Founders: Daniel Long and Rob Linton
Founded: February 2012
Website: www.clearabee.co.uk

It was a venture into online marketing that led Daniel Long and Rob Linton down the road to what would eventually become an on-demand rubbish removal company. Conversations with people operating individual ‘man and van’ services opened their eyes to an enormous potential nationwide market.

They renamed their business Clearabee – which came in at 18 in last year’s Startups 100 – and a few years later the Birmingham-based company has achieved nationwide rollout. Launched with just £500, to-date the start-up has worked with more than 60,000 customers including domestic households, local authorities, housing associations and businesses. And it’s not hard to see why. A simple proposition, customers can arrange same day refuse and recycling collection, which Clearabee delivers direct to its partner processing stations – taking away any hassle.

The business is on the verge of opening its first depot in Northern Ireland, with plans to expand into the Republic of Ireland where it has a number of key accounts. The next year will see it focus on acquiring new and potentially very lucrative corporate customers such as property developers and facilities management companies.

Having turned over £4.1m in 2015, the 100-strong team is set to increase this to an estimated £7m in 2016 – proving that one man’s rubbish really is another man’s treasure.

Founders: Andrew Keeble, Debbie Keeble, Jamie Keeble, Roddy Keeble, and Ellie Keeble
Founded: October 2013 (launched April 2014)
Website: www.heckfood.co.uk

You would think that a start-up would be at a disadvantage going after an established market but, in the case of sausage and burger business HECK, it just goes to show a small business can take on big brand competition and succeed.

Launched in April 2014 – the second venture for co-founders Andrew and Debbie Keeble following their eponymous brand ‘Debbie & Andrew’s’ – and run by young sibling trio Roddy, Jamie and Ellie, HECK is the only independent premium sausage brand in the sector which specialises in gluten-free recipes.

HECK’s fast-growing range uses a minimum of 85% pork and extends to heart shaped patties, square sausages, skinless sausages, and even low-fat chicken sausages. More recently, the company has branched out with a vegetarian range which includes sausages made with goat’s cheese, nuts, and ‘super greens’.

Using its “refreshingly honest” approach, the business has attracted the attention of major UK retailers and its products are now stocked on the shelves of Tesco, Waitrose, ASDA, Morrisons, and Sainsbury’s, to name a few.

These top supermarket listings have enabled the company, which is already profitable, to ‘beef up’ sales and it achieved revenues of £5.7m for the year to July 2015, with turnover of £12m projected for 2016.

With a team of over 50 staff, the Keebles say they have created one of the fastest growing brands in the UK and they intend to maintain this status by building a “state of the art” production site, warehouse site, and visitor centre on their Yorkshire farm in Kirklington. Time will tell if this start-up continues to sizzle…

Founders: Saurav Chopra and Chieu Cao
Founded: January 2015
Website: www.perkbox.co.uk

Many start-ups are often afraid to change or adapt their business model for fear of failure, but the early success of Perkbox, which has pivoted three times since launch, shows that change can often lead to something great. In this case, a multi-million revenue business with 300,000 customers and a team of 95 employees.

Launched in January 2015 by Saurav Chopra and Chieu Cao, Perkbox is an employee engagement platform focused on helping small and medium businesses and start-ups to attract and “nurture” their staff. Companies pay to use the platform and this gives their employees access to over 130 perks such as vouchers to spend on food and entertainment, free phone insurance, discounted travel, movie tickets and more.

Used by brands such as BUPA, British Gas, and WorldPay, Perkbox promises to gives businesses the “tools to compete with other companies for talent” and Chopra and Cao say that their focus is workplace happiness – “not just as a philosophy we ‘sell’ but ardently practice”.

While Chopra and Cao say they had issues with “haemorrhaging cash” when they initially started, this issue has been more than resolved with projected revenue of £15m for 2016 and investment from Zoopla founder Alex Chesterman.

What lies in store for the next part of their start-up journey? Chopra and Cao tell us that they intend to launch operations across Europe and the US over the next year with the intention to “bring happiness” to one million workplaces across the world by 2021.

Having achieved so much in just over 12 months, these goals appear to be well within grasp.

Founders: Christian Faes and Ian Thomas
Founded: May 2013
Website: www.lendinvest.com

Clinching the coveted number one spot in the Startups 100 2016 index is three year-old innovative peer-to-peer property lender LendInvest. Claiming to be the UK’s “first and largest” online marketplace for property, LendInvest matches investors looking for prime retail opportunities with property entrepreneurs looking for short-term mortgage finance.

Founded by qualified solicitor Christian Faes and chartered surveyor Ian Thomas after they’d become frustrated with the slow process of mortgage applications, the duo decided to adopt the principles of consumer and small business P2P lending. Now, three years on, LendInvest says it can process an application – which can take three months from a high street lender – in as little as two weeks, with its fastest completed in three days.

This speed has seen the service win favour with property entrepreneurs buying at auction as well as landlords and property developers on the borrowing side – with LendInvest charging a fee to borrowers.

Last summer, the company secured a staggering £22m funding round from Chinese technology firm Beijing Kunlun – one of the biggest UK investments of 2015.

The start-up now intends to embark on a period of major expansion to meet its customers “insatiable demand”.

With a staggering £15m turnover for 2015 and plans to increase headcount from 90 to an impressive 150 by the end of 2016, this pioneering London lender is a worthy number one.

Our second proptech business to clinch the coveted top spot (after Purplebricks.com came first last year), it’s clearly the hot sector of the moment…