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 Oxfordshire based Founder operating in the Artificial Intelligence 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.
Ingmar Posner
Co-Founder of Oxbotica
Ingmar Posner is co-founder at Oxbotica and leads the perception and planning work within the Mobile Robotics Group. He is also an associate professor in Information Engineering at University of Oxford. He has advanced research with contributions to premier international conferences and journals. His track record includes award winning work on semantic mapping, active perception and 3D reconstruction. Following an invitation as a visiting researcher to MIT, the work he led there on active perception was awarded a Best Paper Award at the International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling (ICAPS). Two of his recent publications have been invited to the Best Paper track at the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI). Posner has served twice as area chair of Robotics: Science and Systems (RSS), the premier international robotics conference, as Associate Editor for the International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems(IROS). He convened and organised the 2013 Oxford International Summit on Robotics. Prof. Ingmar obtained an M.Eng in Electronic Systems Engineering from Aston University in 2001 and then he took a D.Phil. in Engineering at the University of Oxford.
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About Creative Destruction Lab (CDL), Oxbotica, University of Oxford: Oxbotica powers the navigation, perception, user interface, fleet management, and other features needed to run self-driving vehicles.
Phil Blunsom
Co-Founder of Dark Blue Labs
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About Dark Blue Labs: Learning deep representations of data to make intelligent products, including natural language understanding, a reality.
Shefali Sharma
Co-Founder & Director of Oxford Dynamics
I’m a creator & a dreamer. For as long as I can remember, I’ve always been passionate about creating ‘something of value’. With a Masters Degree in Engineering, I have spent the last 7+ years working with technical start-ups to gain a better understanding of how successful businesses are built. In a nutshell, what I have learnt can be best summarised by Ed Catmull; “If you give a good idea to a mediocre team, they will screw it up. If you give a mediocre idea to a brilliant team, they will either fix it or throw it away and come up with something better”. I am a big believer in following your instincts and taking unique approaches to life. So, I’ve now embarked upon my own entrepreneurial journey by co-founding not one but two companies, a Healthtech start-up called OXLABS; as well as a Space start-up called Oxford Dynamics (OD). At both these companies, we’re developing inspiring & accessible technologies by working with those that share our values and passion for making the world a better place. Though still in a fledgling state, its an absolute joy & honour to be working with people / friends who are equally passionate & committed to the OXLABS & OD journey as I am. We dream big, work hard and believe anything is possible. We’re currently in stealth mode for both our businesses but please do follow our pages as we’ll be breaking cover soon – your support really matters to us 🙂 Last but not the least, I’m really proud to be selected as a Global Young Innovator by Innovate UK as one of the few entrepreneurs (under 30) across the UK & South Africa who are solving global challenges with their ground-breaking ideas.
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About Oxford Dynamics: We’re developing a new range of cutting-edge AI-based tools that enable machines to think like humans.
Mike Lawton
Co-Founder & Director of Oxford Dynamics
I’m a serial entrepreneur, which is code for the fact I bear a few scars from getting things wrong slightly less often than I get things right… I enjoy building early-stage high technology businesses in demanding commercial environments: taking an idea from concept stage, raising external investment & building motivated teams that focus on delivery. I’m currently excited about commercial opportunities in so-called ‘new space’ – a sector in which my latest venture Oxford Space Systems is making great progress. I’m firm believer in actively promoting STEM subjects and regularly present in schools, colleges and universities with the aim of inspiring the next generation of entrepreneurial engineers and scientists. I also frequently present at events in the UK and overseas on my entrepreneurial experiences and the process of raising equity finance for technology focused businesses. I (or more correctly the smart guys in my team) have won numerous business and technical awards both in the UK and overseas. I consider myself a pragmatic and enthusiastic leader with a hands-on approach who believes in direct reward for achievement. I have a pathological hatred for bureaucracy, preferring tangible progress in preference over shuffling paper.
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About Oxford Dynamics, Oxford Space Systems: We’re developing a new range of cutting-edge AI-based tools that enable machines to think like humans.
Dr Edward Jackson
Co-Founder & Director of Oxford Dynamics
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About Oxford Dynamics: We’re developing a new range of cutting-edge AI-based tools that enable machines to think like humans.
Michalis Papadakis
CEO & Co-Founder of Brainomix
Dr Michalis Papadakis is the CEO and co-founder of Brainomix. He leads the management team, commercial strategy, fund raising, and corporate partnerships. He has grown the company from the ground up, building the company’s global presence and has raised over £15 million of private investment and public funding. When he founded Brainomix he was the Scientific Director of the preclinical stroke lab at the University of Oxford. He has a BSc Honours in Biochemistry from Imperial College London and a PhD in neurosciences from UCL School of Pharmacy. He has been an invited speaker at international scientific and innovation conferences
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About Brainomix: Brainomix specializes in the creation of AI-powered imaging biomarkers that enable precision medicine for better treatment decisions
Andrew Hopkins
Co-Founder and CEO of Exscientia
Andrew spent 10 years at Pfizer, where he was responsible for establishing new research foci including the concepts of druggability and network pharmacology. Andrew has raised a total of $50 million for academic and commercial research activities in his continuing role as Chair of Medicinal Informatics at the University of Dundee. He is the author of some of the most highly cited papers in modern drug discovery.
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About Exscientia, Kinetic Discovery Ltd.: Exscientia is a pharmatech company that uses an end-to-end AI platform to design and discover new drugs.
Sharon Pursey
Co-Founder, Head of Strategic Alliances of SafeToNet
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About SafeToNet: SafeToNet makes the digital world safer for children to explore and enjoy.
Martin-Immanuel Bittner
Co-Founder & CEO of Arctoris
Martin-Immanuel Bittner MD DPhil is a clinician-scientist and life sciences entrepreneur. He is a Rhodes scholar, an active member of several leading cancer research organisations, and an elected member of the Young Academy of the German National Academy of Sciences. Martin is a Co-Founder & CEO of Arctoris, the world’s first fully automated drug discovery platform.
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About Arctoris: Arctoris is a tech-enabled platform company in biotechnology, combining robotics & data science to accelerate drug discovery.
Thomas Fleming
Co-Founder & COO of Arctoris
Thomas Fleming is an award-winning chemist, cancer researcher, and SME Leader of the Royal Academy of Engineering. Tom is the Co-Founder & COO at Arctoris.
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About Arctoris: Arctoris is a tech-enabled platform company in biotechnology, combining robotics & data science to accelerate drug discovery.
Ivo Sluganovic
Co-Founder of PhishAR
Ivo Sluganovic is a Co-Founder at PhishAR.
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About PhishAR, Skillset, Vibby: PhishAR is a computer network and security company that specializes in the fields of artificial intelligence and augmented reality.
Jason Lee
Founder & CEO of illumr
Jason is a visionary leader with a passion for emergent technologies. He has a proven track record of identifying early-stage, high-growth technology markets and executing business as a first-mover. He co-founded one of the first internet companies in the UK, which won a global award delivering to an international blue-chip client base. His background is in designing electronic, computer and software systems for the oil & aerospace industries. Jason holds a 1st Class MEng (Hons) from Aston University.
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About Founders Pledge, illumr: illumr helps organizations to better understand and predict patterns of behavior that affect them.
Alex Money
Founder and CEO of Oxford Earth Observation (OxEO)
Alex Money is the Founder and CEO at Oxford Earth Observation.
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About Oxford Earth Observation (OxEO): We project the location- specific impacts of climate change, on variables that we observe
Daniel Mitchell
Co-Founder, CEO of Hivemind
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About Hivemind: Data science and technology company specialising in the application of human and machine intelligence to complex unstructured data problems
Roger Noble
Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Zegami
Roger Noble is a Software Developer and Data Visualisation expert with a passion for building new and innovative technologies that help people see the world in a new way.
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About Zegami: Delivering explainable AI faster and more accurately. Zegami are end-to-end imaging AI specialists combining unique tools and ML services
Stephen Taylor
Founder & CSO of Zegami
Stephen is the Head of the Computational Biology Research Group for the Weatherall Institute at Oxford University and Chief Scientific Officer for Zegami. Stephen did his B.Sc. in Microbiology and holds an M.Sc. in Computer Science. He started using PivotViewer in 2010 to visualise large genomics datasets and microscopy data. To overcome its limitations he worked with Roger Noble to develop and publish HTML5 PivotViewer. As the CSO, Stephen is focused on Zegami’s contribution to research and ensuring that the platform contributes to making new discoveries that will change and improve the world we live in.
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About Zegami: Delivering explainable AI faster and more accurately. Zegami are end-to-end imaging AI specialists combining unique tools and ML services
Jose Maria Peña
CTO & Co-Founder of Lurtis Rules
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About Lurtis Rules: A cloud service that produces complete 3D scenarios out of user constraints
