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 Partner operating in the B2B space. If you think a Partner is missing from this list, feel free to contact our editor on editor@beststartup.co.uk.
The individuals on this list have been included because of exceptional performance in one of the following categories:
- Innovation – Operating as a key part in an extremely innovative business or startup.
- Growth – Operating as a key figure in the growth and upscale of a market leading business or startup.
- Management – Showing exceptional management skills.
- Societal impact – Putting their business on the map for their positive societal or environmental impact.
Our Data – We source our data from OSINT (open source intelligence) and public directories such as Companies House UK, Crunchbase, SemRush and many more. The data from these sources should be treated with a degree of caution and verified yourself.
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.
Alexander Ross
Partner of Illuminate Financial
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About Illuminate Financial: Illuminate Financial is a venture capital firm backing companies that solve problems in financial services.
Mark Whitcroft
Partner of Illuminate Financial
Mark Whitcroft is one of the Founding Partners at Illuminate Financial. He is also part of the Advisory Panel for IA Engine, the UK’s Investment Association fintech accelerator. Prior to Illuminate, he was an EIR at StartUpBootCamp FinTech London, on the Industry Advisory Board of ValueStream Labs and part of the Deutsche Bank team involved in the Accenture FinTech Innovation Lab in New York. Mark spent twelve years in various fixed income capital market roles at Deutsche Bank and HSBC based in New York, Singapore, Hong Kong and London. He has been an early stage fintech investor since 2010 and sits on the Boards of a number of portfolio companies. Mark has a BSc in Human Sciences from University College London and is Harvard Business School alumni via the Program for Leadership Development.
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About Illuminate Financial: Illuminate Financial is a venture capital firm backing companies that solve problems in financial services.
Rezso Szabo
Partner of Illuminate Financial
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About Illuminate Financial: Illuminate Financial is a venture capital firm backing companies that solve problems in financial services.
Mads Jensen
Founder & Managing Partner of SuperSeed Ventures
Mads is an avid technologist, experienced SaaS entrepreneur and skilled business operator with more than 20 years track record in building and growing technology businesses. His passion is to build great tech companies, and today he does this as investor in and mentor of great founding teams. Mads is technically hands-on, and his expertise includes disruptive innovation using AI and data. He is the author of multiple US patents.
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About SuperSeed Ventures: SuperSeed invests in seed stage B2B SaaS/AI companies and help them reach their first £1m in revenue
Carles Ferrer
General Partner of Nauta Capital
Carles Ferrer Roqueta is a General Partner at Nauta Capital and is based in London. Carles has extensive Venture Capital experience, having raised, managed and exited different VC funds since 2000. Carles’ areas of interest include Security, SaaS, Marketing/Social Analytics/Intelligence and Critical data-driven companies. Carles has recently led deals at the following companies: Brandwatch (Social media intelligence); Scytl (Secure Electronic Voting), iJento (predictive analytics), Kinamik, CloudIQ (AI powered optimisation conversion engine), Mishipay (mobile self-checkout solutions), ChannelSight (Buy now technologies), Agnitio (Voice Biometrics), Abiquo (Cloud Management), GetApp (Workspace for SaaS applications), BeMyEye (crowdsource market research data analytics),Smarp (Internal content hub), Basekit (Saas web builder for SMEs), and Mercaux (in-store retail transformation platform). His previous experience includes also management positions in corporate strategy and planning/finance divisions with blue chip companies in the telecommunications, defence/SW/auto spaces and financial services, such as TRW (acquired by Northrop Grumman), Auna Group/Retevision (acquired by France Telecom and ONO) and Ernst & Young. Carles holds a Business Administration degree from Universitat de Barcelona, Graduate Programme in Administration and Management from Harvard University and an MBA from SDA Bocconi (Milan, Italy).
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About Nauta Capital: Nauta Capital is a pan-European Venture Capital firm investing in early stage technology companies.
Pratima Aiyagari
Venture Partner of Nauta Capital
Pratima is a Venture Partner at Nauta Capital and is based in London. At Nauta, Pratima focuses on enterprise software and deep tech domains. Pratima has 18+ years of professional experience. She is a software developer by background and spent several years in Silicon Valley working on developing intelligent network services in the network management domain. Pratima joins Nauta from US-based cybersecurity-focused investment firm Paladin Capital. Previously, Pratima led investments and acquisitions at Cisco Corporate Development in Europe with a specific focus on ML/AI, Enterprise Collaboration and Silicon. During her investment career, Pratima led an investment or held board seats in Aimotive, Adbrain, Evrythng, Secure Code Warrior, decentriq, Dashbird, and several fund investments. She also managed investments in several companies including Behaviosec, Italtel, ip.access, and Corvil. Pratima received her MBA from INSEAD in France and an MS in computer science from the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in the US. Pratima is a co-author of a US patent in the area of network device clusters and high availability.
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About Cisco, Nauta Capital: Nauta Capital is a pan-European Venture Capital firm investing in early stage technology companies.
Ekaterina Almasque
General Partner of OpenOcean
Ekaterina (Katya) Almasque is a Venture Partner at OpenOcean and she leads the London Team and Operations. Before joining OpenOcean, Katya was a Managing Director of the Samsung Catalyst Fund in Europe, Samsung’s Electronics $500M venture capital multistage investment fund focused on core technology areas including robotics, autonomous driving, artificial intelligence, digital health, data infrastructure and device level technologies. She led investments across Europe in leading companies such as GraphCore, Mapillary, AIMotive, Sentiance and Quobyte, as well as several venture funds. For over ten years prior to that, Katya was part of several corporate and independent venture capital funds in Silicon Valley and Europe, including EMC and Siemens Venture Capital. Additionally she was a founding partner of a global private equity advisory firm specializing in high-tech growth companies with $1B+ markets in the technology and environmental sectors, where she led investments in the US, Brazil, and Europe.
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About Creative Destruction Lab (CDL), OpenOcean, Samsung Strategy and Innovation Center: OpenOcean is an early-stage venture capital firm investing in B2B software across Europe.
Sebastian Ribbentrop
Managing Partner of Join Capital
Sebastian Ribbentrop has over 22 years of experience in private equity, real estate and venture capital. He founded WunderHouse in 2015 a specialist investor and operator in the hospitality sector providing flexible community-enhancing co-living opportunities for young professionals and students. Most recently he was the Director of platforms Nido Student Housing and DB Deutschland Property Partners. Nido Student Housing Ltd was the largest student residential direct-let platform in London. Previously, Sebastian spent 11 years in Private Equity in London and Frankfurt. His last position was Managing Director of West LB’s €3bn venture capital & private equity practice in London where he chaired the Investment Committee for global direct and indirect investments. Prior to his position at WestLB, he focused on private equity & venture capital in Europe and was a principal at Steadfast Capital from 2001 to 2007 and Schroders from 1995 to 2001.
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About Join Capital: Join Capital is a Berlin-based early stage venture capital firm investing in enterprise technology and industry 4.0 startups.
Eli Koen
Partner of Vela Partners
Eli Koen is Tech Investor at Vela Partners. Previously, Eli was the co-head of Emerging Europe Equities at Fortis in London, where he co-managed the Fortis Emerging Europe Equity fund, and managed the Fortis Turkish Equity fund. Prior to fund management, he was a research analyst for emerging markets at Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers in London. Eli brings crucial expertise to Vela Partners in analysis and valuation. He holds a graduate degree in international economics and finance from Brandeis University, and a bachelor’s degree in economics from Boğaziçi University.
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About Union Bancaire Privee, Vela Partners: AI-enabled venture investor.
David Orman
Founding Partner of Hatch House
David has a unique and varied background across the worlds of venture capital, start-ups, marketing, digital media, entertainment and sport. David spent the early part of his career at Eurosport Television where he was Sales Director across the UK, US and Scandinavia. David has worked directly for some of the world’s most successful and high profile entrepreneurs at companies including 19 Entertainment, Joost, Queens Park Rangers FC, Templewood Merchant Bank and Outer Capital. David is currently: – VP at Kwamecorp Ventures (investing in start-ups), – Strategic Advisor at Streamhub (real time audience analytics for the media industry) – Non-Executive Director at Carabiner Partners (design agency) – Non-Executive Director at Odyssey Mobile Interaction (mobile advertising agency)
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About Hatch House: HATCH: Turning start-ups into businesses
Alex Gowar
Founding Partner of Hatch House
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About Hatch House: HATCH: Turning start-ups into businesses
Michael McFadgen
Partner of Element Ventures
Michael McFadgen is a Partner at Element Ventures. Prior to that, he was the Managing Director of NEX Opportunities and Euclid Opportunities and the Opportunities Director of Strategic Investments at the Barclays Capital.
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About Element Ventures: Element Ventures is a Fintech-focused fund that backs companies that utilize technology to deliver competitive advantages in B2B verticals.
Spencer Lake
Partner of Element Ventures
Spencer Lake was appointed Global Head of Capital Financing with effect from 12 August 2013. He is a Partner for Element Ventures. Capital Financing houses the primary products of Global Banking and Markets, such as Debt Capital Markets and Equity Capital Markets. Spencer was previously Co-Head of Global Markets with effect from 1 January 2011. Global Markets housed the bank’s fixed income, commodities, and equity activities across sales, trading, origination, and research. Spencer joined HSBC in 2006 as Global Head of Debt Capital Markets and Acquisition Finance. He was also jointly responsible for HSBC’s government sector. Prior to joining HSBC, Spencer had a 17-year career with Merrill Lynch in New York, Hong Kong, and London across a number of areas including real estate finance, investment banking, and debt capital markets. During his career at Merrill, Spencer ran Asian debt origination, started and managed European public sector origination, managed European emerging markets asset and liability origination, European financing and risk management and, prior to his departure, ran liability origination in the Pacific Rim (Japan, Asia-Pacific and Australasia). Before Merrill Lynch, Spencer worked for two years at JP Morgan in real estate investment banking. Spencer holds a BA degree in International Finance and Marketing from Suffolk University, Massachusetts, and an MBA degree from New York University’s Stern School of Business.
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About Element Ventures: Element Ventures is a Fintech-focused fund that backs companies that utilize technology to deliver competitive advantages in B2B verticals.
Steve Gibson
Partner of Element Ventures
Steve is a Partner at Element Ventures. Prior to that, he was the Chief Executive Officer of Euclid Opportunities and the Head of Business Development of Ipreo.
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About Element Ventures: Element Ventures is a Fintech-focused fund that backs companies that utilize technology to deliver competitive advantages in B2B verticals.
Marta Jakubowska
Partner of Bookalook
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About Bookalook: Bookalook is the platform for the new generation of fashion professionals.
Terry Donovan
Partner of Exolta Capital Partners
An Influential and inspirational results orientated NED or Mentor with over twenty five years experience in leadership roles with a sustained record of achievement as a superb strategic, tactical and pragmatic leader. Experience includes dynamic fast growth companies with turnover up to £150m spanning the U.K., Europe, Middle/Far East and Australasia as well as start ups, six successful turnarounds and raising Venture Capital money. He has a proven ability to stabilise and increase sales, cut costs and improve margins thus creating cash generative businesses. An excellent communicator who both motivates and ensures the buy in of all key stakeholders. Defines and delivers on the vision and strategy through an empowering team ethos. A self confident, dynamic , dedicated and credible leader with a passion for achievement and looking to mentor/coach in a role as Executive Chairman, Non Executive Director or advisor.Terry is based in their Leeds Office.
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About Exolta Capital Partners: Exolta is a collective of senior executives and non-executive directors that specializes in providing unparalleled business growth guidance.
