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Ben Tompkins

Managing Director & Head Europe, Global Technology Group

London, England

Overview 

Ben Tompkins is the Managing Director and Head Europe of the Global Technology Group at Stifel Financial Corp in London, England. With an extensive background in venture capital and private equity, he has held key leadership roles at prominent firms like Jefferies and Broadview International. Highlights of Ben's career include serving as Managing Director & Co-head Europe at Stifel Financial Corp, and as a Managing Partner at Molten Ventures plc (formerly Draper Esprit), showcasing his expertise in technology investments and strategic partnerships within the industry.

Work Experience 

  • Managing Director & Head Europe, Global Technology Group

    2023 - Current

  • Managing Director & Co-head Europe, Global Technology Group

    2023 - 2023

  • Managing Director, Global Technology Group

    2020 - 2023

Stifel offers financial management services including wealth, estate, retirement, higher education, and insurance planning.

  • Managing Partner

    2017 - 2020

    Molten Ventures (fka Draper Esprit) was founded in 2006 and is one of Europe's largest and most active VC firms with c. $1b under management, helping European entrepreneurs to build ground-breaking technology companies. In recent years, exits have generated more than $3 billion in combined enterprise value. We invest at the Series A/B round and we typically back 10-12 new companies each year with an average ticket size of $12m). Our current portfolio includes TrustPilot, Revolut, UIPath, Aircall, FinalCAD, Transferwise and Graphcore. We also have an active fund of fund investment programme, having invested in over 20 seed funds in the last two years which helps us to expand our insight and network for new deal flow. The firm is the exclusive Western European member of the Silicon Valley-based Draper Venture Network with offices around the world and investments including Baidu, Skype, Space X, Tesla and Yammer. As Managing Partner, I oversaw the new deal team, comprising 12 investors across all technology sectors (including Fintech, SaaS, Consumer, Deep Tech and Digital Health) across Europe. I also co-ordinated the deal flow activity from the 20+ seed funds that we invested in including Seedcamp, Hardware Club, Byfounders, Adara and IQ Capital and led my own deals which have included Form3 ($12m Series A), FinalCAD ($35m Series B) and Aircall ($30m Series B). I personally focused on the Enterprise, Mobility and Deep Tech sectors.

  • General Partner

    2006 - 2017

    General Partner at Eden Ventures, one of Europe's leading early stage technology investors with £140m under management. Invested in 36 seed and A round tech companies across European looking for global category leaders. Focus included: Big Data, SaaS, Fintech, CRM, telecom software, Security, IOT infrastructure software and Ecommerce-enabling technology. Our successful exits included: New Voice Media (acquired by Vonage), Brightpearl (acquired by Sage), UberVU (acquired by Hootsuite), Zemanta (acquired by Outbrain), Acunu (acquired by Apple), Apertio (acquired by Nokia Siemens Networks), Secerno (acquired by Oracle), Blinkbox (acquired by Tesco) and Huddle (acquired by Turn River).

  • Board Member

    2012 - 2017

    Non-executive on the board of Seedcamp Fund II, Europe's leading accelerator program and early stage investor. I was a mentor and adviser to the Seedcamp portfolio and Eden Ventures invested in a number of Seedcamp companies including Zemanta (acquired by Outbrain), UberVu (acquired by Hootsuite) and Basekit.

  • Managing Director & Co-head Global Software, Services & Media group

    2004 - 2006

    Broadview was acquired by Jefferies in January 2004 and became the firm’s Global Technology Group. I was Co-head of the Global Software, Services & Media Group, representing 2/3rds of Jefferies Technology Group revenue.

  • Managing Director & Co-head Global Software, Services & Media group

    1993 - 2004

    Managing Director at Broadview International, a leading investment bank focused on the TMT sectors. Co-head of the Software, Services & Media global market group and Head of the Internet & Digital Media global market group. I advised on over 60 M&A and fund raising transactions including Blizzard Software's (World of Warfare) $1 billion acquisition by Vivendi, Kelkoo's $575 million acquisition by Yahoo!, Iris Software's £100 million recap by HG Capital, Promethean's £160 million recap by Apax, uDate's $150 million acquisition by IAC, Scoot's $500 million PIPE with Vivendi, Loot's £180 million sale to Scoot and Musiwave's $100 million sale to Openwave. Broadview International was acquired by Jefferies in 2004 and became the group's technology investment banking unit.

  • Vice President

    1990 - 1992

    Vice President in the New York-based, media industry investment banking group of Henry Ansbacher, a UK merchant bank. Led the fund raise on my first Internet company transaction in 1992, Mecklermedia.

  • Analyst

    1990 - 1990

    Analyst at New England Development Corporation in New Haven, CT, USA advising on real estate financing projects in the Caribbean supporting USAID.

  • Analyst

    1987 - 1989

    Analyst undertaking research work and advising on the sale and acquisition of over 20 privately-owned businesses in the UK. Completed transactions in the following sectors: aerospace, IT, plastics, real estate development, engineering, defence and manufacturing.

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