Tim makes entrepreneurs’ dinner an odds-on winner

The man who helped to revolutionise the gambling industry by building the world’s largest sports betting exchange, Betfair, has been sharing the secrets of his entrepreneurial success with Sussex business leaders.

Tim Levene, who now heads venture capital firm Augmentum Capital which he formed in 2009 with the backing of RIT Capital and Lord Rothschild, was the keynote speaker at Kleinwort Benson’s Sussex Entrepreneurs’ Dinner at Brighton’s Stanmer House.

It was the second time Kleinwort Benson had brought its successful entrepreneurs’ forum to Brighton, and EMC again played a key role in helping to make it happen.

The firm has hosted quarterly forums for entrepreneurs at its London offices since 2001, but it was only last year that it decided to take the show ‘on the road’.

EMC Chief Executive Nik Askaroff said: “We were delighted to once again work with Kleinwort Benson to help them bring their entrepreneurs’ dinner to Sussex. We had a terrific turnout and Tim Levene was a first-class speaker who was able to draw on his experiences as both an entrepreneur and an investor.

“As the South East’s leading corporate finance and business management firm, we have a strong relationship with Kleinwort Benson who are are market leaders in wealth management. It’s an association that has worked well over a good many years.”

Tim Levene is something of a serial entrepreneur. He opened his first juice bar in Canary Wharf in the late 90s following a successful career with Bain and Company in Moscow, Sydney and London. Crussh now has 25 stores throughout London and Tim remains an active shareholder in the business.

In 1999 he became the founding employee in London, of Flutter.com and later became Commercial Director in 2001 following the merger with Betfair.com. He helped to build the combined entity into the world’s largest sports betting exchange.

Today, Betfair manages more than £40 billion in transactions each year, and facilitates more transactions each day than the rest of the European stock exchanges combined. Betfair has become one of Europe’s most successful internet businesses and is the only company to have won the CBI Business of the Year twice.

Tim led the internationalisation of the business, and laid the foundations across Asia, Europe and the rest of the world. He moved to Asia in 2004 to launch the business in Asia, and today remains an active shareholder and supporter of the business.

In 2009, Tim returned to London to launch Augmentum Capital where he now focuses relentlessly on finding entrepreneurs who have businesses that are disruptive technologically and reinvigorate markets that are lacking in fresh innovation.