Founder Story

Prized Lines was built from the combination of two essential strengths: deep animal-industry credibility and the technical capability to create a proprietary digital platform from the ground up.

Together, Katie Heath and Gregory bring the lived experience, commercial understanding, relationship-led market access, and technical execution needed to build a trusted ecosystem for the elite animal sector.

Katie Heath brings the animal-industry knowledge and commercial credibility behind Prized Lines. Her background spans competition dogs, Crufts-level obedience, equine care, livery yard environments, working gundogs, rural animal communities, and farming life. She has spent years around the people, animals, and environments that Prized Lines is designed to support.

Katie competitively trained and handled Border Collies in obedience for four years, qualifying for Crufts four times, placing on the podium three times, and winning the Rebecca Pointer Award during her Young Kennel Club year, where she also placed sixth overall. Her experience is not theoretical. It comes from being inside the world of serious animal training, competition, care, and performance.

Alongside her competition background, Katie also has hands-on equine experience, including time as an equine physiotherapy assistant, as well as lifelong exposure to horses, dogs, livery yards, animal care, working dogs, gundogs, and rural communities through her family background. Growing up in rural England, she spent time around farming communities and the people who dedicate their lives to breeding, training, and caring for animals properly.

Katie also brings six years of commercial experience across sales, digital marketing, print advertising, fintech, wellness, and publishing. This gives Prized Lines a rare advantage: a founder who understands both the animal world and the commercial realities of building trust, generating revenue, and growing relationship-led markets.

Gregory Curlewis brings the technical execution capability behind Prized Lines. With a background across software engineering, data science, machine learning, real-time systems, scalable backend infrastructure, and full-stack product delivery, Gregory gives Prized Lines the ability to build proprietary technology from the ground up rather than depend on outsourced development.

His experience includes six years in software engineering, with work spanning machine learning algorithms for military applications, high-frequency trading infrastructure, real-time data systems, scalable backend architecture, performant frontend development, user tracking, analytics, and product iteration.

This technical foundation is central to the Prized Lines vision. Building a trusted digital ecosystem for elite animals requires more than a standard marketplace. It requires secure infrastructure, reliable profiles, scalable data systems, intelligent discovery, strong user experience, and the ability to evolve quickly based on how breeders, buyers, owners, and trainers actually use the platform.

Gregory’s role is to turn that vision into a product that works - a platform capable of supporting animal profiles, bloodline data, reputation signals, media, location-based discovery, communication, payments, contracts, and future verification systems.

Alongside his technical background, Gregory has personal exposure to horse, dog, and farming communities through his South African, French, and rural family background. This gives him an appreciation for the relationship-led nature of animal communities, the importance of trust, and the need for technology that supports the industry without stripping away its heritage, discretion, or personal networks.

Together, Katie and Gregory give Prized Lines what many marketplace startups struggle to build: genuine access to the supply side of the market, real understanding of animal communities, commercial relationship-building capability, and the technical ability to build, test, scale, and improve the platform internally.

Prized Lines exists because the elite animal sector deserves better infrastructure. The industry is built on reputation, quality, relationships, and trust, but too much of the process still happens through closed networks, fragmented information, scattered social posts, private messages, and informal recommendations.

Katie understands the people, animals, and standards that make these communities valuable. Gregory understands how to build the technology needed to bring those communities together in a secure, scalable, and professional way.

Their shared mission is to create the trusted digital ecosystem for elite animals, bloodlines, breeders, buyers, owners, trainers, and specialist communities - a platform that removes friction, improves discovery, strengthens trust, and helps the industry grow beyond closed-door transactions without losing the quality and reputation that make it special.

Prized Lines is more than a marketplace. It is being built as a premium, verified space for the people who take animal quality seriously.

Elite animals deserve elite presentation.