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 Smart Home 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.
Paul Walton
Founder/CTO of Boundary
Paul Walton is the Founder and CTO of Boundary.
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About Boundary, Oodls, Prodsight, Seed Haus: Boundary is an IoT Home Security company providing a smart burglar alarm system that can be controlled over mobile devices.
Robin Knox
Founder and CEO of Boundary
Robin Knox is the Founder and CEO at Boundary.
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About Boundary, Intelligent Point of Sale, Intelligent Point of Sale, iZettle, Seed Haus: Boundary is an IoT Home Security company providing a smart burglar alarm system that can be controlled over mobile devices.
Prashanth Makaram
Founder & CEO of Crocus Labs
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About Crocus Labs: Crocus Labs is developing smart LED technology for horticulture.
Paul Besnainou
Founder & CEO of Sweet Inn
Paul Besnainou is a 31-year old French-Israeli entrepreneur, who is entirely self-taught. After his high school diploma, he opted to pursue his studies at the Mir Yeshiva rather than attend a prominent business school. Following his seven years of Talmudic studies, he emerged filled with intellectual curiosity, discipline, and an analytical spirit – characteristics that would lead him to found and direct, only a year later, Sweet Inn. In just 5 years since its founding, Sweet Inn is already located in 13 cities around Europe and in Israel, totaling over 700 apartments and employ more than 200 employees.
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About Sweet Inn: Sweet Inn is a booking platform intended for hotel services for tourists and business travelers.
Patrick Sheehan
Founder and Managing Partner of ETF Partners
Patrick is a founder and Partner of the Environmental Technologies Fund. Patrick has worked in venture capital since 1985. He was instrumental in founding 3i’s venture capital practice, and later became the founding Managing Director of its Silicon Valley operation. Before this, he was a research engineer for GEC and Marconi Space Systems. He was a member of the Executive Committee and Board of EVCA from 2007 to 2010, during which time he also chaired the Venture Capital Committee. Patrick has a Ph.D. in Electronic Engineering from UCL, London.
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About ETF Partners: ETF Partners supports talented entrepreneurs and management teams with investment capital and experience.
Peter Horsburgh
Venture Partner and Founder of ETF Partners
Founder and Chairman at ETF Partners (Environmental Technologies Fund).
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About ETF Partners: ETF Partners supports talented entrepreneurs and management teams with investment capital and experience.
Leon Doyle
CEO & Co-Founder of WIFIPLUG
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About myma.io, WIFIPLUG: myma.io – the IoT cloud that powers WIFIPLUG
Yohei Kiguchi
Co-Founder & CEO of Enechange
Graduated from the University of Tokyo and Oxford graduate school. Joined Milog in 2009. He participated as a co-founder. Joined Cambridge Energy Data Lab in 2013. Jointly joined as a co-founder and data scientist. Joined ENECHANGE in 2015. He participated as a co-founder. Joined SMAP Energy in 2016. He participated as a co-founder. Was elected in 2017 Forbes Europe as 30 entrepreneurs under the age of 30 (“FORBES 30 UNDER 30 EUROPE”).
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About Cambridge Energy Data Lab, Enechange, SMAP Energy: ENECHANGE is the technology-focused multi-national energy ventures.
Florian Hoven
Founder of KeyNest – Smart Key Exchange
As an Airbnb host and frequent user when travelling, I know the struggles for both sides (hosts & guests) when key exchanges are badly coordinated or flights are delayed. Helping hosts & guests to enjoy the Airbnb experience is my every day motivation.
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About KeyNest – Smart Key Exchange: Smart key management solutions for Airbnb hosts, short-term rental operators and estate agents
Marc Figueras
Founder of KeyNest – Smart Key Exchange
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About KeyNest – Smart Key Exchange: Smart key management solutions for Airbnb hosts, short-term rental operators and estate agents
Tom Carr
Co-Founder of Verto Homes
Proactive, motivated and entrepreneurial, Tom is an expert in residential property development and brokerage. With over a decade’s experience in the industry, he knows the domestic and overseas markets well and understands the complexities of working in multiple jurisdictions. With several high quality developments under his belt, Tom has developed a wide range of residential property development skills. These include site acquisition, design, development, sales and marketing strategy and implementation. At Verto Homes, Tom’s focus is on sales and marketing. He’s also involved at the design and planning stages of every Verto Homes project.
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About Verto Homes: Experienced developers, building 20 Zero Carbon Smart homes that generate their own energy.
Richard Pearce
Co-Founder of Verto Homes
Richard Pearce is Co-Founder at Verto Homes.
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About Verto Homes: Experienced developers, building 20 Zero Carbon Smart homes that generate their own energy.
Simon Phelan
Co-Founder and CEO of Hometree
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About Hometree: Hometree exists to make home ownership simple & sustainable
Alfredo Belfiori
Founder & CEO of Flicktek Ltd
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About BetterSpace, Flicktek Ltd: Gesture control for smartwatches, IoT and VR
Vassilis Seferidis
Co-Founder & CEO of Zeetta Networks
Vassilis has more than 25 years of experience in the Telecom and Consumer Electronics (CE) industries mainly in Strategic Business Planning and Development roles. Before co-founding Zeetta Networks, Vassilis was VP of European Business Development for Samsung Electronics responsible for driving revenue growth and strategic development of the company’s Consumer Electronics business in Europe. Prior to Samsung, he held senior management positions with British Telecom, Toshiba Information Systems, Philips Electronics, and British Standards Institute. During 2006-2009 he was the CTO of QIO Systems Inc., a pioneer in wearable electronics based in New York City. Vassilis holds a BSc and MSc from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, a PhD in Electronic Systems Engineering from Essex University and an MBA from Cass Business School, University of London. In 2011 he was included in Euro50, a list of Europe’s 50 most influential people in Broadband &Telecoms industries.
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About Zeetta Networks: Zeetta Networks simplifies the monitoring, management and automation of complex ICT networks
Reza Nejabati
Co Founder, Director of Zeetta Networks
Reza is currently a Senior Lecturer in Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Bristol, UK. Prior to moving into academia he worked in project management and network architecture roles with leading telecom vendors. Reza has over fifteen years of experience in the field of telecommunication and computer science and has been actively involved in SDN and Network Function Virtualisation (NFV) standardisation. He has made important and pioneering contributions to the research fields of Optical Networking, Software Defined Networking, Network & Data Centre Infrastructure Virtualization, Grid Networking and Large Scale Future Internet Experimentation. He has co-/authored over 150 peer reviewed papers and three SDN standardisation documents.
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About University of Bristol, Zeetta Networks: Zeetta Networks simplifies the monitoring, management and automation of complex ICT networks
Yasser Khattak
Founder of Den
Yasser Khattak is the Founder at Den.
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About Den: Den is designing the next generation of light switches and plug sockets.
William Makant
Co-Founder and CEO of Plumis
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About Plumis: Intelligence in the fabric of every building
Yusuf Muhammad
Co-Founder and Chief Design Officer (CDO) of Plumis
Yusuf is a co-inventor of Automist. He has an Honours Masters degree in Engineering and a double Masters in Innovation Design Engineering. He has won numerous design awards for a host of innovations across a number of industries including the James Dyson Award, the Toyota IQ Design Challenge & Transport Design of the Year by the Design Museum to name a few. He also starred in the BBC 2 Show ‘The Big Life Fix’.
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About Plumis: Intelligence in the fabric of every building
Marco Matera
Chief Commercial Officer & Co-Founder of Gideon
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About Gideon: Gideon allows users to control all of their smart devices irrespective of brand, from a single application.
Sion Buckler
Founder of Wave
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About Wave: Wave offers software designed to transform single-board computers into smart home hubs which can make internet and energy freer.
Adam Kent
Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Enado
Adam is a successful entrepreneur with over 25 years’ experience in running technology-based businesses. Dynamic, visionary, enthusiastic, persuasive and energetic, he has a proven track record of creating profitable businesses that successfully fulfil gaps in the market, meet latent demand and are at the leading edge of market trends. Among his business creations, Adam founded one of the UK’s leading home automation installation companies a CCTV systems supply business and founded one of the pre-emminent manufacturers of Audio Visual racking. It is through his in-depth knowledge of these sectors that he identified the opportunity for Enado and brought its first embodiment to market.
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About Enado: Enado is the result of several years of planning and development.
