Our Team.

Mali Gunter is the founder and driving force behind Guapo’s current £50m pre-seed valuation, alongside being the founder of Trapanomics, a sports-inspired live entertainment brand currently operating at a £32.5m pre-seed valuation. Raised in the London Borough of Waltham Forest, his journey is rooted in lived experience navigating barriers around opportunity, social mobility, and workforce access within urban communities.

Driven by a focus on commercialisation and disrupting the status quo, Mali’s work was shaped by growing disillusionment with graduate employability outcomes and the widening disconnect between education, culture, and access to professional careers. This became the foundation for building commercially scalable platforms designed to make workforce participation, digital skills, and career progression more accessible, engaging, and culturally relevant for the next generation.

Combining entrepreneurial vision with academic insight, Mali holds a Law degree from the University of Bristol and is currently undertaking doctoral research at the University of Surrey focused on graduate employability, workforce mobility, and higher and degree apprenticeships. His work explores how sports gamification, culture, and community-driven engagement can reshape participation in future-focused career pathways.

Alongside entrepreneurship, Mali also performs as 'Guapo Marlz' within the UK music industry, using music and cultural storytelling to combine street culture, creativity, and community engagement with broader conversations around ambition, identity, and social mobility.