2026 Startups 100 | Exceptional Founder Award winner and shortlist

From women’s hormonal health to the complexities of the home deliveries industry, the five founders who make up the 2026 Startups 100 Index, powered by Sage, Exceptional Founder Award shortlist have been driven to make an immediate difference to people’s lives.

For three of the founders, the drive was highly personal – motivated by health challenges they lived through or, for one founder, the experience of losing both of her parents. Meanwhile, two founders took the incredibly tough decision to completely change their venture, despite it bringing in money, as they realised the future lay down another path.

This year’s nominees’ stories show that they are truly exceptional founders, and we will enjoy watching as their ventures grow.

Winner – Karolina Löfqvist, Hormona

Karolina Löfqvist is aiming for her venture, Hormona, to be the first female-founded femtech unicorn within the next five years, leading a worldwide movement to transform women’s health. Her platform empowers women by giving them the tools to understand their hormonal health.

After suffering herself for years, Löfqvist came up against brick walls when she tried to get help. She was dismissed, told it was just stress, prescribed antidepressants, and even advised to quit her high-performance career. She finally got a diagnosis after seeking advice from specialists overseas. After discovering that 80% of women face the same protracted, expensive and frustrating process, she founded Hormona.

Built on the expertise of leading endocrinologists, gynaecologists and nutritionists, Hormona offers at-home hormone test kits and perimenopause tests alongside the Hormona hormone tracking app. The venture also offers the Hormona Cycle App, with which users can track their periods and symptoms, and also get access to health insights, articles and even nutritional ideas. Hormona has also formulated a daily hormone support supplement.

The startup has now rightly received a huge amount of press coverage (one reason it was also nominated for the 2026 Startups 100 Marketing Award), and the team was even invited to NASA’s Space Center in Houston to support the physical readiness of astronauts. This invite shows that women’s hormonal health is finally being recognised for its mental and physical impact, which Hormona has played a key role in.

Shortlist – Natalia Pazzaglia, Legacy Compass

The experience of losing both of her parents was the catalyst for Natalia Pazzaglia to found Legacy Compass. She saw firsthand that there is a lack of tools, network, and support during one of the most challenging universal experiences: losing somebody we love.

She has more than 12 years of experience in business development, fundraising, and social innovation, and created Lasae, Italy’s first digital platform for grief. However, she decided to move from her home country to the UK to set up her new venture, Legacy Compass.

She admits it was a difficult process post-Brexit, but was selected by a social impact VC and moved in 2023. “London offered me possibilities and networks that gave me the tools to make my expertise and skills flourish,” she says.

The visa battles have continued, but the venture is flourishing. The platform offers access to “a curated pool of trusted professionals”: lawyers, accountants, financial advisors, estate agents, coaches, psychologists and professionals who specialise in legacy and loss.

It also lets users create a “legacy map” to cover practical, emotional, and financial matters. But it also offers the community that Pazzaglia herself so needed and, in this way, is offering both support and action when people need it most.

Shortlist – Joel Gujral, MYNDUP

Joel Gujral used his own harrowing personal experience with poor mental health and suicidal thoughts to create MYNDUP, the platform that’s shaking up employee mental health support.

After eight months spent in and out of hospital, unable to live a normal life and without a diagnosis, Gujral felt failed by the healthcare he was offered through his job – despite it being a role with one of the world’s largest accountancy firms.

“Most existing mental health companies offer just one type of service or solution, such as either therapy, counselling or coaching, and consider the ‘mental health box’ to be ticked. But this ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach often doesn’t work,” he explains.

The help wasn’t based on his needs, and so he decided to set up MYNDUP to offer something better. It allows companies to offer their employees a more tailored approach, with access to one-on-one support with the right kind of professional, a 24/7 helpline, wellbeing library, and both coaching and wellbeing workshops.

MYNDUP is now used by HR teams in more than 50 countries, and is helping businesses combat high turnover and staff sickness by putting mental health at the forefront.

Shortlist – Rich Pleeth and Chris Sargeant, Finmile

Rich Pleeth and Chris Sargeant were running a successful e-cargo bike and van delivery business in London. They were bringing in revenue and had investors on board. But they decided their path lay in software, not hardware, and decided to make the switch last year.

They admit it was tough. “We overcame it through relentless focus: stripping the business back to its core IP, building a world-class engineering team and using the scars from our delivery days to design software that solves problems operators face daily,” the duo explain.

The newly-pivoted business is Finmile, an AI-led platform that optimises last-mile logistics for companies. The platform offers automated route planning, capacity and load optimization, and real-time dynamic routing to ensure packages arrive on time, despite road closures or traffic.

What the team promises is a 42% reduction in delivery costs and 80% faster deliveries, but also a positive environmental impact by lowering the number of vehicles stuck in traffic in our cities. Finmile has already signed up big names, including TikTok Shop, and is actively recruiting for more delivery service partners.

By taking a brave sideways step, the company has used technology to reimagine logistics, and therefore deliver a better experience for businesses and customers alike.

Click below to discover the nominees and winners for our other Startups 100 Awards:

• Startups 100 Sustainability Award 2026
• Startups 100 Technology Award 2026 
• Startups 100 Marketing Award 2026