Hurun UK Uth Series Report 2026

The four Uth lists in depth

 

U40s — the summit of the Uth Series

 

The U40s are the series’ most senior list: 179 people, including 94 new awardees, 31 founder-built US$1bn+ companies and a published US$338.9bn of combined business size. Its FirstGen roll-call runs from Recursive’s Tim Rocktäschel and Josh Tobin to Synthesia’s Victor Riparbelli and Steffen Tjerrild, CuspAI’s Chad Edwards, Entrepreneur First’s Matt Clifford and Alice Bentinck, and Carl Pei’s second act at Nothing. The NextGen includes George Ratcliffe at INEOS, Hugh Grosvenor at Grosvenor Estate, Michael Murray at Frasers Group and Haider Choudrey at Bestway. Seventeen senior executives from companies including Revolut, ElevenLabs, Checkout.com, Wayve and Monzo show how the UK’s scale-ups are now producing exceptional leaders as well as founders.

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U35s — founders and family businesses in equal measure

 

The U35s combine frontier technology with the first substantial succession wave: 112 people, 46 new awardees, 16 founder-built US$1bn+ companies and US$209.6bn of value. ElevenLabs’ Mati Staniszewski and Piotr Dąbkowski lead the list alongside Nscale’s Josh Payne, Fuse Energy’s Alan Chang and Recursive’s Tim Shi. KSI brings global consumer reach through Prime Hydration, while Steven Bartlett and Dominic McGregor show how media and entrepreneurship reinforce each other. Thirteen NextGen leaders include three Warburton brothers, Tessa Reed, Emma Booth, William Langley and Charles Forte. The list also demonstrates the power of second acts, from Tim Shi’s Cresta to Recursive and Sam Stephenson’s Granola partnership with Socratic founder Chris Pedregal. Nine people appear on both the U30s and U35s.

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U30s — unicorn-trained, and building their own

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The U30s are where potential turns into proof: 78 people, split evenly between 39 new awardees and 39 previous winners still eligible, associated with US$129.8bn of published business size. Five businesses across all categories are valued at US$1bn or more: Revolut, Fuse Energy, Olix, the Nahmad family art business and SheMed. Charles Orr built Fuse with fellow Revolut alumnus Alan Chang; Olivia Ferro co-founded SheMed with her sister Chloe after Olivia’s decade-long search for a diagnosis; and Eduardo Maric became Revolut’s youngest-ever Operating Partner at 27. Around them are Clint Ogbenna’s Corteiz, Molly-Mae Hague’s Maebe, Richard Mealey’s ConnexAI and a strong group of previous winners still eligible by age and company valuation including Grace Beverley, Aimee Smale and Réka Trón.

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U25s — the inaugural list

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The inaugural U25s recognise 18 founders whose businesses are worth US$4.4bn in aggregate. SheMed’s Chloe Ferro and Olix’s James Dacombe have already built US$1bn+ companies; Toby Brown is just 17; and Noah Carlile-Swift co-founded Freckleface at 14. Nine of the 18 founded their first businesses as teenagers. Structured AI’s Raymond Zhao, Isabel Greenslade and Brandon Smith came through Oxford’s AI and entrepreneurship ecosystem, while Jaspar Carmichael-Jack and Toby Brown relocated to San Francisco to scale. The U25s are not a list of potential alone: they already show technical ambition, commercial traction and the confidence to build globally.

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What the class of 2026 has in common

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Industry. Consumer, retail & brands accounts for 79 people, AI & deep tech for 66, fintech & financial services for 56, and health, biotech & life sciences for 26. The spread runs from voice AI, autonomous driving, AI chips and agents to women’s health, clean energy, logistics, food, media and family retail — a cross-section of the UK’s present economy and its next one.

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FirstGen first. Of the 330 individuals, 283 are first-generation founders, 27 are NextGen leaders and 20 are senior executives. The NextGen stories show established family businesses renewing themselves; the senior-executive track shows the new economy creating leaders inside companies such as Revolut, Wayve, ElevenLabs and Checkout.com.

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Here by choice. Eighty-six people — 26.1% of the series — were born or raised outside the UK. They include founders from Poland, Australia, India, China, the USA, continental Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

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Gender. Fifty-three of the 330 people are women (16.1%): 30 of the 197 new awardees (15.2%) and 23 of the 133 previous winners still eligible (17.3%). By list, women account for four of 18 U25s, 18 of 78 U30s, 18 of 112 U35s and 22 of 179 U40s.

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Geography. Two-thirds of the series is London-based — 222 people, or 67.3%. Manchester is the clear second hub with 23, followed by Birmingham and the West Midlands with 14 and Cambridge with nine. Wales and Bristol/Bath contribute six each, while San Francisco/Silicon Valley accounts for five, showing the pull of the US for internationally ambitious founders.

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Education. Oxford and Cambridge have 30 alumni each, followed by Imperial (18), UCL (13), Warwick (12) and Bristol (11).

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The no-degree club. Forty people have no degree, including university dropouts, among them Josh Benaron, Piers Millar, Reece Wabara, Alex Lovén, Adam Kamani, Toby Brown, Jaspar Carmichael-Jack and James Dacombe. Their stories do not diminish education; they show that curiosity, self-teaching, commercial instinct and learning by building can provide another route.

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Serial founders. Sixty-six people have a documented prior or additional venture. Carl Pei built OnePlus before Nothing, Tim Shi co-founded Cresta before Recursive, Chris Pedregal built Socratic before Granola, and James Dacombe founded CoMind before Olix. Experience, networks and capital are being recycled into each new generation of companies.

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Where they worked before. The strongest early-career routes combine technical training with exposure to ambitious teams. Goldman Sachs, Google and McKinsey recur across the biographies, but the defining modern apprenticeship is time inside a scale-up. Revolut alumni Alan Chang and Charles Orr built Fuse Energy; early teams from Tessian, Palantir, DeepMind, OpenAI and Entrepreneur First appear throughout the series. Early employment is not the alternative to entrepreneurship — for many, it is the training ground.

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Their backers. The cap tables combine specialist UK investors with global venture, sovereign and crossover capital. Balderton, Accel, Andreessen Horowitz, GV, Nvidia and others recur across the companies, while founder-to-founder investing is becoming its own flywheel. The larger lesson is that ambitious UK companies can attract international capital; the policy challenge is to help more of their next stages of growth, governance and public listing remain anchored in Britain.

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Lessons for young founders from the class of 2026

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• Start before you feel ready. Toby Brown founded Beem at school age, Noah Carlile-Swift began Freckleface at 14, and James Dacombe built CoMind at 17. You do not need permission or a perfect CV to start learning through a real product and real customers.

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• Build from a problem you understand. Chloe and Olivia Ferro turned Olivia’s decade-long search for a diagnosis into SheMed. Lived experience can reveal neglected customers, sharpen product decisions and give a founding team the persistence to keep going.

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• A degree is optional; learning is not. Forty people are recorded with no degree, including university dropouts, while Oxford, Cambridge and Imperial educated many others. Josh Payne taught himself to build websites on long shifts. Choose the route that gives you useful skills, mentors and momentum.

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• Choose co-founders and networks deliberately. ElevenLabs grew from a school friendship, Structured AI from Oxford, and Fuse Energy from Revolut. Shared trust matters, but so do complementary skills, high standards and the ability to disagree constructively.

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• Treat early employment as an apprenticeship. Alan Chang and Charles Orr learned how a high-growth company operates inside Revolut before building Fuse. A demanding role can teach customers, hiring, regulation, distribution and the pace required to scale.

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• Let second acts compound. Carl Pei went from OnePlus to Nothing, Tim Shi from Cresta to Recursive, Chris Pedregal from Socratic to Granola, and James Dacombe from CoMind to Olix. A first venture is an education, not a final verdict.

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• Build distribution and ownership, not just a product. Corteiz used scarcity and guerrilla marketing, KSI turned an audience into Prime’s global reach, and Molly-Mae Hague converted community attention into Maebe’s sell-out launch. Owning a direct relationship with customers can be as valuable as raising capital.

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• Think globally from day one. ElevenLabs, Nscale and Nothing were built for international markets from a UK base, while 86 people in the series were born or raised abroad. Global ambition can shape the product, team, language, regulation and go-to-market plan from the beginning.

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The UK Uth Series through the years.

 

The Hurun UK Uth series began in 2022 with the Under30s, adding the Under35s in 2023, the Under40s in 2024 and the Under25s in 2026. The U30s had 100 winners in 2022, 79 in 2023, 82 in 2024. The U35s had 109 in 2023 and 62 in 2024. The U40s had 110 in 2024.

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