Vishal Marria is sitting outside his parents’ old grocer’s shop in Balham, southwest London. He wasn’t born when they owned it in the 1970s but he cannot remember a time when his dad failed to nod to it as they walked passed.
Marria, 42, still comes here with his wife and two kids at the weekend. Some things around here have not changed much. The boss of Quantexa, or Q as he calls it, still lives up the road, a few doors from his parents.
Other things, though, have changed dramatically. The narrow, pointed grocery shop, nestled in the angle of two roads, is now a small, whitewashed plain brick café called Milk, serving trendy coffee and heavily-instagrammed plates of brunch.
Its large, open windows, modern additions, do very little in the stifling heat and a long queue of patient people switch from one leg to another as they wait for one of the wooden tables set out on the pedestrianised street.
Chi-chi Balham is unrecognisable since Marria grew up here. It is so smart, there is even a branch of Soho House around the corner from Milk. We order fancy coffees and are presented with a long list of the types of coffee beans on offer.
Quantexa raises £140m to fund expansion in America
Back in the day, Balham was “horrific” and school, Marria recalls, was about survival. “There weren’t many of us who left school with an A-star GCSE ranking. There were some great teachers but looking back, I feel for them.”
Unlike many of his peers, he went on to college, where he met his wife, and then to university, to study computer science. The family had a Compaq Presario at home, intended for the shop but used by the kids, which was an early inspiration.
Now Marria is running an artificial intelligence unicorn which recently raised a £140 million Series F round, led by the venture capital arm of the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, valuing the company at more than £2 billion. It employs over 800 people in 70 countries and has its headquarters at Waterloo, a short journey from Balham. The latest accounts filed with Companies House show Quantexa had a turnover of £76 million and an operating loss of £57 million in 2024, as it hired new staff and built out the group infrastructure.
Marria likes living where he knows, and near to the office, so he can be back with the family at a reasonable time. “I love the hustle and bustle of London. I am a Londoner at heart. I was born and brought up here, and that really grounds you. I walk past here,” he gestures around him, “it reminds me of where we have come from.”
His parents moved to Britain from India in the 1960s and Marria grew up in a unique south London melting pot of different cultures. The youngest of his four siblings by more than a decade, he used to work in his parent’s Brixton cash ’n’ carry after school and at weekends. He appears to mean it when he explains that he does not begrudge the curbs that this meant to his childhood playtime; rather he credits this experience with helping him to learn about business and tough decision-making.
Marria has an infectious laugh and a tendency to drop into his south London roots with the occasional “mate” and “bloody hell” peppering his sentences. As the photographer takes his picture, the café’s owner says hello and shakes his hand.
“I’m delighted by how the area has changed but I’m also delighted that there are still a few shops that have been here from the 1970s, from the 1980s. There’s a lovely chip shop just behind here where I used to go at school lunch,” he says, pointing to the other side of Milk.
All of the brunches on the menu have interesting names. We both order “convicts” on Marria’s recommendation. “The best, and maybe the most expensive sausage and egg McMuffin, you’ll ever eat,” he laughs. When it comes, the sausage, bacon and egg combination is delicious, handily set on brown greaseproof paper to contain the “hangover sauce”.
Vishal Marria’s company helps firms manage their data. Of a proposed float, he says he’s thinking about New York or London, adding: “Once we’ve made the call, we’re going to execute it”
JACK TAYLOR FOR THE TIMES
It is slathered in finely grated cheese, with a side of hash browns and more grated cheese: we do not go home hungry. I opt for a juice, which comes in a large milk bottle.
Quantexa uses AI to help organisations better understand, contextualise and manage their data. The company’s platform connects disparate data points, aiming to reveal hidden relationships between individuals, businesses and events.
The idea is to make it easier for companies to identify patterns and trends that might otherwise go unnoticed, such as detecting fraud, assessing risk, or making better decisions about customers or business operations. It is widely used in industries such as finance, insurance and within government. It was, for example, used by the government to help to investigate fraud on the £47 billion bounce-back loan scheme.
Marria started the business in 2016, while he was pursuing a steady, sensible career at EY. When he was seconded to banking clients, he realised that they were trying to pull together siloed data. The idea had been building for a while but finally, during a conference on money-laundering, improbably hosted in Las Vegas, he asked for his wife’s blessing and took the risk. It could have been dicey, as they wanted to start a family, but she backed him all the way. It paid off and now he is riding the wave of interest in artificial intelligence and data.
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The recent funding round has opened more doors and he says that the relationship with the Ontario pension fund has been helpful when it comes to introductions, “not just necessarily potential future clients, but partners and advisers”.
It also gives him the financial firepower to buy something. Quantexa is running the rule over one or two companies a week at the moment, with an eye to an acquisition.
Beyond that, an initial public offering is in the offing, although exactly when is still to be confirmed. In the meantime, he is preparing, and from January, the business will operate as if it were public. “We’re not going to go public in 2026 but we are going to be ready. There’s so many things I can’t control: the market, geopolitical challenges, the markets might not be ready….but my biggest focus and my biggest responsibility is to my company, to my people, my investors, my clients and my partners.
“Running a business in a public mode, but in private is really good for the business, getting all the process, structure, committee, structure and reporting in place”.
A bigger question is where will Quantexa choose to list? The London Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq are both courting him, not to mention the investment banks who want to run the transaction.
London, he hints, is where his heart would want to put the business, but he needs to work out what would be best for the company’s future. “Britain has done a lot for me and my family and a lot of our work is material to the UK. The London Stock Exchange team is amazing and we need to support them.
“But there are four big stakeholders of Q: my people, my employees and their families. I’m accountable to my shareholders who have backed me with investment, with their reputation. My clients as well as my partners.
“One thing I will not do is dilly-dally around the decision. Once we’ve made the call, we’re going to execute it. But right now, we have a bit of time to think: where do we want to go, and we just need to get ready.
“I don’t have a gun to my head. There are only so many hours in the day and my number-one responsibility is to my business and right now, we’re growing. We’re winning in the market. We need to continue doing that, so we can’t get distracted”.
As he ponders this, all around us life continues. Whatever Marria decides to do next, wherever the business ends up listing, it is hard to imagine him anywhere else but here in Balham.
Receipt
Long Black x 3: £10.50
Flat White x 1: £3.70
Billie x 1: £5.50
Convict x 2: £27.60
Hash Browns: £4.60
Total: £51.90
CV
Age: 42
Education: Marria holds a BSc in Computer Science with first-class honours and a MSc with distinction in business information systems, both from Royal Holloway, University of London.
Career: With over 20 years of experience, Marria began his career at Detica (later acquired by BAE Systems), followed by roles at SAS and EY, where he became the youngest ever executive director. He left EY to start Quantexa, which now employs over 850 people across 16 global locations.
Family: Marria grew up in south London, where he continues to live with his family.