Alexander Edward Chesterman (born 9 January 1970) is a British Internet

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value in ways that generally entail beyond the minimal amount of risk (assumed by a traditional business), and potentially involving values besides simply economic ones. An entreprene ...

, co-founder of ScreenSelect, which later became part of online film distributor LoveFilm, and is the founder and former CEO of online used car platform

Cazoo Cazoo is a British automotive online marketplace and classified advertising business based in Richmond, London, Richmond, London. Cazoo is currently owned by MOTORS, following its acquisition from Cazoo Holdings Limited by O3 Industries and Novum ...

. 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. Chesterman stepped down as CEO of Cazoo in December 2023. He was also the founder of the property website Zoopla in 2007. Zoopla became a digital media business ZPG Plc (LSE:ZPG) a FTSE-250 listed company and owns brands which include Zoopla,

uSwitch Uswitch Limited is a UK-based price comparison service and switching website founded in 2000. Users can conveniently compare prices across various sectors of energy, personal finance, insurance, and communications History uSwitch.com was fo ...

, 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.

Personal life

Chesterman attended St Paul's School, London and has a Bachelor of Science degree in

Economics Economics () is a behavioral science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interac ...

from

University College London University College London (Trade name, branded as UCL) is a Public university, public research university in London, England. It is a Member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the Federal university, federal Uni ...

. He is married and has two sons.

Career

Chesterman served as the executive vice president of Planet Hollywood until 1998. He founded ScreenSelect (later LoveFilm) 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,

, 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. He was named Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year in 2013 and in 2017 named on Debrett's 500. In 2021, his net worth was estimated by the '' Sunday Times Rich List'' as £750 million. In 2021, Chesterman led investment rounds in checking and digital onboarding platform Thirdfort and DIY and refurbishment platform Lick. Chesterman stepped aside as Cazoo's chief executive in January 2023 and left the company the following December. Five months later, in May 2024, Cazoo collapsed into

administration Administration may refer to: Management of organizations * Management, the act of directing people towards accomplishing a goal: the process of dealing with or controlling things or people. ** Administrative assistant, traditionally known as a se ...

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 The 2019 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 12 December 2019, with 47,074,800 registered voters entitled to vote to elect 650 Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Members of Parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons of the Un ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chesterman, Alex Living people 1970 births Alumni of University College London British chief executives British online retailer founders Officers of the Order of the British Empire Liberal Democrats (UK) donors People educated at St Paul's School, London