Wil Benton

Investor and DJ in Glasgow, Scotland

Wil Benton

Investor and DJ in Glasgow, Scotland

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Wil studied Pharmacology at King's College London. It was there that he started FatKidOnFire (FKOF), which earned him the 'Digital Journalist of the Year' title at the 2010 Guardian Student Media Awards. A decade later, FKOF is now three chart-topping record labels and an award-winning digital publication with a six-figure global audience.

Today, Wil is Cofounder & Director of Metta, a business that supports startups, industry & governments with sustainable technology-driven innovation.

As Venture & Ecosystem Director at the ATI Boeing Accelerator, Wil helped connect the UK aerospace industry with 19 world-class startups and deliver 15x ROI to stakeholders including HM Government. Before that, he was a Programme Director at Ignite, where he designed and delivered a number of accelerator programmes across the UK. In a previous life, Wil took Chew.tv to 400k users in 190 countries before its acquisition by Singapore-based BandLab Technologies in 2017.

Over the last ~5 years, Wil has personally worked with more than 70 early-stage technology businesses and has helped invest over £4m.

He is also an active angel investor (40+ investments to date including Reath, Monzo, Happity and Guardian Angel (acq. by Octopus), both a VC scout and a VC LP and regularly mentors and advises startups across a variety of sectors.

Wil likes: startups, a good sound system, DJing, riding his bike and running his record labels.
He dislikes: commuting, chickpeas and falling off his bike.

  • Work
    • Metta
  • Education
    • King's College London
    • Blavatnik School of Government
    • Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership