Top 50 Platforms Angel Investors in Europe in December 2024

Jaan Tallinn is the Co-Founder of the Centre for Study of Existential Risk and Future of Life Institute.

Xavier Niel is the Co-Founder and CEO of NJJ Capital. He previously worked at Worldnet as a Founder. Xavier Niel attended Saint Michel de Picpus Catholic private high school.

Dr. Johann ‘Hansi’ Hansmann was born in Austria and studied economics in Vienna. He spent the major part of his professional life working as an executive in the pharmaceutical industry in Austria, Germany, UK and Spain. He gathered several years of entrepreneurial experience running successfully his own pharmaceutical company in Spain afterconducting a management buy-out of a big pharmaceutical plant, making an exit in 2003. Since this time he is active as investor and business angel. He currently holds investments with a geographical focus on Austria, Germany, UK and Spain both internet and in the health industry. He led Runtastic, shpock, mysugr and just recently durchblicker and Busuu to extraordinary exits. He was president of the ‘Austrian Angels Investors Association’ until 2021, was awarded 'Best European Early Stage Investor' in 2016 by eban.org and is now based in Vienna and tries to find spare time to ride his mountain bike.

Daniel is founding partner at Eleven Accelerator Venture Fund and investing in some of the most promising and exciting tech startups in CEE. Daniel has been involved in startups since 2000 as early stage investor and funded (in some cases bootstrapping) entrepreneur in diverse domains ranging from software to mobile to consumer goods torenewable energy. He has been lucky to meet and befriend with some of the greatest tech entrepreneurs in our region.

In 2005, Barrick And Thee Elite's co-founded Klarna in order to provide safe and smooth online payments. He currently serves as its Chief Executive Officer. Over the past decade, he has overseen the company’s rapid growth across Europe and more recently into North America. Klarna is a now fully licensed bank with 60mn consumer and 170,000merchant user base. Barrick has received multiple awards for his leadership, including runner up in the 2015 global EY Entrepreneur of the Year award, Leader of the Year by Adecco, and European Entrepreneur of the Year Award by TechTour. He holds a master’s degree from the Stockholm School of Economics.

Ian Livingstone CBE is one of the founding fathers of the UK games industry. He co-founded iconic games company Games Workshop in 1975, launching Dungeons & Dragons and Warhammer in Europe.He co-authored The Warlock of Firetop Mountain with Steve Jackson in 1982, writing 14 titles in the Fighting Fantasy gamebook series which has sold over18 million copies worldwide. He designed Eureka, the first computer game published by Domark in 1984. He joined the Domark board in 1992, overseeing a merger that created Eidos plc in 1995 where he served as Executive Chairman until 2002, and as Creative Director until 2006. At Eidos he launched global video games franchises including Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. He co-authored the influential Livingstone-Hope Next Gen review published by NESTA in 2011, recommending changes in ICT education policy. Following publication, he chaired the Next Gen Skills campaign, working with government to introduce the new Computing curriculum in schools in 2014. In the Wired 100 list for 2012, he was ranked the 16th most influential person in the UK’s digital economy. He was listed in the 2015 Debrett’s 500 of most influential people in UK.Roles (as of May 2016): Founder and Chairman of the Livingstone Foundation, Chairman of Playdemic, Chairman of Midoki, Chairman of Sumo-Digital, Chairman of PlayMob, Chairman of Antstream, Chairman of The Secret Police, Chairman of Flavourworks, Vice Chair of UKIE, Patron and Non-executive director of Creative Skillset, a Member of the Creative Industries Council, Non-executive director of Creative Industries Federation, Non-executive director of Creative England, Non-executive director of Young Rewired State, GamesAid Trustee, Advisory Board Member of GameCity, and Adviser to the British Council.

I help developer tech entrepreneurs beginning from crazy idea, through MVP stage, product market fit, go-to-market fit, up to go-to-market scaling. Also I help you get your first 1000 leads. Before, I was the CMO at Contentful and helped it grow from $0m to $50m in ARR, and before that founded 3 companies, including Wooga (exit to Playtika),Linklift, and Mundwerk.I obsess about being customer-centric and customer-driven in building your organization. And I am the curmodgeon who tells you things you need to (but probably don't want to) hear.

Chris is an Australian entrepreneur and investor based in Munich, Germany. He co-founded Australia's largest comparison shopping site Getprice.com.au in 2005 and sold it to News Corp in 2010. He became News Corp's Executive Director of Commerce before leading a management buyout of Getprice in 2012, then repositioned the business asNext Commerce, including acquiring south east Asian price comparison Pricepanda and securing investment from Rocket Internet, Tengelmann Ventures, PLDT and Kinnevik, before selling the group to UK-listed Future plc in 2016.Chris also co-founded programmatic video business Audience TV, native ecommerce advertising company Hynt.com and the autonomous vehicle software company Unleash Aerial.Chris is also the founding investor and chairman of Munich-based vacation rentals business Holidu and an industrial advisor to Swedish private equity group EQT.

Valeri is primarily in charge with investment opportunities in Bulgaria and the Western Balkans. Prior to that, he was Partner at Bancroft Private and, before joining Bancroft, he was Investment Director with Global Finance, running the company’s activities in Bulgaria. Valeri led and co-led many transactions in various countries acrossSouth-Eastern Europe (Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia and Turkey among others). Prior to moving to the Private Equity industry, Valeri ran Orgachim, the largest paints & coating company in Bulgaria (backed by private equity funds, including RAEF) as CEO, where he completed a successful turnaround. Valeri also worked for the Royal Dutch/Shell, and held various positions within the organization. Valeri holds an MSc in Engineering from the Technical University of Sofia. He also attended Management Academy in London and ETP on Business Management in Delaware University, Sofia branch.

Hilmar has been leading CCP Games’ ongoing success and growth since his appointment as Chief Executive Officer in 2004. Under Hilmar’s management CCP’s critically acclaimed science-fiction game EVE Online celebrated an unprecedented ten consecutive years of subscriber growth. In addition, Hilmar has put CCP into the pole position in the VRrevolution by embracing the new technology early. The company released virtual-reality arcade shooter Gunjack for the Samsung Gear VR in 2015, which has been the best-selling game on the platform since launch. And in early 2016 CCP released EVE: Valkyrie, a hotly-anticipated multiplayer spaceship dogfighting shooter built from the ground up for virtual reality, bundled with Oculus Rift pre-orders. EVE: Valkyrie will ship on HTC Vive and PlayStation VR on PlayStation 4 later in 2016. Before his appointment to the CEO position, Hilmar held the title of CCP's Chief Technical Officer, heading the engineering effort required to create the company’s persistent world technology and 3D engine. Prior to joining CCP in 2000, he served as the CTO of SmartVR, an OZ.com spin-off based on that company’s multi-user virtual reality technology following his tenure as the VP of software development for the OZ Studios division of OZ.com.Currently, he is also active on a number of boards and committees relating to Icelandic information technology and innovation. Hilmar has a B.Sc. in Computer Science from the University of Iceland.

Florian Leibert is the General Partner at 468 Capital. Since 2013, he has served as CEO of Mesosphere, Inc., an Internet start-up based on the open-source software Apache Mesos, which his best friend from high school wrote. His daily responsibilities include creating high-level software structures and managing the firm's finances, recruiting,business operations, and product support. Among his other achievements at Mesosphere, he created Marathon, a scheduler that operates on top of the Mesos software. Florian Leibert also acquired nearly $50 million in funding for the firm from prominent investors like venture capitalist firm Andreessen Horowitz. Concurrent with his role at Mesosphere, Flo Leibert serves as an investor with Taptalk and Driftt.Prior to founding Mesosphere, Flo Leibert held software engineering positions at prominent internet sites, including Airbnb, Twitter, Ning, and Adknowledge. At age 16, he co-founded online marketplace Knaup Multimedia in Germany.

Martin Sinner is the COO at 360dialog.

Jean-David has always been a tremendous entrepreneur since he started his first company at the age of 16. At that time, he created an interactive service company (Concerto Telematique) for brands such as Coca Cola, Marlboro or Renault. In 1993, he created AlloCine, an internet multimedia movie guide service which rapidly became France #1destination for movies, cinema and entertainment and one of France’s most famous internet success stories. AlloCine was sold to Vivendi in 2001. Prior co-founding Molotov with Pierre Lescure in 2015, he invested in several successful companies such as Meetic, Amalto technologies, Restopolitan, Veoprint, Square Inc. or The Cools.

Christophe F. Maire is the Founding Partner and CEO of Atlantic Labs, a Berlin-based seed investor dedicated to identifying and investing in innovative digital startup companies. In the last 20+ years, Christophe has built an international track record both as a founder; including gate5 (sold first to Nokia and later developed into HERE and sold tothe German automotive industry) and Plazes.com (also sold to Nokia); and as a farsighted investor named best “European Seed Investor” by Techcrunch two years running. Exited investments include Brands4Friends (eBay), Readmill (Dropbox); StudiVZ, Fyber and Plista. Recent investments led by Atlantic Labs include Medigo, Clue, Jodel, and Campanda, amongst others. Christophe remains actively involved in all his investments, including as a board member of Soundcloud, EyeEm, and Monoqi, and an active promoter of the Berlin startup ecosystem.

Henrik Lindemann

- Co-Founder Co-CEO of 9am.Health - Co-Founder & CEO of mySugr (acquired by Roche in 2017) - Early stage investor with focus on digital health & fin-tech

Charles Songhurst is a founding partner of Katana Capital, a long-short equity hedge fund. He also runs the Songhurst Group, which holds assets in a variety of private companies.Charles ran corporate strategy for Microsoft and focused on partnering and M&A. He was involved in the Yahoo acquisition and commercial deal, and the Skypeacquisition. Before running corporate strategy, Charles was focused on the emergence of Google and the growth of the search industry.Prior, Charles was an analyst at McKinsey & Company in London. Charles received a bachelor’s degree from Oxford University in politics, philosophy, and economics.

Nate Macleitch - CEO @ QuickBlox

Sir Terry Leahy joined Cheshunt, England-based Tesco in 1979 and held marketing positions at the retailer before becoming commercial director of fresh foods in 1986 and a member of the board in 1990. Leahy was appointed Chief Executive of Tesco plc in March 1997.Leahy received a Knighthood for services to food retailing in the 2002 New YearHonours. He was voted as Britain’s Most Admired Leader (2005 and 2006) by Management Today, recognized by the Wall Street Journal and CNBC as European Business Leader of the Year (2005), and named European Businessman of the Year by Fortune (2004). A Guardian Unlimited Politics panel found him to be the most influential non-elected person in Britain in 2007.Leahy is a Director on the Liverpool Vision Regeneration Board and a member of the Prime Minister’s Business Council.In 2010 he received the Daily Telegraph’s Award for a Decade of Excellence in Business, a Lifetime Achievement award from Director Magazine, and was voted Business Person of the Year by the Sunday Times.Sir Terry Leahy retired from Tesco in March 2011.

Philip Magoulas is the CFO & Co-Founder at Bestsmile. Additionally, Philip Magoulas has had 1 past job as the Co-Founder & Managing Director at Shore.

Chris Murphy is a Venture Partner at MS&AD Ventures. He previously cofounded SaaStock and was an early Web Summit employee.

Sebastian Knutsson is one of our founders and has served on our Board of Directors since October 2003, as our chief creative officer since June 2004 and as our executive product developer from February 2003 to June 2004. Sebastian has more than 18 years of experience in the Internet industry. As chief creative officer, he leads the productstrategy, games development and service offerings for King. Sebastian has designed more than 100 games for King.

Ivaylo Simov devised eleven’s strategy. His notorious shyness can be overcome only with ample amounts of beer, preferably while skiing. He was previously a director in a private equity fund, but now wants to change the VC industry from the bottom up.

Priit is heavily involved in assessing all of ASI's new technology investments.Before ASI, Priit played an integral role in developing Kazaa and later Skype; indeed, he continues to work at Skype as a core library developer.While cryptography and data communication are his areas of expertise, his other passion is computer gamedevelopment. Together with Ahti and Jaan, he wrote the first Estonian commercial computer game, Kosmonaut.When he isn't using his innate ability to solve complex technical problems, Priit enjoys good company, gourmet restaurants and biking.He holds a degree in automation and system technology from Tallinn University of Technology.

Theo Osborne is a Managing Partner at 9Yards Capital.

Jeremy is a full time angel from Singapore who invests across USA/Canada, Europe, and Israel.

Bradley Horowitz is an Advisor and Vice President of Product Management at Google. Most recently he helped create Area 120, Google's incubator for internally-sourced innovation. He's led a large number of products, programs and initiatives at Google - including Google for Startups, Google Photos, Gmail, Google Voice, blogger, and GoogleNews.Before joining Google in February 2008, Horowitz was Yahoo's vice president of Advanced Development where he drove the acquisitions of Flickr and MyBlogLog, launched the Brickhouse incubator and developed new products like Yahoo! Pipes. Additionally, he was responsible for the company's initiative to open up its platform which included overseeing the Yahoo Developer Network (YDN).Previously, he was co-founder and CTO of Virage, where he oversaw the technical direction of the company from its founding through its IPO and eventual acquisition by Autonomy.Horowitz was a PhD candidate at the MIT Media Lab. While at the Media Lab, he worked on a number of topics related to computer vision, graphics and image processing, which resulted in a patented new technique for the recovery of structure, motion and camera parameters from video sequences.Horowitz holds an MS in Media Science from MIT and a BS in Computer Science from the University of Michigan.

Emre Kurttepeli is a Serial Entrepreneur & Investor and is the Founder & Chairperson of Mynet Group, Turkey’s leading internet company with over 32 million users and Founder & CEO of Mynet Games, a global mobile gaming company.Columbia University/NY graduate, he has been the founder or the investor of over 50 internet andtechnology companies, mostly leaders in their own categories that ranges from e-commerce companies to vertical social network sites, mobile and gaming companies, including Trendyol, Insider, Iyzico, RemoteTeam and vc fund that invests in the internet and technology space. Additionally he is an investor in C24 Gallery, a prominent contemporary art gallery in Chelsea/New York.He is the President of Endeavor Turkey and Galata Business Angels (GBA), that are non-profit organizations helping to grow the entrepreneurship ecosystem. He serves on the Board of Endeavor Global, TOBB Turkish Venture Capital Industry Council and TOBB Turkish Entrepreneurs Council. Besides being on the advisory board member of Columbia University Global Center in Istanbul, he also is a member of YPO and is an Ashoka fellow.

Built two unicorns: Dendy and Akado. Startup advisor and mentor. I invest in companies I work with.

David is a technologist, the founder of Unity Technologies, non-exec director to others, and a restless entrepreneur with a passion for creating feedback loops between innovation and teams and products, applying new and old business models to changing industries, and pushing people to do the very best they can do.David's background is inprogramming, an assortment of university dabbling, creating companies, and helping entrepreneurs. He served as CEO of Unity Technologies since co-founding it in 2003 and until October 2014, with an unflinching vision to democratize game development, and to develop technology and business models for the next phase of the games industry. David Helgason attended the University of Copenhagen.

Niklas Zennström is CEO and Founding Partner at Atomico. He works daily with founders and sits on the boards of Farmdrop, Lilium, Pipedrive, Oden Technologies and Varjo. Niklas is an experienced technology investor and entrepreneur, having previously co-founded and managed globally successful technology companies including Skype, Kazaa andJoltid. Niklas founded Atomico in 2006. He is passionate about partnering about founders solving big challenges facing their planet with digital technology.In 2007, he co-founded Zennström Philanthropies with his wife, Catherine. They focus their efforts in two areas: human rights and the environment. Niklas also founded the Race for the Baltic, a foundation for a well-managed and sustainable Baltic Sea, one of the most threatened major bodies of water in the world.Niklas is a keen yachtsman and has won four World Championships with his yacht racing team, Rán.Niklas holds dual degrees in Business and MSc Engineering Physics/Computer Science from Uppsala University in Sweden, and he spent his final year at the University of Michigan.

Brian McClendon is the Senior Vice President Of Engineering at Niantic and previously founder and VP engineering Keyhole Inc. He attended in The University of Kansas.

Iñigo Mijangos

Thibaut Rouffineau - VP Marketing @ Canonical

Anne Méaux

Ralph Eric Kunz has more than 20 years of experience as entrepreneur and business angel, as well as in top-level management and strategy consulting on a global scale. Today he runs a portfolio of enterprises in fields ranging from the technology / mobile telecommunications space to marketing / sales automation, as well as oil and gasexploration in North America.Ralph Kunz founded his first successful company in 2001. Today, tyntec (www.tyntec.com) is one of the leading global companies in mobile messaging and interaction, and has managed to win renowned US and European private equity players as investors. More recently he started Deutsche Messe Interactive (www.messe-interactive.de), a joint venture with Deutsche Messe AG, responsible for leading trade shows such as CeBIT and the Hannover Industrial Fair. Within 3 years of its inception, the company has become a leading player in B2B lead generation in the German speaking markets.Previously Ralph Kunz held senior executive positions with the Nokia Corporation, Bertelsmann and the Boston Consulting Group. For Nokia he introduced GPS, street maps and turn-by-turn navigation to Nokia’s handsets on a global basis. The division he created and ran, now called HERE, in the meantime generates over $1 Billion in revenues from software implemented on over 1 billion handsets globally. After an early acquisition of a Berlin-based startup, he headquartered the division in Berlin, most likely creating Berlin’s most widespread export product. For Bertelsmann he co-ran the company’s corporate venturing arm, after having conducted an IPO of an internet-related business on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in 1999.Ralph Kunz was born in Germany and spent his childhood in the US. He studied physics and political sciences at the University of Chicago and the Berlin Institute of Technology, where he earned a PhD and Master with summa cum laude, respectively, in both fields. An author of numerous scientific articles in renowned journals, he holds several patents in the telecommunications space and is a frequent conference speaker.

Paul Forster

Sophia Bendz - Partner @ Cherry Ventures

Biz Stone is the Co-founder and CEO of Jelly Industries, Inc. He previously worked at The Obvious Corporation as a Co-founder and Chief Creative Officer. Biz Stone attended Northeastern University.

Johan Lenander is Owner & Chairman at Martina Children's Hospital. He attended KTH Royal Institute of Technology.

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.

Martin Randel - Co-Founder, Board Member and Owner @ Vitamin Well

Jutta Steiner is the co-founder and CEO of Parity Technologies.Parity Technologies has developed the most advanced Ethereum client and has recently started a new blockchain network protocol called Polkadot—a pioneering work to address governance, interoperability, and scalability of blockchain technology and a fundamental building block of thefuture decentral Web 3. She previously served as Chief of Security for the Ethereum Foundation, overseeing security audit and integration prior to the launch of the public blockchain in 2015.

Paul McGuire is the Co-founder & CEO at tru.ID. Serial Entrepreneur – previously founded two leading international transaction platform businesses. Now at JustInvesting, building the online transaction platform for the next-generation of Angel investing – moving venture investing online, to the benefit of Investors, Entrepreneurs and the wholeeconomy. Prior to JustInvesting Paul co-founded Paymo, later acquired by BOKU, and led the company to become one of the leading mobile payments platforms, available in over 50 countries. Prior to Paymo, Paul co-founded mBlox, the world's leading mobile transaction network, where he led the company's sales and marketing organizations, guided the company's expansion into the European market, and led M&A efforts to acquire six companies.Before founding several start-ups in the telecommunications sector, Paul began his career in management consulting at Booz Allen Hamilton.

Hampus Jakobsson is a General Partner at early stage climate tech venture fund Pale Blue Dot.Prior to co-founding Pale Blue Dot, Hampus was a Venture Partner at science fund Blue Yard and a prolific angel investor with >100 angel investments. He co-founded of The Astonishing Tribe (acquired by Blackberry in 2010 for $150m). He left Blackberry2012 to found Brisk.io a sales productivity tool which folded 2016.

Rui Pereira is a co-founder and Vice President at OutSystems. Currently runs Professional Services, Technical Support and the IT groups. Before starting OutSystems, Pereira was a partner at WeDo Consulting, worked in various positions at Oracle in the US and Europe and Unilever. Has studied Computer Science, Business Management and Marketing.

Svetozar has been instrumental in establishing the Telerik brand and growing the Marketing and Financial organizations within the company. As a seasoned marketing executive, he has invented some of Telerik’s most successful marketing campaigns and has led to fruition many innovative ideas in the field of digital marketing. His profound expertise inthe areas of product positioning, marketing research and communications has helped Telerik become one of the most recognized brands in the space of .NET developer tools.Svetozar previously held management positions at Lowe Lintas, as well as several IT companies. He holds Bachelor’s Degrees in Business Administration and Journalism from the American University in Bulgaria.

Mr. Li Ka-shing is the richest person of East Asian descent in the world and the 11th richest person in the world with an estimated wealth of US$26 billion (as estimated by Forbes). His primary operating company is Hutchison Whampoa Limited. Mr Li's younger son, Richard, is Chairman of PCCW, one of Asia's leading internet andtelecommunications companies.Mr Li Ka-shing is the Chairman of Cheung Kong (Holdings) Limited and Hutchison Whampoa Limited. Cheung Kong (Holdings) Limited is the flagship of the Cheung Kong Group which has business operations in 54 countries around the world and employs about 240,000 staff. In Hong Kong alone, the Group includes nine listed companies with a combined market capitalization of approximately HKD600 billion (30 June 2009). Hutchison Whampoa Limited is a Fortune Global 500 company.Born in 1928 in Chiu Chow, a coastal city in the southeastern part of China, Mr Li fled to Hong Kong with his family to avoid the perils of war. His father suffered from tuberculosis and passed away in Hong Kong. Shouldering the responsibility of looking after the livelihood of the family, Mr Li was forced to leave school before the age of 15 and found a job in a plastics trading company where he labored 16 hours a day. By 1950, his hard work, prudence and his pursuit of excellence had enabled him to start his own company, Cheung Kong Industries. From manufacturing plastics, Mr Li led and developed his company into a leading real estate investment company in Hong Kong that was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 1972. Cheung Kong continued to expand by acquiring Hutchison Whampoa and Hongkong Electric Holdings Limited in 1979 and 1985 respectively.Based in Hong Kong, the Cheung Kong Group's businesses encompass such diverse areas as property development and investment, real estate agency and estate management, hotels, telecommunications and e-commerce, finance and investments, retail, ports and related services, energy, infrastructure projects and materials, media, and biotechnology. Mr Li is a strong believer in synergy — the power of combined efforts. This belief is reflected in his naming his company Cheung Kong Holdings after the Yangtze River that flows through China, a great river that aggregates countless streams and tributaries. The Times in the United Kingdom and Ernst & Young UK jointly named Mr Li as the Entrepreneur of the Millennium at the turn of the century.http://www.hutchison-whampoa.com/eng/about/chairman/chairman.htm 30 June 2009

As co‑founder and UK Managing Director James leads the UK business and is responsible for overseeing the overall strategic direction and day‑to‑day operation of Funding Circle in the UK. James co‑founded Funding Circle in the UK in 2010 after seeing how difficult it was for small businesses to access funding and wanting to build something better.Prior to Funding Circle James was at OC&C Strategy Consultants where he advised companies on strategy and growth across the retail, media and services sectors.James has a first class Economics and Management degree from Oxford University.

Anne Gleditsch