Tom Scrope and Dr Ben Butler

About

Tom Scrope, who grew up on a farm on the edge of the North York Moors and trained as a chartered accountant, founded Soil Benchmark in 2022 with soil scientist Dr Ben Butler. Its map-based platform helps farmers create soil, manure and nutrient management plans from agronomists' data, cutting compliance work from hours to minutes.

In under 18 months Soil Benchmark was being used on more than 11% of English farmland, reaching thousands of farms, and its team doubled after its seed round.

Number 58 on the Startups 100 Index 2026.