Errol Damelin

Founder, Dust Road Ventures; seed-stage angel investor - Dust Road Ventures

Open in Angel Intelligence

Background

Errol Damelin was born in South Africa in 1969, grew up in Klerksdorp, graduated from the University of Cape Town in 1995 and later took an MBA at Boston University. After working as a corporate finance banker in Israel he co-founded Barzelan, a speciality steel wire producer, in 1997, then founded the London-based supply chain software company Supply Chain Connect in 2000 and sold it to ChemConnect in 2005. In 2007 he co-founded Wonga.com with Jonty Hurwitz and served as its CEO until stepping down in November 2013; he co-founded Tide in 2015. He has invested in early-stage companies since 2011 and his own site states 75+ seed-stage investments, formalised as Dust Road Ventures, a seed-stage investment firm he describes as deploying permanent private capital with no LP base. Sifted reports that he does not invest other people's money in a formal fund.

Strategic capabilities

Finance
Worked as a corporate finance banker in Israel before founding companies, and co-founded and ran Wonga.com, a consumer credit lender, as CEO from 2007 to 2013.
Operations
Founded and led two companies through to exit or scale: Supply Chain Connect (2000-2005, sold to ChemConnect) and Wonga.com, where he was CEO from 2007 until November 2013.
Industry Network
Sifted reports he has 'built up an impressive, international angel portfolio over the last decade across more than 50 companies' and describes him as a hands-on early-stage mentor to founders; his own site states 75+ seed-stage investments since 2011.

Attributable investments

17 of 17 carry a researched sector. An investment appears here only where a public source names Errol Damelin against that company.

Wise
Seed - 2011 - Fintech
Cazoo
Seed - 2018 - Ecommerce
Purplebricks
Real Estate Tech
HiBob
Enterprise Software
K Health
Digital Health
Cleo AI
Fintech
Earnin
Fintech
Elliptic
Crypto
Citymapper
Mobility
YuLife
Fintech
Zoe
Consumer Health
Habito
Fintech
Nested
Real Estate Tech
Farewill
Legal Tech
Second Nature
Consumer Health
Ravelin
Fintech
CurrencyTransfer.com
Fintech

Sources