Talk:Errol Damelin

This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Biography This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography articles South Africa Low‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject South Africa, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of South Africa on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.South AfricaWikipedia:WikiProject South AfricaTemplate:WikiProject South AfricaSouth Africa articles Low This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale. England Low‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject England, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of England on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.EnglandWikipedia:WikiProject EnglandTemplate:WikiProject EnglandEngland-related articles Low This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale. Business Low‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Business, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of business articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.BusinessWikipedia:WikiProject BusinessTemplate:WikiProject BusinessWikiProject Business articles Low This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

It is requested that an image or photograph be included in this article to improve its quality. Please replace this template with a more specific media request template where possible. The Free Image Search Tool or Openverse Creative Commons Search may be able to locate suitable images on Flickr and other web sites.

Upload

This edit request by an editor with a conflict of interest was declined. Unclear request

• Reason for the change: I noticed that this entry is really out of date. I've met Damelin and over the past decade he has become known across the industry for a number of significant investments that weren't mentioned in the entry. I thought this was probably worth updating. Due to the potential conflict of interest I decided it would be best to submit these updates on the talk page.

• Specific text to be added or removed:

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these template messages) This poorly sourced must be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially libelous. Find sources: "Errol Damelin" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (May 2018) (Learn how and when to remove this template message ) This article needs to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. (May 2019) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Errol Damelin
Born	(1969-08-23) 23 August 1969 (age 54) South Africa
Alma mater	University of Cape Town Boston University
Occupation(s)	Entrepreneur and early-stage technology investor
Known for	Founding Wonga.com
Children	3 [1]
Website	ErrolDamelin.net

Errol Damelin (born 23 August 1969) is a South African entrepreneur and early-stage technology investor and founder with a wide portfolio and a heavy presence in Israel and Europe. Around 40% of his investments have been in fintech but also with a focus on health and wellness^[2]. In 2007 he co-founded Wonga, an internet payday loan company^[3], and Tide, a UK-based banking services company^[4]. Damelin stepped down as CEO of Wonga in 2013, five years later the company went into administration on 30 August 2018.^[5] Damelin is primarily an early-stage technology investor.

Errol Damelin was born in

Tide is a UK-based banking service which is specifically targeted towards small to medium sized businesses which went on to secure as much as $16 million by 2018[10]. The inspiration for Tide was born out of frustration with poor banking services traditionally provided to small businesses. Damelin incubated the mobile banking service, Tide, from scratch as a pre-launch founder  and the first investor, participating in the seed investment round^[11]. In 2021 it was reported that Tide now has 400,000 clients which is the equivalent of 7% of the SME banking market in the UK, and is the 7th largest provider of banking services to British SMEs^[12].

Wonga

In 2007 Damelin and Jonty Hurwitz launched Wonga.com, a payday loan website that provided short term loans to borrowers in the United Kingdom and abroad. Despite initial skepticism from banks, Wonga processed one hundred thousand loans within two years and lowered its initial 50% default rate significantly.^[13] By 2013 the company had grown to over five hundred employees, with revenues of £300 million. That year it also acquired the Germany-based BillPay and launched Everline, a provider of loans for small and medium-sized businesses.^[14] In December 2012 Wonga launched its Wonga Paylater service which offered shoppers the opportunity to pay for purchases in installments^[15]. In November 2013 Damelin stepped down as CEO of the company to focus on new projects and spend more time with his family. Several weeks later, Wonga was required by the Financial Conduct Authority to offer about £2.6 million in compensation to customers for poor historic debt collection practices, which had included the sending of fake solicitor letters to its customers. Several months prior, Damelin had called for better regulation of the consumer lending sector and more transparency in the wider financial services industry of the United Kingdom.^[16] When asked about Wonga's controversial lending practices after his resignation, Damelin said that he had no moral issues with them, claiming that that credit could be an important force for good when given transparently and fairly and that Wonga's customers were overwhelmingly happy with and supportive of the company.^{[citation needed]} Wonga reported a ‘net promoter’ score of more than 90% stating that it’s “users appear very happy”^[17]. After an increase in customer compensation claims, Wonga went into administration on 30 August 2018, five years after Damelin’s departure.^[5]

Wise (formerly Transferwise)

Wise is a London-based financial technology company. Damelin was among the first investors into London-based money transfer business, Transferwise (which later was renamed Wise) when he took part  in the startup's 2011 seed round^[2]. In 2012 the start-up managed to secure seed funding from a range of venture capital firms and high-profile peers including Damelin, alongside PayPal co-founder, Max Levchin and Betfair CEO, David Yu^[18][19].

On July 7, 2021, Wise was listed on the London Stock Exchange at £11 billion and ended 10% up on their first day of trading. Wise was later dubbed “London’s largest ever tech listing” by Reuters^[20].

Damelin commented in 2022 that he considered Wise to be one of the companies he is “most excited to see move forward: because of its potential to have dramatic impact on financial inclusion^[11].” Speaking of Damelin, founder and chairman of Wise, Taavet Hinrikus said: “Errol sits in a very small and special category of early investors. He knows how stuff works in detail and is incredibly passionate about getting companies off the ground. He’s intense and helpful…without trying to get credit.”^[2]

Cazoo

Cazoo is a British car retailer for used cars started in 2018 by entrepreneur Alex Chesterman to transform the used car market^[21]. The ecommerce platform for used cars was launched in December 2019.

In 2021, Cazoo listed in New York with a valuation of $8bn and was dubbed a unicorn. As of 2022 Cazoo is reported to deliver 50,000 cars a year^[22]. Damelin was one of the first investors to get involved in the motor industry platform^[2].

Purplebricks

Purplebricks is a British online estate agent founded in 2012 by Michael Bruce and Kenny Bruce^[23]. The concept of Purplebricks is a lower-cost, digital model of estate agency with the key goal of making property selling into a 24-hour business^[24]. The company launched in April 2014 and began selling shares publicly on AIM in December 2015 under the name Purplebricks Groups Limited^[25].

Damelin was one of the initial backers on Purplebricks alongside other notable investors^[26].

Viva Real

Viva Real is a Brazilian-based portal for property classified adverts which has been part of Grupo ZAP since 2017^[27]. Since 2020 it has been a subsidiary of Grupo OLX Brasil^[28]. Damelin became an early investor in the company to expand into a market which he considered to be somewhat untapped^[11].

K Health

K Health is a heath care technology company which used artificial intelligence to triage patients in an effort to cut costs to medical providers and “democratize access to quality healthcare”. In March 2022 the company reported having 5 million users and said that it had raised $132 million in 2021 as part of a Series E round, bringing its total funding efforts to $271 million^[29]. Damelin, as an early investor into K Health, stated that the company has “kind of potential [which] is precisely what I look for as an investment” due to its disruptive nature to the industry^[11].

Many-to-One Transaction Fulfillment System

Damelin, together with Jonty Hurwitz, invented a system for facilitating the provision of personal online credit from multiple credit sources that includes a Many-to-one Transaction Fulfillment System adapted to connect multiple money sources, online consumers, and vendor payment platforms^[30].

System and Method for Delivery of Dynamic Personalized Sliders Online

Damelin, together with Jonty Hurwitz, devised a system that would enable customers or users to acquire consumer credit on a personalized basis^[31].

Plug-In System and Method for Consumer Credit Acquisition Online

Damelin, together with Jonty Hurwitz, invented a system that provides real-time personalized and customizable consumer credit from a credit provider and that is then placed into a shopping basket or facility on the internet or on a mobile network^[32].

Loan Automation System

Damelin, together with Daniel Hegarty, invented a computer readable storage medium that can be used to automatically determine whether to provide a loan. Loan requests and the identity of the loan applicant is received remotely from the loan applicant and then a process automatically determines whether to grant the loan using a trust rating calculated by the system and two pieces of external data related to credit worthiness and through monitoring of online usage. Upon approval of the loan, instructions are sent to transfer the loan to a bank account^[33].  

Method and System for Determining an Online Loan

Damelin, together with Daniel Hegarty and Jonty Hurwitz, invented a system that determines whether a loan provider should provide an online loan to a user without the need for a separate channel of communication. This system is unlike previous systems that would use some form of credit rating to determine whether to provide a loan because those would need a separate channel of communication and security controls that would determine whether applicants are actually the people, they say they are^[34].

Damelin has received several entrepreneurial awards:

• 2008 – Credit Suisse Entrepreneur of the year at the National Business Awards, South East^[35]
• 2009 – Ruban d’Honneur in the RSM International Entrepreneur of the Year category of the European Business Awards^{[citation needed]}
• 2010 – Digital Entrepreneur of the Year (Digital Entrepreneur Awards)^[36]
• 2010 – Entrepreneur of the Year (Growing Business Awards)^[37]
• 2010 – Founder of the Year (Tech Crunch – The Europa's)^[38]
• 2011 – Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year^[39]
• 2011 – The Guardian's Digital Entrepreneur of the Year^[40][41]
• 2012 – Founder of the Year (Founders Forum)^[42]

Damelin has donated to Jewish charities and has appeared on panels and discussions for World Jewish Relief and Jewish Care.^[43][44] Damelin has also been an ambassador for Charity: Water and ran the Antarctic Ice marathon, where he raised substantial funds for the charity. In 2015 Damelin became a founding member of Founders Pledge, a group of technology entrepreneurs who pledged 2% of the equity in their companies to philanthropic causes.^{[citation needed]}

Damelin lives in London and has three children.^[1]