EF Alumni

David Hunter

CEO, Optimal Labs

Founded:

Interests / background:

Aerospace, Agriculture, Finance

Location:

London

Cohort:

David studied Aeronautical Engineering at Imperial College London and trained as a pilot in the Royal Air Force before going into the banking industry, where he ran Deutsche Bank’s quantitative strategies team with his algorithms trading >5% of the European stock market volume. He earned a Master’s in Computer Science at the University of Oxford before setting up Optimal Labs.

David shares his journey to becoming a founder

Raw Ambition : David Hunter

Company:

Optimal Labs

Building technology for autonomous greenhouses by combining AI with the latest research in plant sciences

Robert Ihnatisin

CTO, Orbital Matter

Electrical Engineer. Ex-R&D @ Formlabs & Google. 7 Hackathon wins, Microsoft Imagine Cup Finalist.

Jacqueline Good

Launched 4 data apps, <$10M in tech sales. Ex-OMERS, TIBCO, Avid.ly. Sponsored by ESA.

Shehroz I. Hussain

Creative leader with first-principles approach. Ex-Tesla, SpaceX, & Kepler Communications.

Reza Larimi

Background in design, control systems & automation. Multiple international patents & publications

Jacob John

Former product lead and second-time founder with experience taking startups from 0-1

Rachiket Arya

NUS Science and Technology Scholar, with experience in building software products from scratch.

Dr Dinaz Zenobia Stutterheim

Expert in advanced mechanics of materials, PhD in Aerospace Engineering

Alex Palmer-Walsh

PhD in Aerospace Engineering

Sagar Setu

CTO, Milky Way AI

Robotics and computer vision expert, PhD in Aerospace Engineering

Phong Vo

PhD in Signal and Images, expertise ranging from machine learning to computer vision

Steven R Tsitas

PhD in Planetary Science, produced innovative work on 6U CubeSat

Mathieu Johnsson

Designed planes for Airbus Future Projects, MSc Engineering

Hira Virdee

PhD in astrodynamics with the US Air Force, worked on satellite tracking and laser ranging

Han Lai

Co-founder and Director, Open Cosmos

Led industrial projects, degree in Electronics and Electrical Engineering

Rafel Jorda

CEO, Open Cosmos

Master's in aerospace engineering with space technology specialisation

Dr Thomas Clayson

PhD in plasma astrophysics, built fusion reactors and the largest pulsed power machine in Europe

Mark Stokes

Mechanical and machine learning engineer, experience in startups and the aerospace industry

Jonathan Baptista

Experienced in managing international teams with an MSc in complex systems simulation

Nicolas Ang

Co-founder, F-drones

Aeronautical Engineering specialist, experienced bringing investment to Singapore

Yeshwanth Reddy

Co-founder, F-drones

Aerospace engineer, experienced in drone product development

Rohit Jha

CEO, Transcelestial

Bachelors in Electrical and Electronic Engineering NTU, previously RBS

Mohammad Danesh

CTO, Transcelestial

PhD in Nanophotics from NUS, designed and built photonic systems

Omar Dekkiche

Engineer. Former M&A banker. Second time deep tech startup founder.

Brett Cotten

CEO, Arda Biomaterials

Alternative protein domain expert. Food and materials book author. Cambridge MBA for biotech (MBE).

Karam El Assaad

Strong expertise leading enterprise and SME sales across MEA region

Syed Shakeel Ahmed

PhD in Cancer Biology, experience leading collaborative projects with cancer clinics

Harold Mollison

Head of Sales and Marketing, Spidfier

Background in marketing and management

Phong Vo

PhD in Signal and Images, expertise ranging from machine learning to computer vision

Steven R Tsitas

PhD in Planetary Science, produced innovative work on 6U CubeSat

Pieter Fabry

Experience implementing reinforcement learning models on videos, ex-nano satellite researcher

James Kent

Inventor, ex-Google and set up one of the earliest cloud computing companies

Abdel Wahab Turkmani

2x founder building businesses that positively impact the world

Christopher Chavasse

CTO, Muddy Machines

Robotic innovation, built everything from UAVs to next gen robots at Dyson, Deliveroo and Karakuri

Florian Richter

CEO, Muddy Machines

Serial entrepreneur, commercial roles at Google, SumUp, Bookatable. Large family farm in Portugal

Dr Akhilesh Chaurasia

Leader in field of genetically modified organisms

Hubert Tse

Experience in capital markets, launched successful energy trading ventures

Mark Jager

CPO, HIER Foods

Product veteran with expertise in UX1

Lara Hammerle

CEO, HIER Foods

Experienced in growth, built company to 6,000 users in 6 months

Rubal Chib

Electronics engineer, previously Havells and IOTA

Shrishti Batra

PhD in Computational Biology & Chemical Ecology, previously NCBS, Max Planck Institute

Kate Ma

COO, Neptune Robotics

Experience software engineer with an MSc in Financial Statistics from London School of Economics.

Chloe Burles

Experienced CEO and British record holder.

Dominik Pederzani

Second-time founder, ex-McKinsey, Wharton MBA, COO of publicly-listed fintech.

Maximilian Rolf

Former tech investment banker, advised leading B2B SaaS companies.

Leon Wisskirchen

WHU graduate. Serial founder and former Head of Operations at SumUp US. Full-stack web developer.

Konstantin Häfner

Awarded lawyer with a strong VC/regulatory background. Former legal advisor at N26.

Moritz Gessl

WHU graduate, co-founded crypto start-up and built companies for an incubator, in crypto since 2017.

Kevin Bonte

Experienced Engineer in B2B payments.

Thomas Claassen

Experienced in finance and payments.

Omar Dekkiche

Engineer. Former M&A banker. Second time deep tech startup founder.

Ben Stemper

CEO, Grey Swan Finance

Former Options Quant at Citadel. PhD in Options Pricing. Oxford Mathematics MSc.

Alex Hooper

Self-taught software engineer, previously building and leading engineering teams at 11:FS.

Daniel Parekh-Hill

3x founder. 5 years building, scaling and advising companies from MVP to IPO.

Louis Lammerting

CTO, SoLo Protocol

Founded Math X (40k users). Ex-Consultant at Strategy & University of Chicago Blockchain Engineer.

Rohan Tangri

CEO, Compass Labs

AI @ JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank, Statistical Machine Learning PhD @ Imperial College London.

Elisabeth Duijnstee

CEO, Compass Labs

Physics PhD @ University of Oxford, Machine Learning fellow @ Faculty AI.

Rumessa Raja

CEO, Celerity Labs

Designed & scaled e-commerce platforms leading B2B companies in advanced industries (ex-McKinsey).

Eswar Prasanth Nagasamudram

MBA from ISB. 8 years of experience building & scaling products at Goldman Sachs, Mckinsey & Rupeek.

Dhawal Patel

Built Loan Origination & Management Systems for Capital Float & Funding Societies. Ex-CTO at Aureal.

Gaurav Agarwal

Second time entrepreneur. Previously built credit underwriting engines for Capital Float and bill pa

Frederick Sia

Serial entrepreneur with MSc in Investment Management.

Phoebe Chibuzo Hugh

Ex-underwriter and project manager at Aviva

Karam El Assaad

Strong expertise leading enterprise and SME sales across MEA region

Rishabh Varshney

Building climate solutions since 2012. CEO @ buywithimpact (acq), Product/Design @ RBC, Wrapbook

Anna Wang

Experienced investor in renewable & infrastructure projects. Helped companies with energy transition

Jennifer Wang

CEO, Summations

Second time founder with experience in sales and product management

Katrin Shechtman

CTO, Trust Chain

Tech entrepreneur with 17+ yrs. Led her own consultancy company with FinTech & government clients

Giancarlo De Lio

CEO, Trust Chain

Seasoned entrepreneur with 20+ yrs including co-founding VitalHub (IPO) and multiple exists

Charles Ashby-Lepore

CTO, Metacommerce

Senior Software Developer, with expertise in Machine Learning. Ex Co-Founder, Koïos Intelligence.

Sudipta Biswas

Expert in AI, machine learning, deep learning and product development.

Sanskar Jayaswal

Supported startups across business & growth functions in 0-1 stage, pivotal role in FinTech domains

Pranav Nair

Hands-on experience in Blockchain 2.0, Solidity & Smart Contracts, built banking products

Kushagra Manglik

Has experience building APIs and AI models for multiple large scale companies.

Srinivas Sarkar

Has experience in consulting large enterprises and B2C startups in India.

Dr. Desiree-Jessica Pely

CTO, MetaWealth

Financial Economist trained at LMU Munich, Yale, & University of Miami, Computer Science background

Florian Drummen

CEO, MetaWealth

Built and scaled ventures at BCG Digital Ventures and FinTech Unicorn SumUp, WHU Graduate

Oliver Weiss

Serial founder. Developed ISO standard. Public Health speaker. CBS graduate

Bisola Asolo

Previously exited web3 founder. Full-stack developer with a finance background, ex J.P. Morgan.

James Branigan

Cambridge graduate. Degrees in Physics, Applied Mathematics, and AI. Former top B2C salesman

Ojas Shukla

Second time founder. University of Singapore dropout. Successfully exited first company at age 19

Alexandre Bonnet

MSc in Theoretical Physics, built data platforms behind largest FinTech & InsurTech startups in UK

Cillian Bourke

2nd time founder, six years designing and distributing novel insurance products.

Cyrille Pastour

Co-founder, Swaap

Ex-BCG. Master’s in Finance from HEC Paris.

Sam Daviau

Co-founder, UpBeing

SaaS tech and community leader with proven success in Operations, Partnerships and Product

Alesis Novik

Exited co-founder and CTO of AimBrain, formerly CERN and E Capital

Andrius Sutas

Exited co-founder and CEO of AimBrain, graduated top of class in Computer Science and Electronics

Srivar Harlalka

MSc in Finance and Strategy, founded 3 consumer facing startups

Srinidhi Moodalagiri

Computer scientist, built risk models for multi-billion dollar consumer portfolios

Alexandros Pantalis

Tech entrepreneur, built & managed successful startups in e-commerce, software development & fintech

Artur Begyan

Mathematical financial developer and economist, including working as a Quant at Bank of America

Simon Jones

Strong financial technology startup background; prior founder, operator and investor

Alex Lempka

CEO, Connect Earth

Experience founding and scaling businesses, worked in FinTech his entire career

Kartik Arora

Full-stack developer and engineering manager across fast-growing startups

Apoorv Singh

Experience scaling B2B SaaS sales across three continents

Lorenzo Ampil

CTO, Hawksight.co

Data scientist, built financial AI software for global enterprises and asset management firms

Bradian Muliadi

CEO, Hawksight.co

Built and sold Indonesia's largest creator platform, scaled leading social SaaS startup

Priya Surya

MPA/ID in International Development, experience in growth and building international partnerships

Ali Khachlouf

CEO, SquareMind

Experience in private equity and consulting, advised on strategy and growth

Michael Curtis

PhD simulating black holes, building web apps since age 12

Vivek Madlani

Experience in finance, including trading and product distribution and design

David Au

Co-founder, MechaniX

MSc in Financial Mathematics, experience applying machine learning for trading strategies

Thomas Yue

Co-founder, MechaniX

PhD in Computational Physics, experience in algorithmic trading

Majdi Rabia

CTO, Fairphonic

Two Master's in Applied Probability and Statistics

Vishvesh Suriyanarayanan

Software engineer turned product manager

Dylan Tan

Experience in the online travel industry, built commercial partnerships

Simon Spurrier

Engineer and product manager, built financial optimisation algorithms

Siddhartha Gunti

Co-founder, Adaface

Researched in context based machine translation, ex-Quant

Andre Woons

Founded peer-to-peer payment application, led development team

Mandeep Gill

PhD focused on distributed systems engineering, experience in startups and finance

Avni Agrawal

Computer science engineer, experience in big data analytics and machine learning

Gustavo Silva

CTO, Rosecut Technologies

Machine learning specialist

Qiaojia Li

CEO, Rosecut Technologies

Record-breaking private bank advisor

Vadim Toader

CEO, Proportunity

Valuation and forecasting experience, degree in Engineering, Economics and Management

Gabriel Lau

PhD in molecular physics, experience in numerical methods and local optimization techniques

Mriganka Pattnaik

CEO, Merkle Science

Experience from across investment banking and technology

Arnor Davidsson

Experienced in software engineering, product management and UX, MSc in Computer Science

Majed Chaaraoui

Experience in consulting and investment banking

Chi Fung Lok

CTO, Caelus Technologies

Design experience in analog, mixed-signal and RF architectures and circuits

Camille Rougié

Previously worked in finance, launched new products for FinTech startup

Ravinder Bhadhal

Expertise in delivering world-class data infrastructure and commercial experience

Sam Shannon

Ex-quantitative trader, graduate in Particle Physics

Jatin Shah

Expert in distributed systems with a PhD in Computer Science

Xavier Wilders

Graduated top of his year in his Master's in Computer Science

James Williams

CEO, Beyond Labs

Experience in finance, built high performance trading systems

Ran Fan

CTO, ArrayStream

Experience in building real-time automated trading systems for companies

Yu Zheng

CEO, ArrayStream

PhD in Quantitative Finance, expert in machine learning, option pricing and portfolio construction

Matthew Morrison

MSc in Computer Science, experience in financial services

Entela Benz

Expertise in climate risk data for finance

Haroon Hassan

CEO, Sense Street

Experience working on bond trading desks in Europe and the US as a trader and research analyst

Matt Schofield

CTO, Credit Kudos

Computer scientist, former CTO and data science team lead

Freddy Kelly

CEO, Credit Kudos

Computer scientist and engineer, was responsible for deployment of Bitnami's cloud launchpad

Helene Guillaume

Ex-hedge fund quant, MSc in financial risks and ultra athlete

Efe Surekli

A cambridge graduate and serial founder, competent in software engineering, specialising in AI & ML.

Parit Patel

Previous life as an investment banker, data nerd and web3 enthusiast.

Patrick de Castro Neuhaus

Experienced developer and tech consultant for financial services companies

Chris Zemina

Experienced in FinTech investments

Tristan Garrec

Deep expertise in computational market design

Victor Moreau

Ex-strategy consultant with expertise in financial services, engineering degree from CentraleSupélec

Sigurjon Isaksson

Strong interest and background in Machine Learning and Financial Engineering

Youssef Darwich

Experience in the financial sector, passionate about opening up financial wisdom & education to all

Abdel Wahab Turkmani

2x founder building businesses that positively impact the world

Nnaemeka Obodoekwe

Built software architecture across Africa’s biggest banks and led machine learning teams

Sanjeev Jeyakumar

Emerging markets credit trader with leadership experience across marketplace and FinTech startups

Shourya Lala

Computer science engineer and an accomplished application developer

Manish Maryada

Domain expertise in financial operations, strategy and product

Jose Sampedro Mazon

Ex-corporate lawyer, experience in strategy & ops transformations and business development

Ollie Graham

CEO, Surge Analytics

Experience in financial services and software engineering

Favour Nyikosa

Specialist in datamining and interpretable models

Jon Forester

Built data and analytics products in startups and finance sector

Harry Grieve

Full stack data scientist, developed and sold enterprise AI solutions

Juan Barragan

Experienced in software development with work on pattern recognition in finance and advertising

Hamza El Khalloufi

CTO, DeltaBlock

PhD in liquidity modelling, research fellow in Digital Assets

Maria Silvia Scetta

CEO, Deltablock

Ex-trader and portfolio manager, financial engineer

Sara Sebti

Experienced as a risk manager within financial institutions

Valerio Volpati

PhD in Statistical Physics and experience in applied interdisciplinary research

Barnaby Hussey-Yeo

Data scientist with interests in finance and machine learning

Tarik Dadi

Led data science projects around the world, Master's Degree in Machine Learning

Hadrien De March

Ex-quantative analyst, PhD in optimisation

Rafie Faruq

Lifelong programmer with MSc in Machine Learning, previously a derivatives trader

Sho Sugihara

Experience working in NGOs on economic inclusion and consultancy

Grant Aarons

CEO, FabricNano

PhD in Economics, worked in systems engineering and mathematical modelling

Ankit Parashar

Engineer, built SAAS-based analytics product for hardware

Josh Kettlewell

Expert in machine learning, quantum computing and cryptocurrency

Ben Stein

Co-founder, Staple

Chartered accountant and full stack developer

Sudeept Sinha

Ex-quantative trader, developer price prediction algorithms

Vincent Audoire

Early employee at N26, strong understanding of how users work

Rob Schumacher

CEO, Feather Insurance

PhD in Insurance Mathematics

John Moura

CEO, ElementZero Biolabs

Led product development, sales, and operations in global companies

Sachin Chiramel

CEO, real analytics

Experience in investment banking and financial services

Nitin Shukla

CTO, real analytics

Experienced data scientist, previously IIT

Neel Popat

Finance and investment professional, began coding as a child

Saikrishnan Ranganathan

CEO, Sensorflow

Built energy solutions across multiple industries, previously Goldman Sachs

Rathin Shah

Worked in investment banking and management at JP Morgan Chase, graduate of BITS Pilani

Gaurav Arora

Software engineer, previously Netflix and Ixigo

Jevan Nagarajah

CEO, Better Dairy

Experienced across banking and technology

Stacy-Ann Sinclair

Developer, previously worked in tier one investment banks