Announcing our New London Leadership Team

7 min read

In our ever-increasing desire to collaborate with and unite global leaders in paving the way for startup success, Founders Network is proud to introduce our new London Leadership Team. We believe that by launching a Founders Network chapter in London, we’ll be able to continue to cultivate and nurture London’s diverse potential and help tomorrow’s founders create and foster new opportunities for funding, growth and excellence.

According to Founders Network CEO Kevin Holmes, the London Chapter was begun in order to further facilitate the acquisition of top-tier talent. Currently, the London Chapter brings together 30 full-time tech founders that work together to help each other in these regards. With impressive leadership including Marco Scotti, Founder of Figaroo, Ben Iceton, Founder of Heed and Ataer Arguder, Founder of Aura, and supported by the London Branch of Dentons Law Firm, it is a select team of founders and partners dedicated to peer mentorship.

A Truly Privileged Position

The London chapter’s Regional Director is Marco Scotti, a third-time entrepreneur who honed his startup skills in both New York and Silicon Valley, moving back to London in 2018 to found Figaroo, an invite-only app that allows members to share luxury experiences from around the world.

With his great passion for building and expanding the start-up ecosystem, Scotti was a natural fit. Scotti notes that startups are fragile entities, yet vital for every country’s economy. All startup founders have a deep-rooted need to stay close to each other, alongside people who understand and value their choices, goals and motivations. The need to plant and grow deep roots that allow us to support and nourish each other’s businesses operationally and emotionally cannot be overstated.

So what inspired him to take up the mantle of Regional Director? According to Scotti, “being together here in London, under a big brand as Founders Network is, means creating a powerful and recognized community of ambitious people with similar needs, which greatly helps in attracting resources, connections with industry professionals and investors, government representatives; to ease the reach of those very same needs.”

He continues, “Founders Network offers to its Members to be in a truly privileged position, being the only ‘invite-only’ community in London; by creating a selected environment, only with quality people that have proven their value and direction, external stakeholders see us as a great opportunity for them, and can’t wait to interact with us on a deeper level.”

Marco Scotti
Founder, Figaroo

“Being together here in London, under a big brand like Founders Network, means creating a powerful and recognized community of ambitious people with similar needs.”

A Foundation for Growth

Scotti is helped by Ataer Arguder, our London Chapter’s Growth Chairman who is best known for building Aura, an innovative storytelling platform that connects storytellers with cultural institutions and their visitors from around the world. Prior to founding Aura, he built a highly successful and innovative ticketing company from the ground up, with a particular focus on the Turkish and Middle Eastern market.

The company grew by 300% on average in its first two years and worked alongside well-known global brands like Cirque du Soleil, Merlin Entertainments/Madame Tussauds, Sea Life, Legoland and Euroleague Basketball among many others. All together, Arguder has founded six startups, with two of them being in the tech industry.

When asked why he decided to take up the role of Growth Chairman at Founder’s Network, he answered, “Connecting people is in my design and I enjoy creating meaningful connections. I have already been connecting people all my life. Now that I will be able to do this using the power of a global network, [it just] sounded like the right idea at this stage of my life.”

He also believes that there is a deep-seated need for peer mentorship within the London tech ecosystem, going on to say that the market is “quite crowded, and it may even be a difficult ecosystem, especially for first-time entrepreneurs and/or entrepreneurs coming from other countries. Without the help of a mentor, he continues, entrepreneurs would be risking their most important asset: time. With Founders Network, he believes that this position will afford him the opportunity to support entrepreneurs at all stages, whether it’s their first startup or they’re already experienced in this regard.

Ataer Arguder
Founder, Aura

“With Founders Network, this position will afford me the opportunity to support entrepreneurs at all stages, whether it’s their first startup or they’re already experienced.“

Fostering Peer to Peer Mentorship

Of course, a new networking chapter cannot grow without someone to foster the existing community, which is where Heed founder Ben Iceton comes in. Since 2018, Founder’s Network has enabled Iceton to grow his business with like-minded individuals, gaining exposure to a global community of entrepreneurs at different stages. Iceton explains, “I am privileged to accept the position of Membership Chair – a role that will allow me to introduce new members, fostering key mentorship from the outset. The wealth and depth of experience found in the Founders Network sets it apart from similar groups in London.”

There is perhaps no better testimonial for an organization than to have one of its own members responsible for driving its growth in the same fashion as the organization did for him. In this way, we work to continuously reinforce and amplify the core philosophies that bring us together. It is due to the ingenuity, reciprocity, mutual respect and collaborative nature that Founder’s Network has reached its eighth year, spanning over 600 members in 9 global chapters, and showing no signs of slowing down.

Ben Iceton
Founder, Heed

“I am privileged to accept the position of Membership Chair – a role that will allow me to introduce new members, fostering key mentorship from the outset.”

Expansion on a Global Scale

To ensure that the London Chapter is properly supported, we have expanded our partnership with Denton’s law firm beyond Los Angeles and New York City. The global team at Dentons have been excellent partners over the past year, and we’re thrilled to add London to the list. As for Dentons in London, they “are excited to partner with Founders Network as it launches in London. Dentons has been advising start ups and high growth businesses in London for decades, and we’ve long believed that advice for founders of, and investors in, these companies needs a strong cultural understanding of how these businesses are run and the environment in which they operate. We were attracted by Founders Network’s ethos and the collaborative, peer-to-peer ecosystem Kevin and his team have built. The alignment of Dentons’ and Founders Network’s ethos’s made a partnership between us a natural choice as Founders Network looks to expand its own global network, in the same way that many of our clients have expanded their businesses on a global scale.”

See Your Future With Us

“If you’re involved in the tech industry and working on your own startup, it pays to have a network of mentors, supporters and innovators by your side that can help you further strengthen and solidify your market position as well as help to provide you with funding, talent and acquisition strategies. With this in mind, we would love to have you be a part of our growth together.” says Kevin Holmes, Founder and CEO of Founders Network.

“Our London chapter committee has just allocated an additional 20 spots open for full-time tech founders that exemplify Founder’s Network’s core values, including authenticity, reciprocity, humility and inclusivity. If you’re a full-time tech founder in London and you understand the crucial value of networks in helping you to cultivate your own startup success, please request an invite directly from our site or ask any of our members to invite you directly.”