EF Alumni

Neel Popat

CEO, Donut

Founded:

Interests / background:

Finance

Location:

Berlin

Cohort:

Neel Popat has worked in deep finance at 3 top-tier investment funds, managing over $150bn. Neel started his career at Rothschild and holds a first class degree in Financial Mathematics & Statistics from LSE/Harvard. He built his first business out of his bedroom aged 14.

Company:

Donut

Providing the easiest and most trusted way to access decentralised finance yields

Donut (BE1) advancing a new model for high-yield savings

1 July, 2020

Donut part of the DeFi movement reinventing global finance

20 May, 2020

People & Companies

Too Good for Good Enough – Neel Popat

Meet the startups that pitched at EF’s 10th Demo Day in London

27 September, 2018

Four Things You Should Know Before Quitting to Start Your Own Company

Mohamed Tazi

COO, Spore Biotechnologies

Physics Engineer & 2x founder. Co-founded Gymlib, a leading B2B service solution he sold in 2022.

Abdulhakim Bashir

CTO, Moonah Technologies

ML Engineer & Analyst @ Nigerian Government. Built AML algos to monitor finance & crypto sectors.

Zachary Schwartzman

CEO, Moonah Technologies

Former Wall Street Internet & Crypto Analyst @ RBC. Worked on ~12 IPOs (Jumia). Oxford MBA.

Farrah Barber

CEO, Primordial

Ex-McKinsey consultant and software engineer, with experience in private equity and sustainability.

Cornelia Weinzierl

CEO, Salus Labs

Serial entrepreneur, Crypto since 2017, Web3 community building, BSc Technology and Management.

Christophe Auber

CEO, Greenspot AI

Math & CS Bachelors from Stanford. Led sales productivity & strategy projects at McKinsey.

Nikita Bulgakov

LSE, Finance. ex-VC (invested $17M+ in 30+ companies) & B2B Sales specialist (led team of 25+).

Olivia Stannah

Banker turned builder. Left Merrill & UBS for CompSci at Imperial. Led eng team at payment startup.

Ed Hardy

Founded first startup at 14. ex-Worldpay, experienced GTM and Product payments lead.

Sam Milliken-Smith

5+ years in healthcare innovation with UnitedHealth Group & the NHS. Oxford & Cambridge graduate.

Hayyaan Ahmad

Full stack Engineer and Operator. Led teams for Amazon Tier-1 experiences.

Pac O’Shea

Ex-VP and Sales leader. Led teams across fintechs and financial institutions.

Praneet Sinha

Fintech/web3 entrepreneur with 5+ yrs exp; built & scaled products in DeFi, banking & paying domain.

Matthew Bond

CEO, Borderless

Oxford Maths + Berkeley MBA. 2x founder. Product builder in SF tech startups & London finance firms.

Daniel Ruiz

CTO, Adelántalo

10+ years of technical entrepreneurship, NGO founder and mentor, and engineering leader at Fintechs.

Nael Cavazos

CEO, Adelántalo

3x founder, MBA candidate, mechatronics engineer, and self-taught CFO.

Giovanni Ughi

Serial entrepreneur. COO at Kreatize. 5yrs IB at Rothschild & Co.

Hubert Ancelot

Hedge fund portfolio quant & partner. Algorithm & full-stack developer. Finance Bocconi graduate.

Tomek McClintock

Economics MPhil from Cambridge & BEng from Imperial College. Ex-Bain consultant focused on finance.

Vladimir Stoyanov

MSc, MFin, MBA; Led, grew & exited a B2B SaaS Co. Ex-trader at UBS with US$6B AUM.

Mathieu Azar

HEC, Sciences Po & Columbia Uni grad. B2B go-to-market exp. from NY HRTech startup to VC & Google.

Jon Ho

CEO, Allium Bio

Agrifoodtech VC. Launched $30M healthtech business. Raised $3M for previous startup.

Jake Berber

As a neuroscientist with an MBA, Jake was employee #8 at a biotech startup and a foodtech VC.

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.

Henry Course

Fintech expert and previous founder. He’s built products that serve millions of people.

Ben Champion

Ben is a 3rd time founder, fintech operator with one exit under his belt.

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

David Hunter

CEO, Optimal Labs

Studied aeronautical engineering and computer science, ex-pilot and quantitative strategist

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

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