David Menton

David Menton grew up in Dublin and was educated in London. Early in his career he spent a number of years at the advertising and marketing group WPP plc, before joining Tamares Capital / Tamares (the Zabludowicz family's investment office) in 2000, where he spent roughly seven years leading its private equity activities and developing its UK investment strategy.

In 2007, in his late twenties, Menton co-founded Synova with his business partner (and brother-in-law) Philip Shapiro, backed by funds from Poju Zabludowicz, who became the firm's chairman. The firm launched just ahead of the global financial crisis and took nearly three years to raise its first pool of capital. Synova has since grown into one of the UK/European mid-market's most decorated managers, running roughly £1.7bn of capital on behalf of institutional investors and family offices, and was named Private Equity House of the Year at the 2020, 2022 and 2025 Private Equity Awards.

Today Menton serves as Managing Partner and leads Synova's Financial Services & FinTech practice, working closely with founders and management teams across the portfolio. He also holds non-executive/board roles connected to portfolio companies (e.g. JMG Group). He was previously featured in Dow Jones/Financial News' "40 Under 40 Rising Stars in Private Equity."

• Backs established, profitable, growing mid-market companies — not startups or seed-stage businesses — across Software & Data, Tech-Enabled Services, and Financial Services.
• Targets European businesses with enterprise values of roughly £20m–£250m; Fund V (2022, £875m hard cap) deploys across the full mid-market, with a dedicated £250m "Chrysalis" allocation for smaller growth companies.
• Menton personally concentrates on Financial Services, FinTech and insurance, sectors where Synova has built repeatable "buy-and-build" platforms.
• Philosophy centers on being an active growth partner, not passive capital: in his words, *"We believed that private equity needed to be part of the growth story of making great companies even greater."* He describes Synova as *"a people business"* and *"a team of entrepreneurs backing entrepreneurs."*
• Says yes to talented, entrepreneurial management teams where the firm can add structured operational support and drive organic growth plus M&A ("buy-and-build") scale-up.