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 United Kingdom based CEO’ operating in the Online Games space. If you think a CEO’ 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.
Sam Mathews
Founder & CEO of Fnatic
Sam Mathews is an entrepreneur most known for his exploits in the gaming community. Best known for founding Fnatic, the worlds number 1 professional gaming team, managing over 25 professional video gamers with big name sponsors such as title sponsor MSI. He founded UGAME in 2008, a focused social network providing a complete gamer profile, as well as linking niche gaming content sites together through one user base and offering a platform to share user content around gaming.
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About Fnatic: Leading esports performance.
Florian Stronk
Co-Founder & CEO of Magmatic Games
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About Koyoki, Magmatic Games: Magmatic Games provides expertise in developing online games for entertainment.
Thomas Fairey
Founder & CEO of Stakester
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About Stakester: Stakester is a mobile first skill-based competition platform that enables competitors to compete with each other for prizes.
Henrique Olifiers
Co-Founder, Gamer-In-Chief (CEO) of Bossa Studios
Henrique Olifiers Co-founded and leads Bossa Studios, a multiple award-winning games company in London, makers of the BAFTA-winning Monstermind, Surgeon Simulator and I Am Bread, amongst several other titles across all digital platforms. Bossa is also a leading Virtual Reality studio in Europe, hosting VR Meetups for the past three years. As a hobbyist, Henrique is a Maker passionate about 3D printing materials, robotics and human-machine interfaces.
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About Bossa Studios: Bossa Studios is a games developer and publisher, creators of BAFTA-winning Monstermind, Surgeon Simulator and Worlds Adrift.
Ian Chambers
CEO of Mind Candy
Ian’s wealth of entertainment experience comes from his time at Ubisoft and EA which in turn led to his role as Managing Director, International at IGN where he was responsible for its global expansion and making IGN the #1 video games media network in the world. Before joining Mind Candy Ian was Chief Digital Officer at GAME Digital Plc.
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About Mind Candy: Moshi provides a sleep and mindfulness app for kids featuring melodic stories created to help kids drift off to sleep quickly.
Jon Hook
CEO of BoomHits
Jon Hook is a mobile marketing executive and entrepreneur experienced in building, launching and running mobile technology and media businesses. He was a co-founder of Odyssey Mobile Interaction, which was acquired by Phunware in December 2014. Jon is currently General Manager of Advertising at Phunware. He is also a board advisor at Avanatta, Kaizen App and BPA EMEA. Hook’s agency experience includes time as Head of the Mobile Practice at MediaCom and Client Services Director at Carat. He was named in Media Week’s 30 Under 30, is a member of the IAB Mobile Council and recently became one of The Drum’s Mobile Top 50. He also speaks regularly at industry events including Cannes Lions, Mobile Media Summit New York and London, AdWeek New York and London, Digital Shoreditch, MMA Forum London, Mobile Venture Summit (Chicago) and TUNE Postback.
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About BoomHits: BoomHits is a publisher of the next generation of free-to-play mobile games.
Steve Cottam
CEO of AntStream Arcade
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About AntStream Arcade: The de facto retro games platform. With 1000 games ready to play, you can enjoy old console, arcade and computer classics on most devices
Andrew Gore
CEO and Founder of Soccer Manager
Over 17 years’ experience in the games industry, working on numerous successful football titles such as FIFA before co-founding Soccer Manager with his brothers in 2004.
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About Soccer Manager: Soccer Manager, a Preston, UK-based developer of an online football game. Soccer Manager allows players to manage their favourite team.
Matthew Wiggins
Founder & CEO of Mojiworks
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About Mojiworks: Mojiworks is a video game developer for mobile social platforms
Mitchell Smallman
Co-Founder & CEO of Pocket Burger Games
Mitchell Smallman is the Co-Founder and CEO at Pocket Burger Games.
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About Pocket Burger Games: Pocket Burger is dedicated to discovering, creating and building new genres in the mobile games space.
Callum Brighting
CEO of Netspeak Games
Running Netspeak Games. Diversity, Inclusion and Creativity are our pillars. Always looking to talk about games, technology and people. Previous: Improbable, Bloomberg, Kuju, Traveller’s Tales
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About Netspeak Games: Netspeak Games operates as a zero-crunch studio that develops online multiplayer games.
Silja Litvin
Founder & CEO of PsycApps
I am a London based Psychologist, CEO and Founder of the Mental Health platform PsycApps. The mental health platform is also part of my PhD thesis in clinical psychology at the Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU) of Munich with help of Oxford University College. • In 2013 I finished my Masters in Psychology from LMU majoring in Family and Clinical Psychology. • As aforementioned I am currently completing my postgraduate education as a PhD student of the LMU with help of University College, Oxford. To help raise awareness for both mental well-being in general and our products, I speak at conferences and mental health panels. Being half German, half American, I speak fluent English and German. My French is decent and I understand Italian quite well. Because of my modelling career I am well-traveled, culturally diverse and I am by nature an extroverted people person. Media (1)This position has 1 media
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About PsycApps, PsycApps, UCL, Wonder Women Tech: Digital Mental Health Games
Andrew Hall
CEO of Sumdog
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About Sumdog: Online site making learning fun for k-12 students while allowing teachers and parents to track progress and create activities.
Benjamin Woolf
Chief Executive Officer of Gameway
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About Gameway: Gameway is the mobile gaming experience of the future.
