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 CEO’ operating in the Developer APIs space. If you think a CEO’ 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.
Peter Lord
CEO and Co-Founder of Codat
Peter Lord is the co-founder and CEO of Codat with a technical background and previous experience in fintech. After graduating from Southampton University with a degree in Computer Science, Peter joined Credit Suisse as a software engineer but quickly became frustrated with the speed of development. Wanting to experience working in a start-up, he joined MarketInvoice and was tasked with building an integration to accounting software Xero, experience that would later spark the idea for Codat. Through his personal experiences as software engineer, and later as a product owner, Peter is passionate that Codat’s focus is on creating a simple API that powers clients’ solutions to real problems faced by small businesses.
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About Codat: Codat is an API platform that provides real-time connectivity to the financial software used by small businesses.
Max Williams
Co-Founder & CEO of Pusher
Max has spent the past 5 years running the London-based Ruby on Rails development shop New Bamboo, with his co-founder [Damien Tanner](http://crunchbase.com/person/damien-tanner). Their latest company is a realtime messaging service called Pusher (http://pusherapp.com), which was incubated inside New Bamboo. Max is passionate about realtime technology, and has the goal of making it more readily available for everyone.
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About Pusher: Pusher Ltd. provides a hosted API service for adding real-time bi-directional.
Shay David
CEO of Retrain AI
Dr. David is the co-founder and CEO of Retrain.ai, ( www.retrain.ai ) where he connects people to jobs. Retrain is a talent-intelligence platform for Enterprises and Governments to seamlessly assess their workforce’s knowledge, qualifications, and skills, using artificial intelligence and machine learning, enabling them to retrain, recruit, and retain workers faster and more accurately than ever before. Retrain’s AI models captures skills shifts cycles and predicts the Jobs-of-the-Future, allowing employers to understand better which skills are emerging, evolving and expiring, so they can re-train their workforce effectively while planning outside talent hiring rapidly, all while empowering job-seekers who have been displaced by automation or global crisis to be re-trained and get back into the workforce. Prior to retrain.ai Shay co-founded of Kaltura ( www.kaltura.com ), a leader in video streaming solutions. Through multiple roles ranging from CTO, CRO, and GM, he oversaw the company’s growth from inception to thousands of global customers including 700 universities and 25% of the Fortune 100, and over $100M in annual revenue. Prior to Kaltura, Dr. David co-founded Destinator Technologies, a leader in mobile-GPS-navigation software, and consulted on open systems to Fortune 500 companies like Toyota. He lives in London with his wife and two daughters, and in his spare time enjoys yoga and angel investing. Dr. David’s academic expertise is collaborative and open-source information and communication systems. He earned his B.Sc. (magna cum laude) at Tel-Aviv Univesity with a double-major in Computer Science and Philosophy, his interdisciplinary M.A. at New York University on the economics of open systems, and his Ph.D. in Arts and Science from Cornell University on the topic of participatory information networks. He pursued his post-doctoral work on the issue of Access to Knowledge at the Yale Law School Information Society Project, where he is a visiting fellow.
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About Retrain AI: Retrain AI provides software using AI and machine learning to read job boards at scale and gain insight into where the job market is going.
Ben Stephenson
CEO and Founder of Impala
Founder at Impala
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About Impala: Impala’s API connects room sellers and hotels, instantly. We empower you to build, innovate and sell.
Steve Domin
CEO & co-founder of Duffel
Steve Domin is the co-founder and CEO of Duffel. Prior to co-founding Duffel, Steve served as the head of platform engineering at GoCardless.
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About Duffel: Duffel provides an online platform that allows users to search, book, and manage flights from multiple airlines.
Dan Ziv
Chief Executive Officer of TouchNote
Dan Ziv has been Managing Director of TouchNote since May 2017. He joined TouchNote as Chief Product Officer in 2016. Prior to this, Dan co-founded Uncover, the award-winning premium restaurant reservation app, which was acquired in 2015. He was previously an M&A lawyer in the technology sector, in addition to roles at PayPal Europe in Paris and VC fund Index Ventures in London. Dan is an advisor and board member in several early and late stage startups, mentors at Techstars London and is a founding member of Founders of the Future. Dan completed his MBA at London Business School.
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About TouchNote: TouchNote helps you send thoughtful cards and prints to loved ones, right from your mobile, tablet or desktop.
Karan Shanmugarajah
CEO of WealthKernel
Karan is the CEO of WealthKernel, a regulated cloud-based provider of modular APIs and solutions to enable businesses to offer savings and investments services. Prior to co-founding WealthKernel, Karan was a portfolio manager at Barclay. He is a CFA® charter holder and holds an MSc in Accounting and Finance from CASS Business School in London.
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About WealthKernel: WealthKernel is a supplier of infrastructure for companies looking to offer digital investment services.
Dev Subrata
Founder & CEO of FIDEL API
Dev is the founder of Fidel. Prior to Fidel, Dev has been active in a variety of start-ups ranging from e-commerce to social networking. Fidel is an API platform for Card-Linking. It makes it easy for developers to build applications that receives real-time payment events directly from transactions made by payment cards, both online and offline.
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About FIDEL API: Fidel API is a global financial infrastructure platform, providing tools to build powerful, real-time products on top of payment cards.
Edward Maslaveckas
CEO of Bud
Ed Maslaveckas is the co-founder of Bud, the financial network that connects customers, services providers and banks in on experience. A lithuanian last name and Scottish routes, he grew up in Harrogate with Bud’s other Co-Founder, George. He is an economics graduate and discovered the potential of fintech whilst working at Salesforce in 2014. He was working between London and Ireland and noticed, while there was many new financial service products, there was no effective way to help people find new services that could benefit their lives. Over a few months in the summer of 2015 he sat with George developing the first version of Bud on a couch in Hackney. Since then, Bud has grown to more than thirty people and are servicing some of the largest banks in the world – such as HSBC. They are still in hackney. As well as winning innovation awards, marketing effectiveness awards and being recognised as leading one of the most exciting small businesses globally, Ed has pioneered a new operating model in the company, introducing a totally flat hierarchy. “We wanted to empower everyone to make the decisions that push the company forward. We have moved forward quickly as a business and we are hiring the most talented people in every sector, it makes sense to let them make the decisions.” Bud has raised upwards of £1.7m and has been invested in by banks: Invested and Banco Sabadell. HSBC, first direct and Bud have recently launched a new app, artha by first direct. Bud has been regulated by the FCA to operate its marketplace services and is one of only three companies in the UK to carry dual open banking permissions.
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About Bud: Bud is a financial network combining APIs & data to create a new species of connected experiences.
Baran Korkmaz
Founder, CEO of ARWAY
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About ARWAY: ARWAY is a spatial mapping platform critical to building the Metaverse.
Dana Lattouf
CEO of Tickitto
Dana Lattouf currently works as the CEO and founder of Tickitto. She previously worked at Accenture as a technology consulting analyst.
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About Tickitto: Tickitto is a travel technology company that develops a ticket assistant platform to help people book tickets.
Jacques Declas
CEO of 42Crunch
Jacques Declas, founder and CEO of 42 Crunch, is an entrepreneur with more than 20 years in the Enterprise Software industry and a record of scaling international sales team. He has an extensive knowledge of the API Security market having served in senior VP roles in Forum Systems, Vordel (acquired by Axway) and Intel. During his career Jacques has built worldwide partnership with Software vendors such as Computer Associates, Oracle and Microsoft and leading consulting firms such as Accenture, Atos and CSC. Jacques holds a bachelor of Financial Management and European Business Law.
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About 42Crunch: 42Crunch is an API Security platform, addressing the development, testing, and deployment security requirements of API infrastructure.
Leo Anthias
Co-Founder and CEO of Datapane
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About Datapane: Datapane is a Python framework for developing data science documents for companies, clients, or communities.
Martin Buhr
CEO and Founder of Tyk
I’m the CEO and Founder of Tyk Technologies, A popular open source API Management platform that powers some of the worlds largest brands including USA Today, AXA Insurance and United Health Group. I’m a digital hippie, maker, gopher and a passionate advocate of open source.
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About Tyk: Tyk is an open source API gateway and management platform that provides on-premises, cloud/multi-cloud, and enterprise.
Nithin Thomas
CEO of Ceerus
I have over 10 years track record in developing and commercializing cutting edge cyber security technologies from early stage research. I am currently the CEO of SQR Systems, a company that I founded in 2010 to bring to market the technology I developed during my PhD. In this role, I have set up multiple R&D and commercial programmes and partnerships with the UK Ministry of Defence, the US Department of Defence and other intelligence and government agencies in the UK. In my role at SQR, I have also been working closely with global defence primes, telcos, mobile device manufacturers and some of the leading financial and professional services organisations and critical infrastructure protection. In my spare time, I like getting involved with the London startup ecosystem through various meet-ups, hackathons and I am a startup mentor at Shell LiveWire and IncuBus London.
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About Ceerus: Security to communicate freely
Paul McGuire
Co-Founder & CEO of tru.ID
Paul McGuire is the Co-founder & CEO at tru.ID. Serial Entrepreneur – previously founded two leading international transaction platform businesses. Now at JustInvesting, building the online transaction platform for the next-generation of Angel investing – moving venture investing online, to the benefit of Investors, Entrepreneurs and the whole economy. Prior to JustInvesting Paul co-founded Paymo, later acquired by BOKU, and led the company to become one of the leading mobile payments platforms, available in over 50 countries. Prior to Paymo, Paul co-founded mBlox, the world’s leading mobile transaction network, where he led the company’s sales and marketing organizations, guided the company’s expansion into the European market, and led M&A efforts to acquire six companies. Before founding several start-ups in the telecommunications sector, Paul began his career in management consulting at Booz Allen Hamilton.
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About tru.ID: tru.ID is reinventing mobile authentication for today’s world through a modern developer platform.
Adam Bird
CEO and Co-Founder of Cronofy
Founder, CEO of Cronofy.
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About Cronofy: Scheduling APIs and UI elements with real-time calendar sync. Embed scheduling into your SaaS application.
George Robbins
CEO of Repay Solutions
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About Repay Solutions: Over The Top payment platform connecting businesses to the latest real-time payments innovations without changing bank.
Mark Hay
Founder, CEO, and CTO of Melrose Labs
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About Melrose Labs: Communication services inception, development and operation. Enabling and optimising communications. #CPaaS #SaaS #UCaaS #APIs
Anique Hassan
Chief Executive Officer of Imperium Media
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About Imperium Media: Helping companies to maximize their potential on new and existing technologies.
David Everett
CEO and Principal Consultant of Microexpert
David Everett is a leading authority on the security design of electronic payment systems. With a cryptographic background and extensive knowledge of the tamper resistant properties of smart cards and HSMs (Hardware Security Modules) David is able to assist clients with a deeper understanding of electronic payment systems and digital currencies. His expertise also includes novel approaches to securing data in the cloud and IOT. David is the CEO of Microexpert which provides consultancy services in electronic payment and transaction systems. The company has been advising clients on digital security for over 30 years. David is the co-founder of Tibado, a central ledger electronic cash system and prior to that was commissioned by the Royal Canadian Mint to analyse the future of electronic payments which culminated in the design of MintChip, an electronic cash system for both the physical and virtual worlds. Previously he was engaged by NatWest bank to design a fiat based digital currency system using public key cryptography that became known as Mondex. This also led to the invention of Multos, a secure multi-application Smartcard OS with a PKI based control module. David also represented the UK banks on the original research work designed to improve card verification methods. This eventually led to the chip and pin system adopted internationally today. As a consultant to eftPOS UK David undertook the security design of a national debit card system which resulted in the first significant commercial use of public key cryptography. Previously he was contracted by CHAPS, the UKs Clearing House Automated Payment Scheme as co-designer of the security scheme. As a cryptography consultant, David is particularly able to help his clients with the business and technical architecture of modern electronic payment systems, authentication, IOT security and digital currencies. Apart from his numerous lectures David also undertakes training sessions on various aspects of electronic payments and transactions.
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About Microexpert: Microexpert are an independent data security consultancy and are leading experts in the application of cryptography.
