Wendy Tan White

She built the first SaaS site builder and now she leads Alphabet’s robotics OS.

Wendy Tan White’s early career included stints at Arthur Andersen and Egg.com, the UK’s first internet bank.

In 2000, she co-founded Moonfruit with Eirik Pettersen and Joe White (who would later become her husband).

Moonfruit was the world’s first SaaS website builder.

It took off fast, with 400,000 users in its first six months.

Then the dot-com bubble burst…

The company collapsed from 60 employees to just Wendy and Eirik.

Joe left to work at McKinsey.

Wendy stayed and replaced the ad-supported model with a subscription model.

Over time, the user base returned, and by 2004 the business was profitable again.

Wendy took a break from Moonfruit to start a family.

During that time, she:
- Completed a master’s degree in Future Materials Design
- Helped launch Zopa, the first European peer-to-peer lending platform
- And worked as a director at Gandi.net

Joe returned to Moonfruit to lead the company as CEO.

In 2012, Moonfruit was acquired by Yell Group (now Hibu) for £37M.

Wendy stayed on as CEO. Joe became COO and CFO. Eirik served as CTO.

Wendy then transitioned into venture capital.

In 2015, she joined Entrepreneur First as a General Partner.

She helped raise their Next Stage Fund and supported the creation of more than 20 deep tech startups, including CleoAI, PassFort, OpenCosmos, Accurx, and Brolly.

In 2017, she became a partner at BGF Ventures, the £2.5B early-stage arm of BGF.

And in 2019, Wendy joined Alphabet’s moonshot factory, X, as Vice President.

There, she helped guide early-stage teams exploring audacious ideas, including projects like Mineral and Tidal focused on sustainability.

In 2021, Alphabet spun out one of those internal projects as a standalone company: Intrinsic.

Wendy was named CEO.

Intrinsic’s mission is to make industrial robots easier to use, more flexible, and more accessible.

The goal is not just better robots, but better software for robots. Software that allows them to sense, learn, adapt, and operate safely in dynamic environments.

The company’s first product, Flowstate, launched in 2023.

Flowstate is a development platform that allows users to design, simulate, and deploy robotic workflows.

To strengthen that ecosystem, Wendy led two major acquisitions:
- Vicarious, a robotics AI company known for its cutting-edge applications in automation and vision
- Open Robotics, the non-profit responsible for ROS (Robot Operating System) and Gazebo

Outside of Intrinsic, Wendy holds a number of leadership and advisory roles.

She is Chair of the USA External Advisory Board at Imperial College London.

In 2016, she was awarded an MBE by Queen Elizabeth II for services to technology and business.

And she was named one of the Fifty Most Inspiring Women in European Tech in 2015 and 2017.