Babek Ismayil spent more than a decade in high-yield and distressed debt trading at J.P. Morgan before a broken home purchase of his own convinced him that the way Britain buys property needed rebuilding from the ground up. In 2016 he left banking to found OneDome, and as its chief executive he has spent the years since turning a single frustration into one of the UK’s fastest-growing housing and fintech businesses.
That leadership has made him a finalist for The Cazenove Capital Entrepreneur of the Year Award at the 2026 Lloyds British Business Excellence Awards, and, as reported by industry title The Negotiator, a London finalist for the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year 2026 programme.
Reinventing how people buy a home
Ismayil’s insight was simple. People want to buy a home, not to navigate mortgages, legal services, surveys and insurance as separate, disconnected transactions. OneDome was built to bring the entire home-buying process into one integrated ecosystem spanning proptech, fintech, legaltech and insurtech. Its flagship HomeBuyer Service reframes buying a property as a retail-style product, bundling the essentials into one transparent, fixed-price service supported by a dedicated Property Moving Assistant and the company’s proprietary platform, DealRoom.
Where competitors operate in silos as mortgage brokers, portals, legal providers or comparison sites, Ismayil has pursued a vertically integrated model that orchestrates the entire home-buying experience. He describes the goal as building the operating system for homeownership.
Growth under his leadership
The scale of that ambition is matched by the numbers the business reports. OneDome says it has grown revenue by more than 15,000 per cent since 2022, reaching a 100 million dollar revenue run-rate by March 2026 while arranging over 1.4 billion dollars of mortgages a month through a network of more than 500 brokers. According to the company, that growth has been recognised externally, including a ranking as the fourth fastest-growing fintech and 17th fastest-growing technology company in the UK in the Deloitte Fast 50 for 2025, and the sixth fastest-growing tech company in the Sunday Times Tech 100 for 2026.
What the award recognises
Ismayil’s candidacy speaks directly to what the entrepreneur category rewards: a visionary founder who has identified an untapped opportunity and scaled a genuinely new model. His stated aim is for OneDome to power every major housing and financial decision across the homeowner lifecycle, from first purchase through to long-term wealth creation. Finalists across the Lloyds British Business Excellence Awards will hear the results at Grosvenor House, London on 10 November 2026.
