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 Exchanges 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.
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.
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.
Barney Mannerings
Co-Founder of Vega Protocol
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About Vega Protocol: Vega Protocol is a technology protocol for fully automated end-to-end financial product trading and execution.
Juan Lobato
Co-Founder & Co-CEO of Ebury
Juan Lobato is a tech entrepreneur based in London. He is the co-founder and co-CEO of Ebury, one of European fastest growing fintechs. Furthermore, he is an investor in over a dozen tech companies across the UK, Europe, and the US
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About BaseKit, Ebury: Ebury is a financial services company designed to empower small and medium-sized businesses that want to trade internationally.
Salvador Garcia
Co-CEO & Co-Founder of Ebury
Salvador has led the creation and growth of Ebury. His passion and expertise in Financial Services has enabled Ebury to become one of Europe’s most successful fintech businesses, offering SMEs the financial products required to grow across international boundaries.
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About Ebury: Ebury is a financial services company designed to empower small and medium-sized businesses that want to trade internationally.
Louise Hill
Co-Founder & Chief Operating Officer of gohenry
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About gohenry: Gohenry is a developer of a kids money management application helping young people to take part in the digital economy.
Anj Latif
Co-Founder and CTO of British Pearl
Anj Latif is one of the founders of British Pearl and is the Chief Technical Officer. He is responsible for the design, implementation and administration of the entire IT infrastructure, including information security. Anj is a highly motivated and ambitious professional with extensive experience in IT management and networking and two decades’ experience in the SME sector. He has worked with companies in retail, legal, manufacturing, finance and health using technologies from Cisco, WatchGuard, Citrix, VMware and Microsoft. He has a BSc (Hons) in Software Engineering from Oxford Brookes University.
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About British Pearl: British Pearl is an online property investment platform facilitating share and loan-based investment in UK property.
Ali Celiker
Founder and CEO of British Pearl
Ali Celiker is the founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of British Pearl. He is an experienced financial professional and entrepreneur and has spent the last 19 years in financial services. He thrives on building innovative businesses with inspirational people and is principally interested in the alternative finance market , with a focus on equity and debt based collective investment platforms. Prior to establishing British Pearl Ali worked within the global capital markets as a trader and sales person. This included Vice President, Head European Financing Trader at Paloma Securities London Limited and Associate Director, Interest rates sales trader at Mitsubishi UFJ Securities International plc. He has also worked for BNP Paribas, J.P.Morgan and Martins Brokers (UK) PLC. He holds a BA (Hons) in Economics and Econometrics from Kent University and other banking related professional qualifications.
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About British Pearl: British Pearl is an online property investment platform facilitating share and loan-based investment in UK property.
Stefan Pajkovic
Co-Founder and CEO of TradeCore
Stefan Pajkovic works as a CEO and Co-Founder at TradeCore.
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About TradeCore, TradeCrowd: TradeCore is a multi-product and full-service FinTech company developing unique tools for brokers and financial service providers.
Ashwind G. Soonarane
Founder & Chief Technology Officer of DMALINK
Ashwind Soonarane is an institutional electronic foreign exchange specialist drawing from his multi-displinary management and technical expertise to formulate and implement strategic plans aimed towards generating competitive advantage for sustainable growth. Ashwind holds an MSc in Finance, MBA and a Bachelor of Engineering (with Honours) degree. He is a a certified technical analyst of the Society of Technical Analysts, UK.
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About DMALINK: DMALINK is a data-centric trading and RegTech platform for professional Foreign Exchange traders globally.
Charles Hayter
CEO and Co-Founder of CryptoCompare.com
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About CryptoCompare.com: We bring you all the data in the world of cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin and Blockchain in an easily digestible value added format.
Vlad Cealicu
CTO and Co-Founder of CryptoCompare.com
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About CryptoCompare.com: We bring you all the data in the world of cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin and Blockchain in an easily digestible value added format.
Federico Travella
Founder & CEO of Novicap
Federico Travella is the CEO and co-founder of [Novicap](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/novicap), an online invoice marketplace. He also acts as an advisor to the European Commission. Early in his career, Travella took up project manager roles at both Zanui.com.au and The Iconic before moving on to be the managing director of Rocket Internet in 2012. After leaving Lazada as its EVP, he founded the company Kaymu. Travella holds a master’s degree in marine geology from Ghent University, while he also studied business at the University of Navarra.
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About Novicap: NoviCap is an online platform that allows businesses to receive early payments for outstanding invoices.
Obi Nwosu
Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder of Coinfloor
Obi leads commercial strategy and our team of finance and cryptocurrency experts. Since 2014, Coinfloor’s market share has grown over 5 times and now handles the majority of GBP exchange volume. Previously, Obi was Founder and CEO of Supalocal and held senior roles at ebookers.com and WeeWorld, overseeing the development of a virtual currency, used by 30 million users.
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About Coinfloor: Coinfloor is an established group of cryptocurrency exchanges for institutional or sophisticated investors and traders.
William Todd
Co-Founder and Ordinary Board Chair Designate of Forex
William is the co-founder and Chief Technology Officer at Nutmeg. He has over 25 years of experience in the technology industry, serving in management, development and design capacities. He has designed and built software for the financial services industry, including developing derivatives exchanges across Europe and Asia. William previously served as CTO for an online trading platform for banks and brokers, and built a gaming platform based on a trading metaphor.
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About Forex: Forex.co.ke enables foreign exchange consumers to compare quotes from currency dealers, transact online, and settle payments electronically.
Jamie Parker
Co-Founder and COO of Heron Data
Jamie Parker is the Co-Founder and COO at Heron Data.
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About Heron Data: We categorise and label bank transaction data.
Johannes Jaeckle
Co-Founder and CEO of Heron Data
Johannes Jaeckle is the Co-Founder and CEO at Heron Data.
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About Heron Data: We categorise and label bank transaction data.
Brendan Doyle
Founder & CEO of Cash Management Solutions
Brendan founded CMS in 1991 following his MBA at Manchester Business School and a career at RBS, since then he has over 20 years’ experience of consultancy. Brendan introduced Just in Time cash deliveries into UK Retail Banking, developed cash optimisation software used by the majority of the top 100 UK retailers and also developed a specialist, unique cash management solution now used by financial institutions in over 20 countries globally. Brendan is also a regular guest speaker at conferences related to cash and payments.
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About Cash Management Solutions, CMS Payments Intelligence: Cash Management Solutions specialising in reducing supply chain costs,improving cash availability & releasing cash from balance sheets.
Edward Budd
Co-Founder of Adhara
Ed has performed a broad range of leadership and transformation roles both in Deutsche Bank’s Investment Bank (1998-2010) and GTB (2011-Present) including Head of eCommerce, Distribution Product Development/Autobahn, CIB and Head of Product Strategy & COO for Product Management, GTB. In 2015 he was selected as one of the rising stars in Brummel’s third annual Ones to Watch/Rising Stars awards, acknowledging outstanding talent in London’s financial-services sector and related fields.
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About Adhara, Deutsche Bank: Real time global liquidity management, FX and international payments on CBDCs and tokenized money for banks and central banks
Elizabeth Rossiello
Founder & CEO of AZA Finance
Elizabeth has lived and worked in Nairobi, Kenya since 2009 and knows financial services from the Mara to the Board room. She speaks 5 languages, has 2 kids, and still makes sure everybody meets their deadlines
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About AZA Finance, BitPesa: AZA is a provider of currency trading solutions that accelerate global access to frontier markets through an innovative infrastructure.
Oliver du Toit
Founder of Fourex
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About Fourex: Fourex is a revolutionary self-service currency exchange specialist.
Jeff Paterson
Co-Founder of Fourex
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About Fourex: Fourex is a revolutionary self-service currency exchange specialist.
Povilas Ruzgaila
Co-Founder / CCO of Guru Pay
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About Guru Pay: Guru Pay provides e-money and payment services for private and corporate clients.
Murugana Sabesan
Co-Founder of Euronixa
Murugana Sabesan is the Co-Founder at Euronixa
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About Euronixa: A European Scale up transforming networks into Decentralized Autonomous Organizations ( DAO )
Harry Evelegh
Founder of Methodise.net
Founder at Methodise.net
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About Methodise.net: Delivering crypto liquidity in Africa
