Alex Chesterman


Alexander Edward Chesterman is a British internet entrepreneur. He was named Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year in 2013 and in 2017 named on Debrett's 500. He is currently the founder and CEO of online used car platform Cazoo - which is aimed at transforming the used car market in the UK.
In December 2018 Chesterman raised over £30m in pre-seed funding and then went on to raise a further round of £50m pre launch for Cazoo. He launched the business in December 2019. In March 2020 he then went on to raise a further £100m for Cazoo. He is also the founder of the property website Zoopla in 2007. Zoopla became digital media business ZPG Plc a FTSE-250 listed company and owns brands which include Zoopla, uSwitch, PrimeLocation, Money and Hometrack and employs over 1,000 people in the UK. In July 2018 ZPG Plc was bought by US private equity business SilverLake Partners for £2.2bn and delisted from the FTSE 250.

Early life

Chesterman has a bachelor of science degree in Economics from University College London.

Career

Chesterman served as the executive vice president of Planet Hollywood until 1998. He founded ScreenSelect which was subsequently sold to Amazon for £200 million. In 2007, he founded Zoopla, a property website. In June 2014 he floated Zoopla, which has been renamed and become ZPG, on the London Stock Exchange for nearly £1bn. In 2018 ZPG was sold to US private equity group Silver Lake for £2.2bn. He served as chief executive officer until the end of September 2018 when he stepped down but remains on the Board. In December 2018 Chesterman announced a funding round of over £30m for his next venture, Cazoo, aimed at transforming the used car market. He has now raised a total of £180m for Cazoo
He is also regarded as one of the UK's most active tech angel investors and mentors. He has backed early stage digital startups including Farewill, Graze, Secret Escapes, SportPursuit, UniPlaces, CarWow, Swoon and Farmdrop and was awarded an OBE for services to digital entrepreneurship in 2016.

Political activity

In July 2016, Chesterman was said to be behind a legal challenge to stop Brexit should the British government not allow Parliament to vote on the deal. He donated £300,000 to the Liberal Democrats in the 2019 United Kingdom general election.