Founders: Jeff Lyn and Carlos Silva
Founded: May 2009 (launched July 2012)
Website: www.seedrs.com

Amongst the recent proliferation of crowdfunding sites, in which ‘armchair investors’ work together to raise funding targets, Seedrs stands out with its focus on early stage businesses and pre-revenue start-ups. Started with an aim to address the funding gap experienced by those with high potential but unproven business concepts, investors can pledge between £10 and £150,000 via the platform. Early stage businesses using other crowdfunding platforms can run into the problematic situation where they are left with hundreds of minority shareholders at a very early stage, making it difficult to raise votes for future funding rounds, but Seedrs has a solution. Uniquely, the platform purchases shares on behalf of investors, taking legal title of the shares and managing the investment whilst leaving the investors as the actual beneficial owners of any dividends or proceeds of sale. Offering the platform an additional USP in an increasingly crowded market, the platform has seen fast growth, expanding to 13,500 users in just over a year and the company has plans to extend its service to European investors and entrepreneurs in the near future. 

Founders: Jim Cregan and Suzie Cregan
Founded: November 2010 (launched April 2011) 
Website: www.jimmysicedcoffee.com

The idea for Jimmy’s Iced Coffee came when founder Jim Cregan visited Australia for a year and fell in love with the country’s national craze, iced coffee – drinking it ‘after surfing’, as a ‘hangover cure’ and basically at any opportunity. Upon returning to the UK, however, Cregan soon discovered he couldn’t get his fix of quality iced coffee anywhere and so set out to make his own, founding Jimmy’s Iced Coffee with his sister Suzie, creating ready-to-drink refrigerated iced coffee packaged in a brand oozing with quirky personality. Despite Cregan’s admission that he ‘doesn’t know how to make money’ the product was soon picked up by Selfridges and the delicious drink can now be found on the shelves of major retailers including Waitrose, WHSmith, Ocado and Londis. The next year will see Jimmy’s Iced Coffee push to launch in Tesco with an ambitious target of quadrupling its turnover in the next 12 months. 

Founders: John Harris and Rhona Carr
Founded: November 2011
Website: www.fieldcandy.com

With summer festivals exploding in popularity in recent times, camping has become an increasingly ‘cool’ activity, yet the ubiquitous tent remained steadfastly uncool in design – until FieldCandy came along. Spotting an opportunity after attending a trade show in Germany full of ‘boring’ blue and green tents, founders John Harris and Rhona Carr launched their range of unique and unexpected tents created by a range of designers, which include an image of a cow, a brick wall design, and a tent complete with a printed silhouette of two lovers kissing (entitled ‘get a room’). With prices ranging from £265-£595, the company has enjoyed international success almost since launch, especially in the USA and Australia, and posted revenues of £159,200 in 2012 with the company already highly profitable. The next year will see FieldCandy launch a new four-six person tent and accessory range with a major wholesale launch and trade shows in the USA and EU also planned. 

Founder: Michael Devlin
Founded: May 2012 (launched August 2012)
Website: www.core150.com

The Core150 brand is a built on a patented shaker bottle in which powder supplements are measured exactly, and transported in an easy and hygienic manner. According to founder Michael Devlin, existing products pre-Core150 were poorly designed and required users to guess the measurements of their dietary supplements – something that could cause health problems. Since launch in August 2012, Devlin has secured exclusive distribution partners in Ireland, areas of Europe, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, UAE, the US and the UK. Retail partners are already numerous and include Rebel Sports, Elverys sports, GNC UK nationwide, Holland & Barrett UK nationwide, and Amazon. With wholesale and B2C revenue streams and contractual agreements totalling £1.6m for 2013, it is no wonder that Devlin now feels his business is well-positioned to grow both in terms of brand and its product offering.

Founders: Niall Murphy, Andy Hobsbawm, Dom Guinard and Vlad Trifa
Founded: January 2011 (launched October 2012)
Website: http://www.evrythng.com/

The first of its kind, Evrythng is a software company that connects seemingly unresponsive and inanimate physical objects to the web. Founded by Digital Hall of Fame inductee Andy Hobsbawm and Niall Murphy, who co-founded The Cloud, the disruptive provider specialises in a new technology which enables its clients to give their products Active Digital Identities™. This creates a new realm for the marketing industry as it allows customers to ‘check-in’ to products as they use them. Its tracking software also provides product developers and customers with real-time analytical data as products are made, used and sold with the intention to encourage users to actively engage with brands. It has already proved exciting to investors with Atomico and several angels backing $1m into the firm in November 2011.  Now working with five global brands including premium drinks provider Diageo and confectionary and food specialist Mondalez, the innovative company is set to expand internationally over the next year with a US office and new clients in the pipeline. The ambitious business plans to change the future of the internet forever so watch this space…

Founders: Gary Bassett, Sharon Bassett, Kevin Key, Caroline Key, Alister Ramm and Lorna Ramm
Founded: November 2011
Website: www.a-starsports.co.uk

Featured in our Startups 100 list in 2012, A-Star Sports has seen further strong growth over the past 12 months with its unique franchise model, offering children multi-sport activity programmes hosted by experienced coaches. With more than 50 years of coaching experience between them, the founders and their franchisees now cater to more than 3,500 children in their peer-reviewed weekly classes and have a similarly strong line in children’s parties and holiday camps.  After being awarded provisional British Franchise Association accreditation last year, the business has grown to 12 franchise locations across the UK, with more planned in the coming months. Racking up a number of accolades, A-Star Sports was recognised as one of Britain’s top 250 business talents by Lord Young and Sir Terry Leahy and recently picked up Best PR Campaign at the 2013 Franchise Marketing Awards. Over the next year the company plans to strengthen its links with its sports partners including the UK Dodgeball Association and develop its corporate social responsibility programme.

Founders: Ivailo Jordanov and Yury Tereshchenko
Founded: June 2012
Website: www.23snaps.com

With the tagline ‘created by parents for parents’, Ivailo Jordanov and Yury Tereschenko came up with the idea for 23 Snaps while Jordanov’s wife was pregnant. Seeking to share this important time with their loved ones who all lived in different locations, the duo wanted a way to store and share photos, videos and updates somewhere that only their family and closest friends could access. Unable to find an adequate solution, the pair spotted a potential market opportunity and 23 snaps was born. Having grown rapidly since its launch with hundreds of thousands of global users, the company specialises in a free mobile app which enables parents to privately share photos and family albums, videos and text updates online. It also provides the option of photo printing so users can have physical copies of their favourite content. Currently available on iPhone and iPad, Android, Windows 8 and online, the young company is looking to create lucrative partnerships to enhance its market reach.

Founder: Richard Garcia
Founded: August 2011
Website: www.cookandgarcia.co.uk

It isn’t uncommon to walk past three or four branches of the same high street coffee shop in almost as many minutes. While procuring a sandwich and caffeine fix in a lunch hour is certainly pretty easy in most town centres, there can be a distinct lack of variety. Enter Richard Garcia, whose business Cook & Garcia launched its first high street artisan sandwich shop in Richmond in May 2012. In little more than a year, and competing against the ubiquitous major chains, the outlet is averaging more than 300 customers a day; impressively over 40% of this figure is repeat custom. The appeal of Cook & Garcia’s offering was reinforced when it was named as the 2013 Best Independent Sandwich Bar in the UK at the British Sandwich Industry Awards. Now Garcia, who has a 25 year background in catering, is also opening a concession in Richmond and is looking at opening a second unit within the next year.

Founder: Chris Dunning
Founded: May 2010
Website: www.techquarters.com

Unlike a lot of IT providers for business, many of which retain a staid emphasis on old technology and bulky server setups, Chris Dunning’s TechQuarters has a firm focus on the future, helping small companies move into and understand the new world of cloud computing. With a turnover of £513,000 last year and already turning a healthy profit, this forward-looking approach has been a hit with small firms and Techquarters now has a portfolio of 114 small business customers. Dunning says that the firm’s strong commitment to customer service has been crucial to the young company’s success; 57.4% of support enquiries are resolved within the first half hour of the call coming into the company’s helpdesk, more than double the average fix time for other support companies on the market. Named by Microsoft as its 2013 Global SMB Cloud Partner of the Year, the company has ambitious plans for growth in the next 12 months, moving into larger premises in April 2014 and developing a unique ‘one-stop shop’ branded offering for small firms looking to move operations into the cloud.