Top 50 Food and Beverage Angel Investors in United Kingdom in November 2024

Will Brooks - Founder & Director @ Portfolio Ventures

Will Martin - Founder and Director @ Portfolio Ventures

James Watt is an Aberdeenshire entrepreneur who co-founded one of the world’s most popular craft breweries, BrewDog.Before embarking on a hop-fuelled journey that would change the face of the beer industry forever, James completed an honours degree in Law and Economics. It didn’t take long for him to discover that the corporate suit-and-tie worldof litigation and libel was not for him, so he packed in his career in a law after a few weeks, opting to return to the bitter cold shores of Northeast Scotland to join his father as a fully-qualified Deepsea Captain.At 24-years-old, James took a new path. Inspired by the bold and experimental beers being crafted by a new movement of brewers on the West Coast of the U.S, James joined forces with friend Martin Dickie, and together the pair started brewing their own beers in Martin’s mum’s garage. In a world dominated by cask bitters and mass-produced lagers, their penchant for heavily-hopped and relentlessly bitter beers made them a unique duo, especially in the town of Fraserburgh. Undeterred by opinion, they pursued their passion through meticulous study, experimentation and boundary-pushing ideas, hellbent on showcasing that beer could be more than just fizzy yellow liquid made by global dominating brewers.2007 was a seminal year for James. BrewDog became a reality, setting up shop on a derelict industrial estate in Fraserburgh between a needle exchange and ‘The Godfather of Carpets’. While Martin took the reins on brewing and production, James focused on growing the business, handling accounts and spearheading the brand’s new breed of irreverent marketing that grabbed headlines for years to come. Not only did the pair produce some of the most exciting beers the UK has ever seen, but James also led the charge on Equity for Punks, a ground-breaking new crowdfunding initiative that would be mirrored for years to come by other brands across the globe. In 2014, James was awarded Great British Entrepreneur of the Year. He is also one of only a handful of people in Europe holding the title of Master Cicerone5, a title reserved for only the most diligent beer experts. In 2016, he was awarded the MBE in the 2016 Queen’s Birthday Honours list. By this time, BrewDog was now 9 years old and boasted a 360-person strong workforce, 26 bars across the UK and Europe, as well as over 14,000 shareholders. Latter achievements include a number of publishing deals. James released Business for Punks: Break All The Rules – The BrewDog Way and co-wrote BrewDog: Craft Beer for the People. These books both showed the impact that BrewDog had on the beer, from both a business and marketing perspective, as well highlighting the importance of exceptional quality products in a world heavily populated by mainstream beer. But times were changing, and James was at the front of the pack, leading the way and carving a new path for the beer world.By 2019, James’ passion for sustainability had become integral to the brand. BrewDog was employing over 2,000 people at this time, with 100 bars located around the globe and over 130,000 Equity Punk shareholders. Amazing beer was still at the heart of everything James was doing, but building sustainability into this world was now not a question of if, but when.So, in 2020, BrewDog announced that they were the world’s first carbon negative brewery – a huge step that would see the industry take note and follow suit with commitments to change the way they do business. James worked closely with Small World Consulting’s Mike Berners-Lee to calculate the businesses carbon emissions and identify ways to reduce these through authentic reforestation programmes, which included a 9,308 acre plot of land in the Scottish Highlands and set forth to embark on one of the largest reforestation projects the UK has ever seen. In just 15 years, the beer world has transformed. Beyond the liquid in your glass, the breweries at the forefront of the movement are more than just suppliers of a product. They are social commentators, integral to local communities and beacons of quality and change. James has been paramount to these developments, showing that beer can be a force for good.

Quentin Griffiths is the Co-Founder and MD of ACHICA.

Serge Chiaramonte

Giles Brook

Christian Angermayer - Founder & CEO @ Apeiron Investment Group

A startup entrepreneur and angel investor. Currently Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Urban Massage - a B2C and B2B technology marketplace connecting wellness professionals with buyers in their local neighborhood. Prior to founding Urban Massage, he founded a social network and app-based job board TheStudentJob.com

Steven Bartlett is the current Founder of thirdweb. He previously worked at Social Chain as a Founder and CEO.

Rajeev Misra serves as Chief Executive Officer and Head of Strategic Finance at SoftBank Vision Fund. Rajeev Misra serves as the Chief Executive Officer and Head at SoftBank Investment Advisers. He is a Director of Uber Technologies, Inc. Rajeev Misra served as Head of Strategic Finance at SoftBank Group Corp. and served as its Head of SoftbankVision Fund. Rajeev Misra joined SoftBank. In this role, he works with SoftBank Group and SoftBank Internet and Media Inc. to optimize long-term capital structure and financing strategy. Rajeev Misra is the Founder at Clarent Capital Partners LLP. Previously, he served as a Senior Managing Director and Partner at Fortress Investment Group LLC which he joined in May 2014. Prior to that, Rajeev Misra spent 5 years at UBS as the Global Head of Credit and Head of Fixed Income, Currencies and Commodities in Europe, Middle East and Africa. While at the firm, in January 2010 he was appointed as the Joint Global Head and Global Head of Emerging Markets. Rajeev Misra served as the Head of Credit Derivatives and Chief of Global Credit Trading at Deutsche Bank AG. Prior to that, he was at Merrill Lynch for 7 years working in derivative marketing and trading. Rajeev Misra has spent over 10 years at various executive positions. He serves as a Member of the Board of Advisors of Aten Holdings Pte. Ltd. He has been Director of SoftBank Group Corp. Rajeev Misra served as an Independent Director at Eros International Plc . He served as a Board of Directors of Capital First Ltd, Securitization and Commodities; and MGT Capital Investments, Inc. Rajeev Misra holds BS in Mechanical Engineering and a Master’s degree in Computer Science from the University of Pennsylvania and an M.B.A. from the Sloan School of Management. He holds B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.

Maria Raga is the CEO of Depop. Since being promoted to the position in 2016 from VP of Operations, she has presided over every element of the business from finance and engineering to marketing and product. An open and collaborative CEO, Maria is dedicated to her team, which has grown to 150+ employees in 5 offices worldwide in the last threeyears alone. Perhaps most importantly, since she took over as CEO, she has raised close to $100M in funding, which has helped to grow and nurture the community on Depop - now 13 million users. Prior to Depop, Maria held successively roles at Groupon and Privalia. Having graduated from Insead MBA, Maria joined Bain & Company as a consultant. Born in Valencia, Spain, Maria now resides in London with her husband and 2 children. In her spare time, Maria enjoys connecting with Depop’s entrepreneurial Gen-Z constituency and promoting women in the workplace

Angel / Sophisticated Investor and Trader (Ex London Stock Exchange(LSE), Deutsche Bank, London Clearing House(LCH) ) , Invested in 60+ Startups / 4 successful exits (with Avg 20x) and counting more. (Web3 -> udaybs.ETH )Invested in following asset classes from past 2 decades across UK / India / US / Europe / -Private Equity (Seed / Growth / VC/ Acquisition / Merger) - Equity Markets - Real Estate - FX - Commodity - Bonds - Fintech, Blockchain, Crypto Market, Web3 , DeFi, NFT - Derivative Markets / Hedging / F&O / CFDGrowing Wealth in bumpy economic rides - There is no secret formula. Investment is an art. Being vigilant, dynamic, connecting dots, evaluating risk with constant change, loads of patience and visualising medium to long term.Private Equity Investments across globe in following domains / categories: - Energy - EV / Carbon Footprint - Blockchain / FinTech / AI / ML / Web3 / DeFi - D2C / B2C - Food & Beverages - Pharma - Media & Entertainment

Alex Chesterman is the Co-Founder of Houseful. Alex Chesterman attended the University College London.

Lucas London is the Chief Executive Officer & co-founder at Lick Home. Lucas London attended Reforge.

Anirudh Pai is a partner at Dragonfly.

Jon Oringer is the founder and chairman of Shutterstock.

Carrie Longton is a Co-founder of Mumsnet.

Mandeep Singh currently works as an Angel Investor and Advisor for Multiple Startups. He previously worked at Accel as a Starter and Scout. Mandeep Singh attended the University of Cambridge.

Passionate SaaS Startup and Growth CxO & Board Executive I BUILD WINNING STARTUPS TO SCALE AND BEYOND - Passionate and engaged SaaS growth phase leader and general manager with strong track record - Commercial at heart, driven by ambitions, with a calm yet fighting mindset and the desire to learn from failures and courage to win - Driver insuccessful execution of growing business, go-to-market strategies, venture capital funding, globalization, US and Europe entries - Growing performance by strong hiring, motivating individuals and leaders with empowerment, result focus and respect across cultures and functions

Sarah is an entrepreneur and investor with extensive experience in the hospitality industry. She appeared as a Dragon on BBC’s ‘Dragon’s Den’ and also as a judge and investor on ‘The Restaurant’. Sarah was formerly a director of the Clapham House Group plc where she co-owned, developed and sold the Bombay Bicycle Club. She was also responsible forthe development of The Real Greek and Tootsies brands and the combined estate of 47 restaurants. Sarah is chair of the PE-backed Tonkotsu Group and a shareholder of the UK’s largest subscription business for alcohol, ‘Craft Gin Club’. As a director of and a shareholder in the London Cocktail Club, Sarah has played a pivotal role since its inception and will lead the next stage of its expansion as Nightcap’s Chief Executive Officer.

Julien is an investor at Felix Capital where he focuses on SaaS (Worktech in particular) and gaming investments.Before joining Felix, Julien Codorniou spent 11 years at Facebook where he led the global platform partnerships team, helping Facebook partners to build, grow and monetize their mobile apps and games. From 2016 to 2021, he has beenserving as Vice President of Workplace. Under his leadership, Workplace went from 0 to 9 million paid subscribers at companies like Walmart, Grab, GSK, Nestlé, Chevron, MercadoLibre, ServiceNow, Astrazeneca, Lixil, Spotify, Save the Children and many more globally. Julien started his career in finance and before Facebook he was Director of Business Development at Microsoft Corp.Since 2012, Julien has served on the board of the French media group Le Monde. He is the co-author of the book: "The Kelkoo.com success story"published by Pearson in 2005.His former investments, as business angel include companies like TripleDot Studios, Bloom & Wild, Pigment, Xentral, Homesome, Olio, Peanut, Nabla, Curio, Linktree, Airlift Technologies and Sunday.He grew up in France and now lives in London with his wife and their two boys.

Peter Jones - Partner, Investor and Entrepreneur @ Bare Naked Foods

Mike Lee is Co-Founder of MyFitnessPal, the leading free resource helping people improve their health. Prior to founding MyFitnessPal, Mike co-founded NextC, a venture-funded startup focused on building online communities. During his 20 year tenure in the technology industry, Mike has held leadership positions at several other top start-upsin Silicon Valley, including Palm, Handspring, Beyond.com and Regis McKenna. Mike graduated summa cum laude from Princeton with a B.A. in Economics.

Martin Mignot is the Partner at Index Ventures.

David Pritchard serves as an advisor of Hassle.com. David was Founder and Managing Director of OpenTable Europe. David has enjoyed a 30 year transatlantic career as a senior operating executive in primarily US based software before becoming an angel investor.

Tomas Slimas - Co-Founder and CMO @ Oberlo

Rowan Gormley is a Founder & CEO at Naked Wines.

Ben Jones is a co-founder of Graze.

Nolan Gray is an American Climate Tech entrepreneur based in London, United Kingdom. He is a member of Forbes 30 Under 30 and co-founder of Svea Solar, one of Europe's biggest Climate Tech companies. In addition, Nolan is an investor, board member, and advisor for multiple startups. Before moving to London, Nolan was an early employee and CMOat Jobscience, a San Francisco based SaaS company which was later sold to Bullhorn (owned by Vista Equity Partners) for $50 million.

Vishal Amin

Dimiter Tschawow

Deepali Nangia

Lord Rumi Verjee is the Founder of Domino’s UK & The Rumi Foundation.

Investing in crypto x gaming at BITKRAFT & Delphi Digital.Piers acquired his first bitcoin at 13 years old in exchange for virtual currency in a video game. After reaching 69 global in Rainbow Six Siege (over 50 million players), being a first generation virtual reality user, and growing up with crypto, he leverages his unique insight intothe undercurrents of the web to cross the digital divide.Computer science and philosophy background, entrepreneurial with a global digital asset network.Hunting asymmetric crypto/venture investment opportunities in early stage projects that seek to advance and support the emergence of synthetic reality.

Nadav Ben-Chanoch - Partner @ Pareto Holdings

Eileen Burbidge is a Partner at Passion Capital, the pre-eminent early-stage VC fund based in London. She brings extensive operational experience to her investment activities gleaned from business and product roles at Yahoo!, Skype, Apple and elsewhere.In addition to Passion Capital, Eileen is also the Chair of TechCity UK, which is the Britishgovernment-backed organisation supporting digital business across the UK. She is also HM Treasury’s Special Envoy for FinTech appointed by then Chancellor George Osborne; Tech Ambassador for the Mayor of London’s office and served on former Prime Minister David Cameron’s Business Advisory Group.Eileen was made an MBE for services to Business in June 2015 and holds a BSc Engineering degree in Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Marc Menasé is a Tech serial entrepreneur and Investor

Preben Damgaard - Director @ Axcess A/S

Jon Oringer is the founder and chairman of Shutterstock.

Theo Osborne is a Managing Partner at 9Yards Capital.

Ian got a master's in machine learning at Cambridge and loves dystopian robot takeover narratives. Seven years ago, Ian realized being a choirboy came with no street cred, so he started DJing hip-hop, funk, drum & bass, and grime. Ian quit his job at Bain & Company, Singapore to start Songkick.

Alvaro Alvarez del Rio - Founder @ Boost Capital Partners

Clive Sharpe

American-born Renée Elliott is an organic pioneer and passionate entrepreneur. In 1995, she founded Planet Organic, the UK’s first organic supermarket. With her mission to promote health in the community, Renée set out to change food culture. She challenged conventional retailing and proved that values-led, commercially-driven business is goodbusiness.For charitable work, Renée served as a Trustee of the Soil Association from 1999-2014, fighting genetically modified organisms and raising awareness about organic food. She is now on the Soil Association’s Catering Mark Standards Committee, promoting healthier menus in schools, universities, hospitals, care homes and caterers.A health and well-being expert, Renée has written three recipe books, ‘Top 100 Healthy Recipes for Babies & Toddlers,’ ‘Me, You & the Kids, Too’ and, recently, ‘What to Eat and How to Eat it’. She works part-time at Planet Organic, frequently lectures to budding entrepreneurs and is a full-on mother to her three children.In May, Renée and her partner, Sam Wigan, launched Beluga Bean, an in-person and on-line business and life skills academy. Courses include Launch, taking entrepreneurs from new or existing business to launch or re-launch and Nourish, baking and cooking for health. In everything that she does, Renée challenges convention to improve life.

Ian West - Vice Chairman @ The Wisley Golf Club

Edward Lando is the Founder of Pareto Holdings. He previously worked at Horizons School of Technology as a Co-Founder. Edward Lando attended the Wharton School.

Exited Founder of DesignMyNight (Acquired 2019), Co-Founder trumpet, Founder of Venture Arm Horseplay Ventures, Angel Investor in 55+ Startups and Podcaster

Andrius Slimas - CEO and co-founder @ Oberlo, formerly head of web agency Studio4, over ten years experience in ecommerce, dropshipping and software development.Oberlo is a dropshipping solution for ecommerce store-owners. It provides a number of dropshipping automation tools and instant access to millions of products available fordropshipping.

Natwest GBEA Young Entrepreneur of the Year and founder of two brands that are paving the way in D2C fitness concepts, Grace Beverley is a successful female entrepreneur shaking up the archaic business world, with a global reach of over 1.5 million. Grace was named first in Forbes 30 under 30’s retail and e-commerce list, aged twenty-three. Grace’sinspiring narrative led to her ranking as the 26th most influential online creator by The Sunday Times and featured in Glamour alongside Emma Watson and Rihanna as one of ‘the 10 amazing multi-hyphenates to be inspired by’ and was recognised by the BBC as ‘the 22-year-old taking on the gym wear world’.

Michael Birch is the Co-founder of Bebo and Birthday Alarm. Birch was raised in North London, England, went to Imperial College, London in Central London (where he met Xochi, his wife), then worked in West London. After finally deciding that he had done London, Michael moved to San Francisco in 2002.Michael and Xochi Birch sold Bebo to AOL inMarch 2008 for USD 850 million. Their combined 70% stake yielded a profit of $595 million from the deal. In June 2008, Michael invested in, and joined the board of MyStore.com along with Julian Lennon and Gordon Crawford. He is also an investor in Goodreads, a book oriented social network.Having worked in a number of not-so-exciting computer related jobs, he relished the chance to set up an Internet based family business with his wife, Xochi and brother, Paul. Remembering birthdays was never his strong point, much to his embarrassment, so what could be better than something he could use himself. Michael was responsible for developing the original Birthday Alarm website back in 2001, but is no longer involved in its development.