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 Brand Marketing 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.
Dhruv Ghulati
Co-Founder and CEO of Factmata
Dhruv holds a Distinction in Computer Science and Machine Learning from University College London, and a 1st Class BSc in Economics from the LSE. He was a product manager and co-founder of two London based machine intelligence startups, and is an Entrepreneur First alum and Forbes 30 Under 30 leader in Technology. He wrote his thesis in cost-sensitive classification and distant supervision for statistical claim detection.
Follow Dhruv Ghulati:
About Factmata: Factmata is an artificial intelligence company for automated content understanding..
_______
Philip Beahon
Co-Founder of Castore
Co-founder at Castore.
Follow Philip Beahon:
About Castore: Castore is a premium sportswear brand.
Thomas Beahon
Co-Founder of Castore
Follow Thomas Beahon:
About Castore: Castore is a premium sportswear brand.
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.
Follow Michael Raven:
About Blazon Agency: The Brand Launch Agency
Alex Vratskides
Co-Founder & CEO of Persado
Alex Vratskides is the CEO of Persado, which he co-founded in 2012. Previously, Alex co-founded Upstream in 2001 and served as the company’s CEO between 2004 and 2012. During his tenure, the company grew to become a global leader in mobile marketing, with mobile operator clients in more than 40 countries. Alex was responsible for setting Upstream’s strategic direction and spearheading its international sales expansion and product innovation. Prior to founding Upstream, Alex worked as a management consultant at OC&C/McKenna Group, based out of Boston. He is the first angel investor for Luluvise, where he is also a board member, and serves on the board of advisors of Seyyer. Alex holds a BS in Applied Mathematics from Columbia University and a Masters of Engineering in Operations Research from Cornell University.
Follow Alex Vratskides:
About Persado: Persado Marketing Language Cloud delivers AI-generated language that resonates the most with any audience, segment or individual.
Lloyd Amsdon
Co-Founder of Watchfinder
Lloyd Amsdon is the Founder and Brand Director of Watchfinder.
Follow Lloyd Amsdon:
About Watchfinder: Watchfinder is the world’s leading retailer of pre-owned watches
Askar Bulegenov
Founder & CEO of Grocemania
Follow Askar Bulegenov:
About Grocemania: On-demand grocery delivery platform. Find and shop from any local grocery store and get your order in minutes!
Blaise Bellville
Founder & CEO of Boiler Room
Boiler Room founder Blaise Bellville created a new underground music network quite literally from a utility room. Blaise left school at 18 and founded many businesses before starting the worldwide phenomenon that is Boiler Room, which reaches over 72 million music fans every month worldwide. Beginning as a club promoter and DJ, Blaise’s first business to gain national recognition was All Age Concerts. Founded when he was 25, it kicked off an under-age gig movement across the country, even creating a festival for 10,000 in Victoria Park at the movement’s peak in 2010. In the same era, he created online magazine Read Platform, which was written by and run for teenagers. It was while running his, surrounded by other London music obsessives that Boiler Room was born. Bellville enlisted Thristian Richards, who worked for Soul Jazz and Gilles Peterson and Femi Adeyemi, founder of online radio station NTS and organised a weekly hang out/ session – broadcast from a webcam and Ustream to the world from the utility room in the warehouse it was run out of. The session run by the electronic music scene, for the electronic scene quickly drew big name guests. Jamie XX, SBKRT and Hudson Mohawke all turned up for early session to DJ and hang out. Though Read Platform was drawing 300,000 unique users, Boiler Room soon mushroomed passed it in popularity. Since 2010 it has gone global, with a growing and significant fan base in Latin America, partnership with Japan’s biggest streaming provider, key broadcast hubs in Berlin, New York and Los Angeles and the dedication of the most hard core, committed music fans on the planet.
Follow Blaise Bellville:
About Boiler Room: Boiler Room is an online platform that enables its users to live stream and archive musical shows.
Jude Ower
Founder & CEO of PlayMob
Jude Ower is changing the world through game play. She has spent 10 years working within games, creating educational, training and awareness games across a range of organisations from corporate, government and education. Jude is now concentrating on social and mobile games, and how engaging mass audience of game players can make a world changing difference.
Follow Jude Ower:
About Department for International Trade, PlayMob: Playmob is the gaming engagement platform for brands with purpose.
Mats Stigzelius
Founder of Takumi
Having started his career at McKinsey & Company, Mats Stigzelius has spent the last dozen years working in Strategy Consulting and Private Equity. His experience includes developing brand strategies, implementing business plans and arranging financing for companies across a number of industries in Europe and North America, including Retail, Consumer Goods, Financial Services, Media and Telecoms sectors. Before joining Rainmaking in January 2010, Mats spent five years in Private Equity with a focus on the Retail sector, completing 15 acquisitions, refinancings and exits in that period, in addition to sitting on the board of a number of companies as a Non-Executive Director. Mats holds a 1st Class Masters Degree in Aerospace Engineering from Manchester University and over the years he has lived in Finland, Holland, USA and the UK. Mats currently lives in Buckinghamshire with his wife and two young sons.
Follow Mats Stigzelius:
About Rainmaking, Takumi: Takumi is a platform that gives large brands and advertising agencies access to branded influencer creative at scale.
Gummi Eggertsson
Co-Founder,COO & CFO of Takumi
Follow Gummi Eggertsson:
About Sidekick Health, Takumi: Takumi is a platform that gives large brands and advertising agencies access to branded influencer creative at scale.
David Kershaw
Co-Founder ,CEO & Exec Director of M&C Saatchi
David Kershaw is a founding director of M&C Saatchi. He joined Saatchi & Saatchi in 1982 after obtaining an MBA at London Business School. He became managing director in 1990 and was made chairman and chief executive of the UK agency in 1994.
Follow David Kershaw:
About M&C Saatchi: M&C Saatchi Group is a creative company that connects specialist expertise, fuelled by data and technology.
Karin Cabili
Founder & CEO of Dropit Shopping
Follow Karin Cabili:
About Dropit Shopping: Dropit provides a digital handsfree shopping solution for malls and central shopping districts, delivering bags from store to door.
Jonathon Blok
Co-Founder & CPO of Aura Vision
Follow Jonathon Blok:
About Aura Vision: Aura Vision enables brick-and-mortar retailers to positively influence shopper journeys with cutting-edge computer vision.
Cameron Day
Founder of Together
Follow Cameron Day:
About Together: A full-service agency focused on helping tech companies acquire customers, attract talent and raise capital.
Paul Archer
Founder and Managing Director of Duel
World Record-breaking Adventurer, Best-selling Author and founder of Duel. Aside from his expeditions and writing, he has spent his career building technology, including the Daredevil Project app development studio, and consulting for advertising agencies and tech companies. He founded Duel to democratise and decentralise marketing for brands. Duel is solving the lack of emotional connection and social proof in often clinical looking online stores by rewarding customers for creating visual testimonials and advocating among their friends, rather than wasting millions on advertising to drive sales. Before this Paul conceived and implemented the It’s on the Meter Expedition to drive to London taxi around the World. The expedition broke two Guinness World Records, raised over £20,000 and passed through 50 countries after driving 80,000 miles from London to London in Hannah, a 1992 London Taxi bought of eBay. Paul is also an experienced speaker, moderator and a conference host. Including TEDx, SXSW, Festival of Media, Cannes Lions, Social Media Week, GenerationE, the Content Marketing Institute and Retail.Tech, as well as guest lecturing at the British School of Fashion.
Follow Paul Archer:
About Duel: Brand Advocacy Platform that enables purpose-led brands to drive organic growth & retention through word-of-mouth & advocacy
Cameron Gordon
CTO and Co-Founder of OnePulse
Follow Cameron Gordon:
About OnePulse: OnePulse is a mobile app that connects people and businesses with opinions and reward them through PayPal.
Campbell Paton
Co-Founder of StoreLab
Follow Campbell Paton:
About StoreLab: StoreLab is a mobile tech company that develops mobile applications for brands advertising and marketing.
Jenny Tsai
Founder & CEO of Wearisma
Follow Jenny Tsai:
About Wearisma: Wearisma is a premium influencer marketing solution for brands, agencies & influencers.
Nick Braund
Founder of Words + Pixels
Follow Nick Braund:
About Words + Pixels: Words + Pixels provides consultation services and solutions on effective public relations for businesses.
Joshua Scotton
COO & Co-Founder of Personify XP
Josh is the brains behind Personify XP. With a PhD from the Intelligent Systems group at the University of Warwick, he has worked with some of the world’s largest companies across Retail, Finance, CPG and Travel. Josh has spent the last 10 years living out his passion for personalization, researching customer analytics, marketing and customer engagement modelling.
Follow Joshua Scotton:
About Personify XP: Personify XP uses AI and automation personalization SAAS technology to help retailers understand what their customers are shopping for.
Lindsay Trombley
Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Wovn
Follow Lindsay Trombley:
About Wovn: Wovn provides fashion brands with real-time predictive insights to better predict demand, reduces waste, and increasing sales.
Edward Woodcock
Founder of Storyline Partners
Follow Edward Woodcock:
About Storyline Partners: Storyline Partners uses narrative logic and puts the story in their brand’s success story.
Afzal Amijee
Founder of Vimodi
Founder of Vimodi.
Follow Afzal Amijee:
About Vimodi: Mobile Presentation Discussion & Collaboration App
Matthew de la Hey
CEO & Co-Founder of inploi
Matthew is co-founder & CEO of inploi, a recruitment marketing platform built to connect great employers with the future of the workforce. With employer branding at its heart, inploi empowers companies to speak to candidates as consumers of workplaces, helping them to tell their stories with captivating videos, images, and written content in order to engage active and passive candidates. When actively hiring, inploi’s software is a powerful recruitment tool incorporating job post creation and distribution, applicant tracking, CV-parsing, candidate-job matching, proactive talent search, video profiles, instant messaging, video calling, file sharing, programmatic job advertising and more. For jobseekers, inploi provides a beautiful professional presence making it easy to access career-related information, apply for job opportunities, and connect and communicate with employers, and with each other. Matthew is a Mandela Rhodes Scholar and a two-time Weidenfeld Scholar.
Follow Matthew de la Hey:
About inploi: inploi is the future of talent engagement and job discovery.
Tatty Bullard
Co-Founder & Strategy Director of Ginger + Ginger
Follow Tatty Bullard:
About Ginger + Ginger: Ginger + Ginger provides consulting services to improve brand marketing and advertising.
Patrick Charlton
Co-Founder & CEO of Buzz Radar
Patrick is a social marketing and digital specialist, with a track record of creating a wide range of award-winning campaigns and projects for some of the world’s most exciting brands. He is co-founder of Buzz Radar, an industry leader in capturing and visualising real-time data. Buzz Radar makes live data of all types collaborative, easy to understand and shareable for everyone. He works with some of the world’s largest events, brands and retail spaces, including Twitter, Samsung, Nike, Google, adidas, Intel, Skype, Marks And Spencer, IBM, Red Bull and Adobe, helping them create a culture of listening and marketing in the moment. Over his career, Patrick has been lucky enough to lead major-ground breaking projects on multiple global social engagement campaigns, providing leadership, strategy, production savvy, creative direction and client management in a fast-paced, demanding environment with an online audience in the tens of millions.
Follow Patrick Charlton:
About Buzz Radar: Buzz Radar is an industry leader in making data, insightful, accessible and actionable
Eric Tomaszewski
Founder / Managing Director of Itoma Lux
Eric Tomaszewski is the Founder & Managing Director of Itoma Lux. He founded Itoma Lux in 2017 after 10 years of corporate experience with companies like Ocado, Magna Exteriors and Magna Interiors, Ishida Europe Ltd, and Kimberly-Clark.
Follow Eric Tomaszewski:
About Itoma Lux: We enable PROPERTY DEVELOPMENT with FINANCE and then de-risk it and increase chances of commercial success with MARKETING & SALES solutions.
Chris Mackie
Director and Founder of 205 Media LTD
Chris Mackie is a Director and Founder of 205 Media LTD.
Follow Chris Mackie:
About 205 Media LTD: 205 Media is a creative agency that offers a range of personalized services to its clients.
Andrew Jennings
Founder & CEO of Berry White
Follow Andrew Jennings:
About Berry White: Berrywhite is a brand of natural organic fruit juice drinks.
Edil Ajibaev
Founder, CEO of picVpic
Edil Ajibaev, the founder of several international startups, has made a significant impact in the tech industry with his AI-based clothing search engine. This innovative tool, leading in product search quality, has accumulated the world’s largest fashion product database, boasting 14 million products.
Edil’s company has pioneered a hybrid system of machine learning, visual search, and manual labelling. This system identifies prevalent fashion phrases and semantically integrates them into a Knowledge Graph, offering superior search quality in the fashion domain.
Edil’s entrepreneurial prowess has been recognized globally, with 7 international startup competition wins in cities such as London, San Francisco, New York, Kyiv, Almaty, Singapore, and Brussels.
In addition to his primary ventures, Edil has co-founded and advised several technology companies, helping them launch and achieve commercial success. He is also an active board member of various startups and organizations shaping the tech ecosystem.
Edil has authored several industry-related articles and is a passionate speaker on Entrepreneurship, Artificial Intelligence, and Leadership. In 2023, he received an award for the most significant contribution to the IT sector at the largest CA IT conference, supported by the US government.
Follow Edil Ajibaev:
About picVpic: picVpic offers a search engine that enables its users to compare and rank products from various online stores.
Jenny Woods
Founder and Social Media Strategist & Analyst of Jwoo Social
Follow Jenny Woods:
About Jwoo Social: Jwoo Social is a social media agency that focuses on the entertainment and events space.
Chris Sahota
CEO and Founder of Ciesco
Follow Chris Sahota:
About Ciesco: Corporate finance advisors to technology-enabled media and marketing businesses
Rishi Kapoor
Founder and CEO of Webosaurus
Rishi Kapoor is the founder and CEO of Webosaurus. He is the previous Head of Performance Marketing for Monster UK/IE. He has over 15 years of experience in performance based online advertising and recently has taken up a new role where he is focussed on aligning the recruitment sector to the mainstream consumer advertising sector by making recruiting ROI more transparent & accessible. He has also been actively involved with the Internet Advertising Bureau(IAB) helping formulate the best practices for the online lead generation & performance marketing sector. His B2C specialisation is helping him transform talent acquisition strategy for leading gig economy and forward thinking brands. Close
Follow Rishi Kapoor:
About Monster, Webosaurus: Webosaurus is a full service performance marketing agency that transform lead acquisition.
Dave Ward
Founder & Creative Director of CreateFuture
Follow Dave Ward:
About CreateFuture: CreateFuture is a design and innovation firm that puts creativity to good use.
Simon Baskind
Founder & CEO of The Branding Team
Simon Baskind is the Founder and CEO of The Branding Team.
Follow Simon Baskind:
About The Branding Team: The Branding Team is a retail company that supplies printed promotional merchandise and branded products.
Anne Oesemann
CEO & Founder of Stellar Media – Global Media Experts
Anne has sound knowledge in all levels of advertising and marketing. She is passionate about marketing strategies, social media and the international media landscape and has a strong grasp of new technologies and market trends and is able to formulate strategies using these skills. Previously, she has worked for the leading media owners The Telegraph Media Group (TMG) and Gruner & Jahr International Media Sales, where she worked on cross media campaigns for brands like Prada, Versace, Michael Kors, Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan, Carmignac and different tourism boards amongst others. Earlier in her career, Anne worked in the Marketing and PR departments of Marc O’Polo, Philipp Plein and several Fashion Startups.
Follow Anne Oesemann:
About Stellar Media – Global Media Experts: International Media Consultancy Firm
Olivia Cantillon
Co-Founder & Creative Director of Own The Look
Follow Olivia Cantillon:
About Own The Look: It is an online global womenswear store focusing on outfit dressing for the everyday woman.
Jan Simmonds
Founder/ Owner of famebook
Follow Jan Simmonds:
About famebook: famebook is a media startup that provides a platform for amalgamate celebrity, fame, and brand content.
Ben Whitehead
Founder of Spare Snacks
Follow Ben Whitehead:
About Spare Snacks: Spare Snacks is a snack brand that creates snacks that are good for people, producers, and the planet.
Andrej Bachtin
Founder of LooSo
Follow Andrej Bachtin:
About LooSo: LooSo is a loony social media agency.
Sally Durcan
Founder of Talk to Mums
Follow Sally Durcan:
About Hotcow, Talk to Mums: Talk to Mums is a community of mums that trial, share and talk about brands and products.
