About us
Zoopla.co.uk is the UK's most comprehensive property website, focused on empowering consumers with the resources they need to make better-informed property decisions. We help our users make sense of the residential property market by combining property listings with market value data, local information and community tools.
Zoopla.co.uk was founded on the principles of transparency and efficiency and everything we do aims to make the market more effective for both property consumers and professionals alike. Our mission is to provide the most useful online property experience by:
- displaying property listings along with value and price trend information
- providing rich property data and local market information in one place
- enabling users to search for property in a variety of customised ways
- allowing users to engage with professionals via our tools like AskMe!
- building relationships between home owners and local estate agents
By combining free, instant value estimates for every UK home with sold prices, local market information and hundreds of thousands of properties available for sale and to rent, Zoopla.co.uk has become the ultimate destination for property consumers to search for property and do their market research. Zoopla.co.uk is the UK's fastest growing property website and we are proud to have been named 'Best Property Portal 2009' (Daily Mail UK Property Awards).
Our unique features, like AskMe!™ and TemptMe!™ allow users to gain an insight into the market and discover information they won't find anywhere else. And our AskAnAgent feature has rapidly become one of the most valued sources of vendor leads for UK estate agents. We calculate our value estimates using a proprietary algorithm (secret formula) that continuously analyses millions of data points relating to property sales and home characteristics throughout the UK. Our estimates are constantly refined, using the most recent data available and a variety of methodologies, in order to provide the most current information on any home.
Zoopla Ltd is a privately held company with a highly experienced and proven management team, backed by well-respected angel investors and leading venture capital firms Atlas Venture (atlasventure.com) and Octopus Ventures (octopusventures.com). In August 2009 we acquired The Property Finder Group which included propertyfinder.com, one of the best-known and most-visited property websites in the country, as well as other popular online property assets including HotProperty.co.uk.
Zoopla Ltd, 2nd Floor, Union House, 182-194 Union Street, London SE1 0LH
Registered in England. Registered Company No. 6074771
VAT Registration number: 918 8081 01
Data Protection number: Z9972266
Executive team
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Alex Chesterman, Founder, Chairman and CEO
In 2003, Alex co-founded LOVEFiLM.com, Europe's leading online DVD rental subscription service. Alex has spent his career in the development and creation of business concepts and was a semi-finalist for the Ernst & Young 'Entrepreneur of the Year Awards 2002'. Alex joined Planet Hollywood Inc. at its inception in 1990 and remained there as Executive Vice President until late 1998. Alex holds an honours degree in Economics from London University.
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Doug Monro, Chief Operating Officer
Most recently, Doug was Managing Director of Gumtree.com, the UK's largest classified ads site, where he built the team and business through a phenomenal period of growth after acquisition by eBay in 2005. Previously, Doug has worked for eBay UK, Bain & Company, Unilever and also as an entrepreneur. Doug has a BA in English from Cambridge and an MBA from Kellogg where he was a Fulbright and Siebel scholar. He is also a CIMA-qualified accountant.
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Simon Kain, Co-founder and CTO
Simon was most recently CTO at LOVEFiLM.com, where he was responsible for building the technical platform and team behind Europe's leading online DVD rental service. In 1997, Simon joined start-up Bookpages.co.uk, which was subsequently acquired by Amazon.com where Simon spent 5 years developing and managing a significant part of the European software team. Simon holds an honours degree in Computer Science from Warwick University.
Board of directors
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Fred Destin, Non-Executive Director
Fred joined Atlas Venture in 2004 as a Partner on the technology team focussing on software, technology-enabled services and digital media infrastructure/applications. Previously, Fred was a Venture Manager with Speed Ventures, a fund backed by Permira and Soros Partners, and also an Executive Director at Goldman Sachs. Fred authors a widely read blog at www.freddestin.com and holds a Masters in Financial Engineering from the University of Brussels.
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Dr Simon Murdoch, Non-Executive Director
Simon is the founder of StormForward, an ecommerce conversion consultancy business. He was also founder of FriendsAbroad.com, an online languages social community that was sold in 2008. In 2000, Simon co-founded Episode 1 Partners, a venture capital firm managing early stage Internet investments. In 1996, Simon founded Bookpages, which he subsequently sold to Amazon.com where he launched the UK service and became VP Europe. Simon holds a first class degree from Cambridge University and a PhD in Computer Science.
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William Reeve, Non-Executive Director
William is a serial entrepreneur and business angel and is on the board of a number of high-growth internet businesses. In 2003, William co-founded LOVEFiLM.com, Europe's leading online DVD rental subscription service, where he served as COO until early 2008. In 1997, William founded Fletcher Research, which he sold to Forrester Research, where William then spent 3 years as European Group Director. Prior to that, William spent 2 years at McKinsey & Co as a management consultant. William holds a first class Masters degree from Oxford University.
Zoopla! executives Alex Chesterman and Simon Kain are also on the Board of directors.
Advisory board
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Erik Britton
Erik has 18 years of experience as a professional economist. Between 2000 and 2007 he was a Director at Oxford Economics, where he was responsible for leading and delivering major consultancy projects for blue chip clients in the industrial and financial sectors and the government. Prior to that, Erik was involved in economic modelling and forecasting at the Bank of England.
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Professor Andrew Clare
Andrew is a Professor of Asset Management at CASS Business School and has published extensively on a wide range of economic and financial market issues. Andrew was formerly a Senior Research Manager at the Bank of England and has also spent 3 years working as the Financial Economist in the fund management arm of one of the UK.s largest insurers.
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Robin Klein
Robin has spent many years on public company boards in UK and South Africa and his career highlights include being CEO of Innovations Group Plc, Managing Director of Arcadia Marketing & Home Shopping, and Chairman of Agent Provocateur. Robin is an experienced angel investor in early-stage, fast growth technology businesses and brings an expert understanding of consumer behaviour and how to design outstanding customer experiences.
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Trevor Moross
Trevor has been involved in the residential property industry since graduating from Reading University in 1975. He oversees the residential property interests of Dorrington PLC, where he is Joint MD. Dorrington is a residential and commercial property investor/developer with a residential portfolio of over 1,500 units in London and the Home Counties. Trevor is a past President of The British Property Federation and currently serves on its Board and is a Board member of The Leasehold Advisory Service.
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Sean Park
Sean is a partner at Nauiokas Park LLP and the author of The Park Paradigm (parkparadigm.com), a widely read blog on the future of financial services and markets. He has over 16 years of investment banking experience and prior to founding Nauiokas Park he was a Managing Director and a member of the Capital Markets Management Committee at Dresdner Kleinwort. He is also a former non-exec Director of Markit Group and former Chairman of the International Index Company (iBoxx).