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Alexander Edward Chesterman OBE (born 9 January 1970) [1] is a British Internet entrepreneur, co-founder of ScreenSelect, which later became part of online film distributor LoveFilm, and is the founder and former CEO of online used car platform Cazoo. [2]
In December 2018 Chesterman raised over £30m in pre-seed funding [3] and then went on to raise a further round of £50m pre-launch for Cazoo. [4] He launched the business in December 2019. In March 2020 he then went on to raise a further £100m for Cazoo. [5] [6] Chesterman stepped down as CEO of Cazoo in December 2023. He was also the founder of the property website Zoopla in 2007. Zoopla became a digital media business ZPG Plc (LSE:ZPG) [7] a FTSE-250 listed company and owns brands which include Zoopla, uSwitch, PrimeLocation, Money and Hometrack and employs over 1,000 people in the UK. In July 2018 ZPG Plc was bought by US private equity business SilverLake Partners for £2.2bn and delisted from the FTSE 250. [8]
Chesterman attended St Paul's School, London and has a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics from University College London. [1] [9] He is married and has two sons. [1]
Chesterman served as the executive vice president of Planet Hollywood until 1998. [9] He founded ScreenSelect (later LoveFilm) which was subsequently sold to Amazon for £200 million. [10] [11] [12]
In 2007, he founded Zoopla, a property website. [9] In June 2014 he floated Zoopla, which has been renamed and become ZPG, on the London Stock Exchange for nearly £1bn. [13] In 2018 ZPG was sold to US private equity group Silver Lake for £2.2bn. [14] He served as chief executive officer until the end of September 2018 when he stepped down but remains on the Board. [15]
In December 2018, Chesterman announced a funding round of over £30m for his next venture, Cazoo, aimed at transforming the used car market. [16] He has now raised a total of £180m for Cazoo. [17]
He is also regarded as one of the UK's most active tech angel investors and mentors. [18] He has backed early stage digital startups, including Farewill, Graze, Secret Escapes, SportPursuit, UniPlaces, CarWow, Swoon, and Farmdrop and was awarded an OBE for services to digital entrepreneurship in 2016. [19]
He was named Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year in 2013 [20] and in 2017 named on Debrett's 500. [21]
In 2021, his net worth was estimated by the Sunday Times Rich List as £750 million. [22]
In 2021, Chesterman led investment rounds in checking and digital onboarding platform Thirdfort and DIY and refurbishment platform Lick. [23] [24]
Chesterman stepped aside as Cazoo's chief executive in January 2023 and left the company the following December. Five months later, in May 2024, Cazoo collapsed into administration. [25]
In July 2016, Chesterman was said to be behind a legal challenge to stop Brexit should the British government not allow Parliament to vote on the deal. [26] He donated £300,000 to the Liberal Democrats in the 2019 United Kingdom general election. [27]
Intu Properties plc was a British real estate investment trust (REIT), largely focused on shopping centre management and development. Originally named Transatlantic Insurance Holdings plc and later Liberty International plc, it changed its name in May 2010 to Capital Shopping Centres Group plc after demerging its Capital & Counties Properties business unit to form an independent business. The company adopted the Intu name on 18 February 2013, and this was followed by the rebranding of most of its shopping centres under the Intu title from May 2013.
Brent Shawzin Hoberman is a British entrepreneur and investor. During the dot-com boom, he co-founded lastminute.com with Martha Lane Fox in 1998, where he was CEO from its inception, before selling the business to Sabre in 2005 for $1.1bn.
Episode 1 is a venture fund set up to invest in early-stage technology companies based in the UK. The three partners behind the fund – Simon Murdoch, Damien Lane and Adrian Lloyd – are experienced entrepreneurs and investors, and have been through every stage of the start-up process, from inception to initial public offering. The firm invests between £250,000 and £2 million in UK based early-stage companies. Episode 1's first fund was launched in 2013 and totalled £37.5m. Its objective is to give a better start to the next generation of British tech ventures than their predecessors. It was created with a mixture of public and private money, including backing from Alex Chesterman of Zoopla Property Group. It is one of the UK Government's Enterprise Capital Funds – set up to support fund managers who invest in small, high-growth businesses. The £12.5 million of private investment was matched with £25 million of public money. The government's Business Secretary Vince Cable endorsed the launch of the fund, saying it 'will target a serious gap in the equity market for high-growth small firms'.
Constellation Automotive Group is a used vehicle marketplace. It was founded in the United Kingdom in 1946, as Southern Counties Car Auctions, and was a publicly traded company, BCA Marketplace, when acquired and taken private by TDR Capital in November 2019. TDR rebranded it to the current name in October 2020.
Sir Christopher Thomas Evans is a Welsh professor, scientist and biotechnology entrepreneur. Evans is known for founding and co-founding numerous successful biotech companies in the United Kingdom.
Houseful is a British residential property software, data, and insight company based in London, England, owned by Silver Lake Partners.
Apartment List is an American online marketplace for apartment listings. In January 2018, Apartment List had over 4 million units on its platform.
Jonathan Philip Pryce Goodwin is a British banker and investor. He is partner, head of Merchant Banking at Alvarium Investments. His appointment followed the merger in March 2019 of Lepe Partners, the merchant bank he co-founded in 2011, with Alvarium which works across North America, Europe and Asia Pacific, supervising $15bn+ of assets. With Brent Hoberman, Goodwin also co-founded Founders Forum, a network of digital entrepreneurs, corporate CEOs and senior investors.
Carwow is an online marketplace for buying and selling cars. It uses the reverse marketplace model to remove the need for customers to negotiate with dealers when buying or selling their cars. When buying a new car, users choose the car they want, along with the various specifications and features, and then receive offers directly from dealers. When selling a car, users upload some basic details about their car, after which different car dealers are invited to bid to buy the car directly from them. It also provides information to prospective purchasers and gives feedback on rogue dealers. The company has a YouTube page, run by motor journalist and Carwow's Chief Content Officer Mat Watson, where different cars are reviewed.
WeSwap is a peer-to-peer currency exchange platform. WeSwap matches travellers heading in opposite directions and swaps their travel money directly. The London-based startup company was launched in 2013 by Jared Jesner and Simon Sacerdoti, and currently supports 18 different currencies around the world.
money.co.uk is a UK-based price comparison website launched in 2008. It compares financial products including credit cards, bank savings, and mortgages. The company is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority registered under its parent company, Dot Zinc Ltd.
Purplebricks is a British online estate agent which operates in the UK. Founded in 2012 by Michael Bruce, Kenny Bruce and David Shepherd, it is backed by investors that include venture capital firm DN Capital as well as Neil Woodford, Paul Pindar, and Errol Damelin.
OnTheMarket.com is a United Kingdom property portal similar to Rightmove and Zoopla. In October 2023, it was announced that the firm would be acquired by CoStar Group for £99 million. On December 12, the Washington, D.C.–based property data company reported having completed the purchase of OnTheMarket plc.
Alex Algard is an Internet entrepreneur. He is the founder and former CEO of Hiya, Ekata and the founder and former CEO of Whitepages.com, and CarDomain.
Thomas Benjamin Blomfield is a British entrepreneur and a Group Partner at Y Combinator.
Perlego is a digital library that offers readers unlimited access to over 1 million academic, professional and non-fiction eBooks. They have been billed as “the Spotify for Textbooks” by the Evening Standard. It is a membership-based service that allows users to read any book available in the library for the duration of their membership.
Vinodka "Vin" Murria is a British businesswoman and founder of Advanced Computer Software where she was CEO until it was acquired in 2015. Prior to that she was founder and CEO of Computer Software Group Plc, acquired by Hellman&Friedman in 2007. She works as an investor/advisor to HgCapital.
Motorway is an online-only used car marketplace based in the UK. It uses a selling platform to allow users to sell their vehicle directly to car dealers. Motorway is based in London and Brighton in the UK.
Octopus Capital Limited, trading as Octopus Group, is a privately held United Kingdom based holding company founded in 2000 by Simon Rogerson, Christopher Hulatt and Guy Myles as a fund management company. Through its subsidiaries, it operates in the investment management, venture capital, energy, and real estate industries.
Cazoo is a British automotive online marketplace and classified advertising business based in Richmond, London.