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

Eat Balanced had just launched when it made our 2012 list and the last year has seen Donnie Maclean’s pizzas – which provide all the nutrients you need for a balanced, healthy diet – begin to attract significant attention. Now sold in more than 70 Sainsbury’s and Asda supermarkets across Scotland, Eat Balanced has also started selling through online grocer Ocado in response to strong demand from consumers in England and Wales. The company has won 10 major industry awards over the last year and became the second most shared story on BBC News when featured in an article in July 2012, with Maclean himself being profiled in a BBC documentary. According to Maclean though, this is just the beginning for Eat Balanced, which has an ambition to become the leading brand in balanced diet products. The company is on the verge of concluding deals with two other major supermarkets in the UK and plans to launch its product in the European, Middle Eastern and African markets over the next 12 months. 

Founder: Simon Hill
Founded: February 2011 (launched September 2011) 
Website: www.wazoku.com 

Looking for a business idea that excited him and that utilised his B2B knowledge and experience, Simon Hill was on a mission to create a business unlike any other that focused on scalable technology and innovation. With a strong entrepreneurial background after previous roles such as development director at Huddle, Hill was well equipped with the tools to get Wazoku – an ‘ideas management’ service – off the ground. Using the software-as-a-service model, the business enables its clients to capture and collate their employees’, partners’ and customers’ best ideas.  Ideas can then be shared, tested and analysed via the collaborative business’ ‘Idea Spotlight’ tool or a bespoke solution. With an impressive and extensive client list spanning the private and public sectors globally, including the BBC, Hackney Borough Council, Faber & Faber and the Metropolitan Police Service to name a few, Wazoku’s unique concept seems to have struck a chord. Having recently secured a £500,000 seed funding round – and claiming no other UK competition – this start-up is definitely one to watch.

Founders: Shazia Mustafa and Yusuf Chadun
Founded: May 2010
Website: www.third-door.com

Third Door is the first of its kind – though the ingenious simplicity behind offering workspace and a nursery on one site is sure to induce ‘why didn’t I think of that?’ moments from working parents everywhere. Working from home with small children can verge on the impossible, as founder Shazia Mustafa realised when her daughter was five months old, so a nursery situated below a co-working hub was for her the obvious answer. Along with her husband, she launched the business in May 2010; it disrupted the traditional nursery model by offering a nursery service that’s completely flexible and doesn’t require large deposits. The hybrid model means it also attracts customers who use only the nursery or only the workspace. Having achieved profitability, the founders are now looking for a second site with the eventual aim of having 10 profitable centres by 2020. 

Founders: Alex Depledge, Tom Nimmo and Jules Coleman
Founded: March 2012 (launched June 2012)
Website: www.hassle.com

Ex-management consultants Alex Depledge, Tom Nimmo and Jules Coleman have created a site through which consumers can easily find, compare and book cleaners, and it’s already clear that Londoners were more than ready for such a service. Teddle allows the user to book in real time and choose from a local pool of vetted and background-checked cleaners, and has established hundreds of relationships between customers and providers this year alone. Revenue stems from a fee paid by cleaners for finding a regular customer, and 10% of the value of the booking for one-off cleans. So far the start-up has found success by streamlining its offering to just cleaning services, an area which does not contain a lot of competition. The co-founders are now intent on proving their business can scale beyond London and hope to have rolled out in five further cities by the end of the year.

Founders: Warren Knight and Julian Morency
Founded: September 2010 (launched January 2011) 
Website: www.gloople.co.uk

A Startups 100 winner in 2012, multi-channel ecommerce firm Gloople continues to grow in popularity amongst small businesses looking for an ‘out-of-the-box’ online store for their products, as well as those drawn by the service’s native Facebook and Twitter integration. In January, the firm received a £150,000 investment through the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS) led by London Business Angels, raising the value of the company to £1m less than two years after its launch and giving it the foundations to become a truly global brand. Over the next year Gloople plans to grow its team and secure a further £500-£750,000 of outside investment in order to develop its offering and grow its client base. With an increasing number of small firms looking to establish an online store and ‘social commerce’ continuing to explode in popularity, Gloople is well placed to continue its extraordinary growth. 

Founders: Alastair Paterson and James Chappell
Founded: May 2011
Website: http://digitalshadows.com/

The London-based cyber-monitoring service enabling companies to secure their digital footprints has achieved a lot since its beginnings at the Fin Tech Innovation Lab. Created out of a need to protect the security and reputation of corporates with the growing use of social media, mobile and the cloud, Digital Shadows uses advanced algorithms to alert clients of any critical information that is exposed online. With many tier-1 banks and large financial organisations signed up to its service and innovation awards from SWIFT and Cisco last year, the company is a model example of how an idea, with the support of an incubator programme, can become a successful business. Alastair Paterson and James Chappell, who have extensive experience in information intelligence and ‘big data’ risks, are now negotiating their first venture capital round and are looking to branch out to America.  

Founders: Gabrielle Lixton and Caroline Sparks
Founded: April 2011 (launched July 2011)
Website: www.turtletots.com

With extensive knowledge and experience in the baby swimming industry, Gabrielle Lixton and Caroline Sparks launched Turtle Tots with the aim to provide pre- and post-natal ‘aqua-yoga’ classes for mums combined with swimming lessons for mums and dads. After realising its market potential, the mumpreneurs decided to licence the start-up and their innovative business model has paid off. Since appearing in our 2012 Startups 100, the brand has won approval as a licensor by Lloyds TSB, enabling the chain to offer business loans to potential franchisees if necessary, which the duo believe will help them double their franchisee numbers by next year. Lixton and Sparks are passionate about growing the Turtle Tots brand and plan to develop office headquarters, along with a pool, to expand their support and training to licencees. With trademarking of the business already underway in the USA, Ireland and Australia, the family-friendly chain is onset to enjoy renewed growth over the next year. 

Founders: Sally Anne Butters and Sarah Cook
Founded: June 2011 (launched January 2012)
Website: www.coconutcreatives.co.uk

Sally Anne Butters and Sarah Cook have carved a niche with their two-year-old firm, which provides marketing services for franchise recruitment. Having discovered the lack of marketing support for franchisors, their business was formed to draw on their backgrounds in both franchising and marketing/PR, and offers recruitment marketing strategies to fit in with franchisors’ particular objectives and budgets. Despite only launching in 2012, Coconut Media is currently working with around 20 franchisors, either on a full retainer or project-by-project basis. The business has also seen strong growth, with turnover for this year on tract to double that of 2012. Having founded the business in a home office using only savings, Butters and Cook are now working towards an ambitious five-year-plan which will build on the business’ impressive rate of growth.

Founders: Imran Merza and Taz Busunia
Founded: October 2010 (launched July 2011)
Website: www.thejealouslife.com

Full of sugar, gelatine and artificial colours and aimed primarily at children, sweets were not traditionally seen as a luxury brand – until Imran Merza and Taz Busunia came along. Riding on the recent surge in demand for luxury, ethically-sourced brands, Jealous’ sweets are vegetarian, gluten free, made with natural fruit juices and are packaged and sold in appealing, adult-oriented gift boxes. Already on sale in leading luxury retailers in the UK, including Selfridges (where the sweets initially sold out in four days) and Harvey Nichols, the duo have also recently signed a deal with leading department store Harrods. With friends in high places, (the pair secured investment from Richard Branson) and a predicted turnover for 2013 of £600,000, Jealous has established itself impressively. Already stocked in Parisian department store Le Bon Marche, next up is global expansion – the duo have an ambitious plan to launch in the world’s top 25 capital cities over the next 12 months. 

Founder: Jenny Griffiths
Founded: July 2011 (launched September 2012)
Website: www.snapfashion.co.uk

Snap Fashion’s unique ‘see it, snap it, buy it’ model allows users to take a photo of an item of clothing they like and upload it to the SnapFashion site, which will then show them similar designs for sale from their affiliate partners across the Internet. Its revenue model is based on ecommerce partnerships with more than 170 UK retailers, including household-name brands such as Topshop and Selfridges, and the service has grown to more than 170,000 users less than a year after launch. Founder Jenny Griffiths was studying computer science when she had her light bulb moment, and wrote the unique algorithms behind the search engine herself. Describing her decision to quit her job and move to Tech City as the biggest challenge for the business to date, it seems Griffiths more than made the right decision; the booming business is preparing for its first overseas launch in Asia soon and is currently raising Series A funding for a further launch in the USA.