Top angel investors at Fintech

Europe’s fintech environment continues to rise, driven on by a varied crew of angels who invest their financial funds in different start-ups.

According to Dealroom, last year, angel investors pumped more than EUR 612 m into European fintechs, with an average of 17 angels contributing per seed round.

In order to classify the investors behind these Fintech50 businesses, researchers at tech company Cledara then scraped the available data from AngelList, Crunchbase and Companies House.
Ultimately, over 1000 (publicly disclosed) angel investors were listed by Cledara, but only 23 investors had in their portfolios various Fintech50 firms.
These are the some investors at the top of the Fintech Angel League table using this metric:

Chris Adelsbach

He has about 20 years of experience under his belt in financial services.
Adelsbach was crowned the ‘UK Angel Investor’ of the year in 2019, and he is now a founding member of the new specialist fintech investment fund, Outrun Ventures.

Fintech50 investments: Cledara, Railsbank, Everledger, Monese, Datamaran and Sharegain.

Taavet Hinrikus

Since stepping back as chief executive of TransferWise in 2017, he has dedicated himself to angel investing — buoyed by a recent secondary sale, where he reportedly liquidated a healthy chunk of equity.

Fintech50 investments: Farewill, Qonto, Onfido and Primer

Charlie Songhurst

Songhurst has held senior spots at some of the biggest companies in the world, including McKinsey and Microsoft.

He is not only one of the most successful angels in European fintech, but also one of the active US investors in the space. Songhurst invested in around 500 companies globally.

Fintech50 investments: Fluidly, Credit Kudos, Tractable and Onfido

Perry Blacher

Blacher is a veteran fintech investor, having first taken a stake in online gambling site Betfair in 2001. He is now a partner at Augmentum Fintech, one of the UK’s main fintech venture funds.

Fintech50 investments: Railsbank, Farewill and Fluidly

Tom Stafford

Stafford heads up the London office for DST Global, the global tech investment firm behind the likes of Chime and Robinhood. For the past four years, Stafford has been instrumental in the firm’s global fintech investment strategy, backing companies like Revolut, Nubank and Klarna.

Fintech50 investments: Credit Kudos, Habito and Raisin

Baroness Denise Kingsmill

Baroness Kingsmill was the founder chair of Monzo, winning her a place on the table with her hat. She also owns shares in Starling Bank, where the cofounders of Monzo were executives before leaving after six months to launch their own bank.

Fintech50 investments: Monzo and Starling

In general, to qualify as an angel, individuals have to gain over £ 100,000, considering that it means locking up funds in a highly illiquid asset.

To organize investors, communities such as the European Business Angel Network have been created. Furthermore, groups such as Angel ‘s Den or Angelsquare Fintech in France host pitching events to connect founders and investors.