Eric van der Kleij

Eric is a General Partner at the EdenBase Quantum Computing fund and cofounder of QBase. He is a disruptive tech investor, entrepreneur and one of London’s leading tech ecosystem builders, now leading the charge in quantum with the creation of QBase, London’s Quantum-AI Centre of Excellence.

Eric has previously created and led some of the UK and Switzerland’s most prestigious technology ecosystems and hubs. This includes the world’s leading Fintech hub - Level39, the Fintech vertical of the Kickstart Accelerator for Digital Switzerland, as well as the UK’s groundbreaking Tech City/TechNation initiative, where he was appointed by the former UK Prime Minister to develop the UK tech economy. He was also instrumental in establishing the UK’s leading trade body for fintech – Innovate Finance.

Prior to this he pioneered the UK Governments highly successful Global Entrepreneur Inward Investment Programme, which has attracted over 1,500 startups and $2.5Bn of investment to the UK. Together these initiatives have supported the growth of one third of the UK’s tech unicorns as well as accelerating the UK and international technology ecosystems and economies.

As a Fintech entrepreneur – he previously co-founded and sold Adeptra, a fraud prevention Fintech company which was acquired by FICO in 2012.

Eric is passionate about technology and entrepreneurship, and founded one of the UK’s first blockchain labs in London in 2015, and has co-chaired and moderated the CFC conference since its inception. For many years served in a voluntary capacity as Honorary Chairman for the UK Government’s Global Entrepreneur Programme Advisory Group, and was a founding volunteer Advisory Board member of Tech London Advocates.