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 United Kingdom based Founder operating in the Creative Agency 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.
Michael Raven
Founder of Blazon Agency
Michael Raven is Founder & Managing Director of Blazon Agency. Michael has had Two Startup exits, and has ran 70 Agency Campaigns across Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and direct launches, actively participating in the raising of over $115M+ for his extensive list of clients.
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About Blazon Agency: The Brand Launch Agency
Charles Vallance
Founder & Chairman of VCCP Group
Charles began his advertising apprenticeship at Burkitt’s, working subsequently at BBH and WCRS. In 2002 he decided to start working for himself and, along with his three partners (Rooney Carruthers, Adrian Coleman and Ian Priest), set up VCCP. Their founding client was O2, to whom they are eternally grateful. Over the last two decades, Charles has worked on and, in some cases, helped launch a diverse range of brands including O2, First Direct, Orange, Sony, BMW, Land Rover, Coca-Cola, Heineken, Dyson, comparethemarket.com, Hiscox and easyJet. Outside of work Charles doggedly pursues a variety of sports including cricket, tennis, football, golf, shooting and snooker, all at a consistently low standard. Charles is a Trustee for Cricket for Change and for the Fred Foundation and he is a Director of Rugby for Change.
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About VCCP Group: VCCP Group provides directory for top marketers, agencies, media companies.
Cliff Hall
Founder & CEO of VCCP Group
Cliff began his career in film before joining the Guardian Newspaper Group working in advertising and on editorial features. He then joined the Saatchi Group to handle Marks & Spencer and Ford. After that he joined Clark & Taylor, heading up part of the agency’s integrated offer looking after Sainsbury’s and Whitbread retail and their beer company. He was later appointed as MD of Loewy Integrated working on M&S Simply Food, Ray-Ban and the BAA business before joining the VCCP Partnership where he founded VCCP Blue. Cliff is responsible for comparethemarket.com and the award-winning meerkat campaign, Coors Light, Muller and ASDA.
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About VCCP Group: VCCP Group provides directory for top marketers, agencies, media companies.
Denzyl Feigelson
Co-Founder & CEO of Platoon
Denzyl is the co-founder and CEO of Platoon, a platform for exceptional, independent artists. Denzyl has been a special advisor to Apple Inc and iTunes since being recruited by Steve Jobs in 2001. He has had a hand in landmark developments such as iTunes Global, Apple Music, the launch of iTunes in over 17 countries and the establishment and curation of the hugely successful Apple Music festival. Previously, Denzyl was the founder and CEO of Artists Without a Label (AWAL), a pure-play digital music label representing over 20,000 artists and Buzzdeck. An accomplished musician and trained music therapist, Denzyl was originally helped manage Paul Simon’s album “Graceland” and produced the first grand-scale multi-racial “Concert in the Park” in New York City in 1982.
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About Platoon: Platoon discovers emerging talent and provide them with the platform to create, distribute, and commercialise exceptional creative work.
Ben Grabiner
Co-Founder & GM of Platoon
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About Platoon: Platoon discovers emerging talent and provide them with the platform to create, distribute, and commercialise exceptional creative work.
Jeremy Jauncey
Founder, Chief Executive Officer of Beautiful Destinations
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About Beautiful Destinations: Beautiful Destinations is a media company that shares authentic, inspirational, and immersive travel stories.
Cameron Day
Founder of Together
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About Together: A full-service agency focused on helping tech companies acquire customers, attract talent and raise capital.
Martin Adams
Co-Founder & CEO of Codec
Martin is an international keynote speaker on innovation, artificial intelligence and disruptive technologies, and the Founder and CEO of Codec.ai. Codec.ai has raised millions & uses artificial intelligence to identify new target audiences and understand what content and products they want to consume, all before brands have to guess. Codec won ‘the Best Artificial Intelligence Product in Marketing’ award at CognitionX and has been named one of the ‘Hottest AI Businesses in Europe’ by TechCrunch. Martin has been recognised as one of the UK’s Top 100 Entrepreneurs by Maserati and as an innovation advisor he has worked with some of the most high-profile individuals and organisations in the world on how to use technology to be more innovative and connect more deeply with real people- including companies like Pfizer and Red Bull and governmental organisations like the Royal Marines. He is a graduate of Harvard Law School, and the Co-Founder of the Social Media Unit @ UCL and the Digital Leadership Council.
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About Ambient Tone, Codec, CognitionX, Digital Leadership Council, London Speaker Bureau, University College London (UCL): We help brands to discover and tap in to the pockets of culture that drive growth. Powered by award-winning AI.
Kenny Harmel
Director and Co-Founder of Galileo Watermark
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About Galileo Watermark: Galileo Watermark provides creative design and innovative products to the airline and medical industry.
Ian Linaker
Chairman & Founder of Galileo Watermark
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About Galileo Watermark, Scaramouche & Fandango: Galileo Watermark provides creative design and innovative products to the airline and medical industry.
Ivy Cavendish
CEO & Co-Founder of The Science Writing Revolution
Ivy Cavendish is the CEO and co-founder of The Science Writing Revolution.
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About The Science Writing Revolution: The Science Writing Revolution is an academic-led initiative to revolutionize scientific writing.
Algernon Bloom
CoO & Co-Founder of The Science Writing Revolution
Algernon Bloom is the CoO and co-founder of The Science Writing Revolution.
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About The Science Writing Revolution: The Science Writing Revolution is an academic-led initiative to revolutionize scientific writing.
Charles Thiede
CEO and Co-Founder of Zapnito
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About Zapnito: Zapnito is the SaaS online community platform for intelligence-driven organizations.
Jon Beer
CTO and Co-Founder of Zapnito
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About Zapnito: Zapnito is the SaaS online community platform for intelligence-driven organizations.
Shannon Edwards
Founder of FromAtoSHE
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About FromAtoSHE: FromAtoSHE is a platform to discover women-owned businesses.
David Schneider
Co-Founder & Creative Director of ThatLot
Best known in the UK as an actor/comedian/writer, David starred in TV shows such as I’m Alan Partridge and movies such as Mission Impossible and 28 Days Later. In 2013, David Schneider set up That Lot with David Levin. An avid tweeter with 240,000 followers and counting, David and the team provide content for brands and businesses, as well as making viral videos and pictures, and he recently directed Josh Widdecombe’s sitcom for the BBC. David gives workshops on social media to businesses, agencies and brands as well as keynote speeches in both the academic and corporate sectors.
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About ThatLot: That Lot is a social creative agency.
Vito Peleg
Founder of Atarim
I’ve built my first website on “Geocities” almost 20 years ago – Featuring my friends’ skateboarding crew when I was 14 yo. Since then I’ve built more than 250 websites. Some for me but most for small-medium businesses, fashion brands and startups. As a former touring musician, I looked for ways to allow me to work while I was touring the world playing my RNR to thousands of people and the web was, once again, there for me. I started to build websites for clients from the back of the van (and sometimes the odd broom closet) and my passion for the field grew with each project. When the band finally broke up I moved from the van to a tiny room at home, then to a larger room with one employee sitting right next to me all the way to having my own agency with 12 guys on my team. And I’m just getting started 😉 Even though I’ve had my share of experimentation between different platforms and building methods (I even gave Wix a shot for half a website), I fell in love with the WordPress ecosystem and the community around it. These days, my team and I are focused on Atarim.io – A revolutionary visual collaboration platfrom helping web agencies and freelancers get content, approve designs and provide support directly on their clients’ websites, visually.
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About Atarim: Allowing Web Creators to Manage Projects and Collaborate, Visually, Within a Website. Making Working With Clients, Easy & Extremely Fast
James Abbott-Donnelly
Founder of Duke Studios
James Abbott-Donnelly is the founder of Duke Studios.
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About Duke Studios: Duke Studios is an open collaborative space in the City Centre of Leeds.
Laura Wellington
Founder of Duke Studios
Laura Wellington is a Commercial Interior Designer & Co-Founder of Duke Studios.
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About Duke Studios: Duke Studios is an open collaborative space in the City Centre of Leeds.
Adam Whiteside
Co-Founder of Whitepot Studios
Co-Founder of Whitepot Studios, where I do a load of start up stuff and lead Game Design and Development. Unity, Phaser and much more!
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About Whitepot Studios: A kickass games studio founded in 2016, creating Android, iOS, & PC games, for clients & bespoke use cases, using both HTML5 & Unity
Victoria Potts
Co-Founder, Production & Dev of Whitepot Studios
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About Whitepot Studios: A kickass games studio founded in 2016, creating Android, iOS, & PC games, for clients & bespoke use cases, using both HTML5 & Unity
Chris Skitch
Founder & CEO of Didgeroo
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About Didgeroo: DIDGEROO HELPS CREATIVE AGENCIES BUILD INNOVATIVE WEBSITES.
Dan Ridge
Founder & Director of Rhodium Creative
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About Rhodium Creative: Rhodium Creative provides marketing and advertising solutions to purposeful organizations.
Nicola Ellison
Founder and Director of Digirank
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About Digirank: Online Marketing agency working closely with you to develop creative strategies to drive your business forward.
Oliver Lewis
MD and Founder of THE FIFTH
Oliver Lewis is previously Director of Digital Strategy & Partnership for The Bridge, News UK’s commercial division, Oliver has recently founded The Fifth, an independent influencer marketing agency within the News UK group. He now leads the new influencer marketing business as Managing Director.
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About THE FIFTH: THE FIFTH is a professional influencer marketing agency that creates influencer campaigns for news, magazine, online or TV company.
Anders Sundstedt
Founder of Sundstedt Animation
Motion graphic designer, 2D/3D artist, animator & illustrator specializing in After Effects & explainer videos. After Effects artist, animator, motion graphic designer, illustrator, video editor & 3D artist based in the UK. I work in areas that require moving or still images for animation, commercials, short film, television & music videos.
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About Sundstedt Animation: Handcrafted animated film and video production
Josiah Holloway
Founder of Marketing Musicians Ltd.
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About Marketing Musicians Ltd.: Marketing Musicians are a Music Marketing and PR agency in the UK, dedicated to helping launch music careers through affordable services.
