Ali Niknam

Ali Niknam (born December 12, 1982, Windsor, Ontario, Canada) is a Dutch entrepreneur, book author, founder of TransIP, CEO and founder of bunq.

Biography
Ali Niknam was born in an Iranian family on December 12, 1982, in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. When Ali Niknam was 7 years old, the family moved to Gouda, the Netherlands.

Niknam graduated from secondary school at the Coornhert Gymnasium in Gouda and in 2007 received a bachelor's degree in technical informatics from the Delft University of Technology.

In 2003, during university years, Niknam founded TransIP, a company that specialized in domain name registration and web hosting. In 2014, he handed over the management of the company and in 2019, after the merging with the Belgian company Combell, TransIP was renamed team.blue where he remained a board member.

In 2007, with his two partners, Niknam founded a data center company The Datacenter Group. As of 2018 he remained a shareholder in the company at least.

In 2011, Niknam wrote a book called Ondernemers hebben nooit geluk (Entrepreneurs are never lucky) covering his entrepreneurship experience.

In 2012, Niknam launched a mobile bank named bunq in which he invested €98.7 million. In 2023, bunq was valued at €1.65bn after a new funding round.

In 2022, together with Robert Vis and Joris Beckers, Niknam founded the People for People Foundation, which supported people affected by the Russian-Ukrainian war.