Mark Pearson (entrepreneur)

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Mark Pearson, born in 1980, is a London-based entrepreneur best known for creating Markco Media, the group behind the discount site MyVoucherCodes. In 2014 Markco Media was bought by Monitise for £55 million. He grew up in a Liverpool council estate with his mother and sister. At 23 he started Roses by Design, selling rose petals with personalised messages, and discovered affiliate marketing when big brands asked to place discount banners on his site.

In 2006, at 26, he launched MyVoucherCodes with just £300, running it from his bedroom until 2009, then opening an office in Croydon and moving to central London in 2011. Pearson has invested about £5 million in nine companies, usually at least £100,000 each. His portfolio includes Shopwave, an iPad-based payment system for retailers, and Calq, a mobile analytics firm. He also invested £1 million in Ve Interactive, which grew to 700 employees across 18 offices and reached a $3 billion valuation in 2015 before going into administration in 2017; a Pearson-led consortium later bought it for £2 million.

Other investments include Playlists.net, which Warner Music Group bought in 2014. In 2013 he co-founded Fuel Ventures, an early-stage e-commerce fund and startup studio, which raised £539,900 on Seedrs with investors including tennis star Andy Murray. He appeared on Channel 4’s The Secret Millionaire in 2010, donating £115,000 to Nottingham charities addressing gun crime and domestic violence. He started Hackathon London in 2012 and later sponsored the Young Rewired State Hackathon in Scotland. The Sunday Times Rich List 2011 valued his fortune at £60 million.