Founders: Serge Taborin and Tim Bichara
Founded: December 2012 (Launched June 2013)
Website: www.qappmobile.com

After standing at one too many crowded bars, trying in vain to get the overworked bar staff’s attention, founders of Startups 100 2014 featured Q App, Serge Taborin and Tim Bichara, decided there must be a better way.

Their solution is an app that allows its users to avoid queues by ordering and paying for drinks via their smartphone, and collecting them at the bar when they receive a notification that the drinks are ready for collection. The bar benefits from increased revenue, throughput and guest retention – and Q App takes a commission and also monetises with advertising, and a recently launched data analytics service to help venues spot trends.

The platform has already been adopted by around 45,000 users and 30 venues including some of the UK’s most prestigious establishments and chains, such as The Royal Albert Hall, Liverpool Football Club and Mecca Bingo, which has more than 90 venues nationwide. The entrepreneurs hope to follow this success by accelerating their product distribution over the next year, targeting key venues and major chains to supercharge growth.

Founders: David and Gareth Atkinson
Founded: June 2013 (launched March 2014)
Website: www.theymco.com

The restaurant industry, with its high overheads and even higher levels of competition, is a notoriously difficult market to crack. New entrants need to offer great service and value, a unique proposition and most importantly delicious food to have a chance at standing out – and this is exactly what The Yorkshire Meatball Company (YMCO) is doing, and then some.

The YMCO, which claims to be is the UK’s first and only specialist meatball company, has hit the ground running; winning the Harrogate Hospitality and Tourism Awards just a few weeks after it opened its doors to the hungry public. The business has since been named the Startups Awards’ Restaurant Business of the Year and has been shortlisted for a number of industry a number of accolades including the UK-wide ‘Free from’ eating out award. The food start-up caters to almost every diet with its range of gluten-free (a fast growth market), meat, fish and veggie meatballs, which customers can choose to mix-and-match with accompanying “beds” (sides) and “blankets” (sauces) – with almost every ingredient locally sourced.

And the business’ founders have big hopes for the future. Eager to eventually bring their meatball concept across the UK though franchising, the company is opening its first meatball outlet in a city-centre bar this June and expects to launch its meatballs on the retail market later this year.

Founders: Joel Freeman, Daniel Murray and Rob Durkin
Founded: February 2013 (launched October 2013)
Website: www.grabble.com

Inspired by the rising trend of social commerce, young entrepreneurs Joel Freeman, Daniel Murray and Rob Durkin set out to create a business that could bring burgeoning fashion brands and designers to an engaged market. Experimenting with the notion of a ‘grab’ button, after some positive market testing, the idea quickly flourished into Grabble – a multi-device fashion commerce app.   

The free app enables savvy consumers to swipe through millions of products from well-known brands and retailers allowing them to ‘grab’ (save) their favourites, with individual users feeds becoming more personalised as it learns their preferences. Retailers sign up and concede a 5-15% commission for every item sold, with opportunities to create brand awareness through the platform.

One of the youngest businesses on our list last year, the company is now starting to gain real traction. Some of the UK’s biggest on and offline retailers are signed up to the service including Selfridges, Topshop and ASOS and over 100,000 users (double that of last year) have made over 100 million swipes. In the next 12 months, the London-based company hopes to complete a unified in-app checkout,  expand to the US and grow its user base to an ambitious one million. Having raised a £1.2m seed round and with turnover estimated between £500,000 and £1m this year, a Series A round is also on the cards to continue to accelerate growth.

Founders: Jack Tang and Giles Williams
Founded: February 2014
Website: www.urbanmassage.com

Health and beauty treatments have always been big business, and in today’s increasingly busy world, the thought of a relaxing massage is instantly appealing, but finding a reliable and reputable at home therapist can be difficult. Founders of Urban Massage Jack Tang and Giles Williams set out to disrupt this outdated industry and “bring massage into the on-demand world”.

Referring to itself as ‘the Uber of massage’, the website connects qualified therapists to clients in need at their home, hotel or office within an hour, using a complex booking system built on live availability and geographical tracking. The system also provides the therapist with an internal app that empowers them to develop their own management portal and offers the shortest possible travel route to their clients.

Founded just over a year ago, Urban Massage has already launched in its second city, Bristol, and is working with several of the UK’s top massage schools to provide training and career opportunities for its therapists. At just 23 and 24 respectively, Tang and Williams have already founded and grown thestudentjob.com, so they can approach their nationwide expansion plans and possible exploration of new verticals such as beauty, personal training and physiotherapy, with a well-earned confidence.

Founder: Oliver Murphy
Founded: June 2012 (launched August 2012)
Website: www.reviveaphone.com

Since featuring in the Startups 100 2014, Reviveaphone has grown revenues, created a new range of products and lined up a deal with one of the biggest players in the mobile market – proof that its ranking in the index was duly warranted.

Founded by 22 year-old young entrepreneur Oliver Murphy (our youngest entrepreneur in the list for two years running), Reviveaphone specialises in products which can bring any water damaged mobile phone “back to life” within 24 hours. Boosted by funding from Kelly Hoppen MBE after an appearance on Dragons’ Den, the Essex business has maintained momentum with recent product launches in five new markets including Spain, North America, Switzerland, Scandinavia and Japan which have helped to push the brand forward.

Although Murphy says it has been difficult to raise awareness of Revivephone, an upcoming deal with mobile giant Carphone Warehouse should help to see the brand brought into the mainstream alongside its new product line ‘Splash’ – water resistant invisible coatings for smartphones.

Murphy’s ultimate goal is to branch out into full phone repair, recycling and insurance which will include a countrywide repair service with mobile technicians on hand to visit homes and repair smartphones.

Expect to see a Reviveaphone repair service near you in the future!

Founder: James Shillcock
Founded: January 2013 (launched September 2013)
Website: vividdrinks.com

Thanks to the juicing generation, matcha – an ancient-old tea drink said to have numerous health benefits and a steady three hour caffeine release – is rapidly gaining a cult-like status, with celebrity health trendsetter Gwyneth Paltrow, New York Fashion Week (matcha shots were ‘the it beverage’ among fashionistas) and coffee-tea heavyweight Starbucks all advocating the new tea. On the very cusp of this trend, resourceful entrepreneur James Shillcock spotted a potentially lucrative business opportunity and decided he wanted a piece of the rising market.

Launched in 2013 after securing £100,000 investment, the young founder’s drinks start-up – which contains real matcha mixed with a variety of fresh flavours – had over 250,000 new customers in its first year and secured an impressive stocklist featuring over 300 retailers including Waitrose, Boots and Holland & Barrett.

The 27 year-old entrepreneur has big business ideas for 2015; in January he launched the UK’s first ever matcha bar in London’s Soho, collaborating with 2013’s Startups 100 member Lily Vanilli to supply matcha-infused treats alongside teas, coffees and alcoholic beverages all with the super ingredient. And with more matcha-themed events, two new product launches and another food and beverage business in the works, it looks set to be a very busy year for the burgeoning brand.   

Founder: Deepak Tailor
Founded: March 2012
Website: www.latestfreestuff.co.uk

When you see ‘free stuff’ you’re usually right in thinking that it’s too good to be true, but this is not so with returning Startups 100 company LatestFreeStuff.co.uk. The website is one of the UK’s largest ‘freebie’ sites, helping its users find the best free things, deals, bargains and special offers.

Founder Deepak Tailor had been using competitor freebie sites, which relied strongly on advertising, for more than five years when he suddenly decided he could create a better version that contained only the best genuine offers. LatestFreeStuff currently contains more than 700 offers from the likes of Nivea, Pantene, Garnier and PG tips, and works with big name brands such Tesco, Vodafone and O2 to create lead generation campaigns to help them test new products and services – while not impacting on the user experience.

Operating with no advertising budget has been a challenge but the company now attracts over 350,000 visitors a month and has seen media coverage in The Mirror, The Daily Telegraph and The Sun.

Tailor has also recently launched an app to help freebie hunters find bargains on the go, and plans to use the next 12 months to grow faster in the US market. With his book How to live for free hitting the top spot on Amazon, and a business that’s essentially recession proof, this entrepreneur seems set for success.

Founder: Richard Edwards
Founded: January 2012 (launched September 2012)
Website: www.nativethinking.co.uk

Native Consultancy has a clear mission – to take on the market of boring, inflexible PR and marketing agencies, by offering “game-changing value” to its clients.

After 15 years working as a journalist and in PR, founder Richard Edwards saw that the traditional PR industry model was failing companies in a world of social media and digital content. He decided to deliver a new communications model that would position his clients as “thought leaders” on issues that mattered to buyers. Native Consultancy charges an agreed price per project or per year to its 15 clients including large organisations such as Coutts and The Institution for Engineering and Technology, as well as smaller companies like The Executive Coaching Company and Profitability.

Edwards adds that he only works “for clients where we think we can make a real difference” – a tact that appears to be working. The profitable company is on track to double its turnover this year after heavily investing in people and marketing, which has led to a client win every month so far in 2015. For the remainder of the year Native will focus on launching into new sectors, as well as building its client base in existing markets, expanding its team and retaining 100% of its clients.

Founders: Kenny Ewan and Claire Rhodes      
Founded: January 2014 (launched November 2014)
Website: wefarm.info

As technology increasingly takes over every aspect of our lives it’s hard to imagine a world without a digital presence. However 75% of the world’s population still has no internet access – and the majority of this number is made up of small-scale farmers living in remote and developing areas in Asia, Latin America and Africa who both struggle with and solve agricultural challenges daily but have no way to access or share information.

WeFarm’s founders, who both have extensive experience working with NGOs in developing countries, spotted a potential solution using SMS (there has been rapid growth of mobiles phones amongst the demographic). The start-up works by connecting farmers to a huge crowdsourcing platform via SMS; meaning a farmer with a question can simply text WeFarm, which then connects them to another farmer with an answer; and the platform then stores this data in order to create a sort of Google for agriculture in developing countries.

The business generates revenues by charging governments, suppliers and research groups to access this data. Since launching, WeFarm – which was named a Nominet Trust 100 company last year and won Google’s Impact Challenge – has raised over one million in grant funding. In the next 12 months, the start-up hopes to continue to grow its network globally, expand its revenue streams by allowing third parties to advertise to the platform’s farming network and eventually create a successful social business model for other start-ups to follow.

Founders: Nicky Hoyland and Chris Keeling
Founded: June 2013
Website: www.digitalbalance.co.uk

Born from a love of problem solving, Digital Balance founders Nicky Hoyland and Chris Keeling spotted an opportunity to offer their technical expertise to help “fill the gaps” in the knowledge of large corporates.

The digital agency provides bespoke technical solutions in e-learning, design, development and training to help corporates take full advantage of technology. With years of experience in adult learning and system development, Hoyland and Keeling describe themselves as “geeks through and through”, and are passionate about designing and developing “new and exciting” ways to make complex technical solutions easy.

Thanks to the team’s combined expertise, Digital Balance works with some of the biggest client names in their respective industries including EE, Vodafone, Expedia, Santander and eBay, and will be embarking on innovative projects and increasing return on investment within its customer base over the coming year. Projecting turnover of £350,000 for 2015, the business – which boasts a remarkable profit margin – will also focus on growth and developing systems and solutions to engage users and “make them want to return”.