The biggest names from every stage of the investment cycle, along with Europe’s most successful entrepreneurs, were celebrated last night at the Investor Allstars Awards in London.
The event took place at the Lancaster Hotel and was hosted by Caroline Hyde of Bloomberg Television. BlaBaCar founder Nicolas Brusson delivered the keynote address for the evening.
The annual event is organised by GP Bullhound, the technology investment bank, and GrowthBusiness, a Vitesse Media publication specialising in providing information for entrepreneurs and leaders of fast-growth businesses.
Now in its 13th year, Investor Allstars has been crowned the “Oscars” and “Must Attend” event for the European Entrepreneurial and Investor Community.
The theme for this year was “The Year of the Unicorn”, reflecting the large number of European start-ups that have achieved a valuation of £1bn or more in the past 12 months.
One of those companies, Zoopla, was recognised in the awards as founder Alex Chesterman walked away with the nod for Entrepreneur of the Year.
Other big winners included Accel Partners, who took the VC Fund of the Year, and Private Investor Network of the Year Crowdcube.
GP Bullhound managing partner Manish Madvani said the awards this year reflected the trend for “entrepreneurs fundraising vast rounds of capital for long term growth”.
“The European digital ecosystem will look back on this as the ‘Year of Unicorns’ – the moment when European unicorns started reaching globally competitive valuations,” he added.
Full list of winners:
VC Fund of the Year – Accel Partners
Growth Fund of the Year – Eight Roads Ventures
Exit of the Year – FDM Group – Inflexion
Investor of the Year – Ben Holmes, Index Ventures
Corporate Development Team of the Year – Just Eat
Private Investor Network of the Year – Crowdcube
VCT of the Year – Mobeus Equity Partners
Seed Fund of the Year – High-Tech Gruenderfonds
Buyout Fund of the Year – ECI Partners
Entrepreneur of the Year – Alex Chesterman, Zoopla
Service Provider of the Year – Kreos Capital
Europe’s Allstar Company – Sigfox
