Founders: Benjamin Dyer and Chris Barling
Founded: January 2012 (launched April 2013)
Website: www.powerednow.com

Listed in last year’s Startups 100 and making our Startups Top 20 at the end of 2013, Powered Now’s founders have created a mobile finance app that recognises the reality of running a trades business – when you are constantly on-the-go in your van, it’s not always feasible to sit down and draw up invoices on a PC spreadsheet. Powered Now computerises cumbersome paperwork and red tape for tradespeople, allowing them to concentrate on the task at hand; it is clearly an attractive proposition and the start-up has grown from 300 registered users to more than 2,000 in the space of less than a year.

Currently in the process of closing an angel funding round and with projected revenue figures of more than £500,000 for 2014, the founding duo plan to continue their impressive growth. As a B2B proposition, the founders won’t be happy until Powered Now becomes a solution that “is a critical element of other peoples companies” so the next 12 months will see them continue to spread the word of Powered Now as a true “‘killer app” for tradespeople.

You can download the app at powerednow.com – and you can take a look at our guide to business phone contracts if you want to first check you’ve got the best mobile phone for your trades business!

Founder: Thomas Gatten
Founded: January 2011 (launched June 2012)
Website: www.growthintel.com

Business intelligence veteran Thomas Gatten’s start-up Growth Intelligence offers a software-driven solution that, put simply, could put an end to telemarketing calls forever. The company gathers the data footprints of millions of firms across the UK – taking into account “weird and wonderful” metrics such as email traffic, desk space, road traffic and ad spend – and then uses machine learning to automatically predict which firms are likely to buy from other firms, representing a hugely valuable service for marketing and sales departments everywhere.

Large financial institutions including Lloyds and Barclays are already on board, alongside telecommunications giant BT and a host of small firms. Growth Intelligence’s analytics service has potential value for almost any business, and Gatten plans to quickly scale up operations in 2014 as it expands from financial services into telecoms, technology and professional services. Through this, Growth Intelligence expects a year of big growth in both staff and revenue – with such an obviously valuable proposition; it is hard to see why not.

Founder: Jude Ower
Founded: July 2011 (launched October 2012)
Website: www.playmob.com

We recognised Playmob last year for its unique and socially-focused proposition – it offers a service which allows game developers to integrate charitable elements into their games in as little as 20 minutes, cutting out the time and hassle associated with coding it themselves. Over the past year the business has continued to see uptake amongst some leading names in the industry, with Miniclip, Pixelberry, Jagex and Playdemic joining global giant EA in Playmob’s burgeoning client list.

Inspired by the Farmville campaign for the Haiti earthquake which raised $1.5m in just five days, there are now 98 charities on board with Playmob’s model, and Jude Ower’s business has helped raise more than $320,000 for good causes – a notable increase on the $42,000 raised this time last year. The start-up plans to dramatically increase turnover from £50,000 to £800,000 in 2014 as it targets more high-profile partnerships with the likes of Google, Facebook and Xbox. Voted as one of the top 100 Women in Europe in Tech, Ower is on a mission to prove that “we can make a positive impact on the world through games” and it certainly seems that with Playmob she’s doing just that!

Founder: Conrad Ford
Founded: August 2011
Website: www.fundingoptions.com

Following the well-publicised collapse in bank lending to small firms, a huge range of alternative finance providers have sprung up to offer a lifeline – but from challenger banks to equity crowdfunding, the range of options can be daunting. This is where Funding Options comes in: its unique technology can analyse the needs of small firms and connect them with the most appropriate finance option for their needs.

Since launch the service has seen an impressive growth in uptake, doubling volumes quarter-on-quarter in 2013 and recently launching a new credit reference service which has already been used by 100,000 firms in its first few months. Winner of the government’s flagship ‘Tech City Launchpad’ grant programme, Funding Options also initially secured £250,000 angel funding from prominent investors including MMC Ventures co-founder Alan Morgan, before raising £500,000 subsequent venture capital funding earlier this year in a syndicate round led by The North West Fund for Digital & Creative. With plenty of financial backing, founder Conrad Ford says the funds will be used across 2014 to help the site become “the go-to-option for firms seeking finance”.

Founder: Brynne Herbert
Founded: September 2011 (launched July 2012)
Website: www.moveguides.com

Founder Brynne Herbert set up MOVE after “painfully” going through relocating several times while working in finance. Determined that relocating should be more like planning a holiday – win-win solution MOVE was formed, making relocating easier for employees and cheaper for employers.

Created while Herbert was undertaking an MBA at London Business School, she recruited the founding team and raised an initial £400,000 seed funding round from experienced European investors such as Sherry Coutu, all before graduating. Since launching in 2012, the company has grown to become a tri-sided solution serving global companies, the employees and suppliers. Working through a ‘Talent Mobility Cloud’, which includes an employee hub, a HR hub and a support team, MOVE is able to assist employees in all areas of moving while saving employers 25% on cost. Since raising a follow-up institutional round of £1.1m and with growth of 100% planned for 2014, Herbert wants to continue to use innovations in technology and customer service to improve the relocation process, eventually extending its market reach to make MOVE Guides an accessible resource for smaller businesses too.

Founder: Farnaz Khan
Founded: June 2012 (launched January 2013)
Website: www.fitbritches.com

Farnaz Khan created Fit Britches after problems regaining her ‘silhouette’ after having children. No matter how she dieted or worked out, her “mommy tummy” remained. Rather than giving up the ghost, Khan spent four years of her own time and money coming up with a truly remarkable solution: a pair of ‘heated pants’ that increase the wearer’s core body temperature, driving up blood circulation and metabolism and potentially allowing them to drop up to three dress sizes without expending any additional energy.

Khan was inspired to start selling the garments after comments from friends and family on her weight loss. Within a week of launch, her ‘Skinny Knickers’ were featured by TOWIE star Gemma Collins on ITV’s This Morning, and growth has been explosive ever since. Indeed, coping with huge worldwide demand for the Fit Britches range has been the biggest challenge. The garments have now sold in 50 countries worldwide via its website, with coverage from an untold number of press outlets and celebrity fans including Jessie J and Kim Kardashian. It would be very surprising if Fit Britches doesn’t continue its remarkable ascent, especially with plans for a major crowdfunding round en route to launching in the US.

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

Listed on Startups 100 for the third year in a row, the baby swim school franchise continues to provide ever-increasing numbers of babies with swimming skills through its programme of ‘aqua-yoga’ lessons, which also allow their parents to participate and keep fit. Since winning approval as a licensor by Lloyds TSB last year, the franchise has been able to greatly increase the number of licensees carrying the Turtle Tots brand, who are attracted by the businesses’ fun, strong branding and the opportunity to fit the lessons around their own lives.

29 licensees are now signed up across 52 territories on a royalty fee model, all but one of which are mothers of young children themselves. With more than £84,000 profit on a turnover of £178,000 last year, the founding duo plan to add 16 new licensees over the next year and have trademarked the Turtle Tots brand in Australia, the USA and Ireland en route to introducing their first global licensees.

Founders: David White, Matt Painter and Andrew Fogg
Founded: June 2012
Website: import.io

Using the internet, businesses can find out a wealth of information about their chosen market, their competitors, their customers, and virtually anything else – however, analysing this information in a structured way has always presented challenges. This is where import.io’s technology comes into its own – the service allows users to transform any website into a table of data or structured API without writing a single line of code, allowing anyone to harness the true power of data on the web without specialist technical knowledge.

import.io’s potential utility is almost limitless, and with $1.3m venture capital funding behind it led by Wellington Partners, it is well placed to build upon its strong growth so far. The start-up’s founders say they have tens of thousands of users already, including many Fortune 500 companies, and this number is set to grow as import.io expands its US presence past its San Francisco base over the next year.

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

Historically, franchisors have had little support with their marketing which is why PR professionals Sally Anne Butters and Sarah Cook set out to create a marketing agency with a difference. Launched in January 2012, Bournemouth and Sheffield-based Coconut Creatives (formerly trading as Coconut Media) works with franchise brands to supply a wide range of strategy, media, events and PR services exclusively geared towards franchise recruitment.

Listed in the Startups 100 for the second year running, the agency has already racked up a notable list of clients including Baskin Robbins, ActionCOACH and Total Clean and boasts equally impressive revenue figures. Last year, it achieved £500,000 turnover with projections to hit £732,400 for 2014, despite operating in a market where “franchisors have become acutely aware of just how much every penny counts.” The PR company has got big plans for the year ahead with a major project underway to launch a franchisee marketing portal for individual franchise owners. Offering marketing skills and budget advice, the portal will look to attract 15 franchisees over the course of the year and has already attracted interest from two global firms who are keen to join the scheme once it launches.

Founders: Elizabetta Camilleri and Emilio Sanz
Founded: June 2011 (launched November 2012)
Website: www.salesgossip.co.uk

Listed in our 2013 Startups 100, SalesGossip’s proposition is a simple one – by aggregating all the latest deals and sample sales from the UK’s fashion retailers, it saves shoppers the hassle of checking each retailer individually, whilst driving up sales and exposure for the businesses themselves. The site now receives more than 350,000 visitors a month – a figure increasing by 20% per month – and leading brands such as ASOS, House of Fraser and Armani are just some of the platform’s rapidly growing list of clients.

It is clear that SalesGossip is now regarded as an important player in the fashion e-commerce market, something demonstrated in February of this year when it successfully closed a second round of funding, securing a further £600,000 from a group of leading angel investors. The founders plan to use this funding to increase turnover eightfold to £800,000 in 2014 as SalesGossip starts a “big push’” into mobile, with international expansion now also on the horizon.