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 Semiconductor 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.
Atif Syed
Founder, Chairman and CEO of Wootzano
I am the Founder, Chairman & CEO of Wootzano Ltd where we are making robots feel and sense like humans do by using our unique electronic skin and robotic systems which can save an average fruit and vegetable packaging facility around £2.5 million at minimum a year. Ask me how we do it! Along with a PhD in Electronics and Nanotechnology Engineering from University of Edinburgh, I have extensive experience in Robotics and AI. I am also a Member of the Executive Committee for Robotics and Mechatronics at the Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET). I am also an Enterprise Fellow at the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng). Since early age, I have had a crazy obsession with electronics and was fascinated by software development as it required not much need for any sophisticated lab. When I am not working on the business, you can find me working with machine learning algorithms, advocating why computer programming should be taught at schools from an early age and travelling.
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About Wootzano: Wootzano manufactures robots which can sense and feel like humans do using a unique electronic skin, machine learning, and electronics.
Simon Knowles
CTO & Founder of Graphcore
Vice President Strategy & DXP® Technology and Founder Simon is responsible for Icera’s corporate strategy and product roadmap. For the first 7 years of Icera’s evolution Simon served as Vice President Silicon Engineering, delivering Icera’s first two generations of cellular chipsets. Simon is the architect of Icera’s unique DXP® processor technology and continues to direct the evolution of DXP® architecture. He is a member of the Board of Directors and a founder of the company. Prior to Icera, Simon co-founded ADSL chip company Element 14, where he served as Vice President Silicon. Element 14 was acquired by Broadcom Corporation (NASDAQ: BRCM) for $640M in 2000. Simon established Element 14’s design centre in Bristol, UK, and was responsible for the development of Element 14’s digital chips. Simon co-architected the FirePath processor which today enables Broadcom’s unique soft DSL modem technology. Prior to Element 14, Simon led the custom processor design group of STMicroelectronics (NASDAQ: STM), formerly the design team of processor pioneer Inmos in Bristol, UK. Simon started his career at the UK’s Defence Electronics Research Agency, after graduating from Cambridge University with a degree in Electrical Science.
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About Graphcore, Icera: Graphcore develops a microprocessor designed for AI and machine learning applications.
Andrew Paterson
Founder of Peak Well Systems
Andrew Paterson is a founding director of Peak Well Systems, established in 2002 when it split from well construction services company the Peak Group which was subsequently sold to AGR in 2006. Previously, Andrew worked with Conoco, Charterhouse Petroleum, Petrofina and Enterprise Oil. Andrew lives in Edinburgh and France and is active with the Iris Initiative, a registered charity which runs the John Byrne Award in Scotland and South Africa.Andrew holds a BSc (Hons) Naval Architecture from Strathclyde University.
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About Peak Well Systems: Peak Well Systems designs and manufactures advanced downhole tools that extend well life, restore well integrity and enhance well
Gordon Angus
Founder of Peak Well Systems
Gordon Angus is a founding director of Peak Well Systems, having worked at the Peak Group with fellow Board Member Andrew Paterson before it was sold to AGR in 2006. Prior to his involvement with Peak he was with KPMG where he worked in many areas, including audit, taxation advisory services and transaction support. Subsequent to this, he moved into industry where he has had roles heavily focussed on business process re-engineering and systems improvements.Gordon is a UK national with a MA (Hons) degree in Economics and Accountancy from Aberdeen University and is a Chartered Accountant.
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About Peak Well Systems: Peak Well Systems designs and manufactures advanced downhole tools that extend well life, restore well integrity and enhance well
Ray McConnell
Founder/CTO of Blu Wireless
Ray brings over 25 years of experience with high performance, low power parallel processor technology. Starting his career with INMOS, he went on to found his first in a series of startups, Division plc, 20 years ago. At his second startup, Ray architected a multi-threaded graphics GP-GPU processor and has developed low-power, scaled heterogeneous maths accelerator SoCs and large imaging supercomputers. He has extensive knowledge of heterogeneous acceleration, compilers and software architectures and their applicability to the ‘difficult’ processing challenges in gigabit signal processing. He brings a broad range entrepreneurial startup experience, taking Division, PixelFusion and Clearspeed to IPO. Ray has 26 US and UK patents granted or filed and holds a computer science and cybernetics degree from the University of Kent.
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About Blu Wireless: Blu Wireless Technology is a silicon IP company developing wireless technology with a faster transmission rate.
Jamie Potter
CEO & Co Founder of Flexciton
Jamie has led several projects with industrial clients across industrial sectors for clients including National Grid and RWE. Jamie graduated top of his year in Mathematics and Statistics from University of Oxford. Recently, Jamie was added to the 2018 Forbes 30 under 30 list.
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About Flexciton: Flexciton is an optimisation technology company solving complex scheduling problems in semiconductor wafer fabrication
Ben Jensen
Founder and CTO of Surrey NanoSystems
Ben’s background is in the development of novel reactors used in Nanomaterials growth. Prior to founding SNS he was responsible for developing new technologies used in the hard disk drive industry and in sputter processing. He leads technical development of Vantablack coatings, and is involved with commercial engagement in new technology sectors from defence to luxury goods. Personally, I’m an explorer, creative thinker and solver of problems at the nano and commercial scale. Someone with serious commercial sense and a great ability to develop new business and close deals, especially in a start-up environment where competition and gaining traction are tough.
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About Surrey NanoSystems: Surrey NanoSystems manufactures nanoscale materials for use in engineering and product applications.
Huw Davies
CEO, Founder, Director of Trameto
Huw Davies is a technology business leader with general management, founder roles, product marketing, business development and sales. He has worked in both start-ups and multi-national corporate organisations. His experience spans global business development, operational and financial management, licensing technology transfer, and collaborative research/commercial partnering. Huw’s background is in semiconductors and consumer electronics and he has extensive experience of working in Silicon Valley. He holds a BSc and PhD from Cardiff University and an Executive MBA from the University of Bath.
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About Trameto: Trameto is developing energy management devices for micro energy harvesting technologies enabling the elimination of batteries in the IoT.
Laurence Strong
Founder, COO, Director of Trameto
Laurence Strong is an experienced technical marketer with an electronic engineering background in the semiconductor and consumer electronics industries. He navigates the space between engineering development and customer sales by representing the voice of the customer to ensure a product is fit for market, managing resources to ensure timely delivery and developing partnerships to accelerate development and shorten time to revenues. Laurence has experience working at early stage start-up companies through to global corporations. Laurence has a 1st class BEng degree in Electronic and Electrical Engineering from the University of Birmingham.
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About Trameto: Trameto is developing energy management devices for micro energy harvesting technologies enabling the elimination of batteries in the IoT.
Christopher Leburn
Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Chromacity
Dr. Christopher Leburn leads the growth of Chromacity. He is a former Royal Society of Edinburgh Enterprise Fellow and holds a Ph.D. from the University of St Andrews in ultrafast solid-state lasers. He has previously held research and technical management roles at both Heriot-Watt University and the University of St Andrews, where he was Assistant Director of a £12M EPSRC ultrafast photonics consortium. Christopher submitted his business idea towards the 2012 Converge Challenge, a business competition designed to tease technology out of the research base and into the commercial sector. Having secured 3rd place in this competition, Christopher, along with his co-founders, incorporated Chromacity in early 2013. As the company formed Christopher undertook a Royal Society of Edinburgh Enterprise Fellowship to enhance his commercial capabilities. Christopher developed a range of skills that has allowed him to successfully secure investment and build a team that can design, manufacture and deliver highly reliable, compact, cost effective ultrafast laser sources for a range of different customers.
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About Chromacity, Chromacity: Chromacity Lasers is a spin-out from Heriot-Watt University, one of the UK’s leading technical universities with a focus on photonics.
Ranganath S. Kempanahally
Founder, Chief Executive Officer & Managing Director of ElitePLUS Semiconductor Technologies
R K is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of elitePLUS, responsible for overseeing day-to-day operations, Business, Strategy, Quality and Engineering services of the company. R K has over 17 years of experience in the semiconductor industry as a Technical Lead, Verification consultant, Business Development Manager and has held several engineering and mid-management positions in both product and service companies. A hands on verification engineer, deployed advanced verification solutions for complex verification projects for several global companies in USA, Europe and in India. Prior to founding elitePLUS, R K held Consulting and technical Lead roles at various start-ups to multi-national companies. In his last role, he was a Director of Engineering at EnSilica, an IP and Design Service company in the UK, was responsible for Leading Verification Engineering and Services and has helped them to set-up an overseas design centre in India. R K has a Master’s Degree in Electronics from Mangalore University, India and an Executive MBA from Cranfield School of Management in the UK.
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About ElitePLUS Semiconductor Technologies: ElitePLUS Semiconductor Technologies is an IP and Design services company.
Michael Pepper
Co Founder, Chief Scientific Director of TeraView
Michael has held positions in the University of Cambridge concurrently with positions at Plessey and then GEC. Professor of Physics in the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge University 1987-2009, he was invited by the Toshiba Corporation to create and head their first corporate research laboratory outside Japan. The Toshiba Cambridge Research Centre, now known as the Cambridge Research Laboratory of Toshiba Research Europe Ltd, opened in 1991 with Professor Pepper as Managing Director. Professor Pepper is a Fellow of the Royal Society and a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge and the recipient of many prizes and honours for his work on semiconductors. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering. He has extensive connections throughout the University of Cambridge, UK and EU universities, institutes and with corporations throughout the world. He received a knighthood in 2006 for his services to physics and since 2009 is Pender Professor of Nanoelectronics at University College London.
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About TeraView, University College London (UCL): TeraView develops terahertz instruments which can generate, detect and manipulate radiation to characterize a wide range of materials.
Don Arnone
Founder & CEO of TeraView
Don became CEO when TeraView was founded in 2001. He has over 16 years’ experience in the field of terahertz technology, first at the Cavendish Laboratory (Department of Physics) at the University of Cambridge and then for nine years at the Toshiba Research Europe Laboratory in Cambridge UK where he was head of the Terahertz Technology Programme. He was responsible for liaison with Toshiba, Japan on commercialization of the technology, as well as customer relations and marketing of the technology within Toshiba. He was also responsible for all aspects of business development of Terahertz technology outside Japan, which involved liaising with potential customers in the US and EU. He brought funding into the business from the European Commission, DTI and DARPA in the US as well as various companies. He is also a Visiting Professor at the University of Leeds.
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About TeraView, University of Leeds: TeraView develops terahertz instruments which can generate, detect and manipulate radiation to characterize a wide range of materials.
Rob Maunder
Founder and CTO of AccelerComm
Prof Rob Maunder is the Founder and CTO of AccelerComm.
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About AccelerComm: AccelerComm is a semiconductor IP-core company specialising in channel coding solutions.
Carl Shaw
Founder of Cerberus Security Laboratories
Carl has over 25 years experience of designing, developing, analysing and securing embedded system hardware and software for military and consumer electronics. An experienced entrepreneur, he was co-founder of MathEmbedded Ltd., a well-respected company providing advanced embedded software development services globally in which he also built a software security capability and analysed the security vulnerabilities of a wide range of products. Prior to that, Carl was Technical Leader of the Linux OS team at STMicroelectronics, a global silicon manufacturer. In that role he ran a multinational team that supported customers with complex issues and developed the Linux OS on embedded and proprietary chip architectures. He also developed low-level security software and worked alongside the hardware security architects to ensure that next generation hardware security features could work effectively with complex operating systems. In the past he has also designed embedded system PCBs, programmed too many CPUs of all shapes and sizes to remember, worked in big-data analysis and signal processing and gained a Ph.D. in astrophysics. A regular speaker at events, he is particularly interested in security vulnerabilities at the hardware / software boundary.
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About Cerberus Security Laboratories: Cerberus Security Laboratories is a business that is focused on delivering leading edge embedded system security for connected IoT devices.
