Spotted Zebra Takes Coveted #25 Spot in 2026 Startups 100

The Startups 100 Index has been the UK's definitive ranking of businesses to watch since 2008. In that time, it's spotted some remarkable companies early: Deliveroo before it changed how Britain eats. Monzo before it redefined what a bank could be. Revolut before it became Europe's most valuable fintech. HelloFresh before meal kits went mainstream. Bloom & Wild, Gousto, Bulb, Grind - the list of alumni that went on to become category leaders is long.

This year, Spotted Zebra has been named #25. Top quarter of the index. Alongside players like Omnea, Userled, and Happl. We'll be honest - that feels good.

The problem that got us here

Enterprise hiring is broken. Not slightly inefficient. Not a bit frustrating. Fundamentally, expensively, persistently broken.

A bad senior hire can cost over 200% of their annual salary. Time-to-hire keeps climbing. And the methods most organisations still rely on - CVs, unstructured interviews, processes that take months - slow, expensive, and still no certainty you've chosen the right person.

When our Co-Founders Ian Monk and Nick Shaw started Spotted Zebra in 2020, they'd spent decades watching this play out. Brilliant candidates slipping through the cracks. Hiring decisions based on who interviewed well rather than who'd perform well. Organisations paying the price in attrition, underperformance, and potential that never got the chance to show itself.

They believed there had to be a better way.

Five years, £7.7m in Series A funding, and nearly one million validated assessments later - turns out they were right.

What better looks like

We built something different: an Interview Intelligence and Assessment platform that's skills science native, AI-amplified. It shows organisations what candidates can actually do. Not where they went to university. Not which companies they've worked for. What they're genuinely capable of—and whether those capabilities match what success looks like in the role.

Our skills science is validated, rigorous, and proven to double top performer success rates. Our AI handles the administrative grind - generating interview guides, transcribing conversations, surfacing insights - so recruiters and hiring managers can focus on the decisions that matter.

AWE went from 35% first-year attrition to under 10%. They cut time-to-hire by a third. They saved £1.05 million. And they hit 100% candidate satisfaction - unprecedented in their early careers programmes.

Virgin Media O2 slashed retail hiring time by 66% while scaling to 2,500+ hires annually. No sacrifice in quality. No added headcount.

One of the world's most iconic entertainment giants processes over 10,000 applications a year through our platform. They maintain 96% completion rates and fair outcomes across gender and ethnicity - because when your brand is built on magic, you can't afford a candidate experience that doesn't match.

These aren't pilots. This is enterprise hiring, transformed.

Why we're different (and why it matters now)

The AI hiring space is noisy. Everyone claims to have cracked it. But here's what most won't tell you: bolting AI onto broken processes just gives you faster broken processes.

We did something different. We built on skills science from day one - deep occupational psychology, validated methodology, nearly one million assessments' worth of evidence. Then we added AI that enhances human decision-making - with oversight, defensibility, and explainability at its core.

That's not just a philosophy. It's certified. We were one of the first in our space to achieve ISO 42001 accreditation for AI Management Systems. Every feature we ship follows our STRIPE framework: Safe, Transparent, Responsible, Inclusive, Purposeful, Ethical.

In a world where AI hiring tools are facing lawsuits and regulatory scrutiny, that matters.

The wins keep stacking up

The Startups 100 placement caps off a run that's validated everything we've been building:

Personnel Today Gold for TA Supplier of the Year 2025. Gold for Innovation in Recruitment. Gold for Early Careers. IHR Gold for Candidate Assessment and Use of AI. Plus recognition as a Potential Challenger in the Fosway 9-Grid for Talent Acquisition.

We're now active in 20+ countries. We've got enterprise clients across EMEA, APAC, and North America - organisations with thousands of employees trusting us to help them find the right people, faster and fairer.

The momentum's building.

What comes next

We've got exciting product news coming soon. We can't say much yet, but let's just say we're not slowing down.

The mission hasn't changed since 2020: everyone has superpowers. Our job is helping organisations find them - faster, fairer, and at scale.

This is a milestone. A big one. But the best bit? We know exactly where we're going next.

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Ready to join the companies transforming how they hire? Let's talk.

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Spotted Zebra is an award-winning Interview Intelligence and Assessment platform trusted by the likes of Lidl, Virgin Media O2, AWE, and Merlin Entertainments. We combine industry-leading skills science with responsible AI to help enterprise organisations hire better, faster, and fairer. Learn more about our platform here.

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