Year: 2017

The Profs wins Best Tutoring Company at the EducationInvestor Awards

the profs win award
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Published on December 18, 2017

The Profs, the Startups 100-featured tutoring company, has received the Best Tutoring Company at the EducationInvestor Awards.

The awards – which took place on Tuesday 5 December at London’s Park Lane Hilton – is in its eighth year and recognises excellence in the UK’s education industry.

Founded in 2014 by Dr. Leo Evans, Richard Evans and Rory Curnock Cook, the Profs provides tailored school, university, and professional-level private tuition, education consultancy and academic mentorship.

As well as face-to-face or online tuition in the UK and abroad, The Profs offers course creation for institutions and companies.

Today, the company works with more than 400 educators and has seen 4,000 students and professionals sign up for the service. It claims to have hit £1.1m in turnover in 2016 and is already projecting double that figure for 2017.

This year has also seen The Profs highly commended in the Microbusiness of the Year category at the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) London Business Awards, whilst Evans won Young Entrepreneur of the Year at the London Regional NatWest Great British Entrepreneur Awards, which recognises a founder aged 30 or under “who has achieved a level of business success beyond their years”.

Curnock Cook commented: “The competition in this category was fierce and for The Profs to take home this prestigious award is the best Christmas present. This shows that hard work and perseverance can build a business worthy of national recognition.”

Evans said: “Our goal is to bring innovation to an 800-year-old sector and support its ambition to grow. Education technology is changing the face of how students and academics interact. The Profs is ensuring tuition standards meet their high expectations.

“We have an amazing team and together we’ve built a network of almost 400 talented academics that keeps on growing. We’re innovating learning through BitPaper, our virtual classroom software, which has 3,000 monthly users. To succeed you need discipline and dedication. It’s what our tutors teach and it’s what we live by as a business.”

Written by:
Henry has been writing for Startups.co.uk since 2015, covering everything from business finance and web builders to tax and red tape. He’s also acted as project lead on many of our industry-renowned annual indexes, including Startups 100 and Business Ideas, and created a number of the site’s popular how to guides.

The best reactions of #Startups100 2017

Startups 100 2017 Reactions
Written by
Published on December 18, 2017

On Monday 22 May 2017, we published our eighth annual Startups 100 index – sponsored by AXA Business Insurance – which ranks and profiles the top 100 most exciting new businesses in the UK today and is the longest-running index of its kind in the country.

Judged on criteria such as innovation, financials, funding and employee numbers, the Startups 100 is a celebration of early-stage companies launched in the last three years and has gained an industry-wide reputation for identifying brands that will go on to become growth companies, and some household names.

For the Startups Towers team, compiling the index requires months of hard work and dedication, but for the 100 winning companies, the index is recognition of their hard work and dedication, and celebration of the amazing things each business has achieved in such a short space of time.

Not only that, but start-ups featured in each index have been known to gain press coverage, impress investors, attract new customers and staff, increase business growth and raise their profile among existing customers and peers all off the back of being listed in the index.

Year-on-year, the days following the index’s launch are always full of celebrations across social media and this year was no different.

Through our Twitter and Instagram accounts @startupstowers using the hashtag #Startups100 we’ve seen our winners – alongside influential members of the business community – react to the news with an array of thrilled outbursts, kind words, celebratory emojis and excited gifs.

While there were countless reactions that we loved and enjoyed, we’ve compiled a small selection of Tweets and Instagram posts that best sum up the Startups 100 2017 buzz and what it means to the start-ups that featured in the index:

Our winners’ initial reactions were ones of excitement, pride and “happy dancing”…

 

https://twitter.com/PROWLER_IO/status/867080655867457537

https://twitter.com/bulbenergy/status/866707093197398021

https://twitter.com/HelloBink/status/866595088654270465

 

Instagram also saw its fair share of #Startups100 excitement…

 

 

Compliments were shared between winning businesses…

 

 

And our Startups 100 2017 businesses weren’t the only ones celebrating, with national and international organisations offering their support:

 

https://twitter.com/AcornEnterprise/status/867654446112702464

https://twitter.com/MassChallengeUK/status/867052802928934912

 

Want to see what all the excitement’s about? Check out the Startups 100 2017 index here.

Written by:
Henry has been writing for Startups.co.uk since 2015, covering everything from business finance and web builders to tax and red tape. He’s also acted as project lead on many of our industry-renowned annual indexes, including Startups 100 and Business Ideas, and created a number of the site’s popular how to guides.

Startups 100 2017: The longest-running index of <em>the</em> best new businesses

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Published on December 18, 2017

100 fast-growing start-ups with 100 uniquely inspiring stories… Meet the Startups 100 2017

The annual index of the UK’s most game-changing and exciting new businesses launched in the last three years, the Startups 100 reflects the country’s thriving start-up community and hottest trends from a cross-sector of industries – ranging from retail and food & drink to education and proptech.

Sponsored by AXA Business Insurance, this year’s Startups 100 index demonstrates just what exceptional entrepreneurs can achieve in the space of three years; especially as this year’s winning businesses boast greater turnover and employee numbers than our 2016 cohort – collectively employing 2,187 staff with average turnover of a staggering £1.64m.

Yet, while these numbers are obviously impressive, what makes the Startups 100 index so special is the sheer amount of innovation that shines through.

Be it original concepts and ideas like Mr Lee’s Noodles, Digital Mums and MysteryVibe, or start-ups taking on an established market with a pioneering approach such as Learning Heroes and Open for Vintage – these businesses are all challenging the status quo which, alone, warrants recognition in this index.

SU100 button

The Startups 100 is industry renowned

Back in 2008, Startups Towers published the inaugural Startups 100 index and it was the very first ranked index of its kind at the time.

Today, while there are now a variety of indices to recognise businesses (a great development for showcasing talent), the Startups 100 still maintains its reputation as the gauge of early-stage companies set for entrepreneurial stardom.

You only have to look at the UK success stories that we have discovered in their infancy over the years, such as Secret Escapes, Notonthehighstreet.com, PROPERCORN, and Deliveroo, to know that this is true.

Last year’s number one, peer-to-peer property lender LendInvest, put it best when it said that “for start-up companies, a ranking in Startups 100 is powerful, particularly when it comes to getting your brand out there. It’s an independent endorsement for businesses with good business models, ethos and visions.”

What’s more, new businesses featured in the Startups 100 frequently tell us that the index has helped them garner major press coverage, attract investment, increase sales, boost staff morale, and more.

How we decide the Startups 100 2017

What makes a new business Startups 100-worthy? Well, for starters, they have to meet our eligibility criteria at the time of submitting an entry. The start-up must be:

  • UK-based
  • Privately-owned
  • Have started trading on or after January 1 2014

After that, we expect to see the business tick our boxes for the following criteria:

  • Innovative USP
  • Exceptional founders – From young founders with incredible drive to experienced entrepreneurs with a stellar track record. And, while founding teams are impressive, we’re equally as impressed by solo founders. In fact, there are 45 solo founders in the Startups 100 2017!
  • Employee numbers – We’re looking for businesses that can truly scale and make a positive contribution to the UK economy.
  • Amount of funding raised – Although we’re also impressed by lean businesses that have grown organically.
  • Traction to date – If a start-up has a great client portfolio, large customer base, sales figures etc. we want to hear about it.
  • …And growth potential – Traction is important but we won’t shy from giving endorsement to new businesses that we feel could become the big brands of the future.
  • Global ambition – The Startups 100 isn’t a list of lifestyle businesses; we seek to recognise start-ups that have long-term goals of becoming global brands.

While we hope that every business in the Startups 100 2017 will scale to become household names – as they certainly have the growth potential to – there will always be exceptions, as you would expect from the tapestry of start-ups.

Celebrating the Startups 100 2017

In a first for the eight-year history of the Startups 100, we wanted to go one step further to recognise the start-ups that make it into our index and so, this year, we are holding a celebratory launch event for the Startups 100-winning businesses.

Taking place on 22 June at an exclusive London location, this year’s cohort will have the chance to network with fellow Startups 100 2017 businesses over drinks and canapés, and will hear from former Startups 100 companies that have become major brands.

View the Startups 100 2017 index in full

Eager to find out who these exciting start-ups are that are bound for success?

Counting down from 100 to 1, say hello to the incredible early-stage UK businesses that need to be on your radar…

SU100 button

Make some noise about our 2017 Startups 100 by sharing the hashtag #Startups100 to show your support. Want to be featured on our next list or think your business was overlooked? Let us know on Twitter using #Startups100

Written by:
Henry has been writing for Startups.co.uk since 2015, covering everything from business finance and web builders to tax and red tape. He’s also acted as project lead on many of our industry-renowned annual indexes, including Startups 100 and Business Ideas, and created a number of the site’s popular how to guides.

100. Not Dogs

Startups 100 2017: Not Dogs
Written by
Published on December 18, 2017

Founders: Katie McDermott and Jane Yates
Founded: March 2014 (launched December 2016)
Website: www.notdogs.co.uk

Vegetarians, vegans, and meat-reducers will all know the struggle of trying to find meals that satisfy your fast food cravings and give you that much-needed ‘fix’.

Sharing in a longing for mouth-watering, innovative veggie food were best friends Kate McDermott and Jane Yates; the co-founders of vegetarian hot dog start-up Not Dogs.

Having begun to distrust meat, Birmingham-based duo McDermott; a meat-reducer, and vegetarian Yates; keen for “more tasty vegetarian options”, set about experimenting with unique toppings – such as nachos and salsa, and hummus and tomato – on Quorn bratwursts.

Quickly, the food entrepreneurs discovered that a meat-free hot dog was as delicious as it was good-quality and a business idea was born.

With months spent travelling up and down the country in a pop-up food truck, often stopping to have #SausageSelfies in their famous hot dog outfits, in December last year the pair opened up their first permanent Not Dogs residence at Birmingham’s famous Bullring shopping centre and growth is now on the ascent.

Last month, we proudly announced that Not Dogs had won the December series of our esteemed Start-Up Series competition with Worth Capital, clinching £150,000 in equity funding. This investment will help fuel the launch of a second Not Dogs location in the near future.

Yates and McDermott’s ultimate goal for Not Dogs? To become a “much loved household brand”:

“Our focus is on expanding the business while keeping standards high at all locations and continuing to excite our customers with new menu items and a touch of Not Dogs magic. One day, we’d like to see Not Dogs in every major city in the UK.” – News to make all veggie foodies rejoice!

Written by:
Henry has been writing for Startups.co.uk since 2015, covering everything from business finance and web builders to tax and red tape. He’s also acted as project lead on many of our industry-renowned annual indexes, including Startups 100 and Business Ideas, and created a number of the site’s popular how to guides.

99. The Yorkshire Meatball Co.

Startups 100 2017: The Yorkshire Meatball Company
Written by
Published on December 18, 2017

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

Pivoting a business, especially three years after trading, can be both risky and emotional for the founders involved but entrepreneurial father-and-son duo David and Gareth Atkinson have taken it in their stride with their recent pivot of The Yorkshire Meatball Company (YMCO).

Startups.co.uk readers will know that The Yorkshire Meatball Company – which features in the Startups 100 for a third consecutive year – was a restaurant chain specialising in “fuss-free” meatballs with locations in Harrogate and a franchise in York.

However, over the past 12 months there’s been a lot of change. Last year, on the back of a surge of new chain restaurant openings in Harrogate which attracted staff away from their venue, YMCO says it had no option but to “close its restaurant operations completely”.

Feeling inspired? Find out how to start your own food business here.

Determined to not give up and admit defeat, the Atkinsons made the call to pivot the business to focus solely on selling a range of its premium brand meatballs into supermarkets. This decision has seen the YMCO brand bounce back.

Now with listings in over 200 stores including Morrisons, Tesco and Asda across Yorkshire, London and the South-East, the YMCO is taking six-figure sales and has a recent £120,000 equity crowdfunding round to support the roll-out of its balls – available in plain, smoky and hot flavours.

While its co-founder David Atkinson admits the YMCO “cannot show itself to be a growth company”, what the YMCO does represent is that it is a survivor.

Having already made in-roads as a new food product on the shelves, the YMCO represents everything about running a start-up business; you might make mistakes and there may be huge barriers to jump but you can, and will, overcome them. For that reason, the YMCO is a deserving Startups 100 2017 winner.

Written by:
Henry has been writing for Startups.co.uk since 2015, covering everything from business finance and web builders to tax and red tape. He’s also acted as project lead on many of our industry-renowned annual indexes, including Startups 100 and Business Ideas, and created a number of the site’s popular how to guides.

98. Synap

Startups 100 2017: Synap
Written by
Published on December 18, 2017

Founders: James Gupta
Founded: October 2015
Website: www.synap.ac

At 25, Synap founder James Gupta has already sold his first business, taxi booking app JumpIn, to Addison Lee for £180,000.

Now, while simultaneously studying for a medical degree, the young entrepreneur – who writes a business blog for Startups.co.uk – is busy scaling his second.

Launched in 2015, Synap is an online study platform and revision tool that allows teachers and students to create multiple choice quizzes, which can be taken at any time and shared with others online. So whether it’s plant vascular systems, the history of the Western Front or quotes from Great Expectations, there’s unlimited potential to populate and learn.

Claiming to be the “world’s most intelligent study tool”, Synap helps users learn more efficiently by using ‘Spaced Repetition’ algorithms: a memory technique that prioritises the questions you see regularly, based on how well you perform on different topics. Students receive a handful of questions every day and can see their results improving over time.

Available across multiple platforms through iOS and Android, the app works on a freemium model, with premium subscribers able to access unlimited quizzes, control the types of questions they see and track their progress for £20.99 a year.

Over 20,000 quizzes are now available, with users also able to buy premium quizzes created by leading figures from top tier educational publishers including Oxford University Press Clinical Handbooks. The company cites research that claims we forget 40% of what we’ve learnt after just 20 minutes, and 80% after one week.

Having created novel technology to solve a problem it says mainstream education remains oblivious to, Synap is planning to live long in the memory, making a difference one quiz at a time.

Written by:
Henry has been writing for Startups.co.uk since 2015, covering everything from business finance and web builders to tax and red tape. He’s also acted as project lead on many of our industry-renowned annual indexes, including Startups 100 and Business Ideas, and created a number of the site’s popular how to guides.

97. Zenstores

Startups 100 2017: Zenstores
Written by
Published on December 18, 2017

Founders: Tom Palmer, Rob Ashcroft and Ben Reynhart
Founded: January 2014
Website: www.zenstores.com

Tom Palmer, Rob Ashcroft and Ben Reynhart had been running an e-commerce business selling their own and classmates’ print photography to a global audience when they discovered that keeping up with demand was a major barrier to scaling the business.

With all their time taken up by fulfilling orders, the trio had no spare time to devote to growth. It was this problem that spawned Zenstores, a cloud-based software service that enables online retailers to automate their fulfilment process by connecting them with couriers.

After building the first version of the software for their own business they soon saw how it could be applied to other firms facing similar problems. Focusing on small businesses that use online marketplaces such as Amazon, eBay or their own websites to sell their products, Zenstores’ monthly and annual subscription plans, which start from £25, scale based on the volume of shipments a business makes a month.

Users can group and sort orders by shipping service and channel, print invoices and shipping labels and upload tracking details. The platform has already amassed more than 4,000 registered users and claims to have been responsible for shipping more than 10 million orders to-date.

Bolstered by this success, the Bristol-based business plans to accelerate product development over the next 12 months, ramping up user acquisition and focusing on further monetisation.

Sticking true to its three core principles of being easier to find, easier to understand and easier to use than rival offerings, Zenstores has a huge potential market of 200,000 small online sellers in the UK alone – we’ll be watching closely as this start-up continues to deliver the goods…

Written by:
Henry has been writing for Startups.co.uk since 2015, covering everything from business finance and web builders to tax and red tape. He’s also acted as project lead on many of our industry-renowned annual indexes, including Startups 100 and Business Ideas, and created a number of the site’s popular how to guides.

96. PROWLER.io

Startups 100 2017: PROWLER.io
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Published on December 18, 2017

Founders: Vishal Chatrath, Dr. Dongho Kim and Aleksi Tukiainen
Founded: January 2016
Website: www.prowler.io

Advanced artificial intelligence (AI) may seem like something that belongs to the realms of science fiction, but one look at the current tech start-up landscape will tell you that it’s very much a reality.

One start-up at the forefront of taking AI to the next level is PROWLER.io. Where current AI is typically limited to decision trees which follow an ‘if this, then that’ pattern to determine what the bot should do, PROWLER.io is developing self-learning, autonomous bots which can respond to the unpredictability of real life.

Looking to “define a new era of AI and robotics”, founders Vishal Chatrath, Dr. Dongho Kim and Aleksi Tukiainen are highly skilled in AI, machine learning and engineering.

What this trio of brilliant minds are building is an AI system that has “rare technical capabilities” including making quick decisions based on little data; creating long-term plans based on past experience; making future predictions; and learning to interact, not just with humans but with other bots.

At the helm of such a visionary business, Chatrath, Kim and Tukiainen have raised £1.5m seed funding from Passion Capital, Amadeus Capital and Singapore’s Infocomm Investments, and tell us that they have attracted the attentions of plenty more investors who are eager to get involved.

With a team of skilled experts from around the world – which the founders describe as the business’ “strongest asset” – and its position as “the world’s first enterprise to focus exclusively on autonomous decision-making”, PROWLER.io looks set to revolutionise the already futuristic world of AI.

Written by:
Henry has been writing for Startups.co.uk since 2015, covering everything from business finance and web builders to tax and red tape. He’s also acted as project lead on many of our industry-renowned annual indexes, including Startups 100 and Business Ideas, and created a number of the site’s popular how to guides.

95. University Cribs

Startups 100 2017: University Cribs
Written by
Published on December 18, 2017

Founders: Jack Jenkins, Daniel Jefferys, and Christian Samuel
Founded: November 2014 (launched October 2016)
Website: universitycribs.co.uk

If you’ve been to university then you’ll remember the struggle of trying to find good student accommodation. From dealing with limited time-frames, attempting to negotiate with agencies and landlords, to juggling property searches while studying… there are plenty of issues that arise.

But one start-up, University Cribs, believes it has the answer.

Attempting to simplify student lettings to help students search for their new home “stress free”, University Cribs is an online student accommodation search engine which lists student rooms from well-known lettings agents and halls providers from all the UK’s major university towns and cities.

Through the site, users can instantly book viewings and contact agents directly and can browse properties ranging in size from a studio to a 12-bed penthouse.

Created by Jack Jenkins, Daniel Jefferys, and Christian Samuel, University Cribs launched in October 2016 and attracted 100,000 site hits in its first month of going live.

Just seven months on and the start-up has 120 clients advertising properties to students on its site and a team of nine; made up entirely of graduates “who work hard and play harder”.

With 150,000 fans across social media channels, the start-up credits its early success to its ability to tailor specific content online to the wants and needs of students:

“By focusing on students as a specific niche, we are able to engage effectively with them. This is an area that our larger competitors [like Rightmove and Zoopla] are unable to dominate as the content does not resonate with their whole of market users.”

About to enter a funding round to support new product development, University Cribs’ founding trio reveal that the next year will see the addition of rental admin automation software and student household billing platforms.

The end-goal? “To become the most recognised online platform for student accommodation globally. Basically, total world domination.”

Written by:
Henry has been writing for Startups.co.uk since 2015, covering everything from business finance and web builders to tax and red tape. He’s also acted as project lead on many of our industry-renowned annual indexes, including Startups 100 and Business Ideas, and created a number of the site’s popular how to guides.

94. ioLight Limited

Startups 100 2017: ioLight
Written by
Published on December 18, 2017

Founders: Andrew Monk and Richard Williams
Founded: February 2014 (launched July 2016)
Website: iolight.co.uk/

With a Masters in Physics and a PhD in optics – both from Oxford University – Andrew Monk and Richard Williams “love building businesses based on science” and ioLight is their latest venture combining science with a commercial USP.

Having worked together in the field for 10 years, Monk and Williams found that traditional laboratory microscopes were “expensive, cumbersome and difficult to use”.

With scientists obliged to collect samples and take them back to the lab for analysis, samples can deteriorate, dry out and die during the journey and it is often difficult and expensive to return to a site to collect better samples.

The duo realised there was a gap in the market for portable lab microscopes that could analyse fresh samples in the field thus making “science more accessible to all”. And so they founded ioLight; a company specialising in laboratory-grade microscopes that fit in your pocket.

Having spent over two years developing the product, the pair’s ioLight pocket microscope allows for high quality images and videos to be recorded on a table or mobile phone anywhere. The microscope’s images have a resolution of 1 micron, only slightly less than the 0.4 micron resolution of a lab microscope, an RRP of £700 + VAT – more affordable than conventional microscopes at £3,000 to £5,000 – and doesn’t require a separate camera for images to be captured.

48 ioLight microscopes have been sold to date to customers including multi-national pharmaceutical company Bayer, Cambridge University, the Eden Project, and the Royal Veterinary College.

Backed by over £500,000 in funding and grants, including £240,000 from a successful Crowdcube round and over £150,000 from government-backed Innovate UK, Monk and Williams have ambitious targets for the ioLight microscope.

With a patent-pending, the entrepreneurs believe that the ioLight has the potential to capitalise on $340m of the $5bn microscope market and intend to ship 100 microscopes over the next 12 months.

Monk and Williams won’t stop at portable microscopes though; the pair are keen to put their expertise to good use and will be “filing further patent applications as new inventions are made”.

Written by:
Henry has been writing for Startups.co.uk since 2015, covering everything from business finance and web builders to tax and red tape. He’s also acted as project lead on many of our industry-renowned annual indexes, including Startups 100 and Business Ideas, and created a number of the site’s popular how to guides.
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