Can the UK generate young entrepreneurs and innovators with the potential to take the world stage? A panel of leading figures in London’s start-up community believes it can – they’ve just identified 10 entrepreneurs under the age of 30 to watch over the year ahead.
John Spindler, the chief executive of Capital Enterprise, a not-for-profit group that works with supporters of entrepreneurs in London, says the city has become a hub both for home-grown entrepreneurial talent and innovators from overseas. The group, which picked the shortlist of 10 young entrepreneurs in combination with Royal Bank of Scotland and Google Cloud Platform, thinks the future is bright.
“The London ecosystem is the largest tech ecosystem in Europe - not only do we nurture and support entrepreneurs in the UK, but as our selection shows we also attract some of the leading entrepreneurs from Europe,” Spindler says. “We chose the best entrepreneurs on merit and it was very satisfying to see the range of backgrounds and sectors our selections come from; within the 10, we have three women and four non-Brits. I’m looking forward to seeing in 12 months what these companies have achieved – I can confidently predict that some of them will change the world.”
So who’s on the experts’ list of 10 entrepreneurs under the age of 30 to watch? Here’s the list in full:
Nafisa Bakkar, Amaliah
Bakkar started the clothing website Amaliah with her sister to address the difficulty Muslim women face when looking for clothes that are modest yet fashionable. Since its launch 10 months ago, the site has evolved to also become a panel for the voices of Muslim women in the UK. Bakkar studied and worked at UCL before launching Amaliah.
Ilia Zintchenko, Mindi
Zintchenko is co-founder of Mindi, an artificial intelligence start-up whose algorithms are reducing energy usage in data centres. Zintchenko grew up in Moscow and studied for a PhD in computer science at ETH Zurich, where he met his two co-founders. The team came to London after gaining a place in on the Techstars accelerator programme.
Jonny Grubin, SoPost.co.uk
The founder of SoPost.co.uk, Grubin grew up in Newcastle and moved to London for university, where a conversation with seven other strangers on Twitter led to them founding his first start-up. That business failed, but Grubin wasn’t deterred. SoPost, which helps brands to drive their product sampling through online resources, launched four years ago and now has 18 full-time employees, as well as offices in London, Newcastle, and New York.
Tommy Williams, All Shades Covered
All Shades Covered is an e-commerce site providing affordable hair care products and extensions to women of colour. The site achieves this by cutting out the middle man involved in most salons’ supply chains and dealing with extension factories directly. Williams grew up in East London and graduated from Oxford University in 2012. He worked as an investment banker for Goldman Sachs and Jumia in Nigeria before his sister’s comments on how much she had to spend on haircare inspired him to launch All Shades Covered in April 2016.
Tobias Rijken, Kheiron Medical
Kheiron Medical is a medical imagery company that uses machine learning technologies to develop tools for radiologists that improve the efficiency and accuracy of radiology reporting. Rijken grew up in Amsterdam and studied for a Masters at UCL before joining Entrepreneur First in March 2016, where he met his co-founder.
Dominik Tomicevic, Memgraph
Tomicevic is the co-founder of Memgraph, a start-up developing the world’s first in-memory real-time transactional and analytical graph database. Tomicevic and his co-founder Marko Budiselić moved their company from Croatia to London to take advantage of the large tech ecosystem and support network of UK and international connections available to those working from the capital.
Nisha Kotecha, Good News Shared
Kotecha launched her website, Good News Shared, after working for a charity that helped isolated elderly people connect with others in the community. One of her toughest challenges had been getting in touch with older people to let them know about the charity’s work, so Kotesha set up Good News Shared in 2014 to share stories about the great work charities are doing across the UK.
Jamie Potter, Flexciton
Flexciton is an artificial intelligence company that uses machine learning to check the data generated by large machines and figure out a more energy efficient way to use this data. Such equipment has the potential to consume more than 25 per cent of the world’s energy and Flexciton’s applications can save companies up to £30m in this area.
Clarence Ji, ViewLDN
ViewLDN is an augmented reality app for tourists to help them find nearby shops, restaurants, and sites of historical interest. Ji grew up in Beijing and is now in his final year studying for a masters in computer science at King’s College London whilst working on his app. He plans to launch ViewLDN in June.
Phoebe Hugh, Brolly
Hugh is the co-founder of Brolly, which uses customised artificial intelligence tools to provide personalised insurance advice. Hugh began started working on Brolly back in 2015 before becoming one of the stars of Entrepreneur First’s 2016 cohort where she met her co-founder Mykhailo Loginov.
