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 Children 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.
Sylvana Ward Durrett
CEO & Co-Founder of Maisonette
Whether you’re shopping for yourself, for your groceries, or for your dog, there’s some sort of curated, online, one-stop shopping solution,” says Maisonette co-founder and CEO Sylvana Ward Durrett. “We as parents–my co-founder and I–sort of scratched our heads when we realized this didn’t really exist in the kids world.” A former assistant to Anna Wintour and one-time editor at Vogue, Durrett has made it her mission to streamline the process of shopping for children’s luxury clothing.
Follow Sylvana Ward Durrett:
About Maisonette: Maisonette is a children’s clothing and lifestyle e-commerce site.
Daniel Price
Co-Founder of My 1st Years
Daniel Price is a Co-Founder at My 1st Years.
Follow Daniel Price:
About My 1st Years: My 1st Years offers personalised gifts for babies and children.
Asi Sharabi
Co-Founder & CEO of Wonderbly
Founded in 2014, Wonderbly is a unique, award winning startup that lives on the intersection of storytelling, engineering, digital and print. We are building a new class of global publishing business that brings millions of people into our superbly high quality products – as co-creators and audiences – and in doing so empower them to build connections with each other. We’re calling it Personal Publishing and we believe it’s going to be massive. Backed by top VCs (inc Google Ventures) Our company is based in the UK but with a global footprint. We are a ‘full stack publisher’, handling every aspect of the process of creating our books and serving our customers through our zero inventory, direct to consumer model. While we keep growing and nurturing our core business – creating stunning, uncompromisingly high quality and technically ambitious personalised books for kids – we have recently launched Wonderbly Studios: our strategic partnerships & joint ventures platform. Wonderbly Studios offers access to our world-leading personalisation expertise across design, tech and POD manufacturing.
Follow Asi Sharabi:
About Wonderbly: Wonderbly is a full stack publishing company from London.
Pedro Serapicos
Co-Founder of Wonderbly
Follow Pedro Serapicos:
About Wonderbly: Wonderbly is a full stack publishing company from London.
Ben Drury
Co-Founder and CEO of Yoto
Ben began his career in 1996 as a founder of dotmusic.com, an internal venture at United News and Media which attracted over 1.8m unique users per month (in 1999). In 2000 Ben was recruited by BT Group to head up the broadband music efforts at their ISP BT Openworld where he successfully launched a major music channel. Following the partnership between BT and Yahoo! to form BT Yahoo! in 2003, Ben engineered the sale of dotmusic to Yahoo! for approx. £3.3m. Ben then founded 7digital with James Kane in 2004 with the vision of creating a digital media marketplace. 7digital operates services that bring together suppliers and consumers of digital media. In September 2008 7digital.com was the first company in Europe to launch DRM-free MP3 downloads with all four major record labels. In September 2009 HMV Group acquired a 50% equity stake in 7digital with an investment of £7.7m. Ben was named by Growing Business magazine as a Young Gun 2006 – the award for leading entrepreneurs under 35. In 2007, 7digital was awarded the prestigious Red Herring Top 100 Europe Award as one of the most promising technology companies in Europe.
Follow Ben Drury:
About Pimoroni, Yoto: Yoto – The screen-free audio platform for kids.
Tom Evans
Founder & CEO of BleepBleeps – Smart Family
Tom Evans is the Founder of BleepBleeps.
Follow Tom Evans:
About BleepBleeps – Smart Family, Central Research Laboratory, D&AD, SapientNitro: Cute, connected gadgets that make parenting magic.
Elizabeth Tweedale
Founder and CEO of Cypher Coders
Elizabeth Tweedale is the CEO and founder of Cypher Coders
Follow Elizabeth Tweedale:
About Cypher Coders: Cypher inspires children to learn the language of the future through hands-on creative coding camps and courses.
Faisal Laljee
Co-Founder and CEO of KidSitter
Follow Faisal Laljee:
About Blow, KidSitter: Online marketplace for finding trusted, reliable and thoroughly vetted childcare
George Chan
Co-Founder and COO of KidSitter
Follow George Chan:
About KidSitter: Online marketplace for finding trusted, reliable and thoroughly vetted childcare
Rob Lough
Chief Strategy Officer / Co-Founder of KidsKnowBest
Follow Rob Lough:
About KidsKnowBest: A full-service creative agency; driven by insights; powered by youth. Delivering effective and results-led solutions.
Joel Silverman
CEO / Co-Founder of KidsKnowBest
Follow Joel Silverman:
About KidsKnowBest: A full-service creative agency; driven by insights; powered by youth. Delivering effective and results-led solutions.
Adeola Adesuyi
Co Founder & CFO of mytoddlr
Follow Adeola Adesuyi:
About mytoddlr: mytoddlr is a new improved tool that helps early education providers better manage their setting and engage parents.
Douglas Lloyd
CEO & Co-Founder of Macademia
Follow Douglas Lloyd:
About Macademia: Macademia is an award-winning global EdTech company providing educational programming and games for children.
Estelle Lloyd
COO & Co-Founder of Macademia
Follow Estelle Lloyd:
About Macademia: Macademia is an award-winning global EdTech company providing educational programming and games for children.
Mark Bates
Founder and Managing Director of Banana Moon Day Nursery Limited
Mark is the Managing Director and founder of Banana Moon Day Nursery. After becoming frustrated with the shortage of good, high quality nurseries into which he would have been happy to place his own children, he decided to take matters into his own hands and build his own! Mark’s approach has always been from the point-of-view of a concerned parent and it is this approach which has led to Banana Moon developing such a unique and distinctive model. Whilst every nursery is clearly governed by current legislation, the Banana Moon system adds a whole new layer of experience on top of this and it is this approach which has resulted in the success that Banana Moon now enjoys.
Follow Mark Bates:
About Banana Moon Day Nursery Limited: Banana Moon Day Nursery is the leading franchise in UK for best day care services which build up with quality environment of child care.
Joanne Dempsey
Founder of Naturelly Jelly Juice
Follow Joanne Dempsey:
About Naturelly Jelly Juice: Naturelly is a fun & fruity juicy jelly snack for active kids.
Andrew Purcell
CEO, Founder of Child Angel
Andrew has run a Wealth Management company for 25 years and is the Founder of Child Angel. He is at the forefront of the company and strives to achieve his heart’s desire of having an Angel look over your Child.
Follow Andrew Purcell:
About Child Angel: Child Angel™ is one of the smallest and most advanced child tracking devices available in the world today.
Gerard McBreen
CEO and Founder of Komodo Learning
Gerard McBreen is the CEO and founder at Komodo Learning.
Follow Gerard McBreen:
About Komodo Learning: Komodo Learning is an online mathematics home learning app for children.
Sara Tateno
Founder and CEO of Happity
Follow Sara Tateno:
About Happity: Happity helps parents find baby & toddler classes. Fast.
Douglas Heidergren
CEO and Founder of Hyber
Founder of Hyber.
Follow Douglas Heidergren:
About Hyber: Hyber is Sweden’s largest subscription rental platform for clothes and baby products for parents and children.
Becky Waters
Founder of PlanBee
Becky Waters is a Founder at PlanBee.
Follow Becky Waters:
About PlanBee: PlanBee offers complete ready-to-use primary teaching resources including lesson plans, worksheets, slides and more.
David Evans
Founder of Hootloot Limited
Follow David Evans:
About Hootloot Limited: Personal financial management for families
