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 Asset Management 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.
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.
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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.
Oliver Oram
Founder & CEO of Chainvine
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About Chainvine: Next Generation Enterprise Systems / Identity Access Management (IAM) / Technology Providers Blockchain
George McDonaugh
Co-Founder, CEO and Managing Director of KR1 plc
I’ve been involved in blockchain technology since 2011. Before then I was an advertising copywriter for London based agencies. I have a masters degree in Anthropology and a further degree in Creative Advertising. I helped form one of London’s most popular blockchain meetups and co-founded kr1 in early 2016 and as such it become the first token focussed investment company in the world. We have the longest track record in the space and a global network of funds, developers and investors.
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About KR1 plc: KR1 plc (KR1:AQSE) is Europe’s leading digital asset investment company focused on decentralised and open-source blockchain networks.
Keld van Schreven
Co-Founder and Managing Director of KR1 plc
Keld is cofounder of KR1 UKs leading crypto investment public company. First investors in Melonport, Funfair, Rocketpool and Etherisc. Keld is advisor to IXLedger and previously cofounder of several web startups since 1995. www.kryptonite1.co
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About KR1 plc, MAMA: KR1 plc (KR1:AQSE) is Europe’s leading digital asset investment company focused on decentralised and open-source blockchain networks.
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.
Co-Founder and Partner of Alpha Wave Global
Navroz D. Udwadia is the Co-Founder and Partner of Falcon Edge Capital. He was an investment professional in Eton Park’s Emerging Markets team in London. Mr. Udwadia graduated from Columbia University in the City of New York with a BA in English & Political Science and received an LLB in Law at the University of Oxford. Navroz also received an NCAA Post Graduate Scholarship Award and Arthur Ashe Sports Scholar Award.
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About Alpha Wave Global: Alpha Wave Global is a global alternative asset manager that offers a variety of investment products.
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.
Adam French
Founder of Scalable Capital
Adam spent the last 8 years working in London in the financial services industry. As Executive Director of Commodities Trading at Goldman Sachs, he was responsible for the Commodity Structured Products franchise.Prior to this, he worked in Derivatives Trading where he was responsible for electronic trading for private clients in fixed income, currency and commodity products. Adam studied Business Mathematics and Statistics at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
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About Scalable Capital: Scalable Capital is on its way to becoming Europe’s leading digital investment platform.
Sam Senchal
Founder of Maddox Capital Partners
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About Maddox Capital Partners: Maddox Capital Partners provides asset-backed Asset Liability Management solutions to the Life Insurance industry.
Nick Rogers
COO & Co-Founder of Sky-Futures
Nick is Chief Regulatory and Training Officer (CRTO) and co-founder at Sky-Futures. He oversees the Training and Regulatory framework including the UK CAA National Qualified Entity (NQE) Status, ensuring that the Remote Pilot training is robust and fit for purpose. As a qualified civilian airline Captain who continues to fly Airbus A320 passenger jets, Nick’s aviation experience and understanding of the manned aviation environment have been instrumental in establishing a culture of safety and outstanding operational procedures that help enhance Sky-Futures position as a leading drone technology company.
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About Sky-Futures: Sky-Futures is a provider of drone-based inspection and data services to the industrial inspection market.
Anthony Dalwood
CEO & Founder of Gresham House
Anthony Dalwood is the Founder & CEO of Gresham House & he attended University of Cambridge in 1993.
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About Gresham House: Gresham House is a specialist alternative asset manager, focused on sustainable investments.
Philipp Portmann
Co-Founder; Head of Business Development & Strategy of FE fundinfo
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About FE fundinfo: FE fundinfo is an international platforms for information and mandatory publications of investment funds.
Vishnu Chundi
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of AssetVault
Vishnu Chundi is the Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer at AssetVault.
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About AssetVault: AssetVault allows customers to catalogue all their physical and digital assets in one secure register.
Simon Cullen
Founder and Managing Director of Risksave Technologies
Simon Cullen is a founder of RiskSave, a financial technology and compliance firm. He has a first-class degree in mathematics and a masters in economics from Trinity College Dublin and is a qualified Financial Risk Manager (FRM). Simon worked for over fifteen years in banking and asset management, formerly being Head of Credit for Structured Debt for a large European Asset Manager. Simon has 15 years’ experience dealing with regulatory compliance and risk across banks and asset managers and oversees RiskSave’s compliance platform.
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About Risksave Technologies: Risksave Technologies is a fast-growing provider of regulatory hosting services.
Khing Oei
Founder & CEO of AlphaSwap
Khing is an investor and entrepreneur. Prior to founding AlphaSwap, Khing founded and ran Eyck Capital, a hedge fund with peak AUM of $200mm. Khing started his career at Goldman Sachs in M&A and subsequently worked as an investor/portfolio manager at Goldman Sachs’ Special Situations Investing Group and multi-billion dollar hedge funds Fortress and Halcyon. Khing holds a Master of Science in Econometrics and an Associate’s Degree in Business Mathematics & Computer Science from VU University in Amsterdam.
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About AlphaSwap, Privium Fund Management: AlphaSwap is an investment technology platform, bundling its analyst community’s best stock ideas into Data-as-a-Service
Hemal Mehta
Founder & CEO of Atominvest
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About Atominvest: Cutting-edge tech for Private Equity, VC, Real Estate and Hedge Funds
Steve Marsh
Founder and CEO of GeoSpock
Steven Marsh is a Co-Founder of GeoSpock Limited and serves as its Chief Executive Officer. Steven Marsh is also the lead architect of the Collide platform and co-lead architect of GeoSpock DB. He has experience of building real-time and highly-scalable systems he has overseen the creation of GeoSpock’s state-of-the-art geo-location and social networking mobile development platform. Steven Marsh is a computer scientist. As part of his research, Steve is part of a team building a customisable FPGA-based super-computer designed to carry out real-time simulation of extreme-scale neural networks such as the brain. He holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge.
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About GeoSpock: GeoSpock builds GeoSpock DB, the unique space-time analytics database that delivers rapid insights at a fraction of the cost.
Jan Vanhoutte
CPO & Co-Founder of Shepper
Co-founder and CPO at Shepper, passionate about designing and developing awesome products.
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About Shepper: Shepper collects data on physical assets for businesses using the power of technology and people
Ben Prouty
CEO & Co-Founder of Shepper
Builder of innovative new on-demand services. Previously part of the early Zipcar and LOVESPACE teams.
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About Poncho, Shepper: Shepper collects data on physical assets for businesses using the power of technology and people
Christian Gabriel
CEO, Founder of Capdesk
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About Capdesk: Capdesk is an equity management platform helping companies manage cap tables, shareholder registers, and employee shares.
Jose Maria Carbajo
Co-Founder and Director of Nucoro
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About EtsFactory, Nucoro: Nucoro enables financial institutions to build digital savings, investment and wealth management propositions at speed and scale.
Lawrence vK-B
Co-Founder of Q2i Group
An experienced entrepreneur and listed Board member in Tech, Finance Services, Telecoms and Clean Energy sectors. Skills – Strategy, marketing, technology and management domains with real experience in building, funding and consolidating businesses Execution rather than talking – Block Chain, Fintech, Innovation and Value Creation
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About Q2i Group, THE WORLD BANK: Blockchain Interoperability – Complex Transactions Monetised – Blockchain Agnostic Platform – Q2iD – ID Control – Q2iPay
Phil Gower
Director and Co-Founder of Q2i Group
A senior technology leader and development manager, experienced from greenfield to enterprise. He has formerly worked at State Street as Development Manager and Head of Strategic Technology
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About Blue Spear Software, Q2i Group: Blockchain Interoperability – Complex Transactions Monetised – Blockchain Agnostic Platform – Q2iD – ID Control – Q2iPay
Mark Standish
Director and Co-Founder of Q2i Group
Senior business and technology executive and investor in the financial and asset management industry. Former COO of Egerton Capital, founder of a hedge fund consulting firm and former professional services manager at Advent Software
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About Q2i Group: Blockchain Interoperability – Complex Transactions Monetised – Blockchain Agnostic Platform – Q2iD – ID Control – Q2iPay
Sandeep Bathina
President and Founder of StockViews
Sandeep is the President and Co-Founder at StockViews. He is a serial entrepreneur and private investor.
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About StockViews: StockViews is an investment research platform.
Abdullah Hiyatt
Founder and CEO of THETA Trading Systems
20 years of experience in capital markets working with sell and buy-side firms on e-strategy, design and building e-trading solutions. In 2013, Abdullah’s focus shifted to the buy-side and more recently worked with Deutsche Wealth Management leading the design and delivery of SPARTA, its new global multi-asset trading platform.
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About Deutsche Bank, THETA Trading Systems: Capital Markets London based FinTech
David Hitchcock
Founder and Chairman of States Bridge Capital
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About States Bridge Capital: States Bridge Capital introduces private companies to capital via a listing on the stock market.
Harris White
Founder and CEO of IB Group
Harris White is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer at IBGroup. He is a member of the investment committee and leads IBGroup’s financial services focus. Harris is also a Non-Executive Director of a number of companies. He spent his early career as the Head of a private financial company in UK, Europe. Mr. White was also a board member of an investment office which that manages about US$3 billion of retirement and investment products.
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About IB Group: IB Group is a trading company using quantum mechanics to maximize the potential of its trading practices.
Rob Sanders
Co-Founder of DOOR Ventures
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About DOOR Ventures: DOOR Ventures offers an exchange of due diligence information in the investment management industry.
Jimmy Bach
Co-Founder & CEO of Music Manager
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About Music Manager: Music Manager is an asset management company that specializes in the administration and commercial optimization of music copyright assets.
Anton Padmasiri
Founder and CEO of WealthOS
Anton has worked in wealth management and pensions for over 16 years for Edward Jones, Towry, Fidelity and Smart Pension. Building and shipping great products that solve big inefficiencies is Anton’s thing. At Fidelity he was the product lead for its retail pension products and more recently, at Smart Pension for developing a modern workplace pensions platform. WealthOS is the idea born out of years of frustrations from working with substandard WealthTech platforms, entirely unsuited to digital adoption and innovation.
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About WealthOS: Enterprise, cloud native core wealth management SaaS. Launch and run superior digital wealth management propositions faster & cheaper.
Konstantin Fominykh
CEO and Founder of Tenviz
Konstantin Fominykh is the founder of TenViz.
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About Tenviz: Tenviz delivers data-driven solutions using traditional statistical and machine learning tools to solve complex problems.
Liliana Reasor
CEO, Founder of SupraFin
Liliana is the founder & CEO of SupraFin. SupraFin provides an intelligent app with institutional-like investment algorithms that assess the relative value of hundreds of cryptocurrencies and recommend the most appropriate as part of a diversified portfolio based on the client’s risk profile preferences.
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About SupraFin:
The SupraFin app offers many benefits:
- Simplicity: create a diversified portfolio of cryptocurrencies at the click of a button.
- Smart: create and manage a diversified portfolio of cryptocurrencies by leveraging risk models in the background.
- Safe: store your cryptocurrencies securely.
- Exclusive cryptocurrency reports: access exclusive crypto investment reports on each cryptocurrency on your portfolio.
Leanne Kemp
Founder & CEO of Everledger
Leanne Kemp is the Founder & CEO of Everledger, a leading emerging technology enterprise that tracks the provenance of high-value assets on a global digital ledger in an authenticated immutable manner. Using her extensive background in emerging technology, business, jewellery and insurance, Leanne is pushing boundaries with Everledger in building a global verification system that asserts transparency along the entire supply chain process. This enables the tracking and protection of high-value assets, consequently mitigating risk and fraud in global marketplaces. Her leadership role in technology has been recognised, winning awards including Innovator of the Year 2018 at the Women in IT Awards (London) as well as being named in UK Business Insider’s 26 Coolest Women in UK Tech 2016 and Brummell Magazine’s Top 30 Female Innovators 2016 in Brummell Magazine. She has also been named an IBM Champion for 2018. Leanne is an appointed member of the World Economic Forum’s Blockchain Council and a Co-Chair for the World Trade Board’s Sustainable Trade Action Group. She is also on the IBM Blockchain Platform Board of Advisors.
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About Everledger: Everledger provides an immutable ledger for diamond and other asset ownership and related supply chain history.
saurabh saxena
Founder of Houzen
Business builder. Adviser to some of the largest buyout PE GPs/LPs and CXOs at fortune 200 companies. Pre-MBA Lean Sigma consultant to Fortune 100 companies. Worked across 20+ industries, lived in 3 continents. Built and exited several businesses. Currently busy building a fast growing proptech/fintech business.
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About Advention Business Partners, Houzen: Houzen is a Computer Vision, AI & Finance led platform which helps buy homes grow home equity value at certainty and speed
Ashutosh Natraj
CEO & CoFounder of Vidrona
Oxford University Researcher turned entrepreneur with 9 years of experience in academia and industry across the world such as IBM Research. Ash holds a PhD in Robotics and Computer Vision for UAVs(Distinction), Erasmus Mundus (ViBOT) scholar with 3 Masters in Robotics and Computer Vision.
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About Vidrona, Vine Rangers: Vidrona is a British AI Based Predictive Prescriptive Analytics Company for the Utilities. It helps utilities to increase RoI.
Alexandre Mercier
Co-Founder and VP, Product Development of Corymbus Asset Management
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About Corymbus Asset Management: Corymbus is a business risk analytics and fund development platform that uses unstructured data.
