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 Language Learning 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.
Bernhard Niesner
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of busuu
Bernhard Niesner is the CEO and Co-Founder of busuu – the world´s largest social network for language learning with more than 35m users. busuu provides language courses in 12 different languages combined with direct interaction with native speakers from the community. The London-based start-up received several awards and was named “Best Education Start-Up in 2011” by TechCrunch. busuu is backed by renown business angels like Martin Varsavsky and received investment from PRO-Founders Capital. Before founding busuu, Bernhard worked at Roland Berger Strategy Consultants. In addition to busuu, he is Associated Professor at IE Business School in the area of online marketing. Bernhard graduated summa cum laude in International Business from the University of Vienna and holds an MBA (with honors) from IE Business School. In 2009 he was awarded “Entrepreneur of the year” in Austria.
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About busuu: busuu is a mobile app for language learning with the goal of breaking down language barriers.
Mark Szulyovszky
Co-Founder and CRO of Drops
Co-founder and CRO, Drops
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About Drops, Imagegate, Plan B Labs: Drops is a game-based language learning application.
Actar Arya
Founder and Managing Director of DA Languages
Actar is the Director of DA Languages and is extremely passionate about the language industry. In fact she had worked as a freelance interpreter prior to starting up DA Languages in 1998.
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About DA Languages: DA Languages Ltd is a South Manchester based interpreting and translation agency working across the UK.
Elizabeth Tweedale
Founder and CEO of Cypher Coders
Elizabeth Tweedale is the CEO and founder of Cypher Coders
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About Cypher Coders: Cypher inspires children to learn the language of the future through hands-on creative coding camps and courses.
Dean Jacobs
CEO & Founder of Wibbu
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About University of East London, Wibbu: Wibbu is an award-winning education-entertainment studio specialising in engaging language-learning tools for the classroom.
Andrew Davison
Founder & Managing Director of Teacher Finder
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About Teacher Finder: Looking for a language teacher? We can help you find one quickly and easily.
Andrew Davison
Founder & Managing Director of Teacher Finder
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About Teacher Finder: Looking for a language teacher? We can help you find one quickly and easily.
Charles Brook Shanahan
Sales & Co-Founder of GoSay
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About GoSay: GoSay creates digital products for the online education sector
Lukas Lohove
Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Zizzle
Lukas developed his passion for understanding Chinese characters at UC Berkeley. When not learning Chinese, he enjoys riding boards – be it on snow, water or concrete.
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About Greator, Zizzle: Zizzle provides learning Mandarin Chinese has never been easier.
Shaolan Hsueh
Founder of Chineasy
After taking a sabbatical from being a venture capital investor in London, ShaoLan is now focused on a social project, Chineasy. ShaoLan’s ultimate aim is to bring down the great wall of Chinese language and allow Eastern and Western cultures to communicate freely. Born in Taipei and now living in London, ShaoLan is an entrepreneur, geek, writer, traveller and dreamer. She has had several dramatic career changes in the past and, while studying for an MBA, wrote four best-selling books on software, awarded “book of the year” in Taiwan. In her second semester she co-founded her first venture, pAsia Inc. Under ShaoLan’s leadership, pAsia became a major player in the Internet sector in the Greater China area in the late 1990’s. After moving to London, she began investing in and advising young technology companies through Caravel Capital, which she founded in 2005 whilst studying at the University of Cambridge. She has also been a director of five UK-based technology companies. ShaoLan is a member of several management and advisory boards for nonprofit organisations in the UK, including the Saïd Business School of Oxford University, The Victoria and Albert Museum, Asia House, and the New School Network, an organisation backed by the British Government promoting educational reform.
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About Chineasy: Chineasy’s goal is to allow people to learn to read Chinese easily by recognising characters through simple illustrations.
William Britton
Founder & Chief Executive of AutonoMe
After completing his Video Production Degree and Post Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) specialising in Learning Disabilities he went on to teach ICT, Media and graphics to Adults with Learning Disabilities. William also worked for 5 years as an Assistive Technology specialist and combined his understanding of Learning Disabilities, Video production and technical knowledge to develop a prototype of AutonoMe. After receiving high praise he founded AutonoMe to build a 21st-century solution to the barriers to independence faced by the Learning Disability community.
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About AutonoMe, EasyVideo: AutonoMe is a support provider delivering independent living skills to people with learning disabilities.
Giacomo Moiso
Co-Founder & CEO of Fluentify
Giacomo Moiso Co-Founder & CEO at Fluentify
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About Fluentify: Fluentify connects language learners with carefully selected native speakers around the world trough 30-minutes individual live sessions.
Claudio Bosco
Co-Founder & COO of Fluentify
**Co-founder** and **COO** at [Fluentify](http://www.fluentify.com). Fluentify is the most effective, simple and natural way to learn a language. Find the perfect native tutor, turn on your webcam and enjoy the experience. Simple.
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About Fluentify: Fluentify connects language learners with carefully selected native speakers around the world trough 30-minutes individual live sessions.
Matteo Avalle
Co-Founder & CTO of Fluentify
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About Fluentify: Fluentify connects language learners with carefully selected native speakers around the world trough 30-minutes individual live sessions.
Michael Hung
Co-Founder of FluentUp
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About FluentUp: FluentUp is the social marketplace enabling accredited language schools to create and sell live online courses.
Pete Daykin
CEO and Co-Founder of Wordnerds
Pete Daykin is the CEO and Co-Founder at Wordnerds.
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About Wordnerds: Wordnerds teach computers to understand language, make decisions, and find actionable insights.
Alexander Langle
CEO – Founder of Oystext
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About Oystext: Oystext allows you to communicate with other users around the world, without any language skills.
Gareth Davies
Founder/CEO of Kwiziq
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About Kwiziq: Kwiziq is an AI language coach to help students improve their second language skills with intelligent, personalised coaching.
