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 Bristol based Founder operating in the Information Technology 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.
Jonathan Scudder
Founder of ForgeRock
Jonathan held key roles in a variety of large identity projects before co-founding ForgeRock in Norway, running finance and operations and then relocating to build the ForgeRock engineering lab in Bristol. He believes that awesome humans are the basis of great companies, and has spent the ForgeRock years proving this. He has sat on several voluntary, political and private boards and founded a handful of small companies in the past, but thinks ForgeRock is the best thing since sliced bread. Jonathan is a qualified youth and community worker, and has a degree in Informatics from the University of Oslo, Norway.
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About ForgeRock: ForgeRock is a multinational software company that develops commercial open source identity and access management products.
Dave Ettle
Co-Founder & CTO of Zynstra
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About Zynstra: Zynstra is transforming edge computing at the retail edge.
Christos Ellinas
Co-Founder and CTO of Nodes & Links
Dr. Christos Ellinas holds a doctorate in Complex Systems from Bristol University (UK), where he was a faculty member, and was a Visiting Professor at Stevens Institute (USA). His research is award winning, has been published in leading scientific journals and industry guides, has attracted EU and industry funding and has been piloted across several large-scale projects.
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About Nodes & Links: Nodes & Links empowers organizations across all domains to tame project complexity.
James Craven
Founder of Hybrid
James Craven is the Managing Director and founder of Hybrid, a place where traditional and contemporary communications merge and outcomes are measured. Powered by a young collective of journalists, strategists and business minds, Hybrid moves with unparalleled pace across five independent brands in high-growth markets. In June 2017, traffic to Hybrid’s combined portfolio exceeded 8.5m unique visitors. Hybrid operates out of Bristol (UK), Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), Sydney (Australia) and from Q1 2018, will open a further office in Boston (USA).
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About Hybrid: Hybrid is a media company that creates content for brands across digital platforms.
Samantha Payne
Co Founder & COO of Open Bionics
Samantha Payne is the co founder of Open Bionics; a robotics company developing assistive devices that enhance the human body. The company has won multiple awards for Engineering and Innovation including two British Engineering Excellence Awards and the James Dyson award for innovative design. Open Bionics works with companies like Disney to children with limb differences into bionic superheroes. They were the first company to bring affordable multi-grip bionic hands to the National Health Service in the UK.
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About Open Bionics: Open Bionics is a robotics company creating affordable 3D-printed bionic hands for amputees, researchers and makers.
Chris Erven
CEO and Co-Founder of KETS Quantum Security
Chris Erven(CEO & Founder) has been thinking about the commercial application of quantum encryption for over 12 years since he started building these systems experimentally. He has commercial start-up experience with QuSpin Inc., in Canada and is currently Deputy Director of the Quantum Technology Enterprise Centre at the University of Bristol.
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About KETS Quantum Security: KETS Quantum Security is developing a range of future-proof, cost-effective technologies for quantum-secured communications.
Philip Sibson
CTO and Co-Founder of KETS Quantum Security
Philip is arguably the world leader in integrated photonic systems for quantum communications. He is the lead developer behind the world’s first chip-to-chip QKD demonstration and the main inventor on both of KETS’ patents. He is a QTEC alumni fellow and a key contributor to the UK’s Quantum Communications Hub.
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About KETS Quantum Security: KETS Quantum Security is developing a range of future-proof, cost-effective technologies for quantum-secured communications.
Jake Kennard
Technical Sales Director and Co-Founder of KETS Quantum Security
Jake has 10 years of applied integrated quantum optics and industrial research experience. He is passionate about taking KETS’ technology to market and has quickly developed a multi-award winning pitch. A former post-doctoral researcher at the University of Bristol’s Quantum Engineering Technology Labs, he is an expert in integrated quantum photonics and communications and a key contributor to the UK’s Quantum Communications Hub.
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About KETS Quantum Security: KETS Quantum Security is developing a range of future-proof, cost-effective technologies for quantum-secured communications.
Martin Jonik
Co-Founder and CEO of Techmodal
Martin Jonik is a co-founder and CEO at Techmodal.
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About Techmodal: Techmodal is a consultancy and technology company that offers data-driven decision support for the defense, commercial, and public sectors.
David Evans
Co-Founder of Techmodal
David Evans is a co-founder at Techmodal.
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About Techmodal: Techmodal is a consultancy and technology company that offers data-driven decision support for the defense, commercial, and public sectors.
Chenghuan Zhong
CTO & Founder of Inductosense
Bamboo is leading the technical development of the embedded sensor technology which he developed over the course of his PhD and post-doctoral research.
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About Inductosense: Inductosense is developing wireless, battery-free, sensors that can be permanently fixed.
Vassilis Seferidis
Co-Founder & CEO of Zeetta Networks
Vassilis has more than 25 years of experience in the Telecom and Consumer Electronics (CE) industries mainly in Strategic Business Planning and Development roles. Before co-founding Zeetta Networks, Vassilis was VP of European Business Development for Samsung Electronics responsible for driving revenue growth and strategic development of the company’s Consumer Electronics business in Europe. Prior to Samsung, he held senior management positions with British Telecom, Toshiba Information Systems, Philips Electronics, and British Standards Institute. During 2006-2009 he was the CTO of QIO Systems Inc., a pioneer in wearable electronics based in New York City. Vassilis holds a BSc and MSc from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, a PhD in Electronic Systems Engineering from Essex University and an MBA from Cass Business School, University of London. In 2011 he was included in Euro50, a list of Europe’s 50 most influential people in Broadband &Telecoms industries.
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About Zeetta Networks: Zeetta Networks simplifies the monitoring, management and automation of complex ICT networks
Reza Nejabati
Co Founder, Director of Zeetta Networks
Reza is currently a Senior Lecturer in Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Bristol, UK. Prior to moving into academia he worked in project management and network architecture roles with leading telecom vendors. Reza has over fifteen years of experience in the field of telecommunication and computer science and has been actively involved in SDN and Network Function Virtualisation (NFV) standardisation. He has made important and pioneering contributions to the research fields of Optical Networking, Software Defined Networking, Network & Data Centre Infrastructure Virtualization, Grid Networking and Large Scale Future Internet Experimentation. He has co-/authored over 150 peer reviewed papers and three SDN standardisation documents.
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About University of Bristol, Zeetta Networks: Zeetta Networks simplifies the monitoring, management and automation of complex ICT networks
Ian Cray
CTO and Founder of Clekt
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About Clekt: Clekt gets corporate data to improve performance, generate innovation, and expand the organization.
Rob Hall
Founder & CEO of Wriggle
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About Wriggle: A web and app marketplace helping people discover and transact at handpicked local food & drink establishments.
William Britton
Founder & Chief Executive of AutonoMe
After completing his Video Production Degree and Post Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) specialising in Learning Disabilities he went on to teach ICT, Media and graphics to Adults with Learning Disabilities. William also worked for 5 years as an Assistive Technology specialist and combined his understanding of Learning Disabilities, Video production and technical knowledge to develop a prototype of AutonoMe. After receiving high praise he founded AutonoMe to build a 21st-century solution to the barriers to independence faced by the Learning Disability community.
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About AutonoMe, EasyVideo: AutonoMe is a support provider delivering independent living skills to people with learning disabilities.
Silas Adekunle
Co-Founder and CEO of Reach Industries
Silas Adekunle is the Co-Founder and CEO at Reach Industries.
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About Reach Industries: Reach Industries focuses on developing cutting-edge products for companies.
Chris Beck
CTO and Co-Founder of Reach Industries
Chris Beck is the CTO and Co-Founder at Reach Industries.
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About Reach Industries: Reach Industries focuses on developing cutting-edge products for companies.
Calum Yuill
Founder of POPBOX
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About Picton Street Media, POPBOX: Let’s compete together
Craig Hooper
Co-Founder and CEO of DWCC
Craig Hooper is the founder and CEO of DWCC. He has over 20 years’ experience in global solution selling and has also worked in senior IT buying positions across a number of successful global technology start-ups. His other experience includes stints at Airbus and JP Morgan, where he served as SVP of EU Supply Chain Product Management.
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About : One Partner for Immediate In Country, Dedicated White Label Presence with offices in US, UK, Spain, Germany and Australia
Paul Wickers
Founder of Huggg
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About Huggg: Impactful gifts for your people, sorted in seconds
Andrew Blogg
Founder and COO of Dronecloud
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About Dronecloud: Dronecloud is a platform created to manage a complex drone operation with ease from start to finish.
David Bush
Founder and CMO of Dronecloud
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About Dronecloud, Future Aerial: Dronecloud is a platform created to manage a complex drone operation with ease from start to finish.
Ed Rogers
Founder & Managing Director of Bristol Braille Technology
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About Bristol Braille Technology: Bristol Braille Technology is building Canute, an affordable full-page Braille eBook reader.
Ben Howes
Founder & CEO of Overlock
Ben Howes been designing, creating and shipping IoT solutions in the IoT space for 3 years. Over this time Ben has worked with organisations spanning startups through to some of the largest companies in Europe. As founder and CEO of Overlock, Ben heads up a team of 8 engineers in Bristol who’re building tools to roll all of their experience in to making reliable and scalable IoT solutions a reality.
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About Overlock, Zoetrope: Overlock allows you to discover exceptions and faults in your IoT system.
Ben Howes
Founder & CEO of Overlock
Ben Howes been designing, creating and shipping IoT solutions in the IoT space for 3 years. Over this time Ben has worked with organisations spanning startups through to some of the largest companies in Europe. As founder and CEO of Overlock, Ben heads up a team of 8 engineers in Bristol who’re building tools to roll all of their experience in to making reliable and scalable IoT solutions a reality.
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About Overlock, Zoetrope: Overlock allows you to discover exceptions and faults in your IoT system.
