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 United Kingdom based Founder operating in the Farming 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.
Kenny Ewan
CEO & Founder of Wefarm
Kenny Ewan is originally from Scotland and he studied architecture at Dundee University, before moving to Peru to work for an international NGO for seven years. While he was in Peru he worked closely with local farmers and indigenous communities on sustainable agriculture projects,where he learned about the power of grassroots innovation. After his time in Peru he joined Cafedirect Producers Foundation, an independent UK charity that works with a network of more than 280,000 smallholder farmers. As part of their start-up team he led the development of WeFarm from 2010 to 2014, before launching it as an independent social enterprise in 2015. WeFarm connects smallholder farmers in Africa and Latin America to vital information on agriculture via SMS. Farmers can ask questions on farming and receive crowdsourced answers from farmers around the world on even the most basic mobile phone, without having internet access or leaving their farm. In November 2015 we have 32,000 farmers using our system.
Follow Kenny Ewan:
About Wefarm: Wefarm is a farmer-to-farmer digital network that enables users to share information via SMS.
Ben Scott-Robinson
Co-Founder and CEO of The Small Robot Company
Ben is the founder of The Small Robot Company. We have a mission to help farmers feed the world while regenerating the planet. We call this the Fourth Agricultural Revolution. Our service of robots, are called Tom Dick and Harry, and the brains of the operation, Wilma. Previously he ran Ordnance Survey’s internal agency creating beautiful products and campaigns with the world’s best maps. Before that, Ben started many startups, and worked as Creative and Experience Director at Top 10 digital agencies such as Digitas and Sapient.
Follow Ben Scott-Robinson:
About The Small Robot Company: The Small Robot Company is delivering per plant farming for the world’s largest crops.
Sam Watson Jones
Co-Founder and President of The Small Robot Company
Follow Sam Watson Jones:
About The Small Robot Company: The Small Robot Company is delivering per plant farming for the world’s largest crops.
Matija Zulj
Founder and Chief Executive Officer of AGRIVI
Matija is the founder and CEO of Agrivi. Matija believes that if we provide knowledge and technology to all food producers, we can provide enough food for everyone and keep agriculture sustainable. He holds an MSc in computer science and an MBA. Agrivi is an agri-tech startup that is creating the global agricultural eco-system with vision to change the way food is produced. With an intelligent cloud farm management solution, we help farmers to increase their productivity and find buyers for produced food. Agrivi is the winner of World Startup Competition 2014
Follow Matija Zulj:
About AGRIVI: AGRIVI is a global agritech company with the market leading farm management software
Zac Gazit
Founder, CEO & Managing Director of ALVATECH
Zac Gazit is the founder, CEO & Managing Director of ALVATECH & he attended The College of Management Academic Studies in 1997.
Follow Zac Gazit:
About ALVATECH: ALVATECH develops water treatment solutions and technology for effective farming productivity.
Andrew Huxham
Founder of Hectare Agritech
Follow Andrew Huxham:
About Hectare Agritech: Hectare is an agritech company focused on exploiting current inefficiencies and deficiencies in the farming industry supply chains.
Anders Gundersen
CEO & Founder of Sensonomic
Anders has experience from C-level strategy consulting, academia and the finance industry. He has been project lead on multiple projects in Scandinavia, UK and East Africa. Realising that land management issues are inherently complex, and that decisions affecting people, nature and businesses are often made with too little information, he founded Sensonomic to provide better data for decision making and risk management. Anders holds an MBA from the University of Oxford and an MPhil in Economics from the University of Bergen.
Follow Anders Gundersen:
About Sensonomic: Sensonomic creates computer simulations of agricultural systems to optimise yield, improve operations and increase resilience.
Jenny Costa
Founder/ CEO of Rubies in the Rubble
Follow Jenny Costa:
About Rubies in the Rubble: Rubies in the Rubble is a sustainable food brand, making high quality relishes and jams out of surplus supplies.
Minshad Ansari
Founder and CEO of Bionema
Minshad is founder and Managing Director of Bionema Ltd and has over 20 years in bio-pesticide development with a proven track record of delivering of IPM strategy in agricultural, horticultural and forestry sectors. He has more than 70 research publications and is a regular invited speaker at biopesticide conferences. He has extensive experience in strategic R&D planning, operational management, business and technology development. Minshad completed his PhD at Ghent University, Belgium and is a qualified BASIS advisor in Crop Protection (Commercial Horticulture). He is responsible for strategic and operational management of the company.
Follow Minshad Ansari:
About Bionema: Bionema creates chemical-free pest management solutions for horticulture, turf & landscape, & forestry sectors.
Abdellah Adhana
Founder of Buneyard Compagnie
Follow Abdellah Adhana:
About Buneyard Compagnie: Promoting coffee’s natural advantage. Originally sourced and intelligently traded.