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 Financial Services 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.
Emmet Keeffe
Operating Partner, Founder Insight Ignite of Insight Partners
Emmet B. Keeffe III is the Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder of Irise. In the early 1990’s Emmet set two goals – to start a software company that would achieve $1 billion in revenue and to start a Formula One team. In the late 1990’s, Emmet and Maurice Martin co-founded iRise with a vision to transform how business and IT stakeholders would communicate about requirements for custom and packaged business software. In 2000, Emmet and Maurice invented the market for “Software Visualization” and have built iRise into the world’s leading provider of enterprise visualization for business software. Over the last 20 years Emmet has applied his philosophy of “the network is the business” to become one of the most well-connected CEOs in the software industry. As CEO & Co-Founder of iRise, Emmet has leveraged his network to close over $60 million in investment funding and drives leadership of sales, marketing and business development at iRise. Prior to co-founding iRise, he built a top-selling region at NetDynamics, a pioneer of the Web application server market that was later acquired by Sun Microsystems. Earlier in his sales career, Emmet earned over 15 national sales awards, including being named “National Top Performer” by NetDynamics, Auspex Systems, Diasonics and Minolta. In 2005, Emmet founded the “iRise Executive Roundtable Series” with a vision to deliver world-class content and networking with no selling which has been attended by hundreds of CIOs from the world’s largest global companies. Since the program’s inception, he has delivered roundtable partnerships to iRise with TRG Motorsports in the Grand Am Series, PKV Racing in the Champ Car Series, KV Racing Technology in the Indy Car Series and most recently with the Lotus F1 Team in Formula One. Emmet is a Strategic Partner at Lotus F1 Team and supports the sales organization in their efforts to bring new sponsors into Formula 1. In addition, Emmet is a Founding Board Member of the Corporate Coalition at Peace One Day, an organization focused on institutionalizing an international day of cease fire and non-violence on September 21st of each year. Outside of his role at iRise, Emmet is passionate about his family, driving Radical SR3 race cars, running, skiing, music, travel and entrepreneurship. Emmet earned a B.A. in Political Economies of Industrial Societies from the University of California at Berkeley and lives in London, England.
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About Insight Partners, iRise: Insight Partners is a private equity firm that invests in growth-stage technology and software companies.
Nikolay Storonsky
Founder & CEO of Revolut
Nikolay Storonsky is the Founder and CEO at Revolut. He is a former Equity Derivatives Trader at Credit Suisse and Lehman Brothers. Storonsky graduated from Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (State University) (MIPT) with a master of science in General and Applied Physics and earned a master of arts in Applied Economics and Finance at New Economic School.
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About Revolut: Revolut is a financial services company that specializes in mobile banking, card payments, money remittance, and foreign exchange.
Vlad Yatsenko
Co-Founder & CTO of Revolut
Prior to co-founding Revolut, Vlad spent ten years building financial systems at tier one investment banks. Serving as CTO, Vlad has been at the forefront of Revolut’s award-winning technology, building a next generation banking experience.
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About Revolut: Revolut is a financial services company that specializes in mobile banking, card payments, money remittance, and foreign exchange.
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
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.
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.
Rune Christensen
Founder & CEO of MakerDAO
Rune Christensen is Chief Executive Officer and Cofounder of MakerDAO. MakerDAO issues Dai, the world’s first stablecoin on the Ethereum blockchain, that eliminates volatility through a system of smart contracts designed to respond to market dynamics. Since 2015, Christensen has focused on establishing the vision and organizational structure of the Maker Decentralized Autonomous Organization and the economic foundations of the Dai stable digital currency. Previously, he served as co-founder of Try China, a company providing international recruiting. He studied Biochemistry at the University of Copenhagen and studied International Business at the Copenhagen Business School.
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About MakerDAO: Maker is a decentralized autonomous organization on the Ethereum blockchain.
Javier Etxebeste
Limited Partner (Founders Group) of The Fund
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About The Fund: A community-driven venture fund comprised of leading global founders & operators
Kumar Gaurav
Founder and CEO of Cashaa
Kumar is the Founder & CEO of Cashaa, a UK based neo-bank providing businesses access to crucial banking infrastructure. Cashaa is a community of more than 250 crypto businesses including the industry leaders making it the biggest crypto-friendly banking platform. Kumar started his career as an engineer by building navigation systems for Ferrari before pivoting into the FinTech space in 2014 to begin working on blockchain-powered innovations. In recognition of his pioneering work on blockchain technology, he was awarded extraordinary (O-1) status by the United States government in 2017 and got listed among the Top 100 Most Influential People in Blockchain in 2016-2018 by Rise global. As a thought leader in the Fintech space, he has been invited to numerous global forums, including Money 2020, TechCrunch Disrupt, the European Parliament and Ivy League universities. In 2017, he was also nominated among the ‘World’s Top 50 Innovators from the industries of the future in the UK.
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About Cashaa: Next Generation Banking Platform
Janina Lowisz
Co-Founder and VP Marketing of Cashaa
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About Auxesis Group, Cashaa: Next Generation Banking Platform
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.
Aviad Eyal
Co-Founder & Managing Partner of Entrée Capital
Aviad Eyal is the co-founder and Managing Partner at Entree Capital.
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About Empathy, Entrée Capital, SeatGeek, Stash Financial: Entrée Capital is a venture capital firm that funds multi-stage startups and companies all over the world.
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.
Christian Sieber
Founder of Walhalla Capital
Christian Sieber is a managing partner and founder of Walhalla Capital, an investment and advisory company based in London
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About : A venture capital investment firm focused on creative and digital assets
Marc Boyan
Founder & CEO of Miroma Ventures
Marc began his career in marketing with the Goldsmith family, creating and selling events such as World Wrestling Federation, Net Aid, Smash Hits & Route of Kings. His first business venture started in 2000, setting up tourist information channel, City Tour TV. The concept can now be found in various airlines, black taxis and hotels in the UK. In 2003, Marc spotted an opportunity to use barter in all areas of modern commerce and set up corporate barter company, Miroma International. He has grown the business into one of the leading corporate barter companies in Europe with Miroma International’s growth trajectory recognized in The Sunday Times Virgin Fast Track 100 report on UK businesses for four years in a row between 2008 and 2011. Outside of Miroma International, Marc has also focused on building out the Miroma Ventures portfolio, focusing on media, technology and consumer investments. Marc is a dedicated supporter of the Rays of Sunshine Children’s Charity, sitting on its Executive Board.
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About Miroma Group, Miroma Ventures: Miroma Ventures is the investment arm of The Miroma Group, predominantly investing in growth stage consumer brands and media platforms.
Kamal Haider
Founder of Market Securities
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About Market Securities: Market Securities LLP is a global independent intermediary specializing in a broad range of financial products
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.
Yasin Sebastian Qureshi
Founder and Head of Strategy of Aqua Digital Rising
Yasin Sebastian Qureshi is the founder and former CEO of Varengold Bank. At the age of 29 he was the youngest person ever in Germany to obtain a license to run an investment bank. He is also the founder and former CEO of The NAGA Group AG www.naga.com as well as the founder of AQUA Digital Rising www.aquarising.com. He is an entrepreneur, investor and film producer born in Germany and based in London. His investments range from finance, to Internet and media.
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About Aqua Digital Rising: Next Generation Alternative-Asset Investment and Analytics Platform – Unlocking Human Value with AI and Big Data
Fredrik Broberg
Founder & CEO of Marketflow
Successful serial entrepreneur with a strong emphasis on defining companies at the crossroads of technology and finance. Fredrik leads the strategy of the company which defines Marketflow and its innovative and unique approach.
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About Marketflow: Marketflow is an innovative FinTech company.
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.
Andrew Banks
Chairman and Co-Founder of ABRY Partners
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About ABRY Partners, Bain & Company: ABRY Partners is an equity firm focused on investments in media.
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.
Ashley Turing
CEO & Founder of LiveTree
Ashley Turing, LiveTree CEO, is an entrepreneur and investor with a diverse background and over twenty years’ experience in technology innovation. Ashley is a specialist on blockchain intellectual property rights management and featured speaker at various conferences around the globe.
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About LiveTree: LiveTree is a social UK crowdfunding platform based in Hackney, London.
Jamie A Ward
Co-Founder & Technology Officer of LiveTree
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About Goldsmiths, University of London, Goldsmiths, University of London, LiveTree, UCL: LiveTree is a social UK crowdfunding platform based in Hackney, London.
James Harrison
Co-Founder & CTO of Genesis Global
James has over 20 years experience in senior technology, development & implementation roles for some of the worlds leading investment banks including Credit Suisse, Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns, HSBC and vendors incl. Fidessa. During his career James has lived in New York, London, & Hong Kong. Prior to genesis global, James was regarded as one of the leaders in this field, managing global technical teams in supporting & delivering mission-critical, real-time systems for tier 1 global banking institutions needing their trading businesses to run near 24-7.
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About Genesis Global: Genesis Global is a low-code technology platform that helps financial institutions build new applications.
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.
John Lunn
CEO and Founder of Gr4vy
John Lunn is the Senior Global Director of Developer and Startup Relations for PayPal and Braintree. John is focused on innovation, ensuring that developers and startups around the globe have access to the features, functionality and mentorship that they need. Prior to his current work at PayPal, John spent 15 years building systems for payment and fraud detection at several successful start ups.
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About Gr4vy: Gr4vy is a cloud payment orchestration platform that helps businesses manage their payment solutions
Ali Minaei
Co-Founder and CTO of Gr4vy
Ali is the Co-Founder and CTO of Gr4vy. who has more than 15 years’ experience in tech engineering, has been in payment for the past 8 years working at PayPal and Wonga prior to Yoyo. At Yoyo he is responsible for leading and scaling the Engineering team and building the next generation of Yoyo’s payment and loyalty platform.
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About Gr4vy: Gr4vy is a cloud payment orchestration platform that helps businesses manage their payment solutions
Cristiano Betta
Co-Founder and CPO of Gr4vy
Cristiano is the Co-Founder and CPO of Gr4vy.
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About Gr4vy: Gr4vy is a cloud payment orchestration platform that helps businesses manage their payment solutions
Federico Pirzio-Biroli
Founder & Chairman of Playfair Capital
Fede started out as an angel investor in 2010. His portfolio quickly grew, so he built a team around him and thus Playfair Capital was born. We have since gone on to become one of Europe’s most active and well-known early-stage VC funds. Before becoming a technology investor Fede worked for several NGOs in Africa, with a particular focus on aid transparency. He recently renewed his focus on Africa by relocating to Kenya and becoming an angel investor in East Africa’s burgeoning startup ecosystem. He maintains an active role at Playfair and continues to lead our investment team.
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About Playfair Capital: Playfair Capital is an early-stage fund backing founders building technology that changes the way people live and work.
Lance Uggla
Founder and CEO of IHS Markit
Lance Uggla is Chairman and CEO of IHS Markit. He served as president from July 2016 to December 2017 and was appointed chief operating officer in October 2017. Prior to the 2016 merger of IHS and Markit that formed IHS Markit, Lance was the chief executive officer of Markit, responsible for leading the company’s strategic development and managing day-to-day operations. He founded Markit in 2003 after spotting an opportunity to bring transparency to the credit default swap market. The company launched the first daily credit default swap pricing service that year. He oversaw Markit’s growth from a startup to a global public company with more than 4,200 employees in 28 offices worldwide, serving more than 3,000 customers. Lance graduated from the Simon Fraser University in Canada with a BBA and holds a Master of Science from the London School of Economics, UK.
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About IHS, IHS Markit: IHS provides information and analysis to support the decision-making process of businesses and governments in regards to various industries.
Ivan Ashminov
Co-Founder of Trading 212
Ivan Ashminov is the Co-Founder at Trading 212.
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About Trading 212: Trading 212 is a fintech company that provides free, smart apps to democratize the economic market.
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.
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.
Stephen Lemon
Co-Founder | Vice President | Strategic Partnerships & Corporate Development of Currencycloud
Steve has worked in Foreign exchange and international payments, pretty much forever, and participated in the first FinTech of the late 90s wave (before it was even called Fintech) as founding team member of HiFX. The current, product lead revolution has tipped him over the edge and he’s now a fully paid up FinTech geek, of the opinion that we live in exciting times and that Open APIs will change the world. Stephen currently also serves as a Non-Executive Director and Advisor for a number of early stage FinTech companies, and has recently mentored for the 2017 cohort at Techsters. In his personal time Steve is a keen amateur photographer, motorsport lover and live music fan.
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About Currencycloud: Currencycloud specializes in a fully cloud-based platform for B2B cross-border payments.
Mark Lamb
Co-Founder and CEO of CoinFLEX
Mark is CEO of CoinFLEX and a longtime advocate for physically delivered futures over cash settlement as a way to prevent manipulation. Mark’s vision for crypto derivatives is to grow the industry beyond speculation into real commercial use for lending, borrowing, hedging and payments. Mark Lamb has been in bitcoin since 2012 and previously co-founded Coinfloor, the UK’s first cryptocurrency exchange back in 2013.
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About CoinFLEX: CoinFLEX is the leading crypto derivatives exchange and yield platform.
Carlo Gualandri
Founder and CEO of Soldo
Carlo Gualandri is the founder and CEO at Soldo. Gualandri is an Italian technology entrepreneur whose innovative companies have broken new ground in the world of media (Virgilio), banking (Fineco), and gaming (Gioco Digitale).
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About Soldo: Soldo is a multi-user expense account helping companies manage their budgets.
Mark Hipperson
Founder and CEO of Ziglu
Mark has founded a UK retail bank and two financial technology businesses. He is a commentator and speaker on banking, FinTech, crypto, technology, PSD2 and open banking. Mark is the founder and CEO of Ziglu, the modern challenger. Previously, he founded Starling Bank where he was responsible for helping to secure the UK banking licence with regulators and obtaining the initial funding the Bank achieved in December 2015. He was also responsible for the design, build, implementation and support of the Bank’s IT platform, apps and infrastructure. He started his career at Barclays where he was Head of Technology.
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About Ziglu: Ziglu provides a digital platform that enables customers to exchange fiat currency for cryptocurrency.
Niall McConnell
Founder & Chief Financial Officer of Ziglu
Niall McConnell is the co-founder and Chief Financial Officer at Ziglu.
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About Ziglu: Ziglu provides a digital platform that enables customers to exchange fiat currency for cryptocurrency.
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.
Nejc Kodric
Co-Founder & CEO of Bitstamp
Nejc Kodric Since starting out in 2011 with little more than some basic computer equipment, €1,000 and a love of technology, Nejc has been instrumental in developing Bitstamp into one of the most trusted and highest volume bitcoin exchanges in the world. With offices in Luxembourg, London and New York, Bitstamp continues to grow from strength to strength, serving its customers’ bitcoin trading requirements. Among his many achievements as chief executive officer, Nejc spearheaded the approach to become the first fully licensed virtual currency exchange in EU, which was granted in 2016, setting the benchmark for the Bitcoin industry’s continued consolidation and strength. With a keen interest in promoting economic empowerment and technology, Nejc has spoken at several conferences including Techcrunch, Bitcoin Foundation, MoneyConf, Deloitte Conference: Future Challenges, ICT Spring Europe and FundForum International, and was awarded Best Virtual Currency Start-up at The Europas in June 2014. Nejc was born in Slovenia, where he studied Organization and Management of Information Systems and Economics, and currently splits his time between his home country and Luxembourg. Specialities: Bitcoin, blockchain, trading, virtual currencies, economic empowerment, education, science and technology
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About Bitstamp: Bitstamp allows companies and individuals from all around the world to buy and sell bitcoin, litecoin, ethereum, ripple, and bitcoin cash.
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.
Mark Beeston
Founder & Managing Partner of Illuminate Financial
Mark Beeston founded Illuminate after a 25+ year career in capital markets where he had been both the consumer of capital markets technologies as well as the entrepreneur, operator, and funder of capital markets businesses. Prior to founding Illuminate, Mark was the CEO for the Post Trade Risk and Information business at ICAP (now Nex) where he oversaw the creation of ICAP’s own investment subsidiary. Prior to ICAP Mark launched T-Zero (now ICELink) during his time at Creditex before the company was acquired by ICE in 2008. He started his career with 13 years at Deutsche Bank in derivatives trading and management, including periods as COO for both the Global Rates and Global Credit businesses. Mark has an undergraduate degree from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Mark was listed on the Institutional Investor Fintech Finance 35 and top 40 Lists, Financial News Fintech 40 Power List, Institutional Investor Trade Technology Top 30 and Top 40 Lists, and Derivatives Intelligence/Derivatives Week Rising Stars.
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About Illuminate Financial: Illuminate Financial is a venture capital firm backing companies that solve problems in financial services.
Peter Lord
CEO and Co-Founder of Codat
Peter Lord is the co-founder and CEO of Codat with a technical background and previous experience in fintech. After graduating from Southampton University with a degree in Computer Science, Peter joined Credit Suisse as a software engineer but quickly became frustrated with the speed of development. Wanting to experience working in a start-up, he joined MarketInvoice and was tasked with building an integration to accounting software Xero, experience that would later spark the idea for Codat. Through his personal experiences as software engineer, and later as a product owner, Peter is passionate that Codat’s focus is on creating a simple API that powers clients’ solutions to real problems faced by small businesses.
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About Codat: Codat is an API platform that provides real-time connectivity to the financial software used by small businesses.
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.
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.
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.
Inga Mullins
Founder & CEO of Fluency
Inga Mullins is a Founder & CEO at Fluency
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About Fluency: Fluency is a CBDC proprietary blockchain revolutionising and powering the existing financial system.
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.
Portman Wills
Co-Founder & CTO of Wagestream
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About Wagestream: Wagestream is a financial services firm that allows employees to stream their earned wages into their accounts through an instant app.
Peter Briffett
Co-Founder and CEO of Wagestream
Peter Briffett has been the Chief Operating Officer of LeanWorks. Peter Briffett served as Sales Director of iView Multimedia Ltd. Peter Briffett has multimedia technology sales experience and begun his career at 3Com Corporation. He served as European Sales and Marketing Manager of Actiontec Electronics, where he significantly expanded its wireless business and implemented successful channels and distribution strategies.
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About Wagestream: Wagestream is a financial services firm that allows employees to stream their earned wages into their accounts through an instant app.
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.
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.
Thomas Hoegh
Founder of Growth Street
Thomas is the founder of Arts Alliance, an investment organisation that builds and supports innovative and high growth technology companies in Europe, US and the Middle East. Arts Alliance has been behind 45 start ups including Lastminute, LoveFilm, Arts Alliance Media, Spinner, Launch, Atom Shockwave, Smartjog and Shazam. Thomas sits on the boards of City Screen, Kenshoo, Kiala, the Metropolitan Film School, Kebony and Plan UK. He is a visiting professor of Kanazawa Institute of Technology.
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About Arts Alliance, Growth Street, Kanazawa Institute of Technology, Met Film: Growth Street is fast, flexible overdrafts for growing businesses.
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.
Jamie Burke
CEO & Founder of Outlier Ventures
Jamie Burke is the chief executive officer of Outlier Ventures.
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About Outlier Ventures: The World’s Leading Open Metaverse Accelerator
Kiko Duffy
Founder and Investment Director of Spark Ventures
Kiko is an Investment Director at SPARK and was part of its founding team in 1999. Prior to SPARK, Kiko spent two years with NewMedia Investors assisting clients such as Lastminute.com, Silicon.com and System C Healthcare in raising more than £30 million in venture capital. While at SPARK, Kiko has executed a number of investments in the digital media and enterprise software sectors. Kiko currently represents SPARK in investments in Firebox, Elateral, Academia and Community Internet and also assists Tom Teichman in Mydeco.com, Notonthehighstreet.com and We7. Kiko was also responsible for SPARK’s investment in Touch Clarity (sold to Omniture), and managed the sales of Secerno (sold to Oracle), Synaptic Systems (sold to Capita) and Identum (sold to Trend Micro). Kiko holds an MBA in Finance (ESADE 2005) and a BA in Philosophy (University of Manchester).
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About Spark Ventures, The Garage Soho: SPARK Venture is an early-stage venture capital investor in Europe.
Robert Sansom
Founder of Cambridge Angels group
Dr. Robert Sansom is the Board Chairman of Netronome Systems Inc. He is an active angel investor and mentor to start-up businesses in the UK and US. He is a Member of the Board of Directors of Azuro, Inc., a start-up developing tools to reduce power requirements on integrated circuits; Tenison Technology, which delivers software tools that enable hardware and software engineers designing integrated circuits to work together; Fetch, Inc., which delivers tools and services that integrate Internet-available data sources; and Ubisense, Ltd, which is the market leader in indoor, 3D location-detection systems. In September 2001, he Co – Founded, and currently is Chairman of, Cambridge Angels, a group of seasoned technology and bio-technology entrepreneurs who invest in and mentor technology start-ups in the Cambridge area. In 1990, Dr. Sansom Co – Founded FORE Systems, a data communications company which became the leading developer of ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) networks. Dr. Sansom was initially responsible for FORE’s finance and business strategy, including raising venture capital, then ran the software engineering group, building it up to a team of 200 engineers, and finally became responsible for technical strategy as Chief Technology Officer. Dr. Sansom was also a Member of the Board of Directors of FORE. In 1999, when it employed over 2,000 employees and had annual revenues of over $600 million, FORE was sold to Marconi (previously GEC plc) for $4.5 billion. Dr. Sansom continued as Marconi’s Chief Technology Officer until April 2000. Dr. Sansom has a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, USA. An M.A. in Computer Science from the University of Cambridge, England.
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About Cambridge Angels group, Creative Destruction Lab (CDL), Myrtle Software: The Cambridge Angels are a group of high-net worth investors who have proven experience as successful entrepreneurs in internet, software,
David Cleevely
CoFounder of Cambridge Angels group
David Cleevely (FREng, FIET) is an entrepreneur and international telecoms expert who has built and advised many companies, principally in Cambridge, UK. He has invested in over 35 companies (including Neul). David was founder and former Chairman of telecoms consultancy Analysys (acquired by Datatec International in 2004). In 1998, he co-founded the web based antibody company Abcam (ABC.L) with Jonathan Milner and was Chairman until November 2009. In late 2004 he co-founded the 3G femto base station company, 3WayNetworks, which was sold to Airvana in April 2007. He has been a prime mover behind Cambridge Network, co-founder of Cambridge Wireless, co-founder and Chairman of Cambridge Angels and is a member of the IET Communications Policy Panel. For 8 years until March 2009 he was a member of the Ofcom Spectrum Advisory Board. From 2001 to 2008 David was a member of the Ministry of Defence Board overseeing information systems and services (DES-ISS, formerly the Defence Communications Services Agency).
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About Cambridge Angels group: The Cambridge Angels are a group of high-net worth investors who have proven experience as successful entrepreneurs in internet, software,
Doug Richard
Founder of Cambridge Angels group
Doug Richard is a successful entrepreneur with 20 years’ experience in the development and leadership of technology and software ventures. Doug featured in the first two TV series’ of Dragon’s Den. He is the co-founder of the Cambridge Angels and Chairman of the Conservative Party Small Business Task Force. Between 1996 and 2000 Doug was President and CEO of Micrografx, a publicly quoted US software company. Prior to that he also founded and subsequently sold two other companies: Visual Software and ITAL Computers. Doug holds a BA in Psychology from University of California at Berkeley and is a Juris Doctor at the school of Law, University of California at Los Angeles. In 2009 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Essex for his contribution to the teaching of Entrepreneurship; and was also the Guest Lecturer on Entrepreneurship at Cambridge University for the Nanotech Masters and PhD programmes. Working with Brightpearl, Doug provides a strong link to the SME community as well as bringing a broad range of international industry experience to the board.
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About Cambridge Angels group, School for Startups Romania: The Cambridge Angels are a group of high-net worth investors who have proven experience as successful entrepreneurs in internet, software,
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.
Nick Ogden
Founder & Main Board Director of ClearBank
Nick Ogden is the founder of ClearBank and the bank’s Executive Chairman. Prior to ClearBank, Nick founded and led a number of other companies. The most notable of these is WorldPay, which he founded in 1997. The first internet payment service to guarantee transactions worldwide, Nick helped WorldPay grow to over 270 employees, and 20,000 customers across 120 countries and e-commerce transactions in excess of $2 billion per year. The company was acquired by The Royal Bank of Scotland in 2002.Nick also founded Multi Media Investments Limited, a research and development company, in 1993, and Voice Commerce Group, the UK’s first non-bank payments institution, in 2009.
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About CashFlows, ClearBank: ClearBank is the UK’s first new clearing bank in more than 250 years.
Jasper Dykes
Chief Executive Officer & Founder of Fly Now Pay Later
An experienced and highly operational Chief Executive with a successful track record in consumer lending and financial services across US, UK and European markets with specific leadership skills for creating, growing and developing high growth businesses. Approved Person by 2 financial regulators: PRA/FCA & Central Bank of the Republic of Lithuania, with extensive sector experience within alternative payments, consumer lending & debt capital markets having raised in excess of $200m throughout his career to date.
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About Fly Now Pay Later: Fly Now Pay Later is a fintech company that helps consumers split the cost of their travel in monthly installments.
Stuart Jeffrey
Executive Director and Co Founder of Fly Now Pay Later
Stuart Jeffrey is the Executive Director and Co-Founder of Fly Now Pay Later.
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About Fly Now Pay Later, Krzana, Movebubble: Fly Now Pay Later is a fintech company that helps consumers split the cost of their travel in monthly installments.
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.
Alexandre Harkous
Founder & Executive Chairman of OneWealthPlace
Alexandre, BI-SAM founder, has over 20 years of solid experience in strategy and information systems for the Capital Markets and Asset Management industries. He began his career at Mitsubishi Bank as Head of IT before joining Demachy Worms & Cie Bank as Projects Director and then SIP in 1995 as Client Management Director. In 1998 he joined Deloitte Consulting where he developed the Asset Management Expertise Center working closely with various global clients such as HSBC, Merrill Lynch, ABN Amro AM and Dresdner RCM Global Investors. Throughout his career, Alexandre gained a significant international experience in Europe, North America and Asia Pacific and a solid experience in business development, strategy, change management and systems for banking and asset management including securities services, portfolio management and analytics. Alexandre holds a Degree in Engineering and Computer Science.
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About OneWealthPlace: One Wealth Place’s mission to support the digital transformation of private wealth banks and global asset services companies.
Francois Barou
Co-Founder & CFO of OneWealthPlace
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About OneWealthPlace: One Wealth Place’s mission to support the digital transformation of private wealth banks and global asset services companies.
Daniel Kinder
Founder & CEO of Double Kingdom
Daniel is the Founder & CEO of Double Kingdom Holdings, an urban infrastructure development and investment company focused on sub Saharan Africa. Double Kingdom is managed from London with offices throughout sub Saharan Africa and in Beijing and has active developments in government anchored real estate and power sectors. Daniel was the managing partner of Great Ocean Group in Beijing and China, an infrastructure investment company from 2009 to 2012. From 2001 to 2009 he was the co-managing partner of Park Avenue Equity Partners, a New York-based private equity fund focused on infrastructure services assets. Daniel is a member of the Board of Directors and investment committee of the CITIC Securities RenGuo Fund (Beijing, China) and a Henry Crown Fellow of The Aspen Institute. He is co-founder of charity:water, a global water NGO, with operations across 14 countries in Africa and 26 worldwide. Daniel is Chairman of charity:water London.
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About Double Kingdom: Double Kingdom provides sovereign governments in rapidly developing markets a bespoke infrastructure development and financing solution.
David Vanek
Co-Founder and CEO of Anorak
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About Anorak, Kamet: Anorak offers a smart independent insurance adviser that gives people access to tailored advice about their life and their risks.
Vincent Durnez
Co-Founder and CT0 of Anorak
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About Anorak, Kamet: Anorak offers a smart independent insurance adviser that gives people access to tailored advice about their life and their risks.
Daniel Doll-Steinberg
Co-Founder of Blockchainsmokers
Daniel Doll-Steinberg had a successful career in investment banking in London and New York. Daniel is a Founder / Director of several other companies in the entertainment, marketing and health spaces, and also advises the UK Government and European Commission on Innovation and education policy. He is a regular speaker on innovation and the values of Intellectual Property (IP) and IP protection.
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About Blockchainsmokers: Blockchainsmokers provides a platform and expertise to those wishing to embrace blockchain technology to achieve transformational growth.
Manish Madhvani
Co-Founder and Managing Partner of GP Bullhound
Manish Madhvani is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of GP Bullhound. Manish has executed M&A and capital raising transactions since 1997, involving some of the best known global internet, software and media companies, including: Spotify, King.com, Believe Digital, WPP, Wipro, Fjord, Hearst Corporation, Accenture, Newscorp and Experian. Manish who was selected as one of the top 40 dealmakers globally by M&A Advisor, started his career at Barclays Capital’s Private Equity team. He has advised the Treasury on Entrepreneurship and graduated from Southampton University with an LLB in Law / MA in Marketing. Manish is a regular speaker on Bloomberg and CNBC and is currently an Ambassador for London Technology Week. He was recognised as one of the leading Entrepreneurs in the UK by the Sunday Times / Maserati 100.
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About GP Bullhound: GP Bullhound is a technology advisory and investment firm that provides transaction advice and capital to entrepreneurs and founders.
Hugh Campbell
Founder and Managing Partner of GP Bullhound
Hugh Campbell is a Founder and Managing Partner of GP Bullhound. Hugh is passionate about technology innovation and entrepreneurs with 15 years’ experience advising and investing in Europe’s current and future Unicorns. He has worked with all the leading growth equity funds in Europe and has sold businesses to Real Networks, Tesco, Disney, Accenture and Experian amongst others. Hugh started his career at Citibank in M&A before moving on to Goldman Sachs where he worked in Equity Research. Hugh is from an entrepreneurial publishing family who sold John Murray Publishers to Hachette in 2002 and founded an e-learning business, Pastest Limited, where Hugh is Chairman. In 2000, Hugh left Goldman Sachs and spent most of the year working and living in Beijing, China before going back to his investment banking roots by co-founding GP Bullhound. Hugh opened the Manchester office in 2013, is a Manchester Grammar School alum and graduated from Pembroke College, Oxford.
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About GP Bullhound: GP Bullhound is a technology advisory and investment firm that provides transaction advice and capital to entrepreneurs and founders.
Paul Taylor
Founder and CEO of Thought Machine
Paul is a serial entrepreneur specialising in speech, language and artificial intelligence. In 2006, he co-founded Phonetic Arts, which developed speech software for the games industry. Phonetic Arts was acquired by Google in 2010, and Paul worked at Google as head of the text-to-speech group and as a research scientist until leaving in 2013. 2004-2006 Paul was a visiting lecturer at Cambridge University, working and teaching in the Engineering department. During this time, he wrote Text-to-Speech synthesis, widely regarded as the definitive book in the field. In 2000, Paul co-founded Rhetorical Systems which was the world leader in text-to-speech. Rhetorical was acquired by Nuance in 2004. From 1989-2000, Paul was at Edinburgh University, where he gained his PhD, worked as a post-doc, tenured lecturer and eventually director of the Centre for Speech Technology Research. He is author of more than 80 academic papers.
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About Thought Machine: Thought Machine is a Fintech company that builds cloud-native technology to revolutionize core banking.
Eduard Panteleev
Co-Founder & CEO of ANNA : Absolutely No Nonsense Admin
Co-Founder and CEO at Anna.
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About ANNA : Absolutely No Nonsense Admin: Business Banking and Admin service
Shachar Bialick
Founder & CEO of Curve
Shachar Bialick is a serial entrepreneur, passionate about using technology to improve lives. He is Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Curve -a fintech startup. Hefounded Curve to give people a simpler, smarter way to manage their financial life. It allows people to spend from all their bank accounts and cards through one smart Curve card, connected to an even smarter app. Cardholders can see all their business and personal spend in one place, cut out bank fees on business trips, make their existing cards more secure, manage cash flow with ‘financial time travel’, and never worry about doing their expenses again.
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About Curve: Curve is a banking platform that consolidates cards and accounts into one smart card and app.
Dan Garrett
Founder and CEO of Farewill
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About Farewill: Farewill is a provider of an all-in-one financial and legal services platform used to deal with all paperwork after death.
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.
Amber Ghaddar
Founder of AllianceBlock
Amber Ghaddar is one of the three founders of AllianceBlock. The DeFi startup building the world’s first globally compliant decentralized capital market. Prior to this, Amber held various leadership positions at JP Morgan, in sales, structuring and trading where she spearheaded the macro systematic trading strategies team. She holds 3 masters and a PhD and is a graduate of McGill Canada and HEC France. Amber is a thought leader on participative capitalism and the creator of calibrocracy which she discussed in various events (WEF, TEDx, UNWomen, BBC, Bloomberg…).
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About AllianceBlock: AllianceBlock leverages proprietary AI-technology to rate both corporates and investors.
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.
Flavio Molendini
Co-Founder of B2C2
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About B2C2: B2C2 is the trading firm of choice in the institutional crypto markets.
Max Boonen
Director & Founder of B2C2
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About B2C2: B2C2 is the trading firm of choice in the institutional crypto markets.
Alexander Gerko
Founder of XTX Markets
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About XTX Markets: XTX Markets is a leading electronic trading firm partnering with exchanges and e-trading venues globally.
