Teya co-founder and chairman

Ali Mazanderani's role at Teya

He co-founded SaltPay in 2019 with Eduardo Pontes and chairs the business, now called Teya.

Ali Mazanderani is a co-founder and the chairman of Teya. The company started in London in 2019 as SaltPay and was renamed Teya on 4 April 2023.

Before that he spent about a decade in private equity and was a partner at Actis. He also sat on the board of Stone, the Brazilian payments firm co-founded by Eduardo Pontes. That link is how the two came to build a European business together.

In July 2020 the company bought 96% of the Icelandic acquirer Borgun for EUR 27m. A Series C in November 2021 put its valuation near $9bn on some figures, and it later bought Paymentology, Storyous and Yoyo.

Teya sells card terminals, business accounts and credit to small merchants. It launched in Spain and Italy in February 2026, taking it to nine European markets. Its UK pre-tax loss narrowed to £64m in 2024 from £110m.

Read the full Teya founder story

What is Ali Mazanderani's role at Teya?

Ali Mazanderani is a co-founder and the chairman of Teya, the London payments company formerly called SaltPay. He started it in 2019 with Eduardo Pontes, who is CEO.

What did Ali Mazanderani do before Teya?

He spent about a decade in private equity and was a partner at Actis. He sat on the board of Stone, the Brazilian payments company Pontes co-founded. Earlier he worked as a consultant at OC&C Strategy Consultants and at FirstRand Group.