Founder: Fraser Doherty
Website: www.superjam.co.uk

Fraser started making jam for fêtes and fares at the tender age of 14, but in 2007 he turned his jam-making into a fully-fledged business venture after securing a deal with Waitrose to stock his range.

Since appearing on our first Startups 100 list in 2008, Fraser has taken an active role in enterprise promotion and is a regular on the entrepreneurs’ speaker circuit. Not content with becoming the youngest person ever to become a supermarket stockist, he also launched a philanthropic arm to the company, hosting tea parties for housebound elderly people. This year also saw the launch of The SuperJam Cookbook featuring an interesting selection of jam-related recipes.

Founder: Sarah Beeney
Website: www.tepilo.com

Launched in August 2009, Tepilo is Channel 4 presenter Sarah’s alternative way to buy, sell or let your property, all for free. After realising most buyers were on the internet searching for property, and that only agents could upload property to key sites, it seemed logical to create a site that enabled sellers to upload property themselves, and save agency fees in the process. With just under 8,000 properties on the site at any time, Tepilo has already attracted 25,000 registered users, and has now launched a lettings arm.

Founder: Karen Darby
Website: www.callbritannia.com

Karen, who sold her last venture Simply Switch for £22m, insists there’s always got to be a social element to her businesses and it’s most apparent in Call Britannia. The call centre offers temporary work and training opportunities to the long term unemployed, the over 50s, the disabled or those with a criminal record. Her aim is to create 10,000 jobs and eventually roll the concept out to become a network of call centres all over the country. A percentage of company profits will go into a special foundation to help Call Britannia graduates once their position comes to an end. Backed by The Big Issue Invest and Bridges Ventures, the company will also reward the management team depending on how well it performs, offering a financial incentive for commercial success.

Founder: David Courtier-Dutton
Website: www.slicethepie.com

First launched in June 2007, the idea behind Slicethepie and SoundOut (launched January 2009), is music consumers can use the power of the web to discover and help emerging artists.

Former lawyer David developed the consumer-driven music filter, search and financing engine, Slicethepie, which enables music to be classified, rated and searched for using unique free text semantic technology. Clients include major music labels such as Sony, Universal and Warner as well as broadcasters, brands and social networks.

Founders: Simon Duffy and Rhodri Ferrier
Website: gb.meetthebulldog.com

Bulldog has gained fantastic retail presence in the past two years. Rhodri and Simon launched their range of male grooming products with Sainsbury’s in 2007, but have since negotiated deals with a host of other big name retailers including Waitrose, Tesco, Superdrug and Boots. The natural and ethically sourced range launched in Sweden in January of this year, which could kick-start the brand’s ambitions to become truly global.

Founders: Peter H Leiman and Cameron Ogden
Website: www.flyblink.com

Dubbing itself Europe’s first air taxi service, Blink delivers all the benefits of personal air travel at competitive prices – up to a full 50% cheaper than existing private jet services. Harvard Business School graduates Peter and Cameron launched the service in June 2008. Now with over 1,000 clients, Peter and Cameron are confident that in 5 years, Blink will have established the “air-taxi DNA” that other operators will attempt to emulate, redefining the world of short-haul travel. Based in London, Blink currently maintains Hubs in the UK’s capital as well as Geneva and the Channel Islands.

Founders: Michael Stephanblome and Satish Jayakumar
Website: www.adjug.com

Launched in November 2007, AdJug has quickly established itself as the UK’s largest advertising exchange. With 500 advertisers on board, access to over 4,000 sites and some 2.2 billion ad impressions every month, AdJug reaches a staggering 81% of the UK’s online audience.

It’s not down to luck either: the operation has some serious entrepreneurial talent behind it. Former Gumtree.com MD and eBay Germany’s marketing director, Michael, and Courvoisier Future 500 hotshot Satish, have plans to expand AdJug internationally over the next 12 months. With offices already established in Germany and India, this ad trading platform may well be on its way to global domination.

Founders: Simon Best, Richard Best, Richard Healy, Juan Lobato
Website: www.basekit.com

Based in Chepstow, South Wales, this set of intrepid entrepreneurs launched BaseKit in October 2009, with the aim of revolutionising the world of website development.

The idea behind the business, which won Seedcamp 2008 and enjoyed a beta user base of over 5,000 users, is that you shouldn’t have to be a whizz at writing code to create rich, dynamic websites live online. The fully hosted and template-driven sites are all stored in the cloud. Investors include Eden Ventures, NESTA and Seedcamp.

Founder: Levi Roots
Website: www.reggae-reggae.co.uk

Jamaican-born Levi’s fortunes have gone stellar since appearing on Dragons’ Den in 2007. Fluffing his figures during the pitch wasn’t enough to put off investor Peter Jones who has helped transform the former MOBO Awards nominee’s range of sauces into a brand juggernaut.

Sales in Sainsbury’s gave the leading ketchup brand a run for its money last year, Jones claims, and licensing deals have since been done with high street food outlets such as sandwich chain Subway and pub company JD Weatherspoon.

Levi remains the most famous entrepreneur to have ever pitched to the Dragons and is now a regular face on the business speaker circuit in addition to the reggae music scene.

Founder: Nicko Williamson
Website: www.climatecars.com

Nicko launched his carbon neutral cab company, made up of a fleet of Toyota Prius cars, in 2007 just after graduating from university. Three years on and he’s celebrating striding well past the £1m turnover mark with a ‘decent profit margin’.

Around 90% of the company’s revenue comes from account work and clients range from eco-friendly celebrities to corporate giants such as Unilever. Initial funds to start the business came from savings and a family and friends investment round, but Nicko has since followed this on with a further £300,000 of angel funding.

The young entrepreneur has big ambitions for the company and is projecting an extra £1m of revenue for the coming year. In his words, Climatecars in on course for ‘more scale, more profit and better margins’.