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 Wearables 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.
Alexander Asseily
Co-Founder of Elvie
Alex is an entrepreneur and investor with more than 20 years of experience in consumer products and wearable technology. Among other things, Alex co-founded Jawbone, where he led the team to release its most iconic consumer products. Alex advises a number of companies and charities in the US and Europe, including Nectarine Health, Lilium and Atomico.
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About Elvie, State.it: Elvie is a British femtech company developing smart technology for women.
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Tania Boler
Founder and CEO of Elvie
Tania is an internationally recognized women’s health expert and has held leadership positions for various global NGOs and the United Nations. Passionate about challenging taboo women’s issues, Tania founded Elvie in 2013, partnering with Alexander Asseily to create a global hub of connected health and lifestyle products for women.
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About Elvie: Elvie is a British femtech company developing smart technology for women.
Philip Beahon
Co-Founder of Castore
Co-founder at Castore.
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About Castore: Castore is a premium sportswear brand.
Thomas Beahon
Co-Founder of Castore
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About Castore: Castore is a premium sportswear brand.
Sara Murray
Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Buddi
Sara Murray (M.A. Oxon) is a serial entrepreneur. She founded Ninah Consulting, which uses proprietary software to advise clients, including GSK and Coca-Cola, on marketing effectiveness, and sold it to Publicis Groupe. In 1999, Sara founded Inspop, which owns the brand Confused.com. She built and sold the online company to the Admiral Group. She was a non-executive Director of Schering Health Care and a founding board member of Seedcamp. Sara won the Entrepreneur of the Year Award 2009 and sits on the Technology Strategy Board Governing Board. Sara was awarded an OBE for services to Entrepreneurship and Innovation in the Queen’s Birthday Honours 2012 and is a qualified helicopter pilot.
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About Buddi, Confused.com: Buddi is an innovative, high-growth and british technology company that develops location and health monitoring technologies.
Charles Nduka
Co Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Emteq
Charles Nduka studied medicine at Oxford University, where he also undertook an undergraduate intercalated degree on Physiological Sciences. He completed his clinical studies for the MB BS degree at St. Mary’s Hospital, in London. He graduated as a doctor in 1994 with a Distinction in Surgery. He was also awarded Honours in Surgery by the University of London. Following his internship he spent 2 years in full-time research with Professor Sir Ara Darzi at Imperial College in the Department of Biosurgery and Surgical Technology. For his thesis on he was awarded a doctoral degree (MD, Doctor of Medicine) by the University of London. He undertook his surgical training in London teaching Hospitals including the Royal London & St Bartholomew’s Hospital, Charing Cross and Hammersmith Hospitals. He completed his specialist training at the Royal Marsden Hospital. He was awarded the Macgregor Gold Medal for his performance in the plastic and reconstructive surgery FRCS examination. Charles has a long track record of R &D and has worked with industrial partners on clinical trials, technology evaluations or as a consultant for 20 years. Previous collaborators include Glaxo-Smithkline, 3DmD, Allergan, ICN, Johnson and Johnson. He has won numerous research awards including from the Wellcome Trust, the National Institute for Health Research, Innovate UK and the Nominet Trust. He is an internationally recognised specialist in facial muscle disorders and in 2007 established the largest unit treating facial paralysis in the UK at the Queen Victoria Hospital. He has multiple patents pending. In 2013 he identified the potential of wearable sensors for monitoring facial muscle activity and funded the development of prototype sensors and proof of concept technologies. He has taken a sabbatical from his full-time clinical role at Queen Victoria Hospital in order to focus on Emteq and develop further IP and products.
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About BRITISH ASSOCIATION OF AESTHETIC PLASTIC SURGEONS, Emteq, Facial Palsy UK, Queen Victoria Hospital: The world’s first emotion recognition and analysis platform in smart glasses
Dimitri Mikhalchuk
Co-Founder and Chief Revenue Officer of Teslasuit
Dimitri Mikhalchuk is the founder and co-founder of several tech companies and start-ups. He is also in charge of the London based digital marketing agency. Previously he worked with some of the world’s leading chip and electronics manufacturers. Dimitri is an expert in electronics, haptics, wearables, robotics and software development. He’s at the top of the most influential people in the field of VR \ AR (according to Evening Standard, UK), keynote speaker, business consultant and an investor.
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About MKSTAR, Teslasuit, TravoLab: Teslasuit is a team of talented developers and designers, creating innovative products for XR and MedTech.
Andrey Chuprin
Co-Founder, Investor of Teslasuit
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About ITI Capital, Mainprimus, Teslasuit: Teslasuit is a team of talented developers and designers, creating innovative products for XR and MedTech.
Sumanta Talukdar
Co-Founder of WaveOptics
Sumanta is WaveOptics’ co-founder and CEO. Immersed in computer science, optics and photonics since university, Sumanta has worked across displays, medical systems sensors and HUD for the likes of Oxsensis, BAE Systems, Sharp and Honeywell Analytics.
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About Gardin, WaveOptics: WaveOptics designs Augmented Reality (AR) wearables with enhanced features.
David Grey
Co-Founder of WaveOptics
David founded WaveOptics with Sumanta and is its Chief Technology Officer. Optical design, imaging and illumination have been David’s specialism for over 25 years. Previously, at Carclo Optics, he led the design of Passive Infrared lenses for high volume, high quality security and lighting control, and as head of Optics at BAE Systems, David led the development of head-up its displays.
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About WaveOptics: WaveOptics designs Augmented Reality (AR) wearables with enhanced features.
Nicolai Thomson
Founder of Jukes
Nicolai is an entrepreneur and investor, founder of Jukes, Adlocate.io, VirtualMeet and TaxiClub. Investor in Stashbee, Pynk and Quin. Worked at Workbooks, Spark New Zealand, LendYour, NZ Inland Revenue and Daisy. Founder of 5 businesses with one exit.
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About Adlocate.io, Jukes: Wireless headsets for coaches to communicate with athletes in real-time during a training session
Carina Cunha
Co-Founder & CEO of Be Nosy
Carina is a business strategist and inventor of Nosy with passion for science, sales and marketing. In her former role as MD and Launcher of Crimson Education Europe, she created sales, marketing and service delivery teams from scratch, achieving millions in ARR and 150%+ YoY growth. Prior to working with startups Carina was corporate strategist at JPMorgan, Strategy Consultant at Accenture, Investment Banker at Credit Suisse, and a fashion model with Elite. Carina is also an innovation and commercial consultant through Meta Strategy and Founders Intelligence where she helps startups and scale-ups find product-market fit and corporates build new revenue lines. She has a B.A. from Columbia University and PgD. from the University of Edinburgh.
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About Be Nosy: Nosy is a MedTech startup developing wearable air filter and air pollution tracking network.
Stephen Lane
Founder & CEO of Prop Store
The founder of The Prop Store of London, Stephen became interested in movie memorabilia while his previous sign-making company was working as a contractor on the sets of Eyes Wide Shut. Stephen began networking with Industry technicians and found his first few treasures, which led him to pursue Prop Store as a full time business. At that time, no one in the UK was selling this type of memorabilia as a full-time operation. Stephen has been a steady pioneer in the industry, constantly developing and evolving the business and constantly trying fresh initiatives. He has located some of the most significant caches of film memorabilia of the past decade and both his personal and company collections reflect this- they are amongst the finest in the world.
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About Prop Store: Prop Store, one of the worlds leading vendors of original movie props and costumes.
Chris Mitchell
CEO & Founder of Audio Analytic
Dr Chris Mitchell founded Audio Analytic following the completion of his self-funded PhD in sound information systems and signal processing. Chris received a prestigious Kauffman/NCGE Fellowship to investigate the commercial implications of his research, through which he received training at Harvard Business School and worked with Cisco Systems in San Jose, US. Subsequently, Chris attended the Ignite programme at the University of Cambridge’s Judge Business School, funded by the East of England Development Agency. He is an internationally published author, an associate lecturer at Anglia Ruskin University’s Design and Technology Department, and holder of multiple patents.
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About Audio Analytic: Audio Analytic creates exceptional human experiences through giving consumer technology a greater sense of hearing.
Josip Balažević
Co-Founder of Racefully
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About Racefully: Enabling businesses to increase employee engagement and lower health costs through a compelling virtual team-based fitness solution.
Ramsey Faragher
Founder & CEO of Focal Point Positioning
Ramsey Faragher is the CEO and CTO at Focal Point Positioning. He is a world-leading expert in GNSS-denied positioning and is pioneering the development of game-changing new technologies to set new standards in indoor positioning and autonomous positioning systems. He holds a first class degree in Physics and a PhD in opportunistic radio positioning, both from the University of Cambridge. Ramsey is also a Fellow of the Royal Institute of Navigation, and a Bye Fellow of Queens’ College, Cambridge. Previously he was a Senior Research Associate at the University of Cambridge, where he developed the first online SLAM-based indoor positioning system for smartphones. Prior to this he was a Principal Scientist at the BAE Systems Advanced Technology Centre where he developed the award-winning and patented NAVSOP opportunistic positioning suite and other GNSS-denied tracking technologies.
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About Focal Point Positioning: Focal Point has developed next generation navigation and positioning software for smartphones, wearables and autonomous vehicles.
Gerard Rubio
CEO & Founder of Kniterate
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About Kniterate: Kniterate is an affordable and compact digital knitting machine for your workshop.
Mark Bernstein
Founder & CEO of Wearable Technologies
Having qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Ernst & Young, Mark has spent the bulk of his career taking early stage technology companies from inception to exit. He has been involved in five IPOs, and has sat on UK LSE and AIM public company Boards for 20 years, including Moss Bros. Plc, a leading UK clothing retailer. Mark has worked with VCs and strategic equity partners including IBM, Motorola, BT, Sky and Dixons.
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About Visijax, Wearable Technologies: Wearable Technologies designs, manufactures, and distributes intelligent clothing that are embedded with washable electronics.
Faii Ong
Founder and CEO of GyroGear
Faii Ong is the founder and CEO of GyroGear.
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About GyroGear: GyroGear is developing a wearable to help individuals with hand tremors.
Leo Scott Smith
Founder & CEO of Tended
Leo Scott Smith is Tended’s CEO and founder, having started the business in 2017 to create transformative tech solutions that can put an end to occupational fatalities. He was named as one of the Forbes 30 Under 30 2021, the Midlands Startup Entrepreneur of the Year at the 2019 Great British Entrepreneur Awards, and sits as the Lead Digital Advisor and Vice Chair for Lincoln City’s £20m economic regeneration plan. As a serial entrepreneur with eight years’ experience in AI and IoT, Leo has grown Tended into an award-winning safety technology company that has raised over £4.5m of private investment to date.
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About Tended: Tended combines wearable technology with behavioural psychology to transform safety in high-risk working environments. With five years’ 5 years’ experience developing safety wearables, Tended has deployed over 10,000 wearables in safety-critical environments. The company counts industry-leading organisations, including Network Rail, Siemens, and Unilever, as its clients, helping them solve complex safety challenges.
The company develops its solutions alongside behavioural science and psychology experts and has developed a first-of-its kind safety culture change solution, which is now part of HS2’s main safety strategy.
Colleen Wong
Founder & CEO of Techsixtyfour
Techsixtyfour was founded in September 2015 by Colleen Wong, an investment banker turned entrepreneur. As a new mum on a day out with her children she witnessed a parent’s panic when their child when missing and was inspired to develop something that would help children and their parents stay better connected but without tying them to a smart phone, which comes with so many unnecessary distractions. Techsixtyfour’s first product, the Gator watch, is a wearable mobile phone and tracker made for young kids and now available to purchase at John Lewis, Amazon and at Bentalls Kingston.
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About Techsixtyfour: The UK’s coolest wearable mobile phone and tracker made just for kids.
Alfredo Belfiori
Founder & CEO of Flicktek Ltd
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About BetterSpace, Flicktek Ltd: Gesture control for smartwatches, IoT and VR
Jordan McRae
Founder and CEO of Mobilus Labs
Jordan McRae is an inventor, engineer, and entrepreneur. He is currently the Founder and CEO of Mobilus Labs where they’re developing a wearable hands free / ear free voice platform using cutting edge innovations in bone conduction technology, voice recognition, and digital signal processing.
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About Mobilus Labs: Mobilus Labs is a tech startup with the mission to provide frictionless voice communications.
Philip Campbell
Founder of K Wearables | My K Ring
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About K Wearables | My K Ring: K Wearables is an award winning fintech focussed on wearables, combining payments, mass transit, loyalty, access control and ticketing.
Serge Didenko
Founder of BLOCKS
Serge Didenko is the Founder at BLOCKS.
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About BLOCKS: BLOCKS is a sensor platform for industrial data collection.
Lisa Stroux
Co-Founder of Sentimoto
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About Sentimoto: Population health platform leveraging local resources
Alex Walsh
Co-Founder of JustWears
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About JustWears: JustWears is an essential wear brand for urban men.
Mark Pedley
Founder of SmartLife
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About SmartLife: SmartLife is a specialist in smart garment technology.
Hassan Rajwani
CEO & Co-Founder of REFSIX
Hassan is a Level 5 referee and is on a mission to help referees across the globe reach their potential. Hassan created REFSIX to help grassroots referees have greater insights into their games so they can develop and improve, enabling them to reach whatever level they aspire to be. Hassan’s background is in technology, specifically leading a digital design team at American Express where he worked for six years before embarking on REFSIX. A huge Newcastle fan enjoying the Rafalution!
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About REFSIX: REFSIX is a smartwatch and mobile app for Football Referees.
Luke Gardiner
CTO & Co-Founder of REFSIX
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About REFSIX: REFSIX is a smartwatch and mobile app for Football Referees.
Mathieu Bellanger
Technical Director and Co-Founder of Lightricity
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About Lightricity: Lightricity Ltd was founded in 2017 to commercialise its high-efficiency energy harvesting technology.
Ade Hassan
Founder of Nubian Skin
Ade Hassan is the founder of Nubia Skin.
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About Nubian Skin: Nubian Skin provides a collection of skin-tone hosiery and lingeries for women of colour.
Paul van Zyl
Founder & CEO of Maiyet
Kristy Caylor is a Co-Founder and the President and Creative Director of Maiyet. Kristy brings to the team a keen entrepreneurial spirit, a successful track record of growing globally recognized fashion businesses, and hands-on experience working within developing countries. Kristy began her fashion career in merchandising at Gap, Inc. While at Gap, Kristy led the Petite business for Banana Republic where she opened stand-alone stores and tripled the business over 2 years. She then relocated to Tokyo to lead the BR Japan merchandising division. Engaging an entirely new customer, Kristy was instrumental in positioning the BR brand and customizing product for the Japanese market. Upon returning to the US, Kristy became the head of merchandising for Gap Accessories and Product (RED). There, she redeveloped the accessories lines, led the development and launch of Gap Jewelry, and focused intensely on creating a more creative and effective business model for Product (RED). Kristy left Gap to start her own consulting business, during which time she worked with brands such as Stronghold Denim, All Saints, and Mercado Global, a fair trade company based in Guatemala. As a design consultant for Mercado Global, Kristy worked directly with indigenous artisans, teaching new techniques and guiding product development for an assortment sold to Nordstrom and Levi’s. After working as a consultant for the LA based luxury brand Band of Outsiders, Kristy joined the company full time as their President and COO, initiating a long-term growth plan that resulted in new product launches and expanded wholesale penetration. Kristy graduated with a B.S. in Industrial Engineering from Northwestern University and holds an MBA in Entrepreneurship and Finance from University of Southern California.
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About Maiyet, New York University, The Conduit: Maiyet is a modern, artisanal luxury fashion brand that designs, sources and produces apparel, accessories, and jewelry.
Marija Butkovic
Founder and CEO of Women of Wearables
Marija Butkovic is founder and CEO of Women of Wearables – an initiative that supports, connects and empowers women in wearable tech, fashion tech, IoT and VR/AR.
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About Women of Wearables: Women of Wearables is first global organisation supporting and connecting women in wearable tech, fashion tech, health tech, IoT, VR and AR.
Stan Karpenko
Co-Founder & CTO of GiveVision
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About GiveVision: GiveVision is a high tech low vision aids enhancing the remaining sight of partially sighted people.
Rafael Michaeli
CoFounder of SAVA
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About SAVA: The first effortless continuous molecular tracker unlocking human perfomance
Paul Gill
Founder & Director of Orsto
Paul Gill is Founder & Director at Orsto.
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About Orsto: ORSTO Ltd is a British Private Ltd company backed by 84 International Investors.
Hadeel Ayoub
Founder of BrightSign
Hadeel Ayoub is a Saudi designer who spent 8 years teaching digital design courses to girls in higher education in Saudi Arabia. She then moved to the UK to pursue postgraduate studies. She obtained a Masters of Arts from Goldsmiths, University of London in Computational Arts where she stayed on to do her PhD in Arts & Computational Technology. Hadeel’s research is focused on developing assistive technology pieces to disrupt the healthcare innovation industry. Her studies engage speech disabled participants and children with non-verbal autism. Her goal is to design multiple wearable technology assistive tools to help sign language users with their daily communication. Hadeel’s BrightSign Glove innovation gained global awards in Innovation and Artificial Intelligence. Her slogan is ‘One day I hope to give a voice to those who can’t speak’.
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About BrightSign: BrightSign is a data glove wired with sensors to translate sign language hand gestures to text and speech.
Mert Ergeneci
Chief Technology Officer & Founder of Neurocess
Mert Ergeneci is the Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Neurocess.
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About Neurocess: Neurocess offers services as a wearable technology product that increases the training performance and reduces the risk of injury.
Sarah Haran
Founder/Creative Lead of Sarah Haran
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About Sarah Haran: Sarah Haran is a retailer of luxury handbags that can be purchased online.
Pauline Issard
CEO & Co-Founder of Trackener
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About Trackener: Trackener is revolutionising the equine care with data and technology.
Jeremie Charlet
CTO & Co-Founder of Trackener
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About Trackener: Trackener is revolutionising the equine care with data and technology.
Carnise McIntosh
Founder & Prod Dev of Leoht Incorporated
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About Leoht Incorporated: Leoht Incorporated is a wearable tech startup that integrates technology into fashion and accessories.
Olivia Cantillon
Co-Founder & Creative Director of Own The Look
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About Own The Look: It is an online global womenswear store focusing on outfit dressing for the everyday woman.
Amy Barker
Founder and Company Director of Monks Clothing
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About Monks Clothing: A online menswear store.
Ariel Tabaks
Co-Founder, Chief Design Officer of asya.ai
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About asya.ai: Asya is an app for mindful conversation powered by Ethical AI
Stacy Chan
Founder & Creative Director of Stacy Chan London
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About Stacy Chan London: Founded in 2013, the Stacy Chan brand takes unique, minimalist construction as a starting point for luxury fashion.
Joseph Katsioloudes
Founder/COO of Glovdi Technological Innovations
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About Glovdi Technological Innovations: Glovdi Technological Innovations, a London based startup. Specialising in wearables of the future.
Mark Sorsa-Leslie
CEO & Co-Founder of Beringar
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About Beringar: Beringar is a technology has revolutionised the way they live and work.
Lydia Markwick
Co-Founder of Yaantu Ltd.
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About Yaantu Ltd.: Yaantu promotes a healthy, happy lifestyle by bringing together an organisation, its employees and the charities it supports.
