Wendy Tan White joins BGF Ventures as partner

Wendy Tan White MBE, one of the UK’s best known entrepreneurs and angel investors, is joining the venture capital arm of BGF, this September, as the UK’s biggest early stage tech investor steps up its investment activity.

Tan White, was co-founder and CEO of Moonfruit.com, a UK-based SME website builder which was sold to Yell Group (now Hibu) in 2012 for $37m.

She joins from Entrepreneur First, Europe’s leading deep tech accelerator, where she is currently a General Partner.  As an angel investor, Tan-White has made 16 personal investments and has mentored 40+ companies from inception to funding. She was an early investor in OpenCosmos, Cleo, Q-bot and Kwiziq.

Wendy Tan White said: “I am extremely excited to be joining BGF. We are at an inflexion point in the UK tech ecosystem: there is now depth in the availability of different stages of capital and generations of successful exited entrepreneurs who are able to guide and mentor emerging companies.

“It is the right time and we have the right ingredients to build businesses that can become globally significant. The BGF Ventures team are off to a great start with a strong portfolio and I can’t wait to get started.”

Simon Calver, Partner at BGF Ventures, said: “We are thrilled that Wendy will be joining us in September. She is one of the UK’s best known tech entrepreneurs and investors with deep insight and experience that will be invaluable to BGF Ventures.

“We share many of the same values, not least in having been entrepreneurs ourselves, and learnt through the ups and downs of a startup journey. Like us, Wendy has absolute respect for entrepreneurs, thinks long-term and wants to help ambitious tech companies build an international presence.”

Tan White, who is 46 and was born in Manchester, grew up in Edinburgh and Reading, before studying computer science at Imperial College, London. She was named one of the fifty most inspiring women in European tech in 2017. She was a Women in IT – Business Role Model of the Year 2017 and was also included in the The Europas, Hall of Fame in 2017, in partnership with her husband Joe White.

Tan White was awarded an MBE in 2016 for services to technology and business and is frequently called upon to speak about technology and innovation for a range of audiences from leading investment banks to schools.

As an angel investor, she is on the Government Digital Advisory Board, a trustee on the Alan Turing Institute and is a board director of Tech City UK. She is also a member of the Imperial College London Industrial Liaison Board and the Advisory Board of the Dyson School of Engineering.