Entrepreneur, with an exit to a NASDAQ listed entity, angel investor with a portfolio of 250, mainly fintech, companies. GBEA Investor of the year 2023. Business Insider’s number one Seed investor in Europe (2022) and named by Sifted as the most active Fintech Angel in Europe (2021-2023). My private portfolio of 200 companies have had >£1.75 billion of follow on investment and my 50 investments I invested in as Techstars MD are worth >8x to date. I built the number one rated accelerator in Europe and was named UKBAA Angel Investor of the year 2018/19. I am now co-founder at Outrun Ventures, MD Emeritus at Techstars, and Board member of the UK Business Angel Association. I support founders with investment, but also with value-add introductions into my network of VC's, angels, and decision makers are banks. Start-ups are a 'team sport' and as a former founder I want to surround my portfolio companies with team members that give them the best chance for success.

Many of my portfolio companies have scaled massively since my first investment such as Marshmallow, Quant Network, Atom Bank, Smart Pension, BondAval, Kompany, Sharegain, Flare Networks, Bokio, Cutover, Cuvva, Kuda Bank, and Griffin Bank. I am an early/first investor into three unicorns. 

Previously I was co-founder of Marlin Financial Group which featured in the Sunday Times Fast Track 100 in every year from 2009-2013 as one of the top 100 fastest growing privately held companies in the UK. After we exited to a NASDAQ-listed company in 2014, I made the transition from entrepreneur to angel investor, pledging that I would re-invest half of my personal proceeds back into start-ups. I accomplished this in ten years. My investing is now 'evergreen', meaning that new investments are funded by the success of past investments. 

I enjoy mentoring unique, mission-driven founders who want to create global businesses that do well and do good. 

Tariq is a financial services regulatory and transactional lawyer turned entrepreneur, startup advisor and investor. On the legal team at GE Money he helped create new consumer finance products and negotiate their distribution through large retailers. In 2006 he left GE for the founding team of Marlin Financial Group, helping operationalise an innovative, data-driven, customer-centric strategy. Marlin closed some of the largest deals in its sector, raising a £150m bond and partnering with hedge funds, and became regarded for its niche, highly profitable approach. During this time, Tariq was voted to the Board of their trade association by its c. 400 members, working closely with regulators and the industry to ensure proportionate, workable regulation. In 2014, Marlin was acquired for £295m.

Tariq has since applied his own training and experience as an advisor and investor in the fintech and regtech startup communities, whilst mentoring on accelerator programmes such as Barclays Techstars where he was Entrepreneur in Residence. He has a number of Board and advisory board seats spanning the fintech, regtech, digital asset and blockchain infrastructure sectors. He likes to work closely with these companies, being active in their industries and levering his broad network to contribute not only to their success but also to identifying opportunities between them and anew. Tariq invests in smart, energetic founders with missions to serve a significant customer-base with products or services that provide a qualitative, ethical, tangible impact with the goal of becoming a valuable market leader.