Martins Sulte is co-founder and chief executive of Mintos, the Riga-based multi-asset investment platform that began as a marketplace for loans. He grew up in Latvia, spent six years in investment banking at SEB, and returned from INSEAD determined to build a company that would let retail investors buy into loans at scale. He is known for turning that idea into Europe's largest loan marketplace and later steering it into bonds, ETFs, real estate, and cash products under EU investment-firm licences.
Early career
He earned a BSc in business and economics from the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga, then worked as a consultant at Ernst & Young before joining SEB Investment Banking in 2006. At SEB he rose from analyst to associate and worked on mergers and acquisitions, equity and debt capital markets, and leveraged finance across Northern Europe. He later completed an MBA at INSEAD in France and Singapore and holds a CFA charter. He has said he speaks four languages.
Founding Mintos
After business school he returned to Latvia watching Lending Club, Prosper, Zopa, and Funding Circle, and wanted a platform that would give retail investors broader access to loans as an alternative asset. He co-founded Mintos with Martins Valters and angel investors from the 4finance and Mogo circle, and the marketplace opened in January 2015. Early capital came from those angels, about EUR 7 million in the first years. The company later raised equity from its own investor community through Crowdcube and obtained investment-firm and electronic-money licences so it could hold client money and expand beyond loans.
"I was following peer-to-peer in the US and the UK and was sparked about the idea to build a platform that takes it one step further from all the existing investment platforms, allowing retail investors much broader and easier access to loans as an alternative investment type, at scale and globally," he told P2PMarketData in 2021.
Building a multi-asset platform
Under his leadership Mintos moved from a pure loan marketplace into a multi-asset investing app. The 2025 consolidated annual report, signed in July 2026, lists him as chairman of the management board and records EUR 795 million in assets under management and 664,000 registered users. He has described the long-term aim as becoming the primary financial relationship for the next generation of investors, with products that include automated strategies, bonds, ETFs, rental real estate, and Smart Cash.