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 Social Network 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.
Michelle Kennedy
Co-Founder & CEO of Peanut
Michelle joined Badoo originally as lead counsel over 4 years ago. Prior to joining Badoo she was a successful corporate lawyer at leading international law firm, Mishcon de Reya, before being poached by the firm’s successful biotech client, Quotient Bioscience to head up their legal team. During her time at Badoo, she built the legal, compliance, HR and talent teams before moving into a more operationally focused role, including a position on the board. Today, Michelle is responsible for most key areas of the business, and works closely with founder and CEO Andrey Andreev, on the existing product, and exciting ‘special projects’ coming soon….
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About Peanut: Peanut is an online platform that provides a safe space for women to connect across fertility and motherhood.
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Muayyad Shehadeh
Co-Founder and CEO of Uhive
Over 25 years of experience, CEO of Genie9, BigMIND and UHIVE A long and broad experience in machine learning algorithms and A.I. systems.Created BigMIND cloud which was the first cloud solution to utilise cold and hot storage, and integrate A.I, Muayyad has a degree in Architecture. He is well known as a Windows C++/WIN API Guru with deep conceptual thinking; which is an ability he developed and enhanced through his Architecture degree Spent last 5 years working on UHive Social Network Idea
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About Uhive, Zoolz: Uhive is a social network that lets users socialize, interact, and find people across the world while earning its own digital currency.
Harry ‘Tomi Davies
Co-Founder and President of African Business Angel Network
Harry Tomi Davies (TD) is a versatile technology business leader, keynote speaker and advisor with over two decades of outstanding experience building large-scale, national and regionwide IT infrastructure projects across Africa. He has held a variety of executive and non-executive leadership roles with influential global brands like Ernst & Young, Marks & Spencer, Elf, Sapient and the One Laptop Per Child project. Over the last decade TD has looked after a growing portfolio of Africabased tech-enabled early stage businesses and is the Founder of the Lagos Angel Network (LAN). He is also President of the African Business Angel Network (ABAN). He is a seasoned technology strategist and project development expert with significant market intelligence, research and project management skills. Author and regular keynote speaker with a substantial network of connections globally including on most major social media platforms. He is an inspiring thought leader TD is a volunteer to a number of non-profit organizations and Guest lecturer at the Pan Atlantic University’s Enterprise Development Centre. His rich and varied experience has been leveraged by organisations for advisory services, speaking engagements and nonexecutive board roles at companies like MBO Capital Limited (Private Equity), TextNigeria Limited (Telecoms) and Sproxil Nigeria (Anti-Counterfeit Technologies)
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About African Business Angel Network: ABAN is a non-profit association that seeks to promote a culture of Angel investing across Africa.
Till Behnke
Founder and Managing Partner of nebenan.de
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About nebenan.de: nebenan.de is a social network for neighbors.
Max Cheremkhin
Co-Founder of Chappy
In 2006 Max co-founded dating app Badoo. It is now the world’s biggest dating app with 370m users, globally. Max is considered a pioneer in the digital dating sphere having been the first to launch freemium models, instant messaging and profile swiping functionality. Max is well versed in the mobile app dating space and is now applying his genius to the gay dating world. Max is largely responsible for Chappy’s design and product strategy.
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About Chappy: Chappy is an online dating app dedicated for gay men.
Ashley Friedlein
CEO & Founder of Guild
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About Ably Realtime, Cambridge Judge Business School, Centaur Media Plc, Econsultancy, Founders4Schools, Guild: Guild is the platform for professional communities and networking.
Eshita Kabra
Founder of By Rotation
Founder By Rotation – UK’s fashion rental app • Worked at various large buy and sell side firms as an investment analyst • Singaporean Indian living in London
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About By Rotation: The World’s First Social Fashion Rental App.
Kevin Brown
CEO & Founder of FanCircles
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About Brandaisy, FanCircles: Reach followers and fans through your own fan club platform built for music artists, YouTubers, television shows and celebrities
Kwame Ferreira
Founder & CEO of Impossible
Kwame is founder and CEO of impossible.com which helps develop businesses through a planet centric design approach, aligning business goals with planetary needs. Kwame has, among many other things, created record labels (enchufada.com), emotional wearables (bond-touch.com), bot engines (nikabot.com) and kind insurance companies (kinsu.co.uk).
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About Impossible: A new social network of giving and receiving. impossible. Do good. Feel good.
Lily Cole
Founder of Impossible
Lily Cole is an actress, social entrepreneur and Founder of Impossible.com, a social network that encourages users to exchange skills and services for free in the hope of encouraging a peer-to-peer gift economy.
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About Impossible: A new social network of giving and receiving. impossible. Do good. Feel good.
Emanuele Musumeci
Co-Founder & Chief Operating Officer of Anakando Media Group
Mr. Musumeci, co-founded Advirally in 2012, with Alki David. He is an acknowledged authority on all aspects related to the development of Social Media marketing strategies and has more than 12 years of specialist international experience in this field. Emanuele has devised and delivered a number of award winning digital advertising and social media awareness campaigns for leading global brands including; Vodafone, Lipton, Microsoft, Toshiba, Samsung and Tempo. Prior to co-founding Advirally, he was the Senior Vice President of Marketing at London based Anakando subsidiary, FilmOn TV UK, the global IPTV platform. He was also the founder of Italy based social media marketing company INVIOTRAFFICO, which won a number of prestigious international industry awards for its work. He studied Modern Languages with a specialization in Web based Public Relations & Digital Marketing, at the University of Palermo, Italy. In his role as Vice President, Emanuele is responsible for customer acquisition and the development and implementation of the social media marketing strategy of Advirally, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Anakando Media Group.
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About Anakando Media Group: The Anakando Media Group is a rapidly expanding and innovative digital media company with global interests.
Andrea Manfredi
Founder & CEO of Blasting News
After graduating from Bocconi University in 2005, Andrea earned an MBA at INSEAD, studying in Paris and Singapore. He spent several years working as a manager in top strategic consulting firms mainly in the UK and Italy. Working as a journalist since 1998, Andrea is the Founder & CEO and the Editor-in-Chief of Blasting News.
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About Blasting News: Blasting News is the leading social news publisher. Where every voice counts.
Ari Last
Founder & CEO of bubble app
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About bubble app: Bubble, an on-demand mobile app, connects parents with babysitters that their friends already know and trust.
Adrian Murdock
Co-Founder of bubble app
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About bubble app: Bubble, an on-demand mobile app, connects parents with babysitters that their friends already know and trust.
Emma Clark
Founder of The Sauce
Emma Clark is the Co-Founder at The Sauce.
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About The Sauce: The Sauce has a vision for bringing the next generation back together in real life using the power of social video profiles.
Sachin Karia
Co-Founder and CEO of The Sauce
Sachin Karia is the founder and CEO at The Sauce.
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About The Sauce: The Sauce has a vision for bringing the next generation back together in real life using the power of social video profiles.
Richard Knight
Co Founder of Grafter
Co founder of a tech start up that represents the future of labouring. Highly experienced media professional with outstanding industry knowledge across a wide spectrum of the media sector. Exceptional experience of the media distribution and consumer electronics sector with a strong track record of launching key strategic broadcasting and IP initiatives. Professional accounting background with board level experience Property Developer
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About Grafter, RKnight Consulting Limited: The free digital service for connecting businesses with people looking for temporary work
Khing Oei
Founder & CEO of AlphaSwap
Khing is an investor and entrepreneur. Prior to founding AlphaSwap, Khing founded and ran Eyck Capital, a hedge fund with peak AUM of $200mm. Khing started his career at Goldman Sachs in M&A and subsequently worked as an investor/portfolio manager at Goldman Sachs’ Special Situations Investing Group and multi-billion dollar hedge funds Fortress and Halcyon. Khing holds a Master of Science in Econometrics and an Associate’s Degree in Business Mathematics & Computer Science from VU University in Amsterdam.
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About AlphaSwap, Privium Fund Management: AlphaSwap is an investment technology platform, bundling its analyst community’s best stock ideas into Data-as-a-Service
Robert Imonikhe
Co-Founder of Ideal Flatmate
Rob has worked in publishing and has had stints at a number of media outlets. A positive bundle of energy, he is the ideas man and provides some philosophical insights to the team, having completed a BA in philosophy.
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About Ideal Flatmate: Ideal Flatmate is the first UK website dedicated to helping its users find the right flatmates.
Thomas Gatzen
Co-Founder of Ideal Flatmate
Tom has spent time working in politics and financial PR and loves getting things done. He enjoys travelling and is a sports nut, playing cricket for Middlesex Youth, and being found most weekends following Watford FC.
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About Ideal Flatmate: Ideal Flatmate is the first UK website dedicated to helping its users find the right flatmates.
Justine Roberts
CEO , Founder & Owner of Mumsnet
Justine Roberts is the Founder and CEO of Mumsnet. Over the last 20 years Mumsnet has grown into the UK’s busiest and most influential network for parents, with over 10 million unique users per month. Mumsnet regularly campaigns on issues including support for families of children with special educational needs, improvements in postnatal and miscarriage care, and freedom of speech on the internet. Mumsnet was awarded the Online Comment Site of the Year (Editorial Intelligence Comment Awards) 2011 and 2014. Justine was the Institute of Internal Communication Communicator of the Year in 2014 and EY Entrepreneur of the Year London and South Winner in 2016. Justine was one of EU-Startup’s Top 50 Most Influential Women in Startups and VC in 2019. Before Mumsnet, Justine wrote about football and cricket for the Daily Telegraph and the Times and before that she was an economist and strategist for SG Warburg. She is a mother of four (and two dogs) and was appointed CBE in the 2017 New Year Honours for services to the economy.
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About Gransnet, Mumsnet: Mumsnet is the UK’s busiest social network for parents.
Gian Paolo Ziletti
Founder & CEO of My Circle Golf
Founder and CEO of My Circle Golf, the business networking service for golf players. I’m a MBA graduate with 7 years previous experience in management consulting (Deloitte, KPMG, Accenture) advising clients developing Transformation Programme with a particular focus on the technology, processes and communication. While working on multinational clients across Europe I have been able to build a broad range of skills in such as managing cross-functional and multinational teams, product development and launch, managing commercial relationships with large organisations and driving business development.
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About My Circle Golf: Networking service for Golf players that helps golfers organise golf games and connect with like minded people
Pip Jamieson
Founder & CEO of The Dots
Pip Jamieson is the Founder & CEO of The Dots (https://the-dots.com), a professional network for people that don’t wear suits to work -‘dubbed “The next LinkedIn?’ by Forbes. Delightfully Dyslexic with a distinctive marmite laugh (you either love it or you hate it) Pip was named by The Sunday Times as one of the Top 100 Disruptive Entrepreneurs innovating in their respective fields & as one of the trailblazing leaders having a positive impact on the world. Being a dyslexic sole female tech founder, Pip has put promoting social responsibility and helping business build diverse teams at the heart of everything they do! 68% + of The Dots community is female, 31% + BAME & 16% + LGBT+. The Dots also do a lot of work around socioeconomic diversity and neurodiversity to fuel a more balanced industry of the future.
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About The Dots: The professional network for people who don’t wear suits to work.
Kerim Derhalli
Founder and CEO of invstr of Invstr
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About Invstr: Invstr is a fintech app empowering investors to invest with commission-free investing and banking.
Charles Sekwalor
Founder of Movemeback
Charles Sekwalor is Founder at MoveMeBack. Entrepreneur, mentor, advisor and investor focused on building startups that drive change and positively influence people’s lives.
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About COS Vetures, Mindsmeet, Movemeback: Movemeback is the community that connecting talented professionals, leaders, and entrepreneurs.
Oyin Solebo
Founder of Movemeback
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About Mindsmeet, Movemeback: Movemeback is the community that connecting talented professionals, leaders, and entrepreneurs.
Will Read
CEO & Founder of Sideways 6
Will Read is Founder & CEO at Sideways 6.
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About Sideways 6: Sideways 6 is a platform helping organisations including british airways and sainsbury’s to harness the innovative ideas of their employees.
Rutger Bruining
Founder & CEO of StoryTerrace
Rutger Bruining is the founder and CEO of Story Terrace. Prior to founding Story Terrace in 2014, Rutger worked as an investment director at Arle Capital Partners for five years. Rutger starterd his career as a senior consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton in 2014. In 2003, Rutger graduated from University of Amsterdam where he completed master’s degree in Business & Economics (Finance). He also graduated with honors at Columbia University – Columbia Business School for his MBA in 2008.
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About StoryTerrace: StoryTerrace helps people to capture their life story using professional writers and software.
Samantha North
Co-Founder of North Cyber Research
Samantha North is a disinformation researcher at the University of Bath, and is currently based in Lisbon. Her focus is on tribalism and how disinformation seeks to exploit existing fissures and divisions within our society. And she believes the design of social media platforms tends to make things worse still. North sees tribalism as a major ongoing threat to democracy and civil society, and offers ideas about how we can better understand this weakness and how to protect ourselves.
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About North Cyber Research: Helping brands and organisations understand, identify and counter disinformation and inauthentic online behaviour.
David Cagigas
Founder of edworking
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About edworking: Edworking is a platform for your team and your work. A single solution for teams with everything they need to work remotely. All your tasks, files, images and conversations in a single place and just an unique subscription.
Olga Egorsheva
CEO & Co-Founder of Lobster
Entrepreneur at Lobster. Building a bridge between every individual online and creative professionals. Inspired by independent creativity. Inspiring by breaking the rules. The world is my home country to learn, work and start companies.
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About Lobster: Lobster is a platform which enables brands, agencies and the media to licence visual content directly from social media users.
Maria Iontseva
Co-Founder of Lobster
Usability addict at Lobster. Lovingly creates this company’s designs, interfaces, investor pitches and social media campaigns. Designed PC Mag awarded consumer IT products (in previous life). Londoner, photographer, sailor, jazz guitar.
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About Lobster, UX Loft: Lobster is a platform which enables brands, agencies and the media to licence visual content directly from social media users.
Matt Rantell
CEO & Founder of The Square
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About The Square: The Square is an award winning workforce management platform & hiring marketplace for construction businesses.
Linda Agata Senya
Founder of LiveArtSocial / LAS
Linda co-founded LiveArtSocial in May 2016 with Alexa Brossard and Andreas Fux. Prior to LiveArtSocial, Linda worked in Venture Capital & several advisory roles . Previously, she worked as Structured Derivatives Sales Manager at BNP Paribas Investment Bank. She received an M.Sc. from Copenhagen Business School (2012) and B.Sc. from University Paris Dauphine (2004).
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About ePlanet Capital, LiveArtSocial / LAS: Events Management & Networking Platform for Premium Businesses
Antoine Bouttier
Co-Founder of Usmile
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About Usmile: Usmile is an upcoming social network, entirely dedicated to humour.
Khaled Mardam-Bey
Founder and Developer of mIRC
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About mIRC: mIRC is an internet relay chat software that enables its users to communicate and share content with others.
Simon Launay
Founder of Arlians
Founder of Arlians.
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About Arlians: Arlians is a Free B2B marketplace for small and medium businesses of any industries across the world. Find suppliers, customers and partners
Reid Jackson
Founder & CEO of Calfix
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About Calfix, OpenOcean, Teenage Republicans, Verdict: Calfix is a mobile application that allows users to compare their calendars.
Farid Jumah
CEO & Founder of ONE
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About ONE: ONE is a social networking platform that unifies all your social media accounts into ONE profile for you to share and connect.
Eashan Maheshwari
Founder & CEO of Zappel
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About Anime Monk, Draper University, Zappel: Zappel is a mobile app that spontaneously connects the humans via hyperlocal informal events (known as Zappels).
Katie Massie-Taylor
Founder of Mush
Katie Massie-Taylor is the Founder of Mush.
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About Mush: Mush is an online social platform that enables mothers to meet other mothers with kids the same age.
Iskren Kulev
CEO, Founder of KindLink
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About KindLink: Online platform for businesses to manage and engage with employees through their social responsibility
James Mason
Founder of Massif Central
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About Massif Central: Massif Central creates gallery-quality, bespoke info-graphic artworks celebrating great achievements.
Olly Johnson
Co-Founder of Tempry
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About Tempry: The new instant social network – launching in April 2017
Ameer Abbas Ali
Founder and CEO of SalamYou
Ameer was born and raised in the UK. At a young age, he had the fortune of gaining Islamic knowledge in the city of Madinah, Saudi Arabia where he memorised Qur’an under the late Shaykh UbaidAllah al-Afghani – a teacher in the Prophet’s Mosque. He continued seeking knowledge from senior scholars in the Arabian peninsula, namely Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. Returning to the UK he studied Computer Science at the University of Aston. He subsequently returned to Amman, Jordan, where he opened a company (CommnetiX) specializing in providing cutting edge technology in the healthcare sector. He also advised local Arab firms with marketing and gaining foreign investment for their new projects. He founded TurnToIslam in 2006 after meeting many non-Muslims who had little knowledge about Islam
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About SalamYou: SalamYou is an online social network that aims to expand and promote true understanding of Islam among Muslims.
Paul Rice
Founder & CEO of Taggr
BIMA Hot 100 – 2015. Credited No1 paid app UK app store Oct 2014. Founder / Owner of Rice Media with global retail clients including Superdry and ATS Euromaster. User-focused and creative.
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About Taggr: Taggr is a shopping social network with a retargeting platform that links cross-device and browser activity with retailers.
Jeremy Davis
Co-Founder of XbyMe
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About XbyMe: Next generation digital marketing platform – Social Capital Exchange
James Robins
Founder, CEO of XbyMe
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About XbyMe: Next generation digital marketing platform – Social Capital Exchange
James Robins
Founder, CEO of XbyMe
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About XbyMe: Next generation digital marketing platform – Social Capital Exchange
Daniel Doulton
Founder of XbyMe
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About XbyMe: Next generation digital marketing platform – Social Capital Exchange
Ariel Chis
Founder of Thollow
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About Thollow: A new format to collect, organise and share your thoughts
Yunkai Li
Founder of Thollow
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About Thollow: A new format to collect, organise and share your thoughts
