Founder: Emily Forbes
Founded: January 2014
Website: www.seenit.io

Returning for the second year in a row is Seenit, the online video collaboration platform that allows brands and organisations to turn employees, fans or journalists into a mobile film crew.

Attending an anti-rhino poaching protest in South Africa to make a documentary, Emily Forbes saw that the entire crowd were already documenting the entire event on their phones. She saw the potential to harness the wealth of footage captured every day and Seenit was born. Working on a pay-as-you-go and subscription service, the platform charges organisations on how many projects they run, as well as add-ons such as data analytics. Seenit is also currently developing a crowd-sourced editor network, enabling brands to buy ‘film credits’ in bundles and pay editors to quickly create content.

To date, the company has worked with more than 100 clients, with 13 yearly subscription clients including stellar names such as Benefit, The Body Shop, Morrisons, Red Bull Racing, The BBC, Crystal Palace Football, Camelot and Accenture. Having recently closed a funding round, Seenit will bolster its team with the addition of five new members in 2016, as well as focus on securing clients in the US and launching its app in more languages.

A unique concept with huge potential, be sure to keep your eyes on Seenit.

Founder: David George
Founded: November 2011 (launched September 2014)
Website: www.bikmoplus.com

When former Startups diary columnist David George was asked to develop a insurance product for bike nuts like himself, his complete lack of experience in the insurance sector, combined with a background in development and marketing led to the creation of a truly unique insurance model developed specially for cyclists.

It became Startups 100-listed Bikmo plus: “easy and simple” cycle insurance covering everything from bikes to kit and accessories, with competition and travel cover included as standard. The insurer’s bike-focused policies include no depreciation on bikes of any age, a 50% discount for cyclists with multiple bikes and up to £150 breakdown cover. The company generates commission on every policy sold through the website, incentivising its existing users to recommend friends and fellow cyclists. Projecting to hit nearly £800,000 in revenues for 2016 and with decent profits to boot, Bikmo is gearing up for “big growth” through company acquisition and by securing new customers in the future.

By the end of the year, the company expects to have sold its first policy in Germany and will be working with another two governing bodies for cycling. While he may face some competition from fellow bike insurer and Startups 100-listing PedalCover, ultimately, George says his ambition is to become the leading European active lifestyle insurer by 2020.

Founder: Lee Parry
Founded: January 2013
Website: www.enigma-recovery.com

With more and more of our personal information stored only in a digital format, losing data can be disastrous – especially when that data is of a personal or valuable nature.

While working for a major US client, Lee Parry was asked to develop software that would recover deleted data from an iPhone – a service that was becoming increasingly popular. Spotting an opportunity, he then went on to launch Birmingham-based Enigma Recovery– which works on a business-to-consumer (B2C) model, selling software that helps people recover anything from photos, videos, text messages, calendar appointments, call history, contacts and even WhatsApp messages. To date, the company has sold its software – which is available for multiple devices and platforms – to more than 50,000 people globally and claims to be growing its user base at a rate of more than 278% a year.

Thanks to its rapid worldwide success, the firm has already teased a possible acquisition by a major global cyber security company sometime in the next year. With billions of devices now owned around the world, storing all manner of personal and private data, Enigma Recovery is well placed to take advantage of an enormous potential market. And having founded two previous businesses selling digital products to the mass market, Parry looks like the right man for the job.

Founder: Kenny Ewan
Founded: January 2015 (launched February 2015)
Website: www.wefarm.org

During his time working with indigenous agricultural communities in South America, Kenny Ewan witnessed first hand the ingenious solutions local farmers had found for their problems. He also discovered that with no means of communication, these solutions rarely travelled as far as the nearby villages.

With an estimated 500 million small-scale farmers around the world without access to the internet, Ewan saw that a virtual library of techniques and information could be an invaluable resource. He launched Startups 100 2015-listed WeFarm, a service that allows them to do just that, via SMS. Free for users, the service works on a business-to-business basis, deriving revenue from its two products: WeFarm insight and WeFarm Reach. Insight is a data, insight and sustainability tool that provides information to businesses and NGOs, while Reach connects knowledge requests to sales through targeted advertising, or can be used as a platform to reach the remote parts of the supply chain.

With 51,000 farmers already signed up to the service, the business hopes to have one million farmers using the service by the end of the year, with plans to launch in Brazil and India and the development of a smarter, faster WeFarm in the pipeline.

Founders: Kathryn Tyler and Nikki Cochrane
Founded: September 2014 (Launched January 2014)
Website: www.digitalmums.com

Whilst running a marketing agency named Hackney Social, Kathryn Tyler and Nikki Cochrane came across a report that said almost three times as many women as men have suffered long-term unemployment in the last three and a half years.

Setting out to rectify this, they realised mums could be the perfect solution for social media management as they are often highly skilled but lack the time and flexibility for full-time work. Together, they launched Digital Mums: an online platform that trains mums to be social media managers and matches them to businesses and charities that need their help to get digital.

The company takes a fee off every mum for the two different six-month training programmes, as well as a fee for businesses that take on mums in training and a placement fee for those that take on graduate mums. To date, Digital Mums – which recently closed a £285,000 funding round – claims to have worked with over 300 mums and 300 businesses, with 100 having graduated and the majority going on to flexible work.

The next year will see the 22-employee strong company (18 of whom are flexible working mums) scale throughout the UK, with a target of having 1,000 mums create employment for themselves. The business also has plans to expand internationally – all of which could see Digital Mums reach its projected revenue of £1m for 2016.

Founders: Tom Blomfield, Jonas Huckestein, Paul Rippon, Gary Dolman and Jason Bates
Founded: February 2015 (launched October 2015)
Website: https://monzo.com/   

Monzo has relatively moderate ambitions; it is creating the world’s first smartphone-based bank and intends for this to be the best bank “on the entire planet”. Did we say moderate ambitions? We meant to say radical!

Combining a high-tech banking app and credit card (its own MasterCard prepaid debit card), this start-up challenger bank is the brainchild of Tom Blomfield – the founder of GoCardless – and Jonas Huckestein, Paul Rippon, Gary Dolman, and Jason Bates.

“Banking like never before”, Monzo gives users instant balance updates and offers a range of intelligent notifications such as tracking recurring payments and providing summaries of exactly where your money goes each month.

With a team of 30 employees working to develop the business, Blomfield says Monzo is “creating a product that people want” and its recent growth milestones support this. There are currently over 6,000 users trialling the app at beta stage, over 100,000 people on the waiting list, and the start-up has secured £8m in funding including one of the fastest crowdfunding rounds in UK history.

While not a fully licensed bank just yet – it is currently applying for authorisation to become one – and so can’t offer features like direct debits or faster payments, Blomfield believes the company will have bank status within the 12 next months.

If successful, Monzo could not only change the way we bank but could also change our spending habits forever…

Founder: James Jenkins-Yates
Founded: February 2015
Website: www.airsorted.uk 

A number of start-ups have sprung up in recent years in response to the growing popularity of Airbnb, to help time-poor hosts manage their homes – the latest (and one of two similar services on the list) is Shoreditch-based AirSorted.

After two years experiencing the hassles of managing an Airbnb property first hand, former financial analyst James Jenkins-Yates knew he could use his experience and coding skills to save fellow hosts all the headaches. AirSorted arranges cleaners, does the laundry, manages 24 hour check-ins and even optimises the listing to ensure maximum earnings – charging the host a fee for every booking.

Claiming to be cheaper than the competition and with a focus on cleaning to the highest standard, AirSorted has secured 250 clients just over a year after launch. Funded by European property accelerator Pi Labs, the London and Edinburgh-based business plans to expand to cover more of the UK after consolidating its reputation in London, with a target of working with 2,000 hosts by the end of 2016. It may have competition, but with a distinct approach, a talented young entrepreneur at the helm and a fast-growing team of 22, AirSorted has every chance of being a big player in the Airbnb management services sector.

Founders: Matteo Berlucchi and Alessandro Traverso
Founded: October 2013 (Launched November 2015)
Website: www.your.md

Founders of Your.MD Matteo Berlucchi and Alessandro Traverso believe in the power of artificial intelligence to solve what they see as the main structural issues that exist within the global health system: demand vs. supply of doctors.

Their personal health assistant Your.MD enables anyone to access primary healthcare through their mobile phones – providing personalised medical advice to people without easy access to a medical professional. The service, which is available on iOS, Android, as an app and on messaging platforms Slack and Telegram, has already been downloaded more than 700,000 times since launch in November 2015.

Based around a chat function, users tell the app their symptoms to receive a suggested diagnosis. They can also ask medical questions to find NHS verified answers written by doctors and get further help through partners integrated within the app.

Having raised $5m in seed funding from Smedvig Capital last year, Your.MD will finalise its tech development to transform its existing English and UK-focused service into a multilingual and localised international version, enabling it to expand globally. Thought to be the only app on the market offering medical guidance through artificial intelligence, Your.MD has access to a vast potential market and the opportunity to help a huge number of people in the process.

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

Having both developed a love for solving technical problems while working together at EE, Nicky Hoyland and Chris Keeling realised there might be similar gaps in other corporates they could help address.

In 2013 they launched Digital Balance, a Midlands-based technical solutions company, providing web design and development, bespoke e-learning and consultancy inhouse. The company has helped some major names including Santander, Genesis, Expedia and EE, charging per day instead of per project for their services, with clients raising a “bank of days” they can use to build new or support existing projects. This allows Digital Balance to grow and expand alongside its client base.

Since featuring in our 2015 Startups 100 list, the firm has retained its remarkable profit margin, while doubling turnover and growing its staff from just three to 10. Over the coming year, the business plans to embark on a period of continued growth by broadening its range of connections and clients, with the BBC, Sky and Asda already in its scopes. Projected turnover for 2016 is expected to hit an impressive £750,000 – not bad for a business started with just £1,000, and some useful connections and potential clients from the founders’ previous jobs.

Founders: Alec Dobbie, Raphael Marsh, and Nick Hadfield
Founded: January 2013 (launched December 2013)
Website: www.fanfinders.com

Brands often spend millions trying to create effective marketing strategies that will resonate with customers but sometimes these marketing efforts can simply come across as “annoying spam”.

Determined to build a solution to benefit both businesses and consumers, Alec Dobbie, Raphael Marsh, and Nick Hadfield came up with the idea for FanFinders – a network of clubs that consumers join to benefit from offers which are relevant to them. Brands can then engage with the consumers in these clubs to keep them informed in what Dobbie, Marsh and Hadfield refer to as the “perfect value exchange”.

The duo’s first club, YourBabyClub, has already taken off and is now the fastest growing community for new mums in the UK with one million mums and mums-to-be as members, and approximately 40,000 new mums signing up each month.

Having worked with over 200 big brands to date including Heinz, Ella’s Kitchen, Mothercare, and Pampers, the entrepreneurial trio say their early success is down to the fact that their strategy allows brands to generate a lead right from the beginning of pregnancy and brands can then find out as much insight as they want about that individual. On the customer side, consumers can be confident that their details will only be passed on to companies they have chosen to engage with.

Entirely bootstrapped, the start-up expects to generate turnover of £2m for 2016 and an app for YourBabyClub is also in the pipeline.