Oliver Kent-Braham

Oliver Kent-Braham's entrepreneurial instincts emerged alongside his identical twin brother Alexander in their British-Jamaican household. At twelve, the pair spotted their first business opportunity—salvaging golf balls from water hazards and selling them back to players. This early venture foreshadowed a career built on finding value where others saw obstacles.

Their athletic talents in tennis opened doors to Reed's School, where competitive discipline shaped their approach to business. After studying Entrepreneurship at Bristol Business School, Oliver gained experience in leveraged finance at Investec before joining the founding team at digital identity company Yoti. During his tenure there from 2015 to 2017, he led growth and partnerships, absorbing lessons about scaling technology solutions.

The catalyst for Marshmallow came through a friend's frustration with UK car insurance costs. As newcomers to Britain often faced premiums 50% higher than locals, Oliver and Alexander recognised a market failure that technology could address. Traditional insurers relied on outdated risk models that penalised immigrants and young drivers regardless of their actual driving competency.

Starting operations from a shared workspace in a Virgin Active gym, the brothers developed algorithms that could assess risk more accurately than incumbent systems. Their approach centred on using broader data sets to price policies fairly, rather than relying on demographic assumptions that systematically excluded certain groups.

Marshmallow launched in 2017 with Oliver and Alexander as Co-CEOs, maintaining a partnership so synchronised that distinguishing between them in meetings became a running joke. The company's growth trajectory proved their thesis correct—fair pricing expanded the addressable market rather than simply redistributing existing customers.

Within four years, Marshmallow reached unicorn status with a valuation exceeding one billion dollars, making it Britain's second Black-owned company to achieve this milestone. The significance extends beyond personal achievement, highlighting the underrepresentation of diverse founders in venture capital, where Black entrepreneurs historically received less than 1% of investment dollars.

Today, Marshmallow serves over one million customers across multiple countries, generating hundreds of millions in annual revenue. The company employs hundreds of people between London and Budapest, having evolved from immigrant-focused car insurance into a comprehensive financial platform. Oliver's vision extends beyond insurance to lending, savings, and investment products that address the full spectrum of newcomer financial needs.

As an angel investor, Oliver backs early-stage companies solving similar systemic problems. His investment approach mirrors his operating philosophy—supporting founders who use technology to create fairer access to essential services.

The journey from golf ball retrieval to unicorn founder reinforces Oliver's belief that entrepreneurship thrives on identifying problems others accept as unchangeable. His advice to aspiring founders emphasises starting with genuine problems rather than interesting technologies, building solutions that serve underrepresented communities, and maintaining patience during the inevitable periods when progress feels impossible.

For Oliver, success measures extend beyond financial returns to include the number of people gaining access to fair financial services. This broader definition of impact drives Marshmallow's continued expansion and Oliver's commitment to solving problems that traditional institutions have long ignored.