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 Founder operating in the Advanced Materials 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.
George Chen
Co-Founder of Metalysis
George Chen is the Co-founder of Metalysis.
Follow George Chen:
About Metalysis: Metalysis, a manufacturer of metals and alloys, offers both economic and environmental benefits over traditional metal production methods.
Sandy Chen
Founder and CEO of Graphene Composites
Sandy Chen came up with the idea of a graphene/aerogel composite six years ago. However, since he was committed full-time as a City analyst, there was little time to pursue the idea. Sandy Chen gained prominence as the analyst who called the Great Financial Crisis of 2007-9, identifying key weaknesses in the UK banks (e.g. Northern Rock, RBS) and in the financial system overall. Since then, he has written a book on bank analysis and valuation, and testified on banks at a Parliamentary committee hearing. He is a regular media commentator on banks and macroeconomic issues.
Follow Sandy Chen:
About Graphene Composites, Unity Trust Bank: Graphene Composites is a nano-technology startup that combines graphene with aerogel .
Gabriella Santosa
Co-Founder and CSO of Puraffinity
Follow Gabriella Santosa:
About Puraffinity: Puraffinity develops precision materials to target chemicals, with an initial focus on PFAS in water
Henrik Hagemann
CEO and Co-Founder of Puraffinity
Follow Henrik Hagemann:
About Puraffinity, Tech London Advocates: Puraffinity develops precision materials to target chemicals, with an initial focus on PFAS in water
Harish Bhaskaran
Co-Founder & Chief Scientific Officer of Bodle Technologies
Harish is the academic founder of Bodle Technologies (with Peiman) and serves as its Director and Chief Scientific Officer, acting also as its founding executive until Jan 2016. He is an Associate Professor of Materials at the University of Oxford, where he leads the Advanced Nanoscale Engineering Group. A former researcher at IBM Research, Harish has worked in both industry and academia over the past 15 years, including in product development under joint development agreements. His research has most recently focused on novel applications of phase change materials and on the manufacturing of nanoscale components.
Follow Harish Bhaskaran:
About Bodle Technologies, University of Oxford: Developing SRD® technology for a low-power display of vivid colours that doesn’t look washed out in bright conditions
David Fyfe
Co-Founder & Executive Chairman of Bodle Technologies
David is a founder and Executive Chairman of Bodle Technologies. His career spans several top management positions in both Europe and the United States, and he has held board positions in several firms over the years. As Chief Executive Officer of Cambridge Display Technologies (CDT), he took a laboratory-based spin-off to a NASDAQ flotation and a subsequent $285m trade sale. David is also the Executive Chairman of Oxford Photovoltaics. As a resident of Jacksonville, Florida, David also serves on the board of Cambridge in America foundation.
Follow David Fyfe:
About Bodle Technologies: Developing SRD® technology for a low-power display of vivid colours that doesn’t look washed out in bright conditions
Peiman Hosseini
Co-Founder & Chief Technology Officer of Bodle Technologies
Peiman is a founder and Chief Technology Officer of Bodle. As a postdoctoral researcher at Oxford, he demonstrated the use of ultrathin functional materials in electro-optical applications, setting up Bodle Technologies with Harish to commercialize this invention. He was a member of the RAEng Enterprise Hub in 2014 and has won numerous awards for this technology including the Printed Electronics R&D Academic Award. Pei leads the technology development and with the other management team members helps define business and development strategy.
Follow Peiman Hosseini:
About Bodle Technologies, Bodle Technologies: Developing SRD® technology for a low-power display of vivid colours that doesn’t look washed out in bright conditions
Catharina Paukner
Co-Founder, Chief Scientist of Cambridge Nanosystems
As co-founder and Chief Scientist of Cambridge Nanosystems Ltd., Catharina Paukner is responsible for both the research strategy of the company and its technology roadmap. She leads her team in the production and development of high quality graphene flakes derived from hydrocarbon gases in a unique and industry leading atmospheric pressure plasma cracking process. Currently her industry research covers a broad range of application developments for both graphene flakes and carbon nanotubes in areas such as inks and polymer composites. With a background and Master’s degree in chemistry, her PhD research in Materials Science at the University of Cambridge focussed on the development of a completely new system for the controlled continuous synthesis of carbon nanotubes. She has recently been awarded a Fellowship of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce in recognition of her role in the design of new nanomaterial manufacturing systems.
Follow Catharina Paukner:
About Cambridge Nanosystems: Cambridge Nanosystems is a UK-based start-up born out of Cambridge University that specialises in advanced materials.
Gerard Rubio
CEO & Founder of Kniterate
Follow Gerard Rubio:
About Kniterate: Kniterate is an affordable and compact digital knitting machine for your workshop.
Adrien Hitz
Co-Founder and COO of Materialize.X
Follow Adrien Hitz:
About Materialize.X: Data-Driven Directors for Manufacturing
Haidin Rashid
Co-Founder and CEO of Materialize.X
Follow Haidin Rashid:
About Materialize.X: Data-Driven Directors for Manufacturing
Andrew Flewitt
Director and Co-Founder of Sorex Sensors
Follow Andrew Flewitt:
About Sorex Sensors, University of Cambridge, University of Cambridge: Sorex Sensors manufactures high sensitivity MEMS mass sensors to transform industrial and consumer products.
Kaushal Shah
Founder and CEO of envoPAP
Trying to turn Ideas into Reality!
Follow Kaushal Shah:
About envoPAP, Inwius: envoPAP is a Sustainable Materials Company utilizing green technology to provide agricultural waste with a second life.
Hugo Macedo
CEO & Founder of Smart Separations Ltd
Hugo is the founder and CEO of Smart Separations Ltd. He has over 11 years of experience in entrepreneurship which helped him founding this start-up company that has developed a proprietary filter that can be tailored to suit many different applications in the poorly explored but very large microfiltration market, from biotechnology to food & drink processing. Throughout his PhD in Biomedical Engineering, Hugo was constantly challenged with new and diverse tasks, in a multidisciplinary environment, where he breathed skills from chemical engineering to stem cell technology, including membrane technology, hydrodynamics, stem cell culture and bioprocessing, human blood production, amongst many others. This provided him with the right tools to create the first “3D hollow fibre bioreactor for the production of human red blood cells” – a system design that he patented. This work was featured in different magazines, including the cover page of The Chemical Engineer (TCE) in 2011, selected as one of “Ten life-changing ideas under research at UK universities” by the Research Councils UK and shortlisted for the highly prestigious IChemE Awards in 2011. Hugo currently holds 2 patents and is passionate for innovation leading to improve people’s quality of life – a vision that he has shared with Smart Separation
Follow Hugo Macedo:
About Smart Separations Ltd: Smart Separations is a limited company based in London UK that has patented an innovative microfiltration technology.
