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 Infrastructure 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.
Aviad Eyal
Co-Founder & Managing Partner of Entrée Capital
Aviad Eyal is the co-founder and Managing Partner at Entree Capital.
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About Empathy, Entrée Capital, SeatGeek, Stash Financial: Entrée Capital is a venture capital firm that funds multi-stage startups and companies all over the world.
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Joanna Hubbard
Co-Founder and CEO of Electron
Jo-Jo Hubbard is the co-founder and COO of Electron, one of the original energy tech firms to harness blockchain technology for transactive grid systems. She is a thought leader on the topic of digital energy and a frequent keynote speaker at energy and technology events. Her previous experience includes renewable energy investment banking, cleantech VC, and strategy consulting at McKinsey & Co. Jo-Jo sits on advisory boards for several UK utilities on digital transformation and community trading models and writes for international publications on these topics.
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About Electron: Electron is accelerating the energy industry’s transition to Net Zero by making granular, market-based interactions possible.
Paul Ellis
Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Electron
Paul Ellis is co-founder and CEO at Electron, a new platform focusing on reinventing the retail energy market in the UK using the Ethereum blockchain. Prior to Electron, Paul spent 13 years in Investment Banking. He founded a development business and fin tech incubator. He then created and ran an electronic trading platform for credit derivatives for a number of years.
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About Electron: Electron is accelerating the energy industry’s transition to Net Zero by making granular, market-based interactions possible.
Joe Root
Co-Founder & CEO of Permutive
Joe is co-founder and CEO of Permutive, the only publisher-first Data Management Platform (DMP) that allows publishers to see 100% of their audience and target them in real-time. Y Combinator and EQT backed, Permutive counts Conde Nast, Immediate Media, Hubert Burda, IDG, Dennis and ESI Media among its growing list of clients. Following a BEng Computing at Imperial College and MSc Computer Sciences at Oxford, Joe chose to drop out of a PhD in Mathematical Genomics at Cambridge to start Permutive.
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About Permutive: Permutive is an audience platform for advertisers and publishers to plan, build, and activate cohorts while keeping everyone’s data safe.
William Saad
Co-Founder & COO of IHS Towers
Willam is responsible for shaping IHS’s long-term technology vision and driving innovation across the company.William has 18 years’ experience in the telecommunications industry. He has played a key part in the development and roll-out of Nigeria’s telecom sector, including building the first turnkey sites that marked the beginning of the country’s GSM revolution. Before establishing IHS, William was the Operations Director at CELIA Motophone Nigeria Limited. His responsibilities included designing, implementing and operating Motophone GSM, PNL and V-SAT networks in Nigeria. His achievements at CELIA include successfully implementing in 24 months the planned network expansion for one million subscribers. Before joining CELIA, William served as project manager at Lintel SAL where he designed and implemented GSM projects and was a Site Survey and Implementation Engineer at Libancell. William has a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer and Communication Engineering from the American University of Beirut.
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About IHS Towers: IHS is a mobile telecommunications infrastructure provider.
Greg Mesch
Founder & CEO of CityFibre
With over 25 years of telecom, internet and technology-based experience behind him and five companies successfully built from start-up phase, Greg is an expert when it comes to business plan development, management team building and the capital formation of high growth, fibre optic based telecom companies. Greg had extensive involvement in the founding of Esat Telecom, assisting them in raising all their early stage capital, their core product positioning and network implementation. Esat was later sold to BT for over €1 billion. He went on to make the founding investment in Versatel Telecom NV. Versatel operated in Holland, Belgium and Germany building one of the largest fibre based infrastructures in those markets. He was instrumental in the development of its business plan, recruiting the core management teams and raising over €1.5 billion in capital. Versatel was sold for over €2 billion to Tele2.
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About CityFibre: CityFibre Infrastructure Holdings plc is the UK’s largest independent provider of fibre infrastructure in secondary cities
Paul Taylor
Founder and CEO of Thought Machine
Paul is a serial entrepreneur specialising in speech, language and artificial intelligence. In 2006, he co-founded Phonetic Arts, which developed speech software for the games industry. Phonetic Arts was acquired by Google in 2010, and Paul worked at Google as head of the text-to-speech group and as a research scientist until leaving in 2013. 2004-2006 Paul was a visiting lecturer at Cambridge University, working and teaching in the Engineering department. During this time, he wrote Text-to-Speech synthesis, widely regarded as the definitive book in the field. In 2000, Paul co-founded Rhetorical Systems which was the world leader in text-to-speech. Rhetorical was acquired by Nuance in 2004. From 1989-2000, Paul was at Edinburgh University, where he gained his PhD, worked as a post-doc, tenured lecturer and eventually director of the Centre for Speech Technology Research. He is author of more than 80 academic papers.
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About Thought Machine: Thought Machine is a Fintech company that builds cloud-native technology to revolutionize core banking.
Ditlev Bredahl
Co-Founder & CEO of OnApp
Ditlev has over a decade’s experience in the web hosting industry and has led the development of many acclaimed web hosting brands. As CEO of OnApp, Ditlev’s commercial and technical leadership saw the company expand from its July 2010 launch to 500+ clients and 80+ people in just 12 months. Ditlev moved into the rapidly-growing Internet sector in the mid-1990s, after a number of roles working for the European Parliament. He quickly developed a reputation as an entrepreneur and a specialist in start-up and turnaround scenarios. He has led UK2Group’s hosting companies as MD and CEO since February 2006, and played a key role in the group’s transformation. Ditlev is a Danish national and an incurable technophile. He lives in the UK but travels frequently to see clients and speak at events across the globe.
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About Kickass Capital, OnApp, PlatoScience: OnApp is a company that develops cloud management, CDN and storage software for service providers and enterprises.
Igor Chugunov
CEO & Founder of Credits
12 years in business, including IT fintech projects, bank and credit e-services, affiliate marketing company for banks and PDL companies. Four years of experience in the blockchain business. Working with CREDITS platform since 2016.
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About Credits, Credits: Credits App makes your money, crypto and investing experience easier
Pankaj Kulshrestha
Co Founder & Director of Eastcastle Infrastructure
Pankaj Kulshrestha joined Eastcastle Infrastructure as Co Founder & Director in 2020.
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About Eastcastle Infrastructure: Eastcastle Infrastructure is a company specializing in Africa’s telecoms tower sector.
Peter Lewis
Co-Founder & Director of Eastcastle Infrastructure
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About Eastcastle Infrastructure: Eastcastle Infrastructure is a company specializing in Africa’s telecoms tower sector.
Tariq Rauf
Founder & CEO of Qatalog
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About Qatalog: The work hub for modern teams and knowledge workers.
Andrius Kazlauskas
Founder & CFO of Heficed
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About Heficed, IPXO: Heficed provides full-range services for IP lease, monetization, and management services.
Simon Alberga
Founder & Board of Directors of Young Associates
Simon Alberga is a director of Young Associates, an independent private equity specialist in technology services. Simon graduated from Harvard University in 1989 with a BA degree in economics before working in corporate finance at Baring Brothers in New York. Subsequently, Simon was a banker at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development before co-founding Young Associates in 1996 with Lord Young of Graffham and Yoav Kurtzbard. Companies successfully backed by Young Associates include Wi-Fi operator Spectrum Interactive, telecom service provider Eurotel, telecom service provider Neos Networks, digital imaging software provider Pixology and LEP technology developer Cambridge Display Technology.
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About Young Associates: Young & Associates, Inc. has been in business installing Sewer, Storm Drain, and Water Systems with great success and integrity.
Jens Munch
Co-Founder & CEO of Pace Revenue
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About Pace Revenue: Pace is revolutionising revenue management with a suite of tools to deliver science, real-time and automation.
Antonios Chalkiopoulos
Founder & CEO of Lenses.io
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About Lenses.io: DataOps – A real-time applications and data operation portal
Peter Sweetbaum
CEO & Founder of Content+Cloud
Peter Sweetbaum is the CEO & Founder of Content+Cloud & he attended London Business School in 1995.
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About Content+Cloud: Content+Cloud provides secure technology solutions, services, and support with a focus on Microsoft 365, Azure, and Dynamics 365.
Alex Metaxas
Co-Founder and CTO of Cloud Maker
Alex Metaxas is Co-Founder and CTO at Cloud Maker
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About Cloud Maker: Cloud Maker is a Visual DevOps platform that enables organisations to easily design and build scalable cloud solutions.
Nick Smith
Co-Founder & CEO of Cloud Maker
Co-Founder and CEO of Cloud Maker. Striving to make technology work for the many, not just the few.
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About Cloud Maker: Cloud Maker is a Visual DevOps platform that enables organisations to easily design and build scalable cloud solutions.
Darshana Gothi Chauhan
Founder of Coplug
Darshana Gothi Chauhan is the Founder of Coplug.
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About Coplug: Coplug developed a spatial analytics digital platform that supports services and infrastructure planning across cities.
Patrick Bergel
Co Founder of Chirp
Making things sing. Research Associate at UCL, Founder + Partner @animalsystems, Lord Creator @chirp_io. Looking forward to meeting you.
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About animal systems: Chirp uses existing speakers and microphones to enable frictionless M2M communication to seamlessly and securely transfer data via sound.
Daniel Berg
CEO & Co-Founder of NextUp
Daniel Berg joined NextUp Comedy as CEO & Co-Founder in 2016.
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About ComComedy, NextUp: The home of stand-up, showcasing all the wonders of live comedy worldwide.
Stuart Snaith
Co-Founder of NextUp
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About NextUp, NextUp: The home of stand-up, showcasing all the wonders of live comedy worldwide.
Sarah Henley
Co-Founder of NextUp
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About NextUp: The home of stand-up, showcasing all the wonders of live comedy worldwide.
Kenny Cavey
Co-Founder of NextUp
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About NextUp: The home of stand-up, showcasing all the wonders of live comedy worldwide.
David von Dadelszen
Co-Founder of Purposeful
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About Purposeful: Purposeful is a structured communication platform that focuses on streamlining essential communications and decisions makings.
Robert Neave
Co-Founder, CTO & Vice President of Product Management of Nlyte Software
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About Nlyte Software: Nlyte automates the management of DCIM so organizations can become more agile, reduce costs and operate more efficiently.
Abishek Raju
Founder and Technology Evangelist of Yobitel Communications
A highly motivated, self-driven, empowered Entrepreneur from strong IT Infrastructure background, Founder and successfully managing Yobitel Communications (Multi Cloud Business Intelligence Service Provider) Multi Cloud Technology & Business Advisor – Engineering the Open Cloud Architecture through SaaS Policy based Intelligence. Blockchain Evangelist & Technology Advisor – Redefining the evolution of Distributed Ledger Technology – DApps Applications through AI. My vision “Create a connected world and simplify IT in human life”.
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About Grabnpay eCommerce Private Limited, Yobitel Communications: Yobitel a Managed SaaS Cloud Service Provider offers Network & IT Infrastructure, Multi Cloud Hosting & Consulting, Container Orchestration
Bill Rylance
Founder & Chairman of WATATAWA
Bill has lived in Asia for 30 years during which he has and worked on some of the region’s most historic events and issues advising several Asian heads of state, government officials, CEOs and other senior executives. He managed the global communications programme for the 1988 Seoul Olympics and was integral to Korea’s bid and co-hosting of the 2002 FIFA World Cup. He founded Korea’s largest independent strategic communications firm in 1989 and a decade later moved to Hong Kong to become Asia Pacific CEO and Worldwide Vice Chairman of a global PR firm, leading the regional network through a decade of profitable growth including a significant acquisition and entry into India. His experience includes working on major public affairs and international relations issues—among them the sovereign communications programme for South Korea as it sought to recover from the Asian financial crisis. He is a Member of the Hong Kong and Singapore Institutes of Directors and has served on several boards including the Marine Stewardship Council and the China High Growth Fund. Bill is a graduate of the University of London with an MSc in Management from the London Business School. He is based in London.
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About WATATAWA: WATATAWA is an Asia-based communications consulting firm.
James Mitchell
Co-Founder & CEO of Strategic Blue
James Mitchell is the CEO of Strategic Blue, a financial cloud brokerage firm offering for cloud computing, financial and analytical services more commonly seen in the commoditized utilities markets. For the past six years, Dr. Mitchell has been pioneering various financial cloud brokerage concepts that are now gaining widespread acceptance and adoption based on his background as an originator of structured physical commodity transactions at Morgan Stanley. Featured in books and reports as the leading authority on how the IT market will change because of the move to a utility (or “cloud”) delivery model, he is a frequent speaker at events and has made successful predictions about how the cloud market will develop over the next five years. Dr. Mitchell correctly predicted the price coupling currently observed in the cloud IaaS market. His expertise in the pricing of pseudo-commodities is highly relevant for any organization looking to buy, sell, resell, or trade cloud services at scale. He has a doctorate in DNA Nanostructures from Oxford University and a first-class master’s degree in experimental and theoretical physics from Cambridge University.
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About Strategic Blue: A tech-enabled Financial Services company optimising procurement of cloud services like AWS using commodity trading techniques.
Abdullah Hiyatt
Founder and CEO of THETA Trading Systems
20 years of experience in capital markets working with sell and buy-side firms on e-strategy, design and building e-trading solutions. In 2013, Abdullah’s focus shifted to the buy-side and more recently worked with Deutsche Wealth Management leading the design and delivery of SPARTA, its new global multi-asset trading platform.
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About Deutsche Bank, THETA Trading Systems: Capital Markets London based FinTech
Rose Ross
Chief Storytelling Officer and Founder of Omarketing
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About Omarketing, South West London Tech Cluster, Tech Britannia, Tech Britannia, Tech London Advocates, Tech Trailblazers: Omarketing is a marketing and firm that provides consulting, PR services to B2B industries.
Lord Victor Adebowale
Co-Founder of Visionable
Lord Adebowale has had a career long interest in innovation across housing, health and public services. He is the CEO of a major health and social care provider. He has a track record of working with both senior members of governments as well as working with communities to transform their experience of public services. Victor is a visiting professor and Chancellor at Lincoln University and is the Chair of Collaborate, a new organisation established to provide new insights into how public, private and non-profit organisations can work together in the interests of public service users.
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About IOCOM, Visionable: Visionable combines next-generation video conferencing with unparalleled clinical imaging capabilities.
João Marques Lima
Founder & Editor-in-Chief of Data Economy
Fluent in English, Portuguese and Spanish, João’s a hot-shot technology reporter currently serving as founding editor of Data Economy, part of BroadMedia, a Euromoney Institutional Investor PLC company. In 2019, he won the PPA 30 Under 30 award which shines a light on the outstanding efforts and achievements of the rising stars in consumer magazines and business media. At Data Economy, he manages the title across online, print, broadcast and events. João’s work has taken him around the world, reporting from locations in North America, APAC, Africa and all over Europe. With a deep interest in news, current affairs and history, prior to founding Data Economy, João experienced the reporting industry at Computer Business Review, the Daily Mail – where he delved into the investigation of five London-based Portuguese ISIS jihadists-, Channel 4 News, Channel 4, The Guardian, Antena Lusa, Future Behind and the Holloway Express. Specialised in the fields of IT infrastructure, data centres, IoT, AI, cloud and data, he has interviewed some of the world’s technology leaders and has delivered on several exclusives. At Data Economy, João manages the publication and is responsible for the majority of the editorial content. He has ranked 28 in the ‘Top 100 IoT Influencers of 2016’, ranked 28 in the ‘Top 100 M2M Influencers of 2016’, ranked 11 in the ‘Top Connected Car Influencers’, and features in the list of ‘IoT thought leaders to watch in the next four years [2016 onwards]’. At the age of just 12, he also founded his school’s newspaper and in 2012 he founded his own platform Corporation News Times International (CNT International), with an edition in English – CNTimes – and one in Portuguese – CNT Diário-, which soon attracted a vast readership worldwide. Between 2014 and 2015, João was the Head of Social Media for a UK parliamentary candidate of the general election’s winning party. João graduated from London Metropolitan University in 2014 with a BA in Journalism.
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About Data Economy: Data Economy brings what data centres have to offer closer to the enterprise and business world of cloud, data and the IoT.
João Marques Lima
Founder & Editor-in-Chief of Data Economy
Fluent in English, Portuguese and Spanish, João’s a hot-shot technology reporter currently serving as founding editor of Data Economy, part of BroadMedia, a Euromoney Institutional Investor PLC company. In 2019, he won the PPA 30 Under 30 award which shines a light on the outstanding efforts and achievements of the rising stars in consumer magazines and business media. At Data Economy, he manages the title across online, print, broadcast and events. João’s work has taken him around the world, reporting from locations in North America, APAC, Africa and all over Europe. With a deep interest in news, current affairs and history, prior to founding Data Economy, João experienced the reporting industry at Computer Business Review, the Daily Mail – where he delved into the investigation of five London-based Portuguese ISIS jihadists-, Channel 4 News, Channel 4, The Guardian, Antena Lusa, Future Behind and the Holloway Express. Specialised in the fields of IT infrastructure, data centres, IoT, AI, cloud and data, he has interviewed some of the world’s technology leaders and has delivered on several exclusives. At Data Economy, João manages the publication and is responsible for the majority of the editorial content. He has ranked 28 in the ‘Top 100 IoT Influencers of 2016’, ranked 28 in the ‘Top 100 M2M Influencers of 2016’, ranked 11 in the ‘Top Connected Car Influencers’, and features in the list of ‘IoT thought leaders to watch in the next four years [2016 onwards]’. At the age of just 12, he also founded his school’s newspaper and in 2012 he founded his own platform Corporation News Times International (CNT International), with an edition in English – CNTimes – and one in Portuguese – CNT Diário-, which soon attracted a vast readership worldwide. Between 2014 and 2015, João was the Head of Social Media for a UK parliamentary candidate of the general election’s winning party. João graduated from London Metropolitan University in 2014 with a BA in Journalism.
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About Data Economy: Data Economy brings what data centres have to offer closer to the enterprise and business world of cloud, data and the IoT.
Oner Avara
CEO & Founder of My Next Match
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About My Next Match: The ultimate tool for the sports federations to govern, including Medical Passports for the athletes, an MMS and online progression/grading
Francesco Cavallone
Founder and Director of In Other Words
Founder and Director of In Other Words.
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About In Other Words: In Other Words is the translation agency guaranteeing high quality and accurate translation services in more than 150 combinations.
Andrew Tarver
Founder / CEO of BOLD ROCKET
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About BOLD ROCKET: A new ‘people technology’ company on a mission to make people’s lives a little more wonderful in any way we can.
