Founders: Vicky Brock and Stephen Budd
Founded: January 2012
Website: www.clearreturns.com

When Vicky Brock and Stephen Budd learned that 32% of clothing bought online is returned – even more at Christmas – and that some of this ends up in landfill because of challenges getting it back on sale, they knew this was a problem they could help solve. Working closely with retailers has helped them develop a software solution for medium-sized companies, which don’t have their own business intelligence teams. Using retailers’ own customer data, it identifies, predicts and will ultimately intercept “saveable” returns before they occur.

Pre-launch, the business has around 15 retailers who are involved in beta testing and who, they hope, will become paying customers as soon as the technology is proven, and becomes smarter as a result of the data it is being fed.

Founders: Paul Hutson and Joshua Davidson
Founded: July 2011
Website: www.nightzookeeper.com

It seems everywhere Night Zookeeper goes, it leaves a feverish trail of admirers in its wake. Recently inducted into Wayra’s first UK accelerator academy, the fledgling firm was also winner of the inaugural Education Startup Weekend. Starting out as a children’s storybook, digital artist Davidson developed the idea of a mystical zoo were children could design animals as wild as their own imaginations.

Teaming up with teacher Hutson, the concept evolved into a free, interactive game to complement the school curriculum – while utilising paid add-ons to generate revenue from parents (when their children ask to continue playing at home). Designed to stimulate children’s digital creativity, it also increases their computer confidence. That’s a great gift to the next generation.

Founder: David Darling CBE
Founded: September 2011
Website: www.kwalee.com

Leamington Spa-based Kwalee produces multi-player games for smartphones. Founder David Darling CBE is no newcomer to the gaming industry, having sold his previous business Codemasters in 2007. Codemasters, founded in 1986 by Darling and his brother and father, became one of the largest video game publishers in the world, creating hugely popular titles such as Dizzy, Micro Machines and Colin McRae Rally.

Darling now has his sights on the competitive mobile apps market and, through Kwalee, aims to produce the best multiplayer games for mobile in class – with a big focus on innovation. Kwalee’s first game, Gobang Social on iPhone, has already launched, and there are currently six more titles in development.

Founder: Eleanor Watson
Founded: July 2010 (product is pre-launch)
Website: www.poikos.com

Poikos was originally conceived as a service that would help people choose the right size when shopping for clothes online, though the Birmingham-based start-up has since pivoted towards the medical sector as well. Its technology means that it can take accurate body measurements from anyone using a webcam or smartphone; this technology will be licensed to customers, and the business is already working with clients who are contracting the service on to the likes of Tesco, Marks & Spencer, ASDA and the Mayo Clinic.

Poikos also has an international network of clients in Europe and the Middle East waiting for the service to roll out to them in the near future, and Asia, the US and South America will be targeted next.

Founder: Donnie Maclean 
Founded: September 2010 (launched March 2012) 
Website: www.eatbalanced.com

Everybody knows they should be eating a balanced diet. And everybody knows that pizza doesn’t loom large in that goal. But Donnie Maclean has developed a pizza that actually makes it easier to eat well, by containing all the main nutrients you need in one meal. Eat Balanced creates recipes for premium, nutritionally balanced products, and its pizza has won the ‘Best New Idea’ award at the UK’s largest food trade show. As a result the business has now closed deals with two of the “big four” supermarkets, and has attracted interest from many other substantial food buyers and distributors in the UK and overseas.

Maclean puts part of the firm’s success down to being part of Glasgow-based business accelerator Entrepreneurial Spark and Eat Balanced is also developing other nutritionally balanced meals and innovative software, which looks set to springboard growth in the coming months.

Founders: Alice Hastings-Bass and Rebecca Glenapp
Founded: June 2011
Website: www.LUX-FIX.com

At first glance, we assumed LUX FIX was founded by fashion industry veterans. Not so – and this is what makes it so intriguing. Hastings-Bass and Glenapp are high achievers with corporate backgrounds (Goldman Sachs, Facebook), who used their business savvy to spot a gap in the €172bn global luxury market. A younger, nimbler Net-A-Porter, LUX FIX not only curates the latest designer accessories into a weekly newsletter (for women who don’t have time to trawl the collections), but arranges limited-time ‘pop-up shops’, offering discounts on the latest accessories – long before sale season.

In return, LUX FIX directs shoppers back to the designers’ own ecommerce sites, to shop their full collections. That makes for happy customers, happy designers and one very promising start-up.

Founder: Chris Gibson
Founded: December 2010
Website: www.supertie.com

Edinburgh-based start-up SuperTie will become, founder Chris Gibson hopes, the scourge of badly-fastened, sloppy neckties everywhere. The entrepreneur has designed a range of ties which use ‘PerfectTie’ technology – a zip mechanism within an immaculate knot – which means putting on a tie is quick, easy and doesn’t actually involve tying anything.

After a year of trading, the ties are stocked in 10 independent menswear shops in Scotland, and one in Canada. Sales have also been driven through temporary locations at shopping centre stalls, a spell in Selfridges, and direct sales through the website. School uniforms are now a focus, thanks to its new ‘SafeTie’ product, which has just launched with one of the largest independent schools in Scotland. Other ideas and applications around the core product are also being developed.

Founder: Andrew Denham
Founded: November 2011
Website: www.thebicycleacademy.org

Andrew Denham is the essence of the modern entrepreneur. Frustrated with his day job in the offshore oil industry, he started (on the side) an enterprise which combines business brilliance with social consciousness. Not only does The Bicycle Academy tap into the booming cycling sector, it will donate the first bike made by every student to someone who really needs it in Africa, bring tourism to the founder’s local community and pass the fading skill of bicycle-frame-building on to the next generation.

Furthermore, rather than beg the banks for start-up capital, Denham launched a pioneering crowdfunding pitch – raising £40,000 in five days, with a campaign which has become an inspiring blueprint for best practice on such platforms.

Founder: Ben Atkinson-Willes
Founded: September 2009
Website: www.active-minds.co.uk

Providing a non-patronising alternative to children’s games, Active Minds – founded by 24-year-old Ben Atkinson-Willes – can now count the NHS, the Alzheimer’s Society and Bupa among its customers. It was his grandfather’s experience with dementia that inspired Atkinson-Willes, who graduated from Kingston University with a degree in product design, and he has grown the company impressively since its formation in 2009.

Today it works with distributors in the USA, Australia, Singapore and Ireland and, with new product lines in development – as well as further plans to expand abroad – the business expects to double its turnover this year. The company has sold more than 10,000 products since launch, and recently received a £15,000 award from social enterprise organisation, UnLtd.

Founders: Simon Swan and Sara Jones
Founded: November 2010 (launched February 2011)
Website: www.hiring-hub.com

Manchester-based Hiring-hub was formed when Sara, while working in recruitment, realised there must be a better way for employers to find the right recruitment agency. The online model she created as a result has introduced a competitive element among agencies in filling vacancies, and lets employers fix the placement fee at a level they’re comfortable with. Employers can upload a vacancy, and approved agencies can join the business’ network, for free. Hiring-hub.com then takes a commission from every successful transaction.

The site has now amassed over 1,300 registered users, with 900 approved recruitment agencies servicing 400 employers. With offers of venture capital and private equity investment on the table, the next 12 months is focused on aggressive growth.