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 CEO’ operating in the Crowdfunding space. If you think a CEO’ 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.
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.
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Jonathan May
Founder & CEO of Hubbub
The company linchpin, Jonathan brings experience and entrepreneurial success from his previously founded start-ups. As a Director of the UK Crowdfunding Association and a member of the Westminster Crowdfunding Forum – a crowdfunding advisory board to Whitehall – he is well connected and respected on crowdfunding; combining these commercial facets effortlessly with his technical background. Owner of the vision, he steers the team towards Hubbub’s priorities and success.
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About Hubbub, University of Cambridge: Build fundraising communities for organisations using crowdfunding
Jeff Kelisky
Chief Executive Officer of Seedrs
Jeff Kelisky is an experienced executive with a track record in building, leading and scaling successful technology businesses. Before joining Seedrs, Jeff was CEO for Picsolve, a Fidelity-backed $75 million image capture business in the entertainment space where he delivered the company’s transformation from analogue to digital. Previously, he was CEO of Multimap, Europe’s first and ultimate leader in online mapping service which he led for five years through the first dotcom crash to a successful sale to Microsoft. In his free time, he enjoys tennis, skiing, cinema, and trying to play COD with his kids.
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About Seedrs: Seedrs is a UK-based investment and crowdfunding platform.
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.
Duncan Grierson
CEO and Founder of Clim8 Invest
Duncan Grierson is a Entrepreneur with VC experience in Paris, London, Silicon Valley & Chicago. He is a Founder CEO of 2 ventures backed by over £50m from likes of Goldman Sachs, Fidelity et al.
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About Clim8: Clim8 is a pioneering green Fintech company.
Simone Mazzuca
CEO and Founder of Wallex Bank & Statutory Trust
Simone Mazzuca is the CEO and Founder of Wallex Bank.
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About Wallex Bank & Statutory Trust: Assets and Digital Assets financial service provider.
Fausto Zanetton
Co-Founder & CEO of Tifosy
Fausto Zanetton is an Italian raised in Belgium, has spent his career in the finance Industry, where he worked with many media, sports & internet companies globally, most recently at Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. Seeing sports clubs struggle to get traditional funding, and the growing tech, social and crowdfunding revolution, sparked the idea of Tifosy in his mind. Fausto has an MBA from London Business School and is a qualified accountant (CPA). He is fluent in several European languages and is a huge fan of Inter Milan.
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About Tifosy: Tifosy helps sports clubs raise funds online by connecting them with a global fan and investor base
Michael Bristow
CEO and Co-Founder of CrowdProperty
Mike Bristow, CEO and Co-Founder of CrowdProperty (www.crowdproperty.com), the leading specialist property peer-to-peer lender in the UK. Actual property development and investment experience lies at the heart of CrowdProperty meaning hands-on, expertise-led due diligence and loan monitoring. Lending is focused on the SME property developer market, a key segment for supplying much needed UK housing stock, which is poorly and inefficiently served by traditional funding sources. CrowdProperty’s unique combination of data, analytics, tech, expertise, rigour, relationships, security, extent of value chain disruption and vision means we stand out in sustainably delivering a better deal to lenders and borrowers alike through high-quality, institution-grade lending with huge potential ahead.
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About CrowdProperty, Growth Strategy: CrowdProperty is a property project program that develops a peer-to-peer lending platform to facilitate short-term loans.
Bill Morrow
Co-Founder & CEO of Angels Den
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About Angels Den, Morrow Moylan Capital: Angels Den is an angel-led crowdfunding platform.
Sandip Sekhon
CEO & Founder of Go Get Funding
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About Go Get Funding: Go Get Funding is a personal fundraising website.
Stuart Cheetham
Chief Executive Officer of Spring Financial Group
Stuart Cheetham has been serving as Chief Executive Officer at Spring Financial Group since May 1, 2016.
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About MQube, Spring Financial Group: Spring Financial Group is set to transform the way people in the UK get a mortgage.
Rob Love
CEO of Crowdfunder
Rob has a reputation for being a business and social entrepreneur. His pioneering career spans the inception of the ground breaking Big Brother online platform through to River Cottage, the ethical food brand.
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About Crowdfunder: Crowdfunding is an alternative way of raising money for great ideas from the people happen all over the UK and beyond.
Barry E James
Founder, CEO of Crowdfunding Centre
Barry E James is CEO and cofounder and is one the best known names in Crowdfunding in the UK and worldwide. WIth decades of experience in tech, business and as an entrepreneur he is passionate about innovation, entrepreneurship and Crowdfunding.
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About Crowdfunding Centre: Customised dashboard providing real time crowdfunding data driven maps, tools, insights charts & news for project owners.
Siim Maivel
Founder & CEO of Investly
CEO, co-founder at Investly.CIO at €0.5M hedge fund investing into P2P loans, previously BA/Product Developer @ UBS WM Fixed Income
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About Investly: Investly is provide an invoice finance platform that lets you easily upload invoices.
Benjamin Gedeon
CEO and Founder of MatchPlace Limited
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About MatchPlace Limited: New generation Fintech platform. Integrating Financial Services solutions, bridging the gap between Financial Institutions and SMEs
Stuart Law
CEO, Co-owner & Founder of Assetz Capital
Stuart Law is the CEO and founder of the Assetz group of companies incorporating one of the largest private investor customer bases in the UK. He founded the Assetz Capital businesses, including Assetz SME Capital, as a solution to the shortage of capital available to businesses and property developers from the failed banking system and in order to provide enhanced and diversified returns for Assetz group investors who wish to invest in this new asset class. Stuart is a serial entrepreneur and a highly experienced businessman having run his own businesses for 30 years.
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About Assetz, Assetz Capital, Assetz Exchange: Assetz Capital is a lending business that provides its services for SME finance, bridging, and property development sectors.
Rishi Sareen
Co-Founder & CEO of Startifi
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About Startifi: The social network for everything startup! A global platform for startups, entrepreneurs and investors!
Dillen Iyavoo
Co-Founder | CEO of Funding Tree
Founder at Funding Tree
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About Funding Tree: Funding Tree is the UK’s first fully regulated crowd-funding and peer-to-peer lending platform.
Franck Zeitoun
Co-Founder & CEO of Lendery
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About Lendery: Lendery is offers a set of technology tools to institutional investors in alternative lending
Alex Econs
Chief Executive Officer of Everpress
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About Everpress: A global marketplace enabling creators to monetise their brand. No risk. No waste.
Oliver Mochizuki
CEO/ co-founder of Fundsurfer
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About Fundsurfer: Fundsurfer.com is a UK based crowdfunding and investment platform. Our mission is to make funding accessible for all.
Pierre-Jean Hanard
Co-Founder and CEO of SharePA
Pierre-Jean is the Co-Founder and CEO of Sharepa, an online platform providing actionable peer-based investment ideas for HNWIs by using social learning to support decision-making. He is also the co-founder of IDDEA, the first early-stage Swiss accelerator program focusing on sustainable investment. He advises several startups in FinTech, BioTech and Food Tech on business model, growth strategy, sales management and capital raising. With a keen interest in people development and entrepreneurship, he also enjoys coaching entrepreneurs on storytelling – personal narrative and startup story – using his experience as coach at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and Harvard Business School (Advanced Leadership Initiative Program). He also sits on the Emerging Leader Board of the Boston Healthcare for the Homeless Program and regularly participates in FinTech conferences and competitions around the world as a mentor, an advisor and a jury. Prior to Sharepa, Pierre-Jean spent 10 years in banking in various management positions in London, Singapore and Geneva where he gained experience in strategy, sales, operations, cross-border and cross-functional business transformation. In his last role at HSBC Private Bank, he was both Head of the Private Wealth Client Segment and Chief of Staff to the COO. Working side-by-side with CEO, COO and Regional Business Heads, he turned around front office activities and front–to-back processes to deliver a unique and cost-effective experience to high-net-worth clients. Pierre-Jean earned an MBA as a Sloan Fellow from MIT (USA). He also holds a Bachelor degree in Management Science from the University of Liège (Belgium), a Master degree in Marketing Management from Vlerick Business School (Belgium) and a Master in International Economics and Management from SDA Bocconi (Italy). He is based in London, UK.
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About SharePA: SharePA aims to revolutionize investment advisory services for individual investors.
Tom O’Brien
Founding Director & CEO of The Services Family
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About The Services Family: The Services Family building better financial services for the ‘Services Family’.
Dr. Constantina Katsari-Muston
CoFounder and CEO of Startdoms
Tech Entrepreneur, Agile and Lean products, currently running Startdoms, a virtual accelerator for startups
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About Keyping, Startdoms: A community of startups, mentors, business advisors, investors and enthusiasts who support entrepreneurs in their new ventures.
Gary Corben
CEO and Co-Founder of Crowdahouse
Gary has been a residential property investor since 2006 acquiring and managing his own private portfolio. Gary has a background in entrepreneurial ventures in the music industry, in web-based businesses, and in property investment and trading, the common thread being taking innovative approaches to defunct and out-moded business models. In 1994 Gary joined UK startup Cerberus Sound & Vision, launching the world’s first digital music download service along with the world’s first functional online credit card payment system. In 2001, after two years at BSkyB heading online product development, Gary formed Whatmusic – an online record label specialising in restoring back catalogue for the music collectors market. In the first two years the company reissued over 80 titles and helped restore careers of dozens of ‘forgotten’ artists. In 2006, Gary decided to apply his online experience to the residential real estate market in the UK, including developing creative strategies to acquire properties without the need for bank finance and selling these properties to buyers at a premium. Since the credit crisis began, Gary has been at the forefront of non-bank funded property investment. In mid 2011, Gary joined forces with Peter Lane to form the Corlan Group to further explore the non-bank funded property market and to develop an asset backed crowdfunding solution, ultimately leading to the foundation of Crowdahouse.com.
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About Crowdahouse: Crowdahouse is a business to business peer to peer lending platform specialising in secured lending to property professionals.
Klementiev Sergey
Chief Executive Officer of Intellectual Investments
Moved from Russia to Australia 4 years ago to develop his computing and management skills.
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About Intellectual Investments: Intellectual Investments will produce high-tech intellectual robots and artificial intelligence for stock market forecasting and the.
Jude Cook
CEO, Co-Founder, Investment Based Crowdfunding Platforms of ShareIn
Jude has been hooked on crowdfunding since 2011. She’s a chartered accountant who loves hearing about exciting new companies and passionate about fuelling their growth.
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About ShareIn: ShareIn help our clients deliver market leading direct investment channels.
Robert Pasco
Co-Founder & CEO of Plend
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About Plend: Building a better way to borrow, where people are no longer held back by their credit history
Richard Jelbert
Founder and CEO of Inzura
Richard is an industry expert on the use telematics and mobile Apps in motor insurance. Richard has been working closely with a range of broker, direct insurers and other technology providers to build next generation mobile centric Apps that support whole lifecycle customer journeys. Working closely with Autoline, Richard and Inzura have developed the ChilliDrive Young Driver insurance App and social platform. Previously Richard was the Founder and CTO of MyDrive Solutions, a telematics service provider, and CEO of Vzzual Ltd the app-based photo analysis business for insurers.
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About Inzura: Inzura’s customer engagement Apps and cloud-based services cover the major personal insurance lines.
Karteek Patel
Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder of Crowdstacker
Founder at Nineyards Capital
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About Crowdstacker, Crowdstacker Holdings Ltd: Crowdstacker is a curated debt based investment platform.
Tim Struth
CEO of QuoinStone Investment Management
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About QuoinStone Investment Management: QuoinStone Investment Management is a specialist UK focused, value-add real estate investor
Sagit Weiss
Founder and CEO of Crowdacure
Sagit Weiss is the founder and CEO of Crowdacure. She used to be a clinical fellow at National Hospital of Neurology and Neurosurgery. She earned her degree at Free University of Brussels.
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About Crowdacure: Crowdacure is a donation-based crowdfunding platform for life-saving.
Luke Barnes
Co-Founder & CEO of Fruitful Homes™
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About Fruitful Homes™: Fruitful combines real estate crowdfunding with modular home developments to make beautiful, affordable homes
Daniel Brewer
Chief Executive Officer of Resonance
Daniel leads the growing team supporting social enterprises and charities prepare for investment in a variety of transactions including real estate acquisition and development, community share issues and direct venture capital investments. He has seen the company flourish as it has created demand-led, impact investment funds. Daniel founded Resonance in 2002 having spent several years in manufacturing as an engineer and leading a political lobbying campaign on the UK poverty trap. Outside work Daniel is a non-exec of a small number of high impact social enterprises and sits on the investment committee for a leading impact investor foundation.
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About Resonance: Resonance is a social impact investment company with over a decade of experience working with social enterprises throughout the UK.
Sheeza Shah
Founder, CEO, Podcast Host of UpEffect
Sheeza Shah is using technology to launch and fund companies improving the planet and human lives. As Founder and CEO of UpEffect, Sheeza combines her background in Computer Science with her passion for social entrepreneurship to work with revolutionary founders on UpEffect, a crowdfunding and support platform to launch products doing good in the world. So far she has helped companies impact 10,000 lives in 7 countries.
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About UpEffect: UpEffect is a crowdfunding platform for companies dedicated to improving lives and the planet.
Nicola Horlick
CEO of Money&Co.
Nicola is the CEO of Money&Co, a person-to-business lending platform, which connects people looking for a better rate of interest on their cash with businesses seeking finance to grow. Money&Co. is experiencing rapid growth as many companies are still finding it difficult to borrow money from banks. In 2010, Nicola set up Derby Street Films and there are now three Derby Street vehicles, which fund the development of feature films. Nicola is also the Chairman of Glentham Capital Limited, which is currently raising a film finance fund. Nicola read Jurisprudence at Balliol College, Oxford.
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About Money&Co.: Money&Co. is at the forefront of the P2B (Person to Business) world.
Catherine White
Co-Founder & CEO of Fundzzle
Highly motivated entrepreneur with exceptional sales, marketing and business development skills. After 20+ years in Healthcare industry, now focused on doing good by leading a new innovative plaform that helps people gather more meaningfully through charitable giving and environmentally friendly group gifting.
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About Fundzzle: Fundzzle is an eco-friendly invitation, group gift and charity fundraising service all wrapped into one privately and securely.
Kasia Michalska
CEO of Ralloo
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About Ralloo: Ralloo is a micro-sposnorship platform and a marketplace that matches brands with small, local, fundraising projects.
Kasia Michalska
CEO of Ralloo
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About Ralloo: Ralloo is a micro-sposnorship platform and a marketplace that matches brands with small, local, fundraising projects.
Luca Scali
Founder & CEO of FundingSMEs.com
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About FundingSMEs.com: Free database of startup funding. Provides informations on VC, PE and investors financing deals daily across the digital world.
