Talk:Errol Damelin

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 * Reason for the change: I noticed that this entry is really out of date. I've met Damelin and over the past decade he has become known across the industry for a number of significant investments that weren't mentioned in the entry. I thought this was probably worth updating. Due to the potential conflict of interest I decided it would be best to submit these updates on the talk page.


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Errol Damelin (born 23 August 1969) is a South African entrepreneur and early-stage technology investor and founder with a wide portfolio and a heavy presence in Israel and Europe. Around 40% of his investments have been in fintech but also with a focus on health and wellness. In 2007 he co-founded Wonga, an internet payday loan company, and Tide, a UK-based banking services company. Damelin stepped down as CEO of Wonga in 2013, five years later the company went into administration on 30 August 2018. Damelin is primarily an early-stage technology investor.

Early Life
Errol Damelin was born in South Africa on 23 August 1969. Damelin grew up in a Jewish family in Klerksdorp, South Africa, with his father being an anaesthesiologist. Upon graduating from high school Damelin attended the University of Cape Town, where he studied Business Science and Law. He was politically active at the university, winning an election to the UCT Students Representative Council and participating in anti-apartheid rallies. During this time he was detained for protesting against the apartheid government policy of detention without trial. He graduated from the University of Cape Town in 1992, finishing his studies at Boston University in Boston, United States with a Masters of Science in Management. Damelin subsequently emigrated to Israel, where he began working as a corporate finance banker at an Israeli investment bank. In 1997 he left his job to help found Barzelan, a producer of speciality steel wire based in Beit Shemesh, Israel. In 2000 Damelin founded Supply Chain Connect, a cloud based supply chain software company. Based in London, United Kingdom, the company developed software for the supply chains of companies, including Dow Chemicals, DuPont, Phelps Dodge, General Cable, Mondi Packaging, and Corning. In 2005 Damelin sold the business to ChemConnect for an undisclosed amount.

Tide
Tide is a UK-based banking service which is specifically targeted towards small to medium sized businesses which went on to secure as much as $16 million by 2018. The inspiration for Tide was born out of frustration with poor banking services traditionally provided to small businesses. Damelin incubated the mobile banking service, Tide, from scratch as a pre-launch founder  and the first investor, participating in the seed investment round. In 2021 it was reported that Tide now has 400,000 clients which is the equivalent of 7% of the SME banking market in the UK, and is the 7th largest provider of banking services to British SMEs.

Wonga
In 2007 Damelin and Jonty Hurwitz launched Wonga.com, a payday loan website that provided short term loans to borrowers in the United Kingdom and abroad. Despite initial skepticism from banks, Wonga processed one hundred thousand loans within two years and lowered its initial 50% default rate significantly. By 2013 the company had grown to over five hundred employees, with revenues of £300 million. That year it also acquired the Germany-based BillPay and launched Everline, a provider of loans for small and medium-sized businesses. In December 2012 Wonga launched its Wonga Paylater service which offered shoppers the opportunity to pay for purchases in installments. In November 2013 Damelin stepped down as CEO of the company to focus on new projects and spend more time with his family. Several weeks later, Wonga was required by the Financial Conduct Authority to offer about £2.6 million in compensation to customers for poor historic debt collection practices, which had included the sending of fake solicitor letters to its customers. Several months prior, Damelin had called for better regulation of the consumer lending sector and more transparency in the wider financial services industry of the United Kingdom. When asked about Wonga's controversial lending practices after his resignation, Damelin said that he had no moral issues with them, claiming that that credit could be an important force for good when given transparently and fairly and that Wonga's customers were overwhelmingly happy with and supportive of the company. Wonga reported a ‘net promoter’ score of more than 90% stating that it’s “users appear very happy”. After an increase in customer compensation claims, Wonga went into administration on 30 August 2018, five years after Damelin’s departure.

Wise (formerly Transferwise)
Wise is a London-based financial technology company. Damelin was among the first investors into London-based money transfer business, Transferwise (which later was renamed Wise) when he took part  in the startup's 2011 seed round. In 2012 the start-up managed to secure seed funding from a range of venture capital firms and high-profile peers including Damelin, alongside PayPal co-founder, Max Levchin and Betfair CEO, David Yu.

On July 7, 2021, Wise was listed on the London Stock Exchange at £11 billion and ended 10% up on their first day of trading. Wise was later dubbed “London’s largest ever tech listing” by Reuters.

Damelin commented in 2022 that he considered Wise to be one of the companies he is “most excited to see move forward: because of its potential to have dramatic impact on financial inclusion .” Speaking of Damelin, founder and chairman of Wise, Taavet Hinrikus said: “Errol sits in a very small and special category of early investors. He knows how stuff works in detail and is incredibly passionate about getting companies off the ground. He’s intense and helpful…without trying to get credit.”

Cazoo
Cazoo is a British car retailer for used cars started in 2018 by entrepreneur Alex Chesterman to transform the used car market. The ecommerce platform for used cars was launched in December 2019.

In 2021, Cazoo listed in New York with a valuation of $8bn and was dubbed a unicorn. As of 2022 Cazoo is reported to deliver 50,000 cars a year. Damelin was one of the first investors to get involved in the motor industry platform.

Purplebricks
Purplebricks is a British online estate agent founded in 2012 by Michael Bruce and Kenny Bruce. The concept of Purplebricks is a lower-cost, digital model of estate agency with the key goal of making property selling into a 24-hour business. The company launched in April 2014 and began selling shares publicly on AIM in December 2015 under the name Purplebricks Groups Limited.

Damelin was one of the initial backers on Purplebricks alongside other notable investors.

Viva Real
Viva Real is a Brazilian-based portal for property classified adverts which has been part of Grupo ZAP since 2017. Since 2020 it has been a subsidiary of Grupo OLX Brasil. Damelin became an early investor in the company to expand into a market which he considered to be somewhat untapped.

K Health
K Health is a heath care technology company which used artificial intelligence to triage patients in an effort to cut costs to medical providers and “democratize access to quality healthcare”. In March 2022 the company reported having 5 million users and said that it had raised $132 million in 2021 as part of a Series E round, bringing its total funding efforts to $271 million. Damelin, as an early investor into K Health, stated that the company has “kind of potential [which] is precisely what I look for as an investment” due to its disruptive nature to the industry.

Many-to-One Transaction Fulfillment System
Damelin, together with Jonty Hurwitz, invented a system for facilitating the provision of personal online credit from multiple credit sources that includes a Many-to-one Transaction Fulfillment System adapted to connect multiple money sources, online consumers, and vendor payment platforms.

System and Method for Delivery of Dynamic Personalized Sliders Online
Damelin, together with Jonty Hurwitz, devised a system that would enable customers or users to acquire consumer credit on a personalized basis.

Plug-In System and Method for Consumer Credit Acquisition Online
Damelin, together with Jonty Hurwitz, invented a system that provides real-time personalized and customizable consumer credit from a credit provider and that is then placed into a shopping basket or facility on the internet or on a mobile network.

Loan Automation System
Damelin, together with Daniel Hegarty, invented a computer readable storage medium that can be used to automatically determine whether to provide a loan. Loan requests and the identity of the loan applicant is received remotely from the loan applicant and then a process automatically determines whether to grant the loan using a trust rating calculated by the system and two pieces of external data related to credit worthiness and through monitoring of online usage. Upon approval of the loan, instructions are sent to transfer the loan to a bank account.

Method and System for Determining an Online Loan
Damelin, together with Daniel Hegarty and Jonty Hurwitz, invented a system that determines whether a loan provider should provide an online loan to a user without the need for a separate channel of communication. This system is unlike previous systems that would use some form of credit rating to determine whether to provide a loan because those would need a separate channel of communication and security controls that would determine whether applicants are actually the people, they say they are.

Awards
Damelin has received several entrepreneurial awards:


 * 2008 – Credit Suisse Entrepreneur of the year at the National Business Awards, South East
 * 2009 – Ruban d’Honneur in the RSM International Entrepreneur of the Year category of the European Business Awards
 * 2010 – Digital Entrepreneur of the Year (Digital Entrepreneur Awards)
 * 2010 – Entrepreneur of the Year (Growing Business Awards)
 * 2010 – Founder of the Year (Tech Crunch – The Europa's)
 * 2011 – Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year
 * 2011 – The Guardian's Digital Entrepreneur of the Year
 * 2012 – Founder of the Year (Founders Forum)

Philanthropy
Damelin has donated to Jewish charities and has appeared on panels and discussions for World Jewish Relief and Jewish Care. Damelin has also been an ambassador for Charity: Water and ran the Antarctic Ice marathon, where he raised substantial funds for the charity. In 2015 Damelin became a founding member of Founders Pledge, a group of technology entrepreneurs who pledged 2% of the equity in their companies to philanthropic causes.

Personal life
Damelin lives in London and has three children.