Founders: Andrew Hunter and Doug Monro
Founded: December 2010 (launched July 2011)
Website: www.adzuna.co.uk

Hunter and Monro met at Gumtree, where Hunter was head of marketing and Monro was MD. They launched Adzuna as a job search portal, to save users trawling through lots of different sites to find the right vacancies. Since launching last summer, the scope of the site has expanded to include property and cars. Investors have been impressed: earlier this year Adzuna raised half a million pounds from Index Ventures, The Accelerator Group and other existing investors, and the business secured £300,000 seed investment pre-launch to get the website off the ground.

Jobhunters have been attracted by the site’s innovative features, including Adzuna Connect, which integrates with Facebook and LinkedIn to show vacancies at companies with which the user has connections (through their contacts), plus information such as the average salary for any job searched for.

Founder: Adam Baker
Founded: August 2010
Website: www.blottr.com

Behind the zeitgeisty concept of citizen journalism is an innovative and sustainable business model, as pioneered by Blottr. Gaining credibility with its coverage of last year’s UK riots, and being the first news service in Europe to have footage of Colonel Gaddafi’s death, Blottr has amassed more than two million monthly users – and is increasing numbers by around 20% a month.

Furthermore, thanks to revenue streamed from advertising and a product called NewsPoint (which, through white label license, lets other publishers turn their audience into contributors), Blottr is generating healthy profits. Founder and serial tech entrepreneur Baker plans to grow Blottr to become the largest people-powered news service globally and Mark Pearson, founder of MyVoucherCodes.co.uk, also sees a bright future for the company. Last year, the entrepreneur invested £1m of his own cash in Blottr.

Founders: Ambarish Mitra, Omar Tayeb, Jessica Butcher and Steve Spencer
Founded: August 2011
Website: www.blippar.com

The rise of the smartphone has created challenges – and opportunities – for advertisers keen to engage with consumers on their devices of choice. By linking the offline and online worlds, Blippar offers an intriguing solution. Using the in-built camera in a smartphone, the free app uses image recognition to unlock hidden content – such as recipes, deals and games – when pointed at a picture, whether a newspaper ad or billboard.

Founded in 2011, the company has already launched more than 70 campaigns, for clients such as Nike, Samsung, Tesco, Cadbury, Xbox and Virgin – even Justin Bieber’s latest album cover was ‘blippable’. The company is now gearing up for ambitious international expansion, and hopes the verb ‘to blipp’ will soon become common parlance. If growth continues at its current pace, their wish may well come true.

Founder: Charles Delingpole and Anil Stocker
Founded: July 2010 (launched March 2011)
Website: www.marketinvoice.com

Unique within Europe, MarketInvoice is pioneering a new source of finance. Founded as an alternative to traditional factoring and invoice discounting, the business has been deemed ‘the eBay of invoices.’ Its online platform allows small companies to ease cashflow, by selling outstanding invoices to asset managers, hedge funds and other global investors. It couldn’t have launched at a better time; with the poor rates of bank lending coming under criticism, MarketInvoice provides an alternative way for small firms to raise finance in uncertain economic conditions.

The founders met while studying at Cambridge. Both fascinated by the way technology can make markets more efficient, they realised there was a gap in the market for an online marketplace for trading invoices – particularly as a result of the recession. The addition of new features to the site is imminent, as is a liaison office in Hong Kong.

Founder: Dan Taylor
Founded: November 2010 (launched November 2011)
Website: www.thegivingcard.co.uk

Inspired by the rise of voucher scheme businesses, Taylor had a desire to do good too. The Giving Card’s memberships allow users to secure discounts on lifestyle purchases, while £10 of the £35.94 annual fee goes to a charity of the member’s choice. Already the London-based start-up has secured discounts from 3,000 suppliers and partnered with 80 charities – ensuring ample choice for its 6,000 members.

Furthermore, 23-year-old Taylor (a former UK Global Student Entrepreneur of the Year) has delivered his idea with such success that he has been able to secure business angel investment and employ a team of six. We can’t disclose how much The Giving Card’s turning over, but take it from us, the figures are highly impressive.

Founder: Constantin Bjerke
Founded: October 2010
Website: www.crane.tv

The publishing industry is changing, whether publishers like it or not. As consumers and advertisers turn away from the printed word, media entrepreneur Constantin Bjerke is betting on the fact that quality content will always find an audience. Crane.tv consists of a video-only magazine, focused on contemporary culture, and a branded entertainment agency, whose clients include the likes of Ralph Lauren, BMW, Swarovski and Hennessy.

Its revenue streams include advertising and sponsorship on its editorial side, licensing and syndication of its content to third parties and fees from work with brands. Crane.tv’s audience, described by Bjerke as “culturally curious”, already spans 150 countries. The company is now looking to establish itself further in new markets, such the US and Brazil.

Founder: Joshua March and Dan Lester
Founded: November 2009 (launched July 2010) 
Website: www.conversocial.com

Conversocial grew out of iPlatform, the UK’s first Facebook-preferred developer. It was while working on this project that the young entrepreneurs realised, the most successful campaigns are those which utilise incoming communication. Seeing customers become ever more interactive through social media, the duo formed Conversocial to help firms manage and take part in these conversations.

The start-up’s services have seen a boom in the last few months, as businesses become more aware of social networks’ potential for uses other than marketing (such as maintaining consistent customer service). As a result, growth has been aggressive since the beginning of the year and clients now include Groupon, Tesco, Net-A-Porter and the Cabinet office. The firm is also steadily building its presence in the US.

Founders: Anthony Rose and Ernesto Schmitt
Founded: January 2011 (November 2011)
Website: www.zeebox.com

Through its free smartphone app, Zeebox adds a new dimension to the experience of watching TV.  The clever app knows what’s on each channel, and can give you more information about the shows. But that’s not all. It will also allow you to buy and download relevant products; tell you which shows are most popular in real time; and show you what programmes your friends are watching.

Since launch five months ago, it has attracted over a million users. Clients in the form of advertisers, broadcasters and programme makers have also been impressed, as has Sky, which bought a 10% stake in the company, as well as business angels, who have so far invested £3.8m.With an impressive start-up team, an intriguing concept and significant start-up capital, Zeebox is a name to watch. 

Founders: David Grimes and Paul Haydock
Founded: November 2009 (launched June 2010)
Website: www.myparceldelivery.com

It was while running their previous business that Manchester-based Grimes and Haydock spotted a gap in the market for a service which could reduce long post office queues – and increase efficiency for the small business owners, eBay sellers and general public forced to endure them. Courier services were too expensive for most, as those customers weren’t necessarily sending out a huge volume of mail. So, myParcelDelivery.com was created to aggregate the volume of thousands of customers across the UK. This allows them, they say, to get the best rates with couriers, then pass these discounts on to customers.

The comparison site, which allows users to compare prices for courier services, is clearly answering a need: with revenues growing by 684% in 2011, while current figures for 2012 show a further 324% increase on 2011 numbers.

Founders: Taavet Hinrikus (pictured) and Kristo Käärmann
Founded: March 2010 (launched January 2011)
Website: www.transferwise.com

The first employee of Skype – and therefore a man who gained handsomely from the company’s $2.6bn sale to eBay – Taavet Hinrikus, and his co-founder Kristo Käärmann, chose London as their base to start TransferWise in 2010. The pair were inspired, as expats, by sending money back and forth to their homeland Estonia. Transferwise claims to be 85% cheaper than traditional ways of transferring money internationally by using the ‘real rate’, the exchange rate banks and currency brokers don’t share with their customers.

While its financials remain undisclosed today, its progress has been enough to attract £1.3m in funding from IA Ventures, Index Ventures, as well as angel investor Max Levchin, the co-founder of PayPal. Fast growth is expected as trust builds in the brand, and it expands into additional currencies.