The 36 coolest tech investors in the UK (2024)

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36. DeepMind early spotter Frank Meehan

Frank Meehan is a general partner at SparkLabs Global Ventures, and cofounder of learning app SmartUp.io along with Brent Hoberman.

He was formerly at Horizons Ventures, the private investment vehicle of Hong Kong magnate Li Ka-shing, where he led the firm's investment into DeepMind.

Twitter:@frank_meehan

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35. Funding Circle investor Harry Nelis

Harry Nelis is a longtime partner at Accel and, according to his peers, is a powerhouse investor for his roles in travel firm Kayak, Australian payments firm OFX, and flash sales siteShowroomprive, all of which are now public companies.

He was also Accel's lead investor in marketplace lender Funding Circle, a rising British financial startup which is aiming to IPO.

Twitter: @hnelis

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34. Rory Stirling of BGF Ventures

The genial Rory Stirling joined BGF from MMC in 2015, where he was one of the most active investors in the UK in firms such as Love Home Swap. BGF's portfolio currently includes boutique community Trouva and home cooking startup Gousto.

Twitter: @RoryStirling

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33. Putting Alphabet dollars into European startups, GV's Avid Larizadeh Duggan and Tom Hulme

Avid Larizadeh Duggan and Tom Hulme are the two remaining GV (formerly known as Google Ventures) partners in Europe.

The duo have made an impressive number of investments over the last year given their limited bandwidth, with money going to fintech startup CurrencyCloud in March and personalised book startup Wonderbly in July.

Twitter: @avidland @thulme

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32. Adman-turned-VC Justin Cooke

The well-connected Justin Cooke is the newest partner at late-stage investor Northzone, an achievement he can add to founding a digital agency and selling it to ad behemoth WPP and government advisory work.

Twitter: @JustinCooke

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31. Ex-Just Eat CEO David Buttress

Buttress was formerly chief executive of food delivery firm Just Eat, and left after four years to become a VC at one of the company's first investors, 83North. Buttress became a VC in May to identify promising startups in Europe and Israel, and is executive chairman of the Welsh rugby union team Dragons.

Twitter:@davidjusteat

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30. Balderton startup investor Suranga Chandratillake

Suranga Chandratillake was formerly CTO at Mike Lynch's Autonomy, beforejoining Balderton in January 2014.

He has made a number of investments since then including student media publication The Tab and virtual operation app Touch Surgery.

Chandratillake is also an advisor to Diversity VC, a new initiative designed to increase female and minority participation in venture capital.

Twitter: @surangac

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29. Venture capital's watchdogs Diversity VC

Diversity VC was founded by five young venture capitalists:Travis Winstanley, Check Warner, Farooq Abbasi, Anna Boffeta, and Lillian Li. Alongside their day jobs, the five are trying to boost female and minority participation in UK venture capital by highlighting the industry's skew towards middle-class white males.

The group's first report found almost half of UK VCs have no women in their investment teams. A second, broader report will follow in 2018. Despite being in operation for less than a year, the initiative was namechecked by Chancellor Phillip Hammond during the Autumn Budget.

Twitter: @diversityvc

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28. Fintech bull Jeppe Zink

Jeppe Zink established Scandinavian investor Northzone's offices in London, and led the firm's investments in online lender Zopa and MarketInvoice, among others.

Zink is Danish and one of many high-profile tech figures to speak out about the potential impact of Brexit on London's ability to lure startup talent. But he's ultimately optimistic about the UK and has said he wants the firm's latest fund to focus on London fintech startups.

Twitter:@jeppezink

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27. Northzone general partner Michiel Kotting

Michiel Kotting is one of Northzone's newer partners, joining from Accel in 2016. Though based in London, he's so far focused on European investments in Dutch and German startups, including auction house Catawiki, AI imaging startup Aidence, freight startup FreightHub, and HR firm Personio.

Twitter: @mkotting

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26. Christian Hernandez, White Star Capital

Christian Hernandez is the cofounder and managing partner of White Star Capital, leaving Facebook for the world of VC in 2013.

Earlier this year, Hernandez gave Business Insider a taste of how insane a VC's inbox is and tips on how entrepreneurs can stand out. His advice? Get a warm intro.

Twitter: @christianhern

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25. Harry Briggs, BGF Ventures

Harry Briggs is a well-liked figure in UK VC, moving from Balderton Capital to BGF in 2015 with investments in Lyst and music startup ROLI under his belt. He also acts as an advisor to Diversity VC, a new organisation founded to boost female and minority participation in venture capital.

Twitter:@H4ryB

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24. Just Eat investor Laurel Bowden

83North partner Laurel Bowden led the firm's investment into Just Eat, the food delivery company which went public in 2014 and has just entered the FTSE 100. She also sits on the board of Swedish payments startup iZettle.

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23. Carolina Brochado of Atomico

Carolina Brochado was promoted to general partner at Atomico this year, making her one of the few high-profile female investors in the UK in an industry dominated by white men. She's fluent in several European languages and has led investments into startup such as chronic pain solvers Hinge Health, and freight delivery startup OnTruck.

Twitter: @ctbrochado

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22. French unicorn hunter Philippe Botteri

Philippe Botteri is a pretty consistent unicorn hunter. At Accel, he invested in French ride-sharing firm BlaBlaCar and at Bessemer he led the firm's investment into adtech firm Criteo.

Thoughtful and softly spoken in person, Botteri's French links have put him in a strong position now that European tech watchers have woken up to the potential of Paris and its startup ecosystem.

Twitter: @pbotteri

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21. Balderton investor James Wise

Balderton Capital's James Wise was promoted from principal to partner in January 2016 and has since backed a number of companies including fintech startup GoCardless and crowdfunding platform Crowdcube.

Twitter: @Jp_wise

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20. Forward Partners founding partner Nic Brisbourne

Nic Brisbourne spent seven years at DJF Esprit before leaving to launch his own seed-stage VC, Forward Partners. Forward raised a second fund of £60 million this year from a sole investor — BlackRock.

Twitter:@Brisbourne

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19. Harry Stebbings, raising a new fund

Harry Stebbings is UK venture capital's young, media-friendly face as the host of the popular "Twenty Minute VC" podcast, and with a stint at Atomico under his belt. Now he's raising a new fund with former Accel partner Fred Destin. The two say they have yet to come up with a name for the new firm, though it's registered online as Stride VC.

Twitter:@HarryStebbings

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18. Rising star Luciana Lixandru

Accel's Luciana Lixandru was promoted to partner in January, a decision no doubt partly down to the fact she had an early eye on Deliveroo. She was the first to bring the startup to Accel and now sits on its board.

Twitter: @LucianaLix

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17. Toby Coppel, cofounder of Mosaic Ventures

Toby Coppel is the cofounder of Mosaic Ventures along with Simon Levene and Mike Chalfen. The trio are well-connected, introducing figures like Y Combinator's Sam Altman to the UK tech ecosystem. Coppel's portfolio includes mortgage startup Habito and car insurance firm Guevara. He has previously invested in TransferWise, Pinterest, and Criteo.

Twitter: @tcoppel

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16. High-profile and well-connected investor Eileen Burbidge

Eileen Burbidge has many different roles: chair of Tech City UK, partner at Passion Capital, and the UK Treasury special envoy for fintech. Before becoming an investor, Burbidge worked at large technology companies including Skype, Yahoo, Apple, and Sun Microsystems.

Burbidge's investment fund Passion Capital has made recent investments in technology startups such as Tide, GoCardless, Adzuna, and Nested. Passion Capital is also a prominentbacker of fintech startup Monzo.

Twitter: @eileentso

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15. Balderton managing partner Bernard Liautaud

Bernard Liautaud is the most senior figure at Balderton, and one of the most successful entrepreneurs in Europe in his own right.

It's been a successful year for the VC firm, which closeda sixth fund of$375 million (£281 million) this year from the European Investment Fund, Asian funds, and other backers. The raise is good news for the UK tech scene, but Liataud didn't exactly shrug off Brexit fears in an interview with Business Insider.Asked if he was confident in a post-Brexit UK, Liautaud replied: "I just don't know", and also said the firm was eyeing opportunities in France.

Twitter:@Bliautaud

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14. Episode 1 managing partner Simon Murdoch

It's been a tough year for newer British VCs in 2017, with Brexit having a direct impact on fund managers' ability to raise new funds.

Episode 1 and several others were affected by one European fund's decision to freeze investments in the UK while it calculated the risks of Brexit. But the four-year-old firm successfully closed its round, suggesting that Brexit need not dampen the UK's thriving VC ecosystem.

Twitter:@smrdch

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13. Investment duo Rob Kniaz and Hussein Kanji

Rob Kniaz and Hussein Kanji are the two partners at London-based venture capital firm Hoxton Ventures. The fund invests in early stage companies, and so far it has backed startups such as Deliveroo, Babylon Health, Darktrace, and Yieldify.

Kniaz is a former Google employee who also worked at Intel and Fidelity, while Kanji is a former VC at Accel Partners who previously worked at Microsoft and Sun Microsystems.

Twitter: @RobKand @hkanji

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12. Early Deliveroo and Revolut backer Martin Mignot

Index Ventures partner Martin Mignot has backed some of the UK's best known technology companies. He backed SwiftKey in 2013, Deliveroo in 2014, and Revolut in 2016. All of those companies have gone on to scale rapidly.

Mignot serves as one of the public faces of Deliveroo. He told Business Insider last month that he hopes the company will go public in a few years.

Twitter: @martinmignot

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11. One of the most high-profile female VCs in the UK, BGF Ventures partner Wendy Tan White

Wendy Tan White had a big move this year. She left company building startup Entrepreneur First and joined BGF Ventures as a partner.

Before getting into investing, Tan White founded DIY website builder Moonfruit. The 46-year-old entrepreneur was awarded an MBE in 2016 for services to technology businesses.

Twitter: @wendytanwhite

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10. Autonomy billionaire and Darktrace investor Mike Lynch

Billionaire Mike Lynch made his fortune when HP bought his search company Autonomy for $11.7 billion (£8.4 billion). Now he's using his fortune to back a new generation of startups through a venture capital fund called Invoke.

Founded in 2012 with several former Autonomy execs, Invoke has backed a number of startups including cybersecurity firm Darktrace and healthcare firm Sophia Genetics.

Twitter: @invokecapital

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9. Founders Factory's Brent Hoberman

Hoberman is best known as founder and CEO of travel company Lastminute.com, and as cofounder of furniture firm Made.com. He's also extremely well-connected.

Now he's turned his hand to investing as executive chairman of Founders Factory,a startup incubator and accelerator. His peers say he's targeting the smart money — while smaller funds scrabble for government money, Hoberman is one of the few targeting the rich and growing pool of corporate cash from big firms desperate to understand startups.

In June 2017, he launched Firstminute Capital — a new $85 million (£64 million) European investment fund, based in London, that focuses on seed-stage startup funding.

Twitter: @brenthoberman

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8. VC doyen Robin Klein

Robin Klein, along with his son Saul, is a long-established tech investor who sits on the boards of several London startups. It's been a busy 2017 for the two, who made around 30 investments during the year in firms such as gig economy insurance firm Zego, coding kit makers Kano, and VR startup Curiscope.

Twitter:@RobinKlein

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7. SEP cofounder Stuart Paterson

Stuart Paterson cofounded Scottish Equity Partners and led the firm's savvy investment in Skyscanner, last year acquired by China's Ctrip £1.4 billion. He also led the firm's most recent investment into maker community LoveCrafts.

Twitter:@ASW_Paterson

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6. Skype cofounder and Atomico billionaire Niklas Zennström

Skype cofounder and CEO Niklas Zennström has made a number of smart investments this year through his venture capital fund, Atomico.

Atomico closed a huge $765 million (£576 million) fund in February and the company has been using its capital to back deep tech startups such as chip maker GraphCore and electric jet company Lilium.

Atomico has also invested in Brent Hoberman’s $85 million(£64 million) startup fund.

Twitter: @nzennstrom

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5. The head of the world's biggest tech fund, Rajeev Misra

The relatively little-known figure in charge of the world's largest tech fund is Rajeev Misra.

Misra is the CEO of the SoftBank Vision Fund, which has raised $93 billion (£70 billion) to date, with money coming from Apple, Sharp, and Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund.

Launched last October, the SoftBank Vision Fund has already put billions of dollars into companies such as Boston Dynamics, WeWork, and Brain Corp.

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4. Early-stage investor Reshma Sohoni

Reshma Sohoni is cofounder and partner at Seedcamp, a fund launched in 2007 by a group of European investors, including Saul Klein.

The seed investor recently closed £41 million for its fourth fund, and sold its first two funds to Draper Esprit.

Twitter:@rsohoni

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3. Helping founders to build companies, Entrepreneur First cofounders Alice Bentinck and Matt Clifford

These two ex-McKinsey consultants are going from strength to strength with their company building startup, Entrepreneur First.

EF (as it's often abbreviated to), raised a $12.4 million (£9.3 million) round in September, with renowned Silicon Valley VC Greylock Ventures and the cofounders of DeepMind investing. Reid Hoffman, the cofounder of LinkedIn and a partner at Greylock, has also taken a seat on the EF board. EF also expanded its company building programme to Singapore.

Twitter: @alicebentinckand @matthewclifford

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2. Accel's Sonali de Rycker

Sonali De Rycker is a venture capitalist at Accel Partners.

With about 15 years of experience working in the space, she has backed some of Europe's most successful startups, like Spotify and Seatwave.

Recently, she also backed KRY in a €20 million (£17.6 million) roundin June, and joined the board of Shift in May 2016.

Twitter: @sonalidr

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1. Draper Esprit's Simon Cook

Simon Cook is the CEO and cofounder of Draper Esprit, a publicly listed venture capital firm based in London.

Founded in 2006, Draper Esprit has backed European startups including snack box provider Graze, period tracking app Clue, and artificial intelligencehealth app Pushdoctor.

Cook shrugged off Brexit concerns and raised £160 million from a mix of private investors and stock markets this summer. Draper also stepped in to help fill an investment gap left by the European Investment Fund, investing in Seedcamp's newest funding round, buying their first two funds, and investing in another seed-stage firm Episode 1.

Twitter: @venturejedi