Founders: Melanie Goldsmith and Emile Bernard
Founded: January 2014 (Launched October 2014)
Website: www.smithandsinclair.co.uk

Startups 100 2015-featured Smith & Sinclair originally created its unique range of cocktail pastilles as a social ‘ice-breaker’, to encourage attendees at an adult dating event to lose their inhibitions. After selling 20,000 pastilles four days after the website launch, Melanie Goldsmith and Emile Bernard realised they were onto something – by the end of the year, they’d sold 200,000.

Smith & Sinclair’s range of alcoholic cocktail pastilles includes mixed berry daiquiri, gin and tonic and whisky sour; all made from real fruit juice and dairy and gluten-free. Its consultancy arm also offers a bespoke confectionary service, creating tailored products that match brands, as well as event colours or themes. Now into its second year, Smith & Sinclair – which was nominated for Lean Start-up of the Year at the 2015 Startups Awards – claims to have doubled sales month-on-month and is aiming to increase revenue growth by 123% this year. The brand is stocked in more than 75 retail outlets across the UK including Harvey Nichols, Whole Foods and The Conran Shop and has worked with over 100 international brands such as Google, Ted Baker, and Beluga Vodka.

It’s going to be an exciting next 12 months for Smith & Sinclair too, with four contracts signed with FTSE 100 clients, plans for global expansion in the summer and the launch of a new product in time for Christmas…

Founders: Gemma and Paul Young
Founded: September 2014 (launched October 2015)
Website: www.settled.co.uk

Having both worked in property early on in their careers, brother and sister Gemma and Paul Young had seen the “limitations of the estate agency model first hand”. Observing how digital apps and services had reimagined outdated sectors to put the consumer first, they knew the “dreaded” property industry was due a much needed update along the same lines.

Using their later tech experience – Gemma was one of the first 100 employees at Google and Paul previously launched two tech start-ups – the duo came up with Settled: an online service that cuts out the middleman and allows consumers to take control of their house selling. Users fill in information about their house, Settled lists the home on hundreds of property sites (such as Zoopla, Rightmove and PrimeLocation) and then qualifies and registers potential buyers – taking revenue from its partners instead of the consumer. Every home is promoted for a maximum of 12 months, but the company claims it usually takes an average of 20 days for homeowners to get a confirmed sale.

Although there are other online estate agencies, including our winner from last year Purplebricks.com, Settled’s model differentiates itself by allowing users to “manage every aspect of the sale themselves”, with the platform only stepping in when needed.

Settled will use the next year to double the size of its team, become profitable and continue to develop its technology with the aim of streamlining the entire selling process.

Founders: Paul Smith and Chris Hamblin
Founded: February 2013 (Launched October 2014)
Website: www.schoop.co.uk

It’s a familiar conversation: “How was school?” – to which the only reply is, “fine”, or worse, “boring”. Kids can be unforthcoming about their education, leaving parents in the dark about how their child is performing.

As a father of two, Paul Smith was only too aware of this problem and decided to do something about it. Using his 19 years of experience as a tech entrepreneur working with the likes of Richard Branson, he launched Schoop: a multilingual, online communication platform giving teachers a way to tell parents about what their children have been learning in school. The company claims that, because kids are aware that there is now a direct line between parent and teacher, they perform and behave better and are more likely to ask for help when needed. Customers (schools) pay an annual fee, equating to around £1.95 per child, per year, to receive a unique Schoop ID, which they pass on to subscribers (parents).

Since launch in October 2014, 350 UK schools have signed up to the service, as well as a host of businesses, charities, community groups, sports clubs, health services and even a choir. And Smith and co-founder Chris Hamblin don’t plan to stop there. After consolidating its expansion plans in the UK, Schoop will take advantage of strategic partnerships to expand across the US, Australia, the EU and beyond…

Founders: Tushar Agarwal, Tom Watson and Rohan Silva
Founded: October 2013 (Launched January 2014)
Website: www.hubblehq.com

The start-up scene is booming in London, yet small businesses often struggle to find affordable and flexible office space. Coupled with the fact that many companies had excess space on their books that was going to waste, banker Tushar Agarwal saw an opportunity to connect the two using technology.

Founded with Tom Watson and Rohan Silva, the second place Startups Awards Rising Star of the Year acts as an online marketplace for finding and renting out office space in London – helping start-ups thrive and bigger businesses monetise their unused space. Hubble charges the host 5% of the monthly rent of any successfully placed business, which it claims is half the 10% taken by traditional office brokers. On the supply side, the company works with some of the biggest co-working spaces in London including WeWork, The Office Group and Regus, as well as companies such as Funding Circle, GoCardless and Songkick.

Having raised £500,000 from a consortium of angels including James Caan and Brett Akker, the next year will see Hubble seek further funding as it looks to double the size of its team and expand its inventory of office spaces. In a market that has traditionally been dominated by brokers with hidden costs and opaque information, the business is helping start-ups grow with a transparent, affordable and easy to understand alternative. A mission we can certainly get behind.

Founders: Romi Savova and Jonathan Lister
Founded: November 2014 (Launched January 2016)
Website: www.pensionbee.com

Even as a finance professional working for Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, Romi Savova found moving her pension from a previous employer a very complicated process. After finding out she wasn’t alone, she decided to come up with a solution to help people take back control of their retirement savings.

Alongside Jonathan Lister she launched PensionBee: an online pension manager that helps mid-career savers who have changed their jobs at least once manage their pensions online. Users can find old pensions for free and combine them into one of PensionBee’s three plans – which are managed by global investment managers State Street and BlackRock – with the company taking a portion of the annual management fee. Fees range from 0.5% to 0.7%, whereas PensionBee claims the average UK pension is in the range of 1.0% of assets annually.

Having just launched in January this year, the founders say they knew they were on to something when they saved their very first customer “thousands of pounds in pension fees” and the next 12 months should see the company secure 3,000 new customers. The ambitious business also has plans to grow its full-time staff from eight to 17 and to make some “exciting improvements” to its product. With pensions on everyone’s lips thanks to the new auto-enrolment rules, PensionBee looks set to make waves this year.

Founders: Chris Sheldrick and Jack Waley-Cohen
Founded: March 2013 (Launched July 2013)
Website: www.what3words.com

During his 10 years organising live music events, Chris Sheldrick found himself constantly frustrated at the difficulties of getting people to be in the right place at the right time. This experience served as the inspiration for his truly unique proposition: a location reference platform that divides the world into a grid of 57 trillion three metre by three metre squares, where each square has a unique, three word address.

Alongside Jack Waley-Cohen, Sheldrick labeled the entire planet using 40,000 different words – what3words was born. Essentially a tiny piece of code, what3words plugs into the existing apps and services of a business, with the company charging for API calls and for functionality like auto suggest and offline mode. For individuals to use on the website or as an app, the platform is completely free. What’s more, humanitarian and not-for-profit organisations are entitled to a range of free discounted usage plans. So far, logistics firms, navigation apps, travel guides and non-government organisations across 170 countries are using what3words, including UN disaster recovery app Navmii and geographic information software company Esri.

Having closed a $3.5m funding round last November, the company is currently working on voice recognition software and is in discussions with a number of governments and national postal services. With an estimated 75% of the world suffering from inadequate addressing systems (and the rest frequently plagued with problems) what3words is in prime position to take on an enormous potential market.

Founder: Tamara Rajah
Founded: August 2015
Website: https://livebetterwith.com/

Cancer treatments have advanced remarkably in recent years – from chemo to radiation and surgery – but there’s another area of cancer care that, in the words of serial entrepreneur Tamara Rajah, is “still very much in need of addressing”.

According to Rajah, cancer care for day-to-day symptoms and side effects such as persistent itching, a sore mouth, brain fog, pain, and nausea, is “seriously lacking” particularly as 90% of cancer patients spend their time outside of hospital.

Having witnessed the side effects of cancer treatment first-hand after her grandfather passed away from the disease, Rajah (a scientist by background) launched Live Better With, an online platform curating and retailing a range of non-medical products, including balms, books, and mobility aids, to bring relief from the symptoms and side effects of cancer treatment.

Backed by VC firm Forward Partners and with offices in London and New York, the e-commerce start-up has already sold over 3,700 products to cancer patients, families and carers in the UK and US just nine months after launch.

With a growing customer base and visitor numbers of 160,000, it’s clear that Rajah’s business is filling a gap in the market and with it helping patients to better deal with the daily discomfort that cancer brings.

While growth is on the ascent, Rajah says she won’t feel like she’s succeeded absolutely until she has presented every cancer patient in the world with the practical advice and solutions to deal with each and every side effect in every territory globally. A big ambition but one which we can all get behind!

Founder: Sarah Tierney
Founded: February 2013 (launched February 2015)
Website: www.wearecolony.com

Despite the film industry continuing to undergo enormous disruption and streaming services estimated to be the fastest growing vertical in the market – revenues are expected to hit $51.1bn in 2020 – there has thus far been little diversification in the on-demand space.

Hoping to change that is London-based We Are Colony: unlike other film streaming services, the platform gives movie fans access to exclusive behind-the-scenes extras, the likes of which used to be found on DVDs – sales of which fell below digital revenues this year. Currently users can rent or buy film bundles via a pay-as-you-go model, with We Are Colony operating a revenue split from its more than 40 global licensors (including BBC Films, Film4 and Momentum), as well as gaining additional revenue from a still in development affiliate programme and data-as-a-service engine. And despite big brand competition, it seems We Are Colony’s bonus extras have found a rapt audience. The company has registered account holders in 115 countries and paying users in 84 countries.

Currently with over 80 titles on release through the platform, We Are Colony hopes to increase this by adding another 100 titles during 2016. To date the company has raised £1.4m, backed by funds including Seedcamp, Archer Gray and Firestartr. Headed up by Sarah Tierney, an Oscar-nominated and BAFTA-winning filmmaker, We Are Colony is – excuse the pun – one to watch.

Founders: Dominic Wood, Dr. Richard Wood, Matthew Parsons and Peter Ropner
Founded: July 2014 (Launched June 2016)
Website: www.bioepic.co

Years of research into why natural diet allows some isolated populations around the world to avoid age-related rises in blood pressure led Richard Wood back to one famous saying: “An apple a day keeps the doctor away”. It seemed foods rich in the antioxidant epicatechin like apples and cacao were hugely beneficial to cardiovascular health.

What started off as an idea to create a mass market epicatechin product evolved when they decided to marry it with an app that proved the product’s benefits. Bioepic claims to be the world’s first company to combine food and drink supplements with smartphone technology to track the effect they have on your health. What’s more, Bioepic claims its free fitness tracking app is more accurate than most wearable devices available, which is funded by revenue generated from sales of the supplement. The company’s first product is slated for a summer 2016 launch and has already attracted the attention of the “largest supplement distributor in the world”, as well as a number of other global distributors, who will promote the product across the US.

This should see Bioepic’s products stocked in major retailers across the UK, US, Australia and New Zealand. Provided the company can scale to meet this “explosive” growth, it’s in prime position to capitalise on a worldwide market worth billions.

Founder: Olly Cooper
Founded: January 2015 (Launched January 2016)
Website: www.bijoucommerce.com

Having a valid e-commerce arm is vital in today’s fashion market – but while over half of all UK retail spend is performed through mobile and an estimated 85% of consumers prefer mobile native apps, just 2.3% of retailers believe their business is optimised for e-commerce.

Bijou Commerce is a business-to-business (B2B) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform that builds native mobile apps specifically for fashion brands. The company’s clients enter two-year contracts, from which Bijou receives a development charge, a monthly service charge and a performance-based bonus dependent on the increase in conversion rate delivered. To date, Bijou has worked with 15 companies across the UK fashion and beauty space with a further 300 planned for throughout 2016.

In March this year, the company raised a £2m funding round, enabling it to make its platform code open so clients could use the software to build new apps and features specifically for their most loyal customers. Bijou hopes to work closely with these clients as they continue to innovate, using machine learning to create a more personalised service. The next 12 months could also see the business begin to explore new opportunities, helping local UK retailers and UK brands launch into new markets.