capital, PROfounders Capital: Oakley Capital is a mid-market private equity investor.
Maren Thomas Bannon
Co-Founder and Partner of January Ventures
Maren is the co-founder and partner at January Ventures. January Ventures (previously known as Jane VC) invests early and opens doors for the visionary founders of the future.
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About January Ventures: January Ventures (previously known as Jane VC) invests early and opens doors for the visionary founders of the future.
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.
Marius George Ciubotariu
Project Lead and Founder of Hubble Protocol
Marius Ciubotariu is a Project Lead and Founder at Hubble Protocol.
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About Hubble Protocol: Hubble is a decentralized financial protocol that allows for long-term borrowing, lending, and structured products.
Daniel Shakhani
Co-Founder of Salary Finance
Daniel is an entrepreneur, financier and philanthropist.He previously held director positions at Goldman Sachs and RBS and is now an active builder of social impact ventures.
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About Pirkx, Salary Finance: Salary Finance partners with employers to improve employee wellbeing by helping get people out of debt and into saving.
Alex Khein
Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of BlueCove
Alex Khein is a Chief Executive Officer at BlueBay Asset Management.
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About BlueCove: BlueCove is a new scientific asset management firm.
Co-Founder and Partner of Alpha Wave Global
Navroz D. Udwadia is the Co-Founder and Partner of Falcon Edge Capital. He was an investment professional in Eton Park’s Emerging Markets team in London. Mr. Udwadia graduated from Columbia University in the City of New York with a BA in English & Political Science and received an LLB in Law at the University of Oxford. Navroz also received an NCAA Post Graduate Scholarship Award and Arthur Ashe Sports Scholar Award.
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About Alpha Wave Global: Alpha Wave Global is a global alternative asset manager that offers a variety of investment products.
Michael Sackler
Founder & Managing Partner of Supernode Global
Michael Sackler is the Founder and managing partner at Rooks Nest Ventures. He is a film producer of indie hit films like The Witch and Obvious Child, and the one behind film studio Rooks Nest Entertainment.
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About Huckletree, Supernode Global: Supernode Global is an early-stage venture capital firm that invests in media-tech.
Eileen Burbidge
Co-Founder & Partner of Passion Capital
Eileen Burbidge is a Partner at Passion Capital, the pre-eminent early-stage VC fund based in London. She brings extensive operational experience to her investment activities gleaned from business and product roles at Yahoo!, Skype, Apple and elsewhere. In addition to Passion Capital, Eileen is also the Chair of TechCity UK, which is the British government-backed organisation supporting digital business across the UK. She is also HM Treasury’s Special Envoy for FinTech appointed by then Chancellor George Osborne; Tech Ambassador for the Mayor of London’s office and served on former Prime Minister David Cameron’s Business Advisory Group. Eileen was made an MBE for services to Business in June 2015 and holds a BSc Engineering degree in Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
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About Marshmallow, Passion Capital, White Bear Yard: Passion Capital is an early stage venture capital firm based in London.
Robert Dighero
Co-Founder & Partner of Passion Capital
Robert Dighero has over 20 years operational experience, the last 15 working with the internet. He is a partner at White Bear Yard and an active investor across Europe focused on early stage e-commerce, payment and marketplace businesses. He has led a number of investment syndicates and taken on a number of board and advisory roles. Robert was previously CFO of QXL ricardo from 1998 to 2008, overseeing development from start-up to its eventual sale to Naspers. He managed a diverse range of corporate actions including its dual listing IPO, consolidating the European online auction market with nine acquisitions, the largest over $1 billion and launching an MBO. The QXL Group was the best performing share on Main Market in both 2004 and 2005 and in the All-Share in 2007 with an over 35,000% share price increase in 5 years. Robert was short-listed for CBI / Real FD, FD of the Year in 2007 and the following year negotiated the £1 billion sale of QXL via a public take-over offer. Prior to QXL, Robert was CFO of AOL UK and previous roles included that of M&A at Bertelsmann USA and at Verulam Investments. Robert started his career at Bain & Co, having left Cambridge with a First class degree and a post-graduate degree in Engineering and has an MBA from Insead.
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About Bouf, Passion Capital, White Bear Yard: Passion Capital is an early stage venture capital firm based in London.
Juan Lobato
Co-Founder & Co-CEO of Ebury
Juan Lobato is a tech entrepreneur based in London. He is the co-founder and co-CEO of Ebury, one of European fastest growing fintechs. Furthermore, he is an investor in over a dozen tech companies across the UK, Europe, and the US
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About BaseKit, Ebury: Ebury is a financial services company designed to empower small and medium-sized businesses that want to trade internationally.
Salvador Garcia
Co-CEO & Co-Founder of Ebury
Salvador has led the creation and growth of Ebury. His passion and expertise in Financial Services has enabled Ebury to become one of Europe’s most successful fintech businesses, offering SMEs the financial products required to grow across international boundaries.
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About Ebury: Ebury is a financial services company designed to empower small and medium-sized businesses that want to trade internationally.
Alex Wheldon
Co-Founder of Rho Business Banking
Alex is a technology & finance entrepreneur and Co-founder of Rho Business Banking. Alex previously founded adtech platform Kanary, Europe’s first DMP/DSP ad buying platform (acquired in 2014), and served as an executive and investor in Lyst, the global fashion platform, and Smarkets, the world’s second largest betting exchange and prediction market. Alex is also an active technology investor in Europe and North America.
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About Rho Business Banking: Rho Business Banking is a digital banking platform for startups and high-growth companies.
Haakon Overli
Co-Founder and General Partner of Dawn Capital
Haakon started Dawn Capital with Norman Fiore in 2007. He has extensive investing, operational and venture capital experience. As an entrepreneur, he co-founded Self Trade – an online sharedealing platform – and acted as the CEO for the highly successful British part of the business and was a member of their European Executive Board. Self Trade was floated in April 2000 and then sold in October 2000 to DAB (a subsidiary of HVB of Germany) for €911M. Haakon has served on the boards of Self Trade and Wonga.com amongst others, and currently represents Dawn’s interest at Conversocial, Crate.io, LeadDesk, Minute Media and Neo Technologies. Prior to formalising early stage investing at Dawn, Haakon worked with early stage companies from their first commercial efforts through to managing accelerated growth, often by serving as an interim manager or board member. They include G-Cluster (sold to Softbank Broadmedia) and Lateral Logic (sold to Electronic Arts). Mr. Overli studied Mathematics at the University of Oslo and holds a B.A. (Hons) in Economics from University of Durham. In his investment-banking career when the world was covered in ice, Haakon was a Director and Co-Head of Technology Investment Banking at ING Barings. Prior even to that, Haakon worked for JP Morgan in the M&A departments of New York and London.
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About Dawn Capital: Dawn Capital is an early-stage venture fund that focuses on investing in the enterprise software and FinTech sectors.
Norman Fiore
Co-Founder and General Partner of Dawn Capital
Norman co-founded Dawn Capital in 2007. Since that time he has invested in several of Europe’s leading SaaS businesses including Mimecast [MIME], Collibra, Showpad and Automile and in B2B/B2C e-commerce business Gelato. Prior to Dawn, Norman was Partner at the Reuters Greenhouse Fund, Reuters Plc’s global technology VC fund. At Reuters, Norman co-managed one of the largest corporate technology funds that invested over $450M in over 80 early, mid and late stage companies globally. In 2001, Norman and his fellow partners acquired the Greenhouse Fund and subsequently sold companies in the online media/advertising sector (Advertising.com (to AOL), Forbes.com (to PE buyer), Bitpipe (to TechTarget), Moreover (to VeriSign)), internet services (WhereOnEarth (to Yahoo), UltraDNS (to NeuStar), Radialpoint (to TA), Investis (to PE buyer)) and software (Packetvideo (to NextWave), ID2 (to Sonera), Metamerge (to IBM), Persistence (Nasdaq IPO, now PRGS). Prior to Reuters, Norman worked at Bain & Company in London, initially in the Telecoms practice and then the Private Equity group. Norman is a graduate of Stanford University with dual BS and BA degrees in Engineering and Economics and holds an MBA with distinction from INSEAD business school.
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About Bain & Company, Dawn Capital: Dawn Capital is an early-stage venture fund that focuses on investing in the enterprise software and FinTech sectors.
Piotr Pisarz
Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Uncapped
Piotr joined DN Capital in 2017 as an Investment Manager. Previously he was a VC investor in Orange Growth Capital, where he focused on fintech. Piotr started his career in Citigroup, where he was an M&A Investment Banker covering an energy sector, and then spent several years in Google where he focused on Finance, Hardware and Sales areas. Piotr has a Masters degree from London Business School and B.Sc. in Finance and Accounting from Warsaw School of Economics.
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About Uncapped: Uncapped is a provider of revenue-based financing that enables founders to raise growth capital without interest or equity.
Daniel Hegarty
Founder and CEO of Habito
Daniel founded Habito, the free online mortgage broker in 2015. He saw the opportunity to transform the mortgage market after a frustrating and protracted experience getting his own mortgage and decided to use technology to create a better way. Daniel has extensive fintech experience that took an unusual route, having spent the early part of his career as a professional musician. He was a songwriter, session musician, composed for TV and film and toured internationally for many years. In 2007, he became increasingly interested in the tech and startup scene and joined a fledgling fintech company, Wonga as Head of Product. He went on to hold several other positions as the business grew and became global including Head of Decision Science, Head of Strategy & New Ventures and Managing Director of Business Lending & Retail.
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About Habito: Habito is a digital mortgage brokerage services company that offers a personal and modernized approach to the home buying experience.
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.
Jeff Lynn
Co-Founder & Executive Chairman of Seedrs
Jeff Lynn is Executive Chairman and co-founder of Seedrs, the leading pan-European equity crowdfunding platform. Seedrs lets investors invest as much or as little as they like in startups they choose, and it lets startups raise capital from friends, family, angels, institutions and the crowds, all through a simple, online process. In addition to running Seedrs, Jeff serves as founding Chairman of The Coalition for a Digital Economy (Coadec), a non-profit advocacy group for digital startups and SMEs.
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About Seedrs: Seedrs is a UK-based investment and crowdfunding platform.
Anton Wellenreiter
Founder and Partner of Charlotte Street Capital
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About Charlotte Street Capital: Charlotte Street Capital is an early-stage venture capital firm that seeks to invest in early-stage B2B businesses.
Oleg Fomenko
Co-Founder of Sweatcoin
Oleg Fomenko is an entrepreneur and advisor with experience in consumer tech, mobile music, telecoms and consumer goods. He is known for his ability to generate and polish a consumer business idea into an attractive proposition and to lead its implementation through securing funding, building teams and boards as well as negotiating groundbreaking commercial deals and partnerships. Oleg is the co-founder of Sweatcoin, a free smartphone app that enables users to turn movement into currency. It does so by monitoring the steps you take when you walk in order to reward you with ‘coins’ that you can then spend on real life goods, service and experiences, available through the Sweatcoin platform. Oleg was also the CEO and Founder of Bloom.fm from 2008-2014. Bloom.fm was an award-winning mobile music streaming service that attracted 1.2m registered users in the UK by offering the world’s’ first £1 per month subscription and outstanding user experience. Oleg built it from an initial idea to £16M funding raise, selected an amazing team, attracted a high-profile advisory board, and negotiated ground-breaking music licensing deals within conservative and creative budget.
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About mflow, Sweatcoin: Sweatcoin is a digital currency backed by economic value of physical movement.
Anton Derlyatka
Co-Founder, Co-CEO of Sweatcoin
Anton is an entrepreneur and investor in Fitness, Wearable and Talent technology verticals
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About Entelo, Good&Co, RolePoint, SmartUp.io, Sweatcoin, Talent Equity Ventures (TEqV): Sweatcoin is a digital currency backed by economic value of physical movement.
Vytautas Karalevicius
CEO & Co-Founder of SpectroCoin
Serial fintech enterpreneur, founder of SpectroCoin (all in one solution for cryptocurrency) and Bankera (banking for the blockchain era) companies.
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About Bankera, SpectroCoin, UAB Pervesk: All in one solution for cryptocurrencies
Peter Janes
Founder and CEO of Shieldpay
Peter is the founder and CEO at Shieldpay and Paycast The Shieldpay Group is the market leader in high value payments. We build companies that provide customers with complete piece of mind during the most important transactions of their lives The Shieldpay Group manages a portfolio of companies that provide businesses and consumers with payment services that secure their most important transactions. The Group takes a long-term approach and aims to become the market leader in high value payments. Shieldpay – Formed in 2016, Shieldpay is a payments company that is quickly becoming the global leader in securing high-value transactions. Whether an individual or business, Shieldpay enables instant digital escrow payments to be created in a very fast, streamlined and cost-effective manner. Paycast – Launched in 2020, Paycast is the complete payments platform designed for marketplace sellers and freelancers. Paycast enables a new way for buyers to complete transactions and online sellers to receive funds in a protected and totally secure manner. Paycast is the payments hub and digital wallet to online sellers, freelancers and gig-economy workers who sell their goods and services on C2C and B2B marketplaces around the world.
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About Paycast, Shieldpay: Shieldpay is a market leader in digital payment solutions across the legal, financial and professional services industries.
Tom Squire
Co-Founder & Chief Commercial Officer of Shieldpay
Tom Squire is the Co-Founder and Chief Commercial Officer at SPG.
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About Paycast, Shieldpay, SPG: Shieldpay is a market leader in digital payment solutions across the legal, financial and professional services industries.
David Soskin
Partner and co-Founder of HOWZAT Partners
David Soskin is on the boards of mySupermarket.com and Cortexica Vision Systems where he is Chairman. He was a non-executive director of the Momondo Group (formerly Cheapflights) until October 2014 when Great Hill Partners acquired a majority stake in the business. Priceline Inc acquired Momondo in 2017 for $550 million. He served as Chief Executive Officer of Cheapflights – which he joined in March 2000 upon the management buy-in – until April 2008. Under his leadership, Cheapflights grew from an attic-based operation into an international leader in online travel search reaching 8.4 million users in January 2008. During this period, Cheapflights won many industry awards and was included in the Sunday Times Microsoft Tech Track of the UK’s 100 fastest growing privately-owned technology companies for five years in a row. David was a Finalist for the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2006.
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About Aldermore Bank, Cheapflights, HOWZAT Partners, Momondo Group, mySupermarket: HOWZAT Partners is an investment fund which invests in early stage digital businesses.
Alexander Kent-Braham
Co-Founder of Marshmallow
Alexander was an early employee at Yoti – a fintech startup that has gone on to be valued at $100m. Prior to Yoti he worked at an algorithmic quantitative Hedge Fund.
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About Marshmallow: Marshmallow is a full-stack insurance carrier driven by technology.
Oliver Kent-Braham
Co-Founder of Marshmallow
Oliver was part of the founding team of Yoti. Prior to Yoti he worked in financial services and founded a mobile application startup.
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About Marshmallow: Marshmallow is a full-stack insurance carrier driven by technology.
Bill Nixon
Managing Partner & Founder of Maven Capital Partners
Bill is based in the Glasgow and London offices, and is the principal fund manager for all Maven VCTs. He has responsibility for all aspects of the Maven business, including strategy, new investment activity, client management and business development. At Aberdeen Asset Management Bill was Head of Growth Capital, responsible for the UK investment team. In the mid 1990s he was Head of the Private Equity team at National Australia Bank and with more than 30 years of experience in banking, corporate finance and fund management, is one of the most experienced smaller company private equity practitioners in the UK. Bill is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Bankers in Scotland, and has an MBA from Strathclyde University.
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About Maven Capital Partners: Maven Capital Partners is a private equity firm that provides a range of funding options to SMEs and investment opportunities.
Richard Anton
Founder and General Partner of Oxx
Prior to co-founding Oxx, Richard spent 18 years at Amadeus Capital, where he focused on B2B software investments in companies originating from the UK and Israel. Before joining Amadeus, Richard was in the TMT team at Apax Partners. In his early career he worked as a management consultant and a hands-on finance and business development executive, at software company Autonomy. Richard is a past Chairman of the British Venture Capital Association and current Chairman of the Tel Aviv University Trust. He has an MBA from INSEAD and a BA and MA in Mathematics from Cambridge University.
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About Oxx: Oxx is a new growth capital investment firm with offices in London and Stockholm.
Matt Truman
CEO and Co-Founder of True.
Matt Truman has spent 15 years working in the retail and consumer sector. He began his career at Deloitte within the retail and consumer products division, where he qualified as a chartered accountant. After four years, Matt joined Lehman Brothers to be an equity analyst, where he was made Head of European Retail at the age of 28. Matt was headhunted to lead JP Morgan’s European retail franchise in Equities. During his time in the City, Matt has advised, established relationships with and analysed retailers such as Tesco, Wal-Mart, Net-A-Porter, Metro, Kingfisher, Carrefour, Casino, Ahold, ASOS, Marks & Spencer, Migros, Biedronka, Jeronimo Martins, Delhaize, CBD, Magnit, DIA, AlexandAlexa.com and Delticom. In 2007 Matt co-founded True Capital and TrueStart with a view to creating an investment management firm with a sector specialist investment approach, targeting businesses with business models fit for the future of the retail and consumer industries. Matt sits on the board of fast growing retailers such as Ribble Cycles, The Cotswold Company and Tyres on the Drive.com.
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About True.: True is a consumer-focused investment and innovation firm reimagining what good business looks like.
Paul Cocker
Co-Founder of True.
Paul began his career within the retail and consumer products division of Deloitte in September 2000 and spent 6 years with Deloitte in both the London and Sydney offices, where he advised a broad range of clients. Paul left Deloitte to pursue a career as a corporate financier, most recently with Strand Hanson, a Mayfair based advisory boutique. Paul has advised on a large number of corporate transactions, both within equity capital markets and mergers and acquisitions. Paul has been a partner in True Capital since its founding and played an operational role in helping to grow ecommerce business, Alexandalexa.com from a start-up into the established global leader in online childrenswear retail. Paul acted as Finance Director of the company following True Capital’s initial investment and was instrumental in establishing the business controls and processes which formed the basis for the company’s rapid growth. Paul currently sits on the board of Broadmargins Limited, a high growth ecommerce retailer and is an adviser to numerous other ecommerce businesses.
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About True.: True is a consumer-focused investment and innovation firm reimagining what good business looks like.
Ernesto Schmitt
Co-Founder & Arch Crafter of The Craftory, also co-founder & President of Sibylla.ai, and chair of both context.ai and hypersentience.ai.
Ernesto Schmitt is an entrepreneur and investor. He is co-founder of The Craftory, the $600M investment house focused on insurgent challenger brands in consumer goods. Previously Schmitt was founder/CEO of Beamly, DriveTribe and peoplesound. He is also chairman of Deep Learning ventures Fabula AI, and Mogees.
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About The Craftory: The Craftory is an investment fund that focuses on cause-driven CPG brands.
Jeremy Elliott
Founder & Global Head of Energy of Marex Spectron
Jeremy Elliott joined Marex Spectron in September 2013 from ICAP as COO of the Energy division before becoming MD and co-head in August 2014. Jeremy held a number of roles at ICAP latterly as business manager of the Energy unit with primary responsibility for new business initiatives and electronic broking. He has more than 15 years’ experience in the financial and energy markets.
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About Marex Spectron: Marex Spectron is a broker offering unrivalled breadth of commodity market.
Fahd Rachidy
Founder and CEO of ABAKA Holdings
Fahd is a serial entrepreneur passionate about helping the industry creates secure financial futures for everyone, and re-inventing the way the financial industry works using Artificial Intelligence. Fahd was previously co-founder of Scientificbeta.com, the leading index retirement digital platform recently acquired by SGX for $205m. Ecole Centrale, Sorbonne University, Lycée Louis Le Grand Paris.
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About ABAKA Holdings: ABAKA is the Enterprise platform powered by Artificial Intelligence enabling institutions to build digital retirement solutions
Ali Barmada
Co-Founder of Brokers Digital
Ali Barmada is a Co-Founder at Brokers Digital. Ali brings more than 10 years of financial and strategical experience to the company.
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About Brokers Digital: Helping You Buy & Sell Online Businesses
Tony Weaver
Founder of MXC Capital
Tony has significant experience of sales, operations and management in the TMT sector. He co-founded the advisory subgroup of MXC Capital with Ian Smith. Tony has founded and managed a number of successful private technology companies and Tony has served on the boards of a number of publicly quoted companies, including Xploite plc and Redstone plc. Tony was a non-executive director of Redcentric plc, having previously been CEO, a role which he held since IPO.
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About MXC Capital: MXC Capital is an investment and advisory group specializing in the technology, media and telecommunications sector.
Alan Morgan
Chairman, Co-Founder of MMC Ventures
Alan co-founded MMC Ventures in 2000. As an active business angel investor he saw the opportunity for a more structured strategic and due diligence approach to venture investing. Alan is a member of the Investment Committee and leads MMC’s financial services focus. He has lead responsibility for Small World.
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About MMC Ventures, Small World Financial Services Group: MMC Ventures is an investment firm that invests in technology companies at Seed and Series A.
Andrew Wynn
Founder & Managing Director of Perwyn
Andrew is the founder and Managing Partner at Perwyn, where he is responsible for all Private Equity and PIF investments. He started his investment banking career at Lazard, and prior to Perwyn worked at CCMP Capital (formerly JPMorgan Partners), where he worked on mid-market Private Equity deals. In his spare time Andrew enjoys outdoor sports, particularly cycling, running and skiing, as well as spending time with his young family.
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About Perwyn: Perwyn is an entrepreneurial, privately-funded investment firm.
Ola Oyetayo
Co-Founder & CEO of Verto
Ola Oyetayo is the Co-Founder & CEO of VertoFX.
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About Verto: We power cross‑border payments for the world’s fastest‑growing startups and enterprises.
Faisal Butt
Founder, CEO & Chairman of Pi Labs
Faisal is CEO, Founder and Chairman of Pi Labs Ltd. Faisal founded Pi Labs Ltd in 2015, after leading the first round of investments in PropTech start-ups Hubble and Trussle as an individual investor. Faisal and his team have built a portfolio of 50 PropTech companies across UK and Europe, making Pi Labs one of the most active investors in PropTech start-ups globally.
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About Pi Labs, Spire Ventures: Europe’s first and most active VC firm investing in early-stage proptech entrepreneurs.
Louise Birritteri
CEO & Founder of Pikl
Louise Birritteri is the CEO and Founder of Pikl and also the Pricing Director of Heuristics Consulting Limited. Prior to joining Pikl, She was the Head of Pricing at The Co-operative Group and Sainsbury’s Bank. Louise received a bachelor science in Mathematics & Statistics and a master of science in Data Mining & Knowledge Discovery at the University of East Anglia.
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About Heuristics Consulting, Pikl: Pikl provides specialist Insurance for the Sharing Economy and “On Demand” Economy.
Freddy Macnamara
Chief Executive Officer & Founder of Cuvva
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About Cuvva: Radically better insurance, fit for the future.
Andrea Bonomi
Founder and Managing Principal of InvestIndustrial Holdings
Andrea C. Bonomi founded Investindustrial in 1990 and serves as its Chairman of the Industrial Advisory Board and Managing Principal. Previously, he was Principal Partner, Senior Partner, and Senior Principal at the firm. Andrea Bonomi previously also served as the President and Head at the firm. He served as the Chairman of Management Board of Banca Popolare di Milano Scarl since 2011. Previously, Andrea Bonomi was responsible for the monitoring of the Saffa Industrial Group investments in Europe and the United States, which included acquisitions, divestments, disposals, and fund raising. Prior to that, he served at Kleinwort Benson, where he was responsible for Spain and Italy, and at Lazard Frères & Co. Andrea Bonomi taught Economics at the University of Pavia. He serves as a Director of a number of companies including 21 Investimenti S.p.A. and 21 Centrale Partners. Andrea Bonomi served as a Director of Ing. Castaldi SpA. He served as a Non-Executive Director of Inversiones Ibersuizas and Permasteelisa SPA. Andrea Bonomi speaks English, French, Italian, and Spanish. He received a B.Sc. in Business Administration from New York University in 1985.
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About InvestIndustrial Holdings: InvestIndustrial Holdings is an investment firm focused on funding Southern European medium-sized companies.
Yoram Wijngaarde
Founder & CEO of Dealroom.co
Yoram founded dealroom.co in 2013. Before that he worked for 10 years in investment banking, advising media, telco and internet companies. Worked at Lehman Brothers between 2004 and 2008 in the Media Investment Banking Group in New York and London. After Lehman’s collapse he and two Lehman colleagues created NOAH Advisors (and the NOAH Conference), an independent tech M&A boutique. Yoram worked at NOAH from 2009 to 2013. Yoram completed 21 M&A deals with over $10bn in combined value and for example led the sale of Fotolia.com to KKR ($500M), the acquisition of Bigpoint by TA/Summit ($350m) and the sale of Softonic to Partners Group (€275m).
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About Dealroom.co: Global database to identify & track promising companies
Norris Koppel
Founder and CEO of Monese
Norris Koppel is CEO & Founder of Monese, a service which enables customers to open a UK banking account in a matter of minutes, using a mobile app. Monese’s breakthrough technology can validate the identity of customers in real time. This enables the company to offer accounts to the hundreds of thousands of expats and migrants who find it slow and painful to open bank accounts with major banks across Europe. Monese’s fully-featured UK current account comes with cheap global payments and a contactless debit card. Norris founded Monese after his first-hand experience of the hassle involved with opening a bank account in a new country. Prior to starting Monese, he built multiple FinTech companies in the UK.
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About Monese: Monese is a digital banking option that provides mobile-only, multi-currency accounts in countries across the European Economic Area.
Chris Trew
CEO – Founder of Stratis
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About Stratis: Stratis is a powerful and flexible block chain development platform designed for the needs of real world financial services and businesses.
Alex Letts
Founder of Ffrees Family Finance
Alex loves great ideas. He was educated at Oxford where he read Classics. That might not have seemed a natural way into the glamorous world of advertising in the Saatchi heydays, but it served him well when dealing with the Greek ads on the Kentucky Fried Chicken account! Early on he decided he wanted to be an entrepreneur and in 1988 he set up the SMI Group, which went on to become the largest business-to-business advertising agency in Europe and 2nd largest in the world. He sold the agency to the French giant Publicis Groupe after it had become pre-eminent in understanding the potential of internet and technology. In early 2000 he founded RI3K, the reinsurance trading platform for the Lloyd’s of London insurance market. The platform went on to become the market leader in global commercial reinsurance trading, with billions of premium transacted. During the 10 years that he ran RI3K Alex raised over £40m for the project. RI3K was sold to the Qatari Financial Centre in 2010 and Alex left the company to found Ffrees. Alex’s vision for Ffrees has been to create the first digital alternative to traditional banking. He wanted to create a platform and brand that was trusted by families and which would help them with their struggle against the tough economic climate they faced. Above all, he wanted to get them a better deal, not just in their banking, but in every aspect of their finances. Ffrees is the first current account that pays its customers as they spend. It saves up rewards which earn bonuses that are better than bank current account interest rates, and it has a wide range of retail based and financial services rewards which are added to the family savings each time they spend. Alex believes that Frees is the new model for the way families manage their current accounts and family finances.
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About Ffrees Family Finance: Ffrees provides a digital current account service that provides access and tools to allow users to save up rather than to get into debt.
Kevin Reynolds
Founder of Bridgepoint
Kevin Reynolds currently sits on the boards of The Dining Club Group, Phlexglobal and LOC Group. Earlier in his career he was responsible for Bridgepoint’s activities in the UK and was Joint Managing Partner of BDC; previous board seats include ERM, SPTS and Tilney. Prior to joining Bridgepoint in 1987 he worked for a small private equity firm. Kevin has a degree in Accounting and Financial Management from the University of Sheffield and qualified as a Chartered Accoutant with Deloitte, Haskins & Sells.
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About Bridgepoint: Bridgepoint is an international alternative asset fund management firm offering private equity and private debt lending solutions.
Stefan Pajkovic
Co-Founder and CEO of TradeCore
Stefan Pajkovic works as a CEO and Co-Founder at TradeCore.
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About TradeCore, TradeCrowd: TradeCore is a multi-product and full-service FinTech company developing unique tools for brokers and financial service providers.
Patrick Wills
Founder of Earlymarket
Paddy has worked in finance most of his career at Banque Paribas (now BNP), Deutsche Bank, Montier Partners and others. He managed a tactical investment portfolio for Catlin Group (now part of XL) before running his own company. He is a qualified helicopter pilot and has 2 children. Paddy attended both Imperial College, London and University of Exeter and has a degree in Computer Science.
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About Earlymarket: Earlymarket is a London-based investment fund that provides seed capital to companies in the technology industry.
Luke Kingston
Founder & Partner of Horizon Capital
Luke Kingston is the founder & Partner at Horizon Capital that focuses on sourcing and executing new investment opportunities.
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About Horizon Capital: Horizon Capital private equity firm invests in high-growth technology and business services companies.
Crawford Taylor
Co-Founder & CEO of Nude
Crawford is the CEO of Nude, a savings account and financial friend for first-time home buyers. He was previously a senior owning partner at Hymans Robertson LLP, one of the largest independent pension consultants in the UK. After spending decades helping older people save for retirement, he is now helping the younger generation buy their first home. He wants to make the home buying experience easier, faster and fairer for young people across the UK. He started Nude to change an outdated, complex and unfair home buying experience that has ultimately resulted in Generation Rent and a growing financial gap between home owners and renters. Nude is the first to guide home buyers all the way, from saving their first £5 through to paying off their mortgage. His ultimate vision is to help people tick off every major financial milestone – there’s children’s accounts, retirements savings and plenty more to fix. Whatever the goal, the focus is always to make it easier, faster and fairer for people to save for it.
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About Nude: The new way to save for and purchase your first home.
