Sokratis Papafloratos and co-founder Walid Al Saqqaf said that ploughing their time and energy into TrustedPlaces.com cost the co-founders their girlfriends. But all the struggles and the late nights were vindicated when the start-up scored half a million in funding from the new investors Howzat -- a fund launched by the team behind Cheapflights.com.

The London-based company started in April 2006, now employs five staff and works with developers in Tel Aviv, Israel. TrustedPlaces is a great way to re-discover your city through other people’s views and recommendations.

Sokratis used to run operations for WideRay, an American mobile startup funded by Sequoia. Prior to that, he held a number of strategy and technology roles within Vodafone. Sokratis came to England 11 years ago to study electronic engineering in York. Walid had started a couple of other companies before, the first being one of the earliest enterprise-orientated social networks back in 1999 and the second one a mobile payments company. Walid started his career in Barclays corporate banking. He graduated with an economics and international relations degree from Warwick

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