People

Matt founded E-Man straight out of University at 21 and still vividly remembers the first day he spent working from his bedroom, building the first E-Man venture for 250 local Cambridge businesses.

Outside of E-Man, Matt also Founded Zkatter in 2007. Zkatter pioneered location-based mobile-first photo and video-sharing on Nokia N95 handsets. Later, after gaining funding from Samsung, Zkatter became the flagship social network on the company’s native Bada platform. Zkatter was the first camera app to use Android’s API, when the Android team consisted of just six employees, in 2009. Matt’s pioneering work earned him the Olympic Award for Innovation in Technology in 2012, and he was voted into the top 30 entrepreneurs aged under 30 in the UK for 2009.

Matt’s spare time involves scribbling down new ideas while playing tennis and making music, and following West Ham United both in London and in LA , where he co-founded the Hollywood Hammers fan club, his life-long ambition is to one day own the club.

Matt loves E-Man because:

'I created the company to have a family feel. We bring ideas to life and make a dent in the Universe, helping founders who lack technical expertise. One day I feel like we have done it, the next I feel we’re only just starting. I like to focus on big ideas and creating the extraordinary'.

Read more about Matt Hagger

Eugene is the other co-founder of E-Man - the first-ever Venture Studio in London.

Eugene is a product strategist who has built a strong reputation for his work on ZoomDoc, Snatch and other projects. In his spare time, Eugene spends his time in the Bahamas as a keen fisherman and enjoys playing guitar in his rock band.

Eugene loves E-Man because:

'The range of ideas, opportunities and people that you meet, and the ecosystem we have built over the years, makes me very proud. Our team remain with us for an average of 5 years'.

Read more about Eugene Kouumdjieff

Richard joined E-Man in 2006 and, as one of the longest-serving members of the team, has experienced the growth of E-Man and its alumni companies. Richard has undertaken a multitude of roles at E-Man. Currently, he is responsible for system and server administration across the company, as well as researching new ways for the company to remain innovative.

Richard enjoys playing guitar, supporting West Ham and is a keen rower, competing in regional and national rowing tournaments.

What Richard loves about E-Man:

'I love the ability to bring an idea to life and the components that are involved in that. When each team member works in flow with one another, great things happen'.

Dr Ian Zant-Boer, PhD, joined EMW Picton Howell in 1993 and specializes in transactional work for private companies, with particular emphasis on fundraising. He serves as a Director or Company Secretary for many clients and actively participates in the management of various companies. He held several Non-Executive Directorships and has been a Lecturer at Cambridge University and a Member of the Council of Cranfield University. He qualified as a solicitor in 1983.

Ian then joined Growthdeck as CEO. Growthdeck provides tax-efficient and growth investment opportunities to an expanding network of sophisticated private investors, partners and introducers. It carries out professional due diligence, and provides ongoing and extensive business support. It also regularly hosts networking events that help connect growth businesses with sophisticated investors from across the world.

Ian studied law at Cambridge University. Ian heads up legal for all E-Man companies, across all matters.

Ian loves E-Man because:

'The company has built an ecosystem that appeals to business founders and early-stage investors. Their creativity and ability to generate value is very impressive'.

Matt brings a wealth of talent and experience to E-Man and its alumni companies. A dedicated, progressive finance and strategy professional with multi-sector experience covering M&A, corporate finance, FP&A, strategic planning, e-commerce and treasury, Matt works directly with founders and CEOs to financially model funding rounds, valuations and exits.

Matt studied at the London Business School before working at Shell as a financial analyst. He then moved to BT as a strategic finance manager, before assisting Jimmy Wales as financial director at The People’s Operator.

What Matt loves about E-Man:

'I love how quickly and dynamically E-Man can develop ideas into products that have substance and potential to become disruptive, valuable companies'.

Ivan joined E-Man in 2014 as a senior engineer and became the company’s chief technical architect in 2018 after his work on ZoomDoc and Snatch.

Ivan graduated from the Technical University of Sofia with a degree in computer science and founded his own consulting company from which he also built and launched a number of his own startup ventures.

Outside of E-Man, Ivan enjoys hitting the slopes as a keen skier and is currently taking a course on climbing.

What Ivan loves about E-Man:

'The best thing about building products from a blank canvas is being able to try to learn from previous challenges. It is also exciting for me to optimise live products and deal with hyper-growth'.

Maximiliano has over six years of mobile development experience, working across big brands, products and agencies. He has been the Android developer at E-Man since November 2017.

He is in charge of converting some amazing ideas into native Android code. In his spare time, Maxi loves travelling and enjoys being in London when he has the chance to visit.

What Maxi loves about E-Man:

'I love the fact that we truly believe in what we do, so our products are built with a long-term vision which makes them successful'.

Aleks is E-Man’s head of Unity development. As E-Man’s focus enters gaming environments through AR and VR, our wealth of knowledge and understanding of 3D modelling, animation and all aspects of Unity development operates under Aleks’s leadership.

What Aleks loves about E-Man:

'We create disruptive new projects and work as a team to fulfil our goals. Everyone helps each other and the culture is great'.

Simeon joined E-Man as a full stack developer in 2013. An experienced computer scientist, Simo (as he is known) has been solving problems across a variety of E-Man startups, working on projects such as Pocket High Street, ZoomDoc, Snatch, Doppels and DoIDate.

Simo is a hugely popular member of the team and a very versatile team player, who confidently tackles any technical problem that comes his way.

What Simo loves about E-Man:

'The team spirit when you start a project and have that vision for what you want it to become drives me. At E-Man, I have had some incredible experiences working under Matt with my team, and I am excited for the future'.

Dimitar is the newest member of E-Man, joining the team in February 2019. Dimitar's role in the team is to contribute technical ideas to the current set of companies being created at E-Man, across the technical stack.

Dimitar is proficient in all areas of the technical process, specialising in back-end development, architecture and scaling concepts from day one.

What Dimitar loves about E-Man:

'To start a project from zero when the idea is taking shape and to see your ideas used by millions of people is a great joy to me'.

Laura is a product/UX designer at E-Man. She has over ten years of experience in developing ideas and concepts into effective and practical design solutions.

Before joining E-Man, Laura had the opportunity to work in different countries including France and Brazil and is now based in London. In her spare time, Laura loves travelling around the world and dancing her life away!

What Laura loves about E-Man:

'I love helping people to bring their ideas to life. There’s no better feeling than knowing that what you do can really make a difference for a lot of people'.

Nicolas has been with E-Man for 10 years and has worked across the entire creative spectrum, supporting E-Man alumni ideas. He has been involved in branding, UI and UX design, animation, video production and photography.

Nicolas is from the South of France and after graduating from University with a design degree, joined Zkatter before moving to work on other E-Man ventures.

What Nicolas loves about E-Man:

'It’s fun!'

Steve Boxer is a veteran technology and video games, journalist. Having misspent his teenage years in the arcades, he has written about technology and video games since the early 1990s for publications including The Sunday Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Mirror, The Face, Esquire, sleazenation and ShortList. A desire to get involved, rather than just commenting, means he now divides his time between writing for the likes of The Guardian, Empire, The New European, Pocket-Lint and Official Xbox Magazine with the role of Head of Communications at E-Man Ventures. So he handles communications, marketing and media relations. In his spare time, you might find him DJing or supporting Tottenham Hotspur (much to the dislike like of the West Ham fans amongst us).

Steve loves E-Man because:

'Now I can truly indulge my love of games by getting involved in the latest crop of mobile games being incubated at E-Man Venture Labs. And it’s great to contribute to creating a buzz around such great products. Plus it’s fabulous to work with such a great team'.

Jayne has been working for E-Man since 2013 and is responsible for making sure the books are up to date. Her tasks include the companies’ management accounts, payroll, PAYE, and VAT. Jayne is always on hand and ready with the information E-Man require to make important business decisions.

What Jayne loves about E-Man:

'E-Man Venture Labs Ltd is a solid business with a great team, and it’s an absolute pleasure to be part of such a dynamic, well-run operation'.

Larry joined E-Man in 2018 and is responsible for bookkeeping, expense auditing and filing of tax-returns for E-Man Labs Inc. Larry has been a huge help in ensuring that the expansion of E-Man into the USA has been a smooth and well-run experience.

What Larry loves about E-Man:

'Working on helping E-Man Labs Inc to achieve their goals as a venture studio is very exciting. I am looking forward to watching E-Man Venture Labs expand from London to grow in Los Angeles'.

With Hamish, we are building real-estate’s digital twin.

Following his graduation from Glasgow University, Hamish worked and studied in Edinburgh, Montpelier and San Francisco before joining BGS Architects in 1999, becoming Associate Director in 2006 and Director in 2010. Hamish has developed an interest in the challenges presented by inserting contemporary architecture into historic sites and listed buildings. Hamish has particular skills in feasibility studies and strategic analysis on projects such as Oxford’s Bodleian Library, various Oxford Colleges, Imperial College and Stanford University. This led him to being one of the first Architects to become a RIBA Accredited Conservation Architect in 2010. Hamish joins the team as head of Digital Veneer Ltd, a new E-Man company solving problems with interior 3D mapping and virtual real-estate. Our first venture together is Infiltrate - a brand new AR platform currently in stealth mode.

What Hamish loves about E-Man:

'E-Man has a network crossing the entire company-creation process and for any business founder looking to execute the impossible, I would highly recommend entering the arena with them'.

We helped Alex to digitise and save the high street.

Alex collaborated with us to create Pocket High Street and associated businesses Jo and Save The High Street. He is a serial entrepreneur, on a mission to level the playing field for local businesses with the help of technology. Before founding Colex Connect Ltd, he co-founded a location-based online marketplace and a digital agency for SMEs.

What Alex loves about E-Man:

'The company are product development specialists and now as they expand into venture studio mode, I expect even greater results. When we partnered with E-Man we had nothing - no product, let alone product-market fit. The company partnered with us to take us to where we are today'.

We’ve worked with Kenny to ensure UK residents get to see doctors faster.

Kenny partnered with E-Man to bring the doctor home. A business founder, thought-leader, industry expert he is driven by a passion to scale bricks and mortar GP visits into scalable software. Zoomdoc is now the UK's leading on-demand GP home visiting and telemedicine app-based service. It works closely with large corporate organisations and private medical insurers to deliver excellent, on-demand healthcare.With a team of 300 GPs, ZoomDoc is transforming the delivery of primary care and family medicine. Prior to founding Zoomdoc, Kenny was a GP in London.

What Kenny loves about E-Man:

'I founded Zoomdoc with E-Man Venture Labs, and from an idea that didn’t exist, together, we conceived a business that went onto raise funding at a multi-million valuation with investors such as Andy Murray. Matt and Eugene have a model that delivers exceptional value at the beginning of a company’s life, and raising their own fund was an obvious next step. I am very excited to see what they build next and hope to be a future investor'.

We helped Joe to create Snatch, the AR brand-marketing platform, which changed the way brands market themselves to millennials.

Joe collaborated with E-Man to create the world’s first Augmented Reality Treasure Hunt to contain real prizes. E-Man turned the idea into a brand and product and together with Joe, created a business that went on to become one of the most popular AR platforms in the UK. The company left E-Man with $5m in funding after launching a product using just under £200k in proceeds to get to that stage.

Within three months of its official launch, Snatch was generating MRR of £250,000 and amassed a database of 500,000 users, while still inside E-Man Venture Labs.Matt Hagger also helped Snatch pilot in the US at SXSW. Snatch is now owned by Playstack and is re-launching its platform Bandana next month.

What Joe loves about E-Man:

'Matt is a super guy who cares deeply for his founders. The company have that unique ability to turn nothing into something, adding significant value rapidly. Snatch would not have achieved what it did without E-Man'.

We are helping Alfie to change the way people discover skilled people for hire and make quick, easy payments.

Tiipr is the latest company to launched out of E-Man Ventures Labs. Alfie approached us with the idea and we felt that the timing was right, so decided to work with the passionate founding team of Alfie, Marco, Barry and Ozay to execute the business. Tiipr is now up and running and gaining recognition as the pioneering gratuities and payments app in the UK.

What Alfie loves about E-Man:

'As an E-Man alumni company founder, I have been able to clearly see the value at first hand, not just in product development, but company-creation as a whole. E-Man has contributed significant value to the UK economy by helping entrepreneurs like myself to bring ideas to life. Tiipr is now one of those companies, in a fantastic place to grow and scale, bringing significant shareholder returns to everybody associated with the company'.

Originally a TV presenter, Stephanie created Tattered Lace and pioneered the home crafting industry. In 2005, Stephanie was approached by Ideal Shopping Direct, which resulted in her joining the presentation team and becoming the largest supplier to the Craft Division. In 2013, Ideal Shopping acquired Stephanie’s’ company, and she was retained as part of the Operations Board in the role of Creative Director. She continues to innovate and design global award-winning products and to present on Create and Craft, as well as to lead a team of 40 designers and marketers that contributes £200 million of retail sales.

Stephanie is now the Co-founder and Chief Creative Officer of E-Man company My Passport Power Ltd and advises E-Man Venture Labs as a whole.

Stephanie loves E-Man because:

'It’s a thrill-ride at E-Man. The sheer level of creativity and passion is mind-blowing. How this team executes is a mystery to me!'

We worked with Paul to create a place for people to visualise, create and embark on a rich journey of development. If you’re looking to grow or help your employees grow, great. Through Wise Amigo, we give people the tools and insight to build skills and confidence. For employers, we’re a fast and hassle-free way of empowering the workforce.

Paul loves E-Man because:

'Working with E-Man enabled us to get a working MVP of WiseAmigo up and running to test and iterate. It gave us the tools to build for the next stage of development and we’re forever in their debt for taking a punt on us'.

Alicia has been connecting top talent with opportunities, strategic partnerships and funding for 20 years. World-class startup teams Alicia has helped to build include Postmates, Leap Motion, Dreamworks Interactive, Openwave, MobiTV , GetJar and QPass. Alicia joins E-Man as head of talent for E-Man Venture Labs and our alumni-wide ecosystem.

What Alicia loves about E-Man:

'Matt is a creative genius and E-Man is a unique company...'

Tom is the Founder and CEO of Construo.io. A highly experienced Commercial Director with over 40 years experience for major contractors both in the UK and overseas. This experience ranges from bidding, procurement, project implementation to final account and dispute negotiation/settlement. Sectors have included transportation infrastructure, commercial new build and refurbishment, interior fit-out, health and educational PFI. His last 8 years have been in roles working as part of the executive management team both regionally and nationally. Key strengths are building and leading teams to successful project completion. 

'Eugene lead our project and E-Man are great to work with. Without them, we could not have hit the milestones we are at today. They are very supportive, pro-active and have so many years of valuable experience that I would recommend them to any business founder looking to bring an idea to life'

Read more about Tom Spilsted