Top 20 Clean Energy Angel Investors in United Kingdom in November 2024

Paul Willmott

Steve Thomson

In the beginning of the 1990´s Lars Windhorst was said to be Germany´s number one business founder and a unique example for entrepreneurial spirit. He was hailed as the "Wunderkind" of German economy and Ex-Chancellor Helmut Kohl was pleased about the economic offspring of Germany. Until 1997 Lars Windhorst accompanied the former primeminister at business delegations abroad. Lars Windhorst started his entrepreneurial activities with electronic components which he imported from the Far East and assembled to personal computers in Germany in order to sell them at profit. An internationally operating business conglomerate was set up by the teenager in no time.Lars Windhorst climbs up the career ladderIn the early 90´s Lars Windhorst began trading electronic components and computer parts and revealed great finesse in negotiating.The Business-Wunderkind always contrived to win the favor of the people surrounding him. At the age of 16 Lars Windhorst met 27-year-old Mellon Zhang who opened for him the doors to China and Hongkong. The sales director of a Chinese electronics company quit his job without further ado, became Windhorst´s partner and accompanied him on his way in the Far East. In 1993 then 17-year-old Lars Windhorst founded Windhorst Electronics GmbH and became the Wunderkind of German economy. With cleverness and incisiveness he quickly put into practice what big industrialists loose sleep over.Lars Windhorst to make millions of profitShortly thereafter followed branches in China, Vietnam, and Europe. Lars Windhorst expanded his business rapidly and was further active in areas such as electronics, industry, trading, real estate and finance. With offices also based in Hong Kong the Windhorst group operated by 1995 in Germany, Europe and Asia to generate a turnover of 180 million Marks. In its second financial year the company of multi-talent Lars Windhorst translated more than twice as much into profits as in its first year. A mere 19 years old Lars Windhorst became Germany´s most successful entrepreneur. The young chief executive ran an international branch network of 20 establishments with over 200 employees world-wide.The Windhorst group and its operating areasAmong the most important business fields within the European area were the distributions of electronic components, the assembly of personal computers as well as the production of advertising films.His Asian companies conducted commerce with primary products and provided business consultancy and real estate business. In the course of business expansion, Lars Windhorst founded later on the trading and investment conglomerate Windhorst AG and additional companies in financial services, including Windhorst Capital Holding GmbH. Young and vibrant Lars Windhorst shifted its focus in the beginning of 2000 to the New Economy and made substantial investments in the internet area, telecommunications and media.The crisis of the New Economy that followed, threw the Windhorst group off balance which had to file for bankruptcy afterwards.Lars Windhorst, CEO of Sapinda Deutschland GmbHNevertheless, exceptional talent Lars Windhorst keeps up. In 2004 Lars Windhorst co-founded the investment group Sapinda. With deft investment strategies in the field of business finance, Lars Windhorst shortly reached high profits for the company. The investment group, under the financial direction of a famous South African industrialist family, transacted investments of more than 2 billion EUR over the last 5 years.In 2007, Mr. Windhorst was seated behind the cockpit in a Bombardier Challenger 604 during takeoff from Kazakhstan when the plane suddenly crashed into a wall. The accident, which left one of the pilots dead, caused serious injuries to Lars Windhorst. He lost consciousness and found himself lying in the snow-covered wreckage with burns, bruises and broken ribs. Following four weeks in the hospital, he has barely recovered just when the stock market took a tumble. Due to the impact of the financial crisis in 2008, the company underwent a restructuring phase in the 2nd half of 2008. In April 2009 it took up its investment activities again under new corporate structure. In May 2009 Lars Windhorst founded Sapinda Deutschland GmbH.The investment and holding company Sapinda Deutschland GmbH manages public equity, private equity and global debt and is the German subsidiary of Sapinda Holding BV. In order to successfully move forward in the international investment market, Lars Windhorst selected a group of financial professionals to head Sapinda's advisory board. The group is headed by Chairman Dr. Hubertus von Grünberg, who is also chairman at ABB Ltd in Zurich and a member of other international supervisory boards. Lars Windhorst chose him to advise Sapinda's management regarding all of its strategic decisions relating to major business investments. Lars Windhorst, together with other backers Robert Hersov and Dr. Kim, invests in the international capital market with a special emphasis on the raw materials market as well as agricultural production.Lars Windhorst Addresses Problems Facing the Younger GenerationWith a heart towards helping young people, Lars Windhorst joined the Mentor Foundation as a member of the board from 1997 through 2002. The group joins with government officials, parents and schools to teach youngsters how to avoid the pitfalls of drug abuse. The Queen of Sweden was one of the co-founders of the organization that is connected with the World Health Organization. A truly global endeavor, the international headquarters are located in the UK, with other offices in Germany, Lithuania, US, Lebanon, Columbia and Latvia.

Vladimir Bondarenko is an associate director at Intermediate Capital Group (ICG). He has completed his Bachelor of Arts (BA), Economics and Management from University of Oxford.

Duran is an experienced strategy and investment professional. While working for The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) with blue chip clients, Duran built expertise in growth strategy and due diligence and gained considerable skills in operational improvements and organisational restructuring. As Director of Strategy and Business Analysis at Global Data(formerly Progressive Digital Media), Duran worked on the largest acquisition in the company’s history and carried out multiple projects with a direct impact on the bottom line. Duran is currently Head of Strategy for the Sturrock & Robson Group and an Investment Manager at Excelsa Ventures. He holds an MBA from INSEAD and a BA in Mathematics and Economics from Swarthmore College.

Matteo leads the product teams taking care of Payments & Fraud at Wayfair, one of the top e-commerce retailers selling furniture and home goods in North America and Europe. Before Wayfair, he led the product function for the growth teams at (Transfer)Wise.

Doug was most recently COO of property portal Zoopla. From 2008 he led the growth of the team from 5 to 75 people and the site to number 2 in UK property with 5M visitors a month, organically and through acquisitions. Previously he was MD of Gumtree.com, the UK's largest classified ads site, where he built the team and business through a fungrowth ramp after acquisition by eBay in 2005.Prior to Gumtree, Doug worked for eBay UK, Bain & Company, Unilever and also as an entrepreneur. Doug has a BA in English from Cambridge, an MBA from Kellogg, and hates to admit he is a qualified accountant.

Marcus is Vice President Marketing at Student.com. The focus of his role is to build traffic, enquiry and booking volume opportunities across channels and markets by leading a team of marketing professionals to build the the most trusted brand in the market.Marcus has been in marketing for 22 years with a focus on digital marketing for the last18 years. He founded and grew his own digital ad agency, Blue Barracuda, until its sale to DraftFCB in 2011, where he continued as Digital Director for 3 years. He is an adviser to and investor in various start-ups, as well as an active supporter of causes Projects for All and The Rainmaker Foundation.

Marcus Mosen

Jonathan Seaton is the co-founder and chief executive officer at Twinkl.

Josh Hart is the Chief Product & Technology Officer and Co-Founder of YuLife. An experienced executive and entrepreneur, creating value in a digital world, helping big businesses adapt leveraging the power of web, mobile and data. Inspiring and enthusing teams to push the boundaries of what has been done before, creating award winning digitaland mobile strategy, managing through to execution both within the UK and Internationally.

Matt Wilkins is the Advisor at Clim8 Invest.

Kerry Ritz works with early-stage business in the following areas: CEO support (everything to do with running the business); international growth and expansion; market or investor positioning; setting up and running a Board; building a team, interactions with investors (pre and post fundraising); sales, business development and marketing. Mostrecently he was Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the ABN-AMRO/Techstars Future of Finance Programme in Amsterdam. He is an international advisor to SeedStars and is a mentor with Techstars, MassChallenge, and WAYRA. He is also on the investment committee as an Expert Judge on the EU EIC Accelerator which provides grant and equity to deep-tech, high growth SME’s. Previously, he was an evaluator with EIT-Health for both Innovation and Accelerator and was a member of the Investment Committee for the COVID-19 emergency grant programme in 2020; judge at EIT-Mobility; advisor and evaluator to the Director General, Research & Innovation Foundation, Government of Cyprus; evaluator at Africa for Heroes; and judge at MassChallenge in Switzerland and Israel.He currently sits on several Boards as an independent Director and is an advisor to several early-stage and high growth companies. He is also an active angel investor with investments in the UK, EU, and US. Kerry has a broad range of international experience with both start-ups and corporates. He was Managing Director of MassChallenge UK. Prior to that, he was Chief Marketing Officer of FTSE 250 Euromoney Institutional Investor plc, where he was responsible for marketing, sales, customer service, fulfilment, marketing technology, product management, and customer insight including their migration to a digital business. He has also been CEO of Palringo and VP Business Development for EVRYTHNG, both innovative early-stage VC-backed start-ups. Kerry has a track record of bringing innovative and disruptive businesses to market: he was the President of Vonage UK and was one of the Founding Directors and one of the first 20 employees of “3”, the first 3g mobile operator in Europe. Although Kerry is originally Canadian, he has been in Europe for more than 30 years and has lived in the UK, France, the Netherlands, and Switzerland.

Andrew Cocker

Doug Scott

Stuart Gardner

Erik is the Founder and CEO at Kofa.

Dr. Mo H. is a Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) at UrbanChain.

Monica Kalia - Trustee @ StepChange Debt Charity

Somayeh Taheri is a CEO and Co-Founder at UrbanChain.