Wendy Tan-White, founder and CEO of website-building company Moonfruit, recently joined us for our weekly Lunchtime Masterclass.
This web chat is now closed - but you can read the full transcript from the discussion in the comments section, below.
Wendy formed Moonfruit in 1999 to allow small businesses to build their own websites and have total control over their designs. Today, over four million websites around the world have been built using Moonfruit technology.
Armed with a BEng in Computer Science from London’s Imperial College, Wendy initially embarked on a career in IT and finance and lent a hand to setting up the UK’s first internet bank egg.com.
Branching out on her own, she received backing for her business from French luxury goods group LVMH and US web company Macromedia, and thanks to a growing consumer base Moonfruit became one of the few to survive the dot.com boom.
In 2010, the firm was given £1.5 million from US-based investment bank Stephens to further its growth abroad, and raised strategic investment from angel investor Dave McClure to expand in the US through his 500 Start-ups programme.
Wendy took a break from Moonfruit in 2004 to have children with her husband Joe White, who is also a Moonfruit CEO. In this time she also helped launch zopa.com, the first European peer to peer lending website, and completed an MA in Design for Future Textiles from Central St. Martins.
As well as looking after Moonfruit, Wendy is a mentor for Astia Women Entrepreneur’s Programme and for 500 startups, is on the investment panel of Nottingham-based private venture fund Mobius Lifesciences incubator, and was named the 2011 CWT Everywoman Tech Entrepreneur of the Year.
This masterclass has now finished but you can read all the questions posed to Wendy and her answers, below.
