Best Startup
At Best Startup UK we track over 130,000 UK startups and over 500,000 people who hold key positions in these companies. We use this directory of startups to highlight top employees, founders and board members we think deserve more appreciation than they are currently getting.
This list showcases the top London based Founder operating in the Robotics space. If you think a Founder is missing from this list, feel free to contact our editor on editor@beststartup.co.uk.
The individuals on this list have been included because of exceptional performance in one of the following categories:
- Innovation – Operating as a key part in an extremely innovative business or startup.
- Growth – Operating as a key figure in the growth and upscale of a market leading business or startup.
- Management – Showing exceptional management skills.
- Societal impact – Putting their business on the map for their positive societal or environmental impact.
Our Data – We source our data from OSINT (open source intelligence) and public directories such as Companies House UK, Crunchbase, SemRush and many more. The data from these sources should be treated with a degree of caution and verified yourself.
Bashar Aboudaoud
Co-Founder and CSO of Brinc
Bashar is an entrepreneur that has established several businesses in Hong Kong, Guangzhou and London. From 2002-2009 he co-founded Ecico Group’s Hong Kong procurement business and established major clients in Europe and the Middle East. In 2005 he founded Cicero Capital that invested in prime real estate in Guangzhou and London. Cicero Capital built up an investment portfolio of high end residential and commercial properties in Guangzhou that caters to foreign multinationals and local state owned enterprises requirements. Bashar also entered the F&B business in 2008 and opened his first restaurant in Guangzhou.
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About Brinc, Brinc Accelerator of Accelerators: Brinc is a leader in global venture acceleration, operating 18 multidisciplinary accelerator programs in 7 countries.
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Janus Friis
Co-Founder of Starship Technologies
Janus co-founded Joost, Skype, Kazaa and Joltid, among other high-profile technology companies, with his long-time business partner Niklas Zennström. Janus is the recipient of a series of industry awards and was also recognized by Time Magazine as one of its 100 Most Influential People in 2006.
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About Joost, Starship Technologies: Starship Technologies is a robotics company building fleets of self-driving delivery robots designed to deliver goods.
Oliur Rahman
Founder of UltraLinx
I’m a designer and entrepreneur living in the South East of England. I’m also known as UltraLinx online.
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About UltraLinx, YouTube: A web magazine covering the coolest content, from Technology to Design.
Mark Oleynik
Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Moley Robotics
An accomplished Ph.D. mathematician, computer scientist and proven trailblazer. Results focused, his career to date is characterized by delivering demanding major projects to time and to budget. Prior to founding Moley Robotics, Mark was a co-founder and a major shareholder of a number of companies working in a healthcare sector in Russia and internationally. Earlier in his career, Mark exercised his passion for building successful products at Pavlov First Saint Petersburg State Medical University and smaller companies. Mark Oleynik is a driven leader and passionate robotics and healthcare expert.
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About Moley Robotics: Moley Robotics develops robotic kitchen with oven, hob, sink, and two dexterous robotic arms that allow it to cook.
Pasi William Sachiti
Founder & CEO of Academy of Robotics
William Sachiti is a UK based serial entrepreneur best known for creating a UK driverless car manufacture company competing with multinational incumbents such as Google, Uber and Tesla. The company designs and builds the autonomous vehicles in their UK warehouse. William has started and exited three previous tech start-ups in row, the latest MyCityVenue, an A.I. driven experiences platform serving 1.6 million users was acquired in 2015 by Secret Escapes. Before MyCityVenue, William was the the BBC Investment program Dragons Den, where he pitched a start-up, digital outdoor advertising on bins. The Dragons famously said he needs to be wheeled out of the bin. The company he pitched subsequently was licensed in several countries before being acquired. One of William’s first start-ups he started at 19, was called 123-registration. This company was also acquired for an undisclosed amount.
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About Academy of Robotics: The Academy of Robotics is a technology institute with an extraordinary technical team of engineers, scientists, and researchers.
Alastair Bathgate
CEO and Co-Founder of Blue Prism
Alastair Bathgate has worked in the enterprise software field since 1996, before which he spent a decade in various management positions at a leading bank. This has given Alastair a unique understanding of operational business processes and how technology can be used to improve efficiency and service. He co-founded Blue Prism in 2001 and has been CEO since. He holds an MBA from Leeds University Business School.
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About Blue Prism: Blue Prism is an intelligent robotic process automation company that develops a digital workforce for enterprises.
Jan Medvesek
Co-Founder of Emotech LTD
Jan Medvesek is a technical co-founder of Emotech. Before joining Emotech, Jan got the PhD in Computer Science from UCL. Before joining Emotech, Jan worked on industrial Computer Vision projects across Europe and collaborated with Microsoft, MathWorks and BBC.
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About Emotech LTD: Emotech is an AI startup aiming to redefine the relationship between humans and technology.
Chelsea Chen
Co-Founder of Emotech LTD
Chelsea is a technologist and creativist with diverse and international experience: from consumer strategy planning, marketing and brands. She previously leads the OgilvyOne’s team for clients such as Diageo, VW, Nestle and P&G to name a few.
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About Emotech LTD: Emotech is an AI startup aiming to redefine the relationship between humans and technology.
Hongbin Zhuang
Co-Founder and CEO of Emotech LTD
Hongbin was the product director of Renren.com and assisted it to become one of the largest SNS in China with over 35 million monthly login users, which went to NYSE IPO in 2011. He graduated from UCL with a distinction in the degree of MSc HCI & Ergonomics and strongly believes that the revolution of human computer interaction will make a better world.
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About Emotech LTD: Emotech is an AI startup aiming to redefine the relationship between humans and technology.
James Field
CEO & Founder of LabGenius
James is founder and CEO of LabGenius. James completed his PhD studies at Imperial College London where his research was focused on re-engineering protein nanocages for biotechnological applications. Prior to his PhD, James completed a BSc in Biology with Microbiology and an MRes in Systems and Synthetic Biology, at Imperial College London. James is an active member of the synthetic biology community having participated in the iGEM competition both as an undergraduate (2009), advisor (2011) and judge (2016). In 2017, James was awarded the BBSRC Innovator of the Year award for early career impact. James is also a fellow of the prestigious Synthetic Biology Leadership Excellence Accelerator Program (LEAP).
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About LabGenius: LabGenius is a biopharmaceutical company developing protein therapeutics using a machine learning-driven evolution engine.
Dominic Keen
Founder of Britbots
Dominic is a successful British entrepreneur and founder of Britbots. Having previously floated the software business that he founded on the London Stock Exchange, he now helps exciting ventures to maximise their growth potential. His fascination with all things robotic drives an impassioned evangelism of the field.
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About Britbots, HausBots, Magpie Education: Britbots an early-stage venture fund based in London, investing in in robotics, ai and other automative technologies.
Ambuj Agrawal
Founder and CEO of ZappyAI
Ambuj is the world leading expert in Artificial Intelligence and Process Automation. He has received numerous innovation awards from Citibank, Imperial College London, Ministry of Justice UK, Bristol University, among others. He is also one of the youngest recipients of the “Exceptional Talent Visa in Digital Technology” by the UK Government for expertise in Compiler Design and Machine Learning. He has been one of the youngest Speakers at the Money2020 Europe, Fin.Techsummit Europe, Future of Work Summit London and Automation Summit Paris on the topic “Automation and Future of Work”.
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About Cocoon Networks, ZappyAI: Cognitive Robotic Process Automation (RPA) with AI/ML Process Mining
Sam Watson Jones
Co-Founder and President of The Small Robot Company
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About The Small Robot Company: The Small Robot Company is delivering per plant farming for the world’s largest crops.
Mathew Holloway
CEO & Co-Founder of Q-Bot
Mathew is CEO of Q-Bot where he leads the development and commercialisation of innovative robotics technologies for the construction industry. Q-Bot combines robotics with one of the most pressing needs; upgrading our existing buildings to make them more comfortable, reduce cold draughts and improve energy efficiency. In doing so Q-Bot turns difficult, dirty and disruptive jobs into cost effective and efficient processes, to create a real, scalable and cost effective solution to meeting targets for CO2 reduction and affordable warmth. Mathew has 8 years previous experience as a founder of two previous high tech start-ups where he has turned his ideas into desirable products and in turn seen them generate 7 and 8 figure turnovers. He was educated at Bath University (MEng 1st Class Honours), Imperial College and The Royal College of Art in Engineering and Design (Joint Masters, MA & MSc). His technical background includes electrical and mechanical engineering, innovation mechanisms, intellectual property, industrial design, controls and programming (vision, analytics and interfaces).
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About Q-Bot: Q-Bot is a robotics company that develops intelligent tools for a wide range of industries and applications.
Limor Schweitzer
Founder and CTO of MOV.AI
Born in the UK, lived in Italy, USA, Israel and currently in Portugal, loves all things technical, has been granted some 15 patents, accumulated 25 years experience in IT, Telecom, web and robotics, and rarely ever worked for a company he didn’t own. Seasoned technologist entrepreneur with a passion to create startups that engage talented teams in transforming ideas into products and mind share. Born in the UK, lived in Italy, USA, Israel and currently in Portugal. Israeli Army-Intelligence, studied Physics, filed lots of patents and raised quite a bit of venture capital. Specialties Creating startups. Software development and distribution, IT services, Telecom software marketing, Internet Security, Computer Networks. Internet of Things, E-Commerce and making humanoid robots run.
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About BIND 4.0 Open Innovation and Acceleration Program, MOV.AI, RoboSavvy: We provide robotic developers with enterprise grade ROS development & run time environment (Robotics engine platform).
Tom Brown
Founder of The Information Lab
Tom has managed The Information Lab since it’s foundation in 2010 and has worked in a veriety of technical and data related roles for over 20 years. The Information Lab is the current EMEA Tableau Resellar of the Year and Alteryx partner of the year. They have helped over 1000 customers deploy Tableau across their 8 European offices
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About The Information Lab: The Information Lab is a team of passionate Tableau software professionals.
Stefan Leutenegger
Co-Founder of SLAMcore
Stefan is a Lecturer in the Department of Computing at Imperial College London. His research is focused on autonomous robot navigation: robots need dedicated sensing capabilities as well as algorithms for localisation within a potentially unknown environment. This includes localisation and mapping with a suite of sensors, most importantly cameras, to be processed efficiently to yield accurate results in real-time. In the past, he has mostly worked with Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), in order to allow them to fly autonomously and close to the ground. He received a BSc and MSc in Mechanical Engineering from ETH Zurich in 2006, 2008, respectively, and a PhD in 2014, working at the Autonomous Systems Lab of ETH Zurich on Unmanned Solar Airplanes: Design and Algorithms for Efficient and Robust Autonomous Operation.
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About SLAMcore: SLAMcore provides location, mapping and perception software for robots and other autonomous machines to become spatially intelligent
Owen Nicholson
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of SLAMcore
Over a decade of experience in early stage R&D management working on both UK government and industry research portfolios. Successfully delivered technologies in a wide range of areas including UK augmented reality for the UK Special Forces, next generation nuclear submarines and domestic electronics. Worked for four years building and managing the University Research Programme for a leading global engineering company, transferring technologies from top research institutions around the world. Specialised in the strategic and commercial aspects of technology development acting as an advisor to the UK government on university technology transfer.
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About SLAMcore: SLAMcore provides location, mapping and perception software for robots and other autonomous machines to become spatially intelligent
Jacek Zienkiewicz
Co-Founder & VP of Engineering of SLAMcore
Jacek’s background is in robotics and sensing. He achieved a Master’s Degree in Control Engineering and Robotics, specialising in motion planning algorithms for autonomous vehicles. After five years developing novel laser-based distance measurement algorithms and software for SICK AG, he moved to London to pursue his research interests. He earned his PhD with the Robot Vision Group at the Department of Computing, Imperial College London. His research aims to develop a dense visual perception system suitable for mobile robot navigation and guidance.
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About SLAMcore: SLAMcore provides location, mapping and perception software for robots and other autonomous machines to become spatially intelligent
Andrew Davison
Co-Founder of SLAMcore
Andrew is Professor of Robot Vision at the Department of Computing, Imperial College London and leads Imperial’s Robot Vision Research Group. He has spent 20 years conducting pioneering research in visual SLAM, with a particular emphasis on methods that work in real-time with commodity cameras. He has developed and collaborated on breakthrough SLAM systems including MonoSLAM and KinectFusion, and his research contributions have over 15,000 academic citations. He also has extensive experience of collaborating with industry on the application of SLAM methods to real products.
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About SLAMcore: SLAMcore provides location, mapping and perception software for robots and other autonomous machines to become spatially intelligent
Kevin Lind
Co-Founder and CTO of Perceptual Robotics
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About Perceptual Robotics: Perceptual Robotics is creating intelligent automation to make wind turbine and other infrastructure inspection simple and fast
Barney Wragg
CEO & Founder of Karakuri
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About Karakuri: Karakuri is a fledgling robotics startup that’s meshing machine learning, optics, and sensors to help commercial kitchens.
David Poole
CEO and Co-Founder of Symphony Ventures
David is an industry visionary with over 20 years as a corporate executive, running multi-billion dollar outsourcing and services firms. He has grown global businesses, built industry leading sales and operations teams, and spearheaded innovation across the industry in areas including platform-based BPO, supply chain BPO, cloud-based services, and user experience. David’s priorities at Symphony are to develop a world-class team and to work closely with client leadership to help them leverage Symphony’s Digital Ecosystem of automation partners and other inspired delivery models to compete in a digital world.
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About Symphony Ventures: Symphony is a professional services firm passionate about creating value for the world’s leading organizations.
Ajay Rathor
CEO & Founder of Maxatta Limited
17 years experience in Quant Portfolio Management and Trading including positions as Executive Director and Vice President across Equities, FX and Credit. Pioneered Machine Learning at ING Bank in 2007 for Global Risk Arbitrage Group. Strategic and Technical Leadership at Maxatta. Ajay is responsible for leading and executing the Company’s long term strategy to create shareholder value. Ajay held leadership positions across both Hedge Funds and Banks, with a deep understanding of asset management, technology and data science. MD, Realedge Associates, Head of Algorithmic Trading at Systematic Hedge Fund Sunofia Advisors, Algorithmic Strategist at ING Bank.
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About Maxatta Limited: Maxatta is a leader in Robotic Process Automation and the delivery of AI through automation for Front Office Financial Markets.
Damian Atkinson
CIO and Founder of Maxatta Limited
Over 30 years financial markets IT experience and former UK Region CIO for ING Bank for 12 years, spearheading technology strategy for the Bank, whilst running the IT organisation of 90 +staff. Business Leadership and Management at Maxatta. Damian will lead the Robotics CDAAS DevOps operation.
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About Maxatta Limited: Maxatta is a leader in Robotic Process Automation and the delivery of AI through automation for Front Office Financial Markets.
Michael Small
Founder of Construct Technology
Mike Small is a founder at @INTRO Labs. He cites his steep learning curve as a founder of VC funded StreetSpark. Previously, Mike ran info security at Reuters and Credit Suisse. He graduated from Cape Peninsula University of Technology in South Africa
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About Construct Technology: Construct enables paperless site-to-office information management and communication for the construction industry.
Carl Mesner Lyons
Founder of Cloud CMO
Carl Mesner Lyons is a senior marketer of over 20 years standing. He began his career in the classic blue-chip environment at Guinness and went on to manage other high-profile brands such as the Guardian and Capital Radio. Entrepreneurial at heart, Carl has been at the heart of London tech scene from the start and has played a core role in making household names of several founder-led startups – including lastminute.com, Hailo and toptable (sold to OpenTable). Carl now runs Cloud CMO – a boutique marketing consultancy helping growth companies get famous and established businesses stay relevant.
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About Cloud CMO: Flexible senior marketing support. Part-time help, full-time impact.
David Goldberg
Founder and CEO of POD Management
David is a respected, well-known and experienced individual within the property management industry. He began his career as a Management Consultant for 6 years before moving in to the property management industry in 2004, where he joined a leading firm of managing agents as a Property Manager. He worked through the company where he became a non-shareholding Director. During his time at there he was instrumental in the strategic growth of the company, growing from a small firm of 21 staff to a small to medium enterprise with 75 staff. He was headhunted by a international residential property where he successfully grew the department, before being asked to oversee the entire Residential Management Division and sit on the Operations Board. In 2017 he founded POD Management with ambitions to shake up the traditional world of property management, and backed in a joint venture by former Dragons Den star James Caan’s venture capital firm Hamilton Bradshaw and serial entrepreneur Faisal Butt’s Spire Ventures. He is also an advisor to AskPorter, an AI messaging platform that optimizes property & facilities management and improves customer satisfaction. Outside of work, David enjoys running and where time allows, a round of golf and going skiing with friends. He is also a keen guitarist, and can be found reliving his youth through a gigging rock covers band.
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About POD Management: Customer focused property management
Venkatesh Akula
Founder & CEO of ClicQA
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About ClicQA: ClicQA is an Independent Software Testing company dedicated to cater a wide range of software testing services to clients across the globe.
Daniel Ospina
Co-Founder and CEO of Conductal
Daniel is an Organization Designer. Through his company, Conductal, Daniel uses Social System Design to create incentives and processes that spark creativity and enable business agility at scale in startups and established organisations. Beyond Conductal, Daniel is a visiting lecturer on System Design at Oxford University, a Co-founder of Crossmodalism, an Associate Fellow of London University, and a Fellow of the RSA.
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About Conductal: Conductal help smaller organizations to scale and larger ones to manage communities and innovate.
Alvaro Costa
Founder of Synthetic Data
Alvaro Costa, CEO of Synthetic Data, a software house with clients such as Daimler, Santander, Telefónica, Alkol Biotech, etc. He’s the author of 4 books, the last on Big Data, and a professor of Big Data at Madrid’s EOI – Escuela de Organización Industrial. He holds a Master´s Degree in Computer Engineering from USF – University of South Florida and has developed a two-way transmission architecture based on Spark Streaming and the AMQP messaging system called Roundabout.
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About Synthetic Data: Synthetic Data is a software house focused on Big Data, IOT, and AI solutions.
Steve Dann
Founder & CEO of Amplified Robot
An AR Expert and Augmented Reality Evangelist, Steve is a regular writer and contributor to media blogs, and is a thought-leader in the digital media and augmented reality sectors. He is a regular speaker on the subject of AR and New Technology at conferences and events.Based in London, Steve is currently the CEO of Amplified Robot, and Chairman of Berwick Post Ltd and is responsible for the strategy and commercial activity of both companies. Most recently, he has been responsible for spear-heading Amplified Robot’s drive into Augmented Reality and Digital Media. Steve trained as a film editor initially, before founding one of the UK’s largest creative post production Groups, VTR Plc. He has over 30 years experience in the Broadcast Post Production Market; selling creative and technical services to International Broadcasters, Production Companies and Advertising Agencies. He is also the founder and organiser of the Augmenting Reality Meetup Group, which regularly meets to discuss, view and demonstrate the latest innovations in AR and related Technologies.
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About Amplified Robot, Medical Realities: At Amplified Robot, we firmly believe in the seamless integration of technology with human interaction.
Adrian Negoita
CTO and Co-Founder of BotsAndUs
Adrian Negoita is a CTO and Co-Founder at BotsAndUs. He is an experienced software test engineer who is motivated by building high-quality products and sharing his knowledge to support the wider adoption of robotics.
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About BotsAndUs: BotsAndUs is a data-driven robotics and AI company that provides full-stack robot systems for dynamic spaces.
Sean Schwarz
Founder and Managing Director of RAFT Recruitment
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About RAFT Recruitment: RAFT Recruitment is a recruiting firm that places executives, software, machine learning, and robotics engineers.
Tiny van Niekerk
Founder of The Digital Bra
Founder at The Digital Bra.
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About The Digital Bra: The Digital Bra is a mobile applications that uses 3D scans to create a customized bra for each user.
Judy van Niekerk
Founder of The Digital Bra
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About The Digital Bra: The Digital Bra is a mobile applications that uses 3D scans to create a customized bra for each user.
Ridha Azaiz
Founder of Aerial Power
Ridha Azaiz is Founder at Aerial Power.
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About Aerial Power: Aerial Power is developing UAV’s for the cleaning of solar panels, mirrors, and windows.
Douglas Higgins
Founder & Director of Mujo Mechanics
Douglas Higgins is the Founder & Director at Mujo Mechanics.
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About Mujo Mechanics: Mujo Mechanics provides smart devices and intelligent cloud platform for a data-driven approach to musculoskeletal health.
Richard Greenhill
Founder & Non Executive Director of Shadow Robot
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About Shadow Robot: Shadow designs and manufactures state-of-the-art anthropomorphic robot hands & related systems.
Dan Collier
Co-Founder, Director of Sales and Strategy & CEO of ElevateDirect.com
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About ElevateDirect.com: Productivity enhancement tool for recruitment across all workforce categories
