The contribution of migrant entrepreneurs is paramount to the UK’s tech ecosystem.
They are behind 1 in 7 companies in the UK and 456,073 of them from 155 countries have settled in Britain and launched a business.
Without them, there would be no 3 beards Silicon Drinkabout. You would still be over-paying for bank money transfers without TransferWise. Without them, you would be stuck wandering the streets of London trying to find your way home because Citymapper wouldn’t exist.
To celebrate the contribution of migrant entrepreneurs to Britain, Tech City News is proud to be hosting the International Hall of Fame awards on June 17th at fintech incubator Level39.
The event is sponsored by WorldPayUK, Fitzgerald and Law, and Propel London.
A successful international 2014
MPs, founders, investors and VIPs, both international and British, will be in attendance. These will include Taveet Hinrikus, founder of Transferwise and Damian Kimmelman, founder of DueDil as well as many others.
Taveet was the first employee at Skype and left Estonia to launch his financial tech startup in London. Earlier this week, Transferwise raised $25m in an investment round led by Richard Branson.
It has also been a successful 2014 thus far for serial entrepreneur Damian Kimmelman (pictured below). DueDil recently raised an equally impressive $17m.
There will also be a number of special guests making an appearance at the event.
Connectors, Backers, Ones to Watch and Superstars
There will be 20 awards split into 4 categories representing the diverse contribution to Britain’s tech sector and the UK economy:
- Backers – VCs and angel investors
- Superstars – Early pioneers with startups now worth millions of US dollars
- Connectors – Key pillars of the tech community
- Ones to Watch – Up and coming founders
The International Entrepreneur of the Year will also be crowned.
Full list of nominees:
Connectors
- Bryce Keane – Albion Drive
- Matt Cynamon – General Assembly
- Chris Grew – Orrick
- Courtney Boyd Myers – audience.io
- Eze Vidra – Google Campus
- Bindi Karia – Silicon Valley Bank
- Russ Shaw – Tech London Advocates
- Evgeny Shadchnev – Makers Academy
- Daniel Glazer – Fried Frank
- Elizabeth Varley – Tech Hub
Backers
- Hussein Kanji – Hoxton Ventures
- Tak Lo – Techstars
- Sherry Coutu – Founders4Schools
- Reshma Sohoni – Seedcamp
- Robin Klein – The Accelerator Group
- Eileen Burbidge – White Bear Yard
- Eric van Der Kleij – Level 39
Ones to watch
- Sebastiaan Heijne and Tobias van Amstel – Signkick
- Jody Orsborn – The Backscratchers
- Mike Salter and Nicholas Russell – We are Pop Up
- Dmitry Aksenov and Bogdan Maksak – Fingenius
- Maxim Berglund and Alex Loiz0u – Streethub
- Iris Lapinski – Apps for good
- Fiona Disegni – Rentez-Vous
- Hannah Donovan and Matthew Ogle – This is my jam
- Zack Sabban and Jonathan Younes – Festicket
Superstars
- Bernhard Niesner and Adrian Hilti – Busuu
- Taavet Hinrikus and Kristo Käärmann – TransferWise
- Arnaud Bertrand and Junjun Chen- HouseTrip
- Rytis Vitkauskas and Viktoras Jucikas – Yplan
- Alain Falys and Michael Rolph – Yoyo
- Azmat Yusuf – Citymapper
- Yoni Assia – Etoro
- Daumantas Dvilinskas – TransferGo
- Alicia Navarro and Joe Stepniewski – Skimlinks
- Greg Marsh – One Fine Stay