The 100 most influential technology investors in Europe

I know, I know. You're sick of all these lists of "most influential" this, "most followed" that. But we reckon this one may be a somewhat useful one for the start-up community: it's a ranking of the European technology investors with, as our partner for the project, PeerIndex, puts it, the most "online social capital".

First, the usual caveats. Our definition of investor is broad: there are angel investors who were formerly with one of the big firms, there are VCs and accelerators themselves (as in, their corporate accounts) and there are former VCs who are now working in start-ups or who have started their own companies. Because that's the nature of this industry: talented minds enjoy the experience of being on both sides of the table. But we've tried to limit the list to people with a respectable amount of investing experience.

We're also being ever so slightly liberal with geography: if a VC has moved away from Europe but still has significant investments on the continent, and perhaps mentors here regularly, they've generally been kept in.

Then there's the PeerIndex algorithm we've used to rank the selection itself. A lot of people dismiss these social influence systems out of hand, but the truth is a list of 100 highly influential people in a given vertical is extremely valuable to marketers. That's why you're starting to see exclusive deals based on Klout score popping up on the West Coast: there's value, and consequently a business model, behind these vanity mirrors.

Azeem Azhar, founder of PeerIndex, explains: "PeerIndex evaluates the social status - or social capital - of people using networks like Twitter and Facebook. We measure the strengths of the connections and the degree to which people are trusted, have authority or influence others on the Twitter network."

"Uniquely, PeerIndex builds our measure by looking at how authoritative, engaged and capable of driving conversations they are within specific areas of expertise, looking at three broad criteria: How well does a person resonate with their audience, and the world at large? How large is a person's audience, and how engaged is it? And finally, how active are they?"

We've undoubtedly missed a few people out - which is our fault, not PeerIndex's. Let us know if there's anyone crucial missing in the comments below. And remember that this list only measures how influential the investor is online: legendary figures who barely tweet, for example, wouldn't chart very highly.

So, without further ado, here are the 100 most influential investors in the European start-up ecosystem.

The figures that appear after the Twitter handles are PeerIndex scores. If you're interested in drilling down further into the numbers, in true nerdy Guardian style you can download the spreadsheet here.

1. Hussein Kanji (@hkanji) - 71

Hussein is a board director of Nivio and an advisor to Eros International Plc. He is also an advisor or angel investor in several early stage start-ups in London, including Cagera, CalendarGod, Exclusively.in and Tarmin. He was formerly with Accel Partners, where he focused on consumer internet, financial technology and software investments. He helped make Accel’s investments in OpenGamma, Playfish (acquired by Electronic Arts), BountyJobs, United Mobile, Dapper (acquired by Yahoo!), and held additional board observer seats at Njini (acquired by Riverbed) and The Cloud (acquired by Sky). Hussein joined Accel from Microsoft Corporation, where he held strategy and product management roles and was selected to the company’s leadership program for his work building the speech recognition business.

2. Richard Titus (@richardtitus) - 64

Titus is a seasoned digital media executive, a serial entrepreneur, active seed investor and advisor perhaps best known for his role at the BBC, leading a complete overhaul of the user experience and design of the public service broadcaster's internet, mobile and IPTV products and services. Titus left the BBC in 2009 to become CEO of Associated Northcliffe Digital, the digital consumer subsidiary of DMGT, which he ran until it was shuttered in a late 2010 reorganization.

3. Michael A. Jackson (@MAJACKS0N) - 61

An American entrepreneur turned investor living in Europe, Jackson is "currently travelling around the European startup ecosystem, looking for his next awesome opportunity".

4=. Saul Klein (@cape) - 60

Well-known VC Saul Klein joined the London office of Index Ventures as a Partner in February 2007. He serves on the boards of Alertme, Chartbeat, Erply, GlassesDirect, MyHeritage, Seedcamp and Songkick. Klein is a founder partner of The Accelerator Group and a co-founder of Seedcamp (see 5, below).

4=. Rodrigo Seplveda (@rodrigo) - 60

Rodrigo is a serial entrepreneur, and early-stage investor in technology companies such as amiando.com (sold to XING AG in dec'10) and trigami.com.

6. Seedcamp (@seedcamp) - 58

Seedcamp is an early-stage micro seed investment and mentoring programme.

7. Will Dawson (@will_dawson) - 57

Texan Lost in Europe, In Mobile Banking Startup, Former VC & Developer

9. Fred Destin (@fdestin) - 56

Start-Up 100 judge and Partner at Atlas Venture, an early-stage tech fund, where he focuses primarily on consumer-facing innovation.

10. Jeremie Berrebi (@jberrebi) - 56

Berrebi is an angel investor and serial entrepreneur who co-founded Kima Ventures.

11=. Eileen Burbidge (@eileentso) - 55

Burbidge is one half of White Bear Yard, along with Start-Up 100 judge Stefan Glaenzer.

11=. Brent Hoberman (@brenthoberman) - 55

Media darling, co-founder of Lastminute.com and co-founder of PROfounders Capital.

11=. Lars Hinrichs (@LarsHinrichs) - 55

Founder of XING.

14=. Joakim Jardenberg (@jocke) - 54

Business angel and investor in early stage tech startups like Videoplaza and Planeto and the founder of Mindpark AB.

14=. Max Niederhofer (@maxniederhofer) - 54

Former Principal at Atlas Venture, Niederhofer is now a Start-Up 100 judge and the founder of Qwerly.

16=. Nic Brisbourne (@brisbourne) - 53

Brisbourne is a Partner at DFJ Esprit and writes a popular blog about venture capital.

16=. NESTA Innovating (@nesta_uk) - 53

NESTA is the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts

18. Paul Jozefak (@pjozefak) - 49

US and Slovak national VC based in Europe.

18=. Petteri Koponen (@hoopeekoo) - 49

Entrepreneur and founding partner at Lifeline Ventures.

20. Sherry Coutu (@scoutu) - 48

Start-Up 100 judge, investor, advisor and board member.

21. Anthemis Group (@anthemis) - 47

22=. Nauiokas Park (@nauiokaspark) - 46

22=. Tom Newbold (@tnewbold) - 46

22=. Robin Klein (@robinklein) - 46

22=. Alex Hoye (@alexhoye) - 46

22=. Terrence Rohan (@tmrohan) - 46

27=. Roberto Bonanzinga (@Bonanzinga) - 45

27=. Chris Morton (@chrismorton) - 45

27=. Philippe Laval (@PhilippeLaval) - 45

30. Julian Ranger (@rangerj ) - 44

31=. Jyri Engestra (@jyri) - 43

31=. AngelList (@angellist) - 43

33. Carlos Eduardo (@ceduardo) - 42

34. Alliott Cole (@alliott) – 41

35=. Accel London (@accel_partners) - 41

35=. Stefano Bernardi (@stefanobernardi) - 41

37=. Amir (@A225) - 40

37=. Carlos Domingo (@carlosdomingo) - 40

37=. Alex Harvey (@alexharvey) - 40

37=. Sten Tamkivi (@seikatsu) - 40

37=. Brian Caulfield (@briancvc) - 40

42=. Andrew Mitchell (@roomitchell) - 39

42=. Christoph Janz (@chrija) - 39

44=. Sitar Teli (@sitar) - 38

44=. Sarik Weber (@Sarik) - 38

44=. Mehrdad Piroozram (@piroozram) - 38

47=. Frederic Court (@fcourt) - 37

47=. Stefan Tirtey (@toetoe) - 37

47=. SVB Financial (@svb_financial) - 37

47=. Jos White (@joscwhite) - 37

51=. William Reeve (@wreeve) - 34

51=. Mario Valente (@mvalente) - 34

51=. White Bear Yard (@whitebearyard) - 34

54. Marc P. Bernegger (@marcpbernegger) - 33

55=. Klaus Lovgreen (@klauslovgreen) - 32

55=. Index Ventures (@indexventures) - 32

57=. Michael Jackson (@overdrev) - 31

57=. Morten Lund (@ml) - 31

57=. Doug Richard (@DougRichard) - 31

57=. Aman Ghei (@amanghei) - 31

57=. Astia Europe (@astiaeurope) - 31

62. Jason Ball (@jasonball) - 30

63=. Pawel Chudzinski (@pawell) - 29

63=. Gregory Kris (@gregkris) - 29

63=. Alex van Someren (@alexvans) - 29

66=. Informatics Ventures (@infventures) - 28

66=. Ditlev Bredahl (@ditlev) - 28

66=. Jean-Baptiste Dumont (@jbdumont) - 28

66=. Thomas Grota (@thomasgr) - 28

70=. Stefan Glaenzer (@StefanGlaenzer) - 27

70=. Ben Holmes (@indexben) - 27

70=. James Caan (@jamescaan) - 27

70=. Reshma Sohoni (@rsohoni) - 27

74=. Alven Capital (@alvencap) - 26

74=. Paul Fisher (@paulfish) - 26

74=. Taavet Hinrikus (@taavet) - 26

74=. Julian Green (@juliangreensf) - 26

74=. Investiere.ch (@investiere_ch) - 26

79=. Josh Bell (@joshbell) - 25

79=. Jeff Coe (@hrcolors) - 25

79=. Ed French (@edfrench) - 25

79=. Kima Ventures (@kimaventures) - 25

79=. Fabrice Grinda (@fabricegrinda) - 25

79=. Morten E. Wulff (@wulff) - 25

79=. Atomico Ventures (@atomicoventures) - 25

86. Balderton (@balderton) - 24

87=. Andre Alpar (@andrealpar) - 22

87=. DH Tech Ventures (@dhtv) - 22

89=. Chipper Boulas (@chipper_b) - 21

89=. Intel Capital (@intelcapital) - 21

89=. Justin Wohlstadter (@justpw) - 21

89=. Octopus Ventures (@OctopusVentures) - 21

93. Sean Seton-Rogers (@setonrog) - 20

94=. Fredrik Cassel (@fredrik) - 19

94=. British Venture Capital Association (@bvca) - 19

94=. Maven Ventures (@mavenventures) - 19

97=. Jon Bradford (@jd) - 18

97=. Nikolas Woischnik (@woischnik) - 18

97=. Alexander Straub (@AlexanderStraub) - 18

97=. Marco Magnocavallo (@magno) - 18