Founders: Daniel van Binsbergen and Chris O’Sullivan
Founded: February 2014 (launched June 2014)
Website: www.lexoo.co.uk

Looking to disrupt an old-fashioned industry, tech start-up Lexoo launched in June 2014 to revolutionise the way entrepreneurs and businesses find lawyers.

Three years since launch and the online platform has helped over 13,000 companies of all sizes connect with the right lawyer for their job.

Founded by former lawyer Daniel van Binsbergen and website developer Chris O’Sullivan, Lexoo – which has moved three spots up our index since 2016 – is simple and streamlined to use: when a customer submits a request, three to four of the lawyers best suited to the job are quickly invited to send a quote, which the customer receives within just 24 hours. Only those lawyers who are invited to quote will see the job description, therefore ensuring client confidentiality.

Lexoo’s service has proved popular. Hosting over 300 approved specialist lawyers from around the globe, the start-up has successfully developed internationally, connecting businesses in countries across Europe, Africa, Asia and more with specialist lawyers with knowledge of everything from intellectual property (IP) protection to employment disputes.

In line with its significant pace of growth, over the past year Lexoo has attracted custom from the in-house legal teams of over 30 large multinationals looking to outsource projects, and was shortlisted for Service Business of the Year at the Startups Awards 2016.

Given Lexoo’s promise to cut companies’ legal spending by 46% or more, it’s no surprise that so many businesses use the platform. What’s more, the platform benefits the many lawyers who have chosen to join the site as it markets their services to masses of entrepreneurs.

Having raised £1.4m from Forward Partners, 500 Startups, London Co-Investment Fund and angel investors, Lexoo plans to continue its international expansion and raise additional finance to help further fuel its mission of “bringing law into the 21st century”.

Founders: Lilia Stoyanov and Desislav Kamenov
Founded: May 2015
Website: www.transformify.org

Involved in a business transformation process, Lilia Stoyanov witnessed a lot of people lose their jobs. Many were in their fifties and sixties, lived in small cities, had mortgages and didn’t have the means to relocate.

She found herself thinking: “What if they don’t need to relocate? What if their next job is a click away?’’. This seed of an idea eventually grew into a fully fledged business: Transformify.

The company acts as a business-to-business marketplace, helping companies connect with remote talent the world over. Some may want to work from home through choice, others may be forced to because of disability or a dependent family member.

Its workers, who span 143 countries, receive secure payment straight into their e-wallet, regardless of where the employer is based and what currency is used. They can access cash instantly via a prepaid card linked to their account.

Transformify has more than 40 business clients around the world, many of them FTSE 100 or Fortune 500 companies, which pay a transaction fee for every payment transferred through the platform.

Its goals are both admirable and hugely ambitious: to help people in disadvantaged positions make a living, to lower unemployment levels, help manage immigration, re-balance overcrowded cities and abandoned rural areas and curb the high CO2 emissions involved with commuting – all while targeting a listing and an eventual $1bn valuation.

Already set for $10m turnover for 2017 and a profit of $6.5m, its goals may not be as far-fetched as they first appear.

Founder: Peter Campbell
Founded: January 2014
Website: www.kaizensearch.co.uk

In the digital world it’s easy for brands to get left behind, especially if they fail to ensure they are visible on search engines and generate enough press coverage.

Kaizen, a data-driven digital marketing agency, helps brands stay on top of their digital game by providing search engine optimisation (SEO)-based content marketing campaigns which incorporate technical benefits alongside PR copy.

As opposed to traditional marketing agencies – who “don’t fundamentally understand technical SEO” – Kaizen helps brands achieve their content and SEO strategies with its specialist team of 10 ‘marketers for hire’ including designers, web developers, PR executives, and content experts.

For brands who already have in-house digital teams, Kaizen assists in providing the “scale needed for them to implement their vision” and offers flexibility for clients to use its services “as and when they need”.

The brains behind Kaizen – which now works with 18 major brands including Symantec, River Island and Thomson Holidays – is 29 year-old Peter Campbell; a web dev and SEO aficionado who started coding at the age of 11.

Having built Kaizen from scratch out of his bedroom with no funding three years ago, Campbell’s agency has doubled revenue every year and expects to achieve over £1m turnover this year with a recruitment drive underway to grow to a team of 15 over the next six months.

While expansion is Campbell’s “short-term goal” for Kaizen, long-term the entrepreneur is eager to develop a larger technology offering and wants to create a dedicated content management platform that could be supplied to other agencies and clients.

In Campbell’s own words, he is keen to see “Kaizen be as disruptive as brands like Apple and become the global leader in what we do – innovative and fresh, always pushing the limits of the market to see next step can be taken.”

Founders: Stephanie Alys, Shanshan Xu and Soumyadip Rakshit
Founded: May 2015 (Launched February 2016)
Website: www.mysteryvibe.com

Coming in at number 40 in our list, MysteryVibe is a fast-growing technology brand that knows how to push all the right buttons – and boundaries.

Combining traditional sex toys with the latest in tech and artificial intelligence (AI), the start-up’s flagship product, the Crescendo, is described as “the world’s first body-adapting smart six-motor vibrator” and can be controlled by the MysteryVibe app.

Wireless and showerproof, the toy comes in a standard size of 21 cm length and is available in either purple or blue.

Having only launched to retail in November 2016, the sex-tech start-up is already creating a huge buzz amongst consumers – and has already shipped 1,000 units per month.

Founded by Young Guns Stephanie Alys, Shanshan Xu and Soumyadip Rakshit, the trio came up with the idea after noticing how personable pleasure was being overlooked by technological innovation and advancement.

Taking their ideas to industrial designer Seymourpowell (who loved it) the team have already raised £2.6m worth of investment to date, however its ambition lies far beyond just selling sex to a niche market:

The Shoreditch-based business’ main goal is to stock its toys in mainstream retail stores and it wants every member of the public to be able to, “without shame or shock”, “discover pleasure products just like you would find high end consumer electronics goods”. Further still, it hopes to increase dialogue about the benefits of sexual pleasure.

Expecting to turnover £3m in 2017, MysteryVibe is also developing its app so that, in the future, it will be able to collect user data and assist in improving sexual health and pleasure research.

Founders: Marc Warner, Angie Ma and Andrew Brookes
Founded: February 2014
Website: www.asidatascience.com

At the forefront of “one of the biggest transformational opportunities of the 21st century”, ASI Data Science provides consultancy and training for businesses seeking to utilise artificial intelligence (AI).

Counting the likes of easyJet, BBC, Siemens, and Tesco as clients, the London-based start-up has completed over 150 projects since its launch three years ago, and has raised £1.5m in investment to date. Impressively, Jaan Tallinn, an early developer of Skype, is among its backers.

The start-up was founded by Marc Warner, Angie Ma and Andrew Brookes; a trio which boast impressive back stories with their collective intelligence well documented.

Warner holds a PhD in quantum computing and held a research fellowship in physics at Harvard University, Ma founded Data Science Lab and holds a PhD in physics, while Brookes has over 10 years’ experience as a computer scientist.

Alongside its consulting and training, the start-up has also created Sherlock ML – a platform that allows businesses to cost effectively store and process large amounts of data, and data scientists share analyse, collaborate and distribute their learnings.

While ASI’s offering is impressive, the business also goes one step further by helping PhD students make the transition from academia to industry. The business provides an eight-week training and placement programme to help quantitative PhD students to become data scientists or data engineers.

With the AI market set to achieve a staggering $16bn in value by 2022, according to Research and Markets, ASI Data Science is a business worth watching…

Founders: Stefan Porter and Nicholas Ford
Founded: February 2014 (launched June 2014)
Website: www.heartier.com

The benefits of eating local produce are undeniable – it’s fresh, high quality and supports independent producers. But for those who don’t live near a local farm shop or have time to visit one, it’s not always a valid or viable option.

This is where Heartier (recently re-branded from Market Porter) comes in.

On a mission to bring fresh local foods and quality-hungry consumers together, this online marketplace uses a clever algorithm to connect customers with nearby artisan suppliers.

Its co-founders, university friends Stefan Porter and Nicholas Ford, developed the idea after Porter grew frustrated with the quality of supermarket meat. Working as a senior buyer for Lidl, he saw how the convoluted supply chain resulted in days-old meat being stocked on the shelves. While Ford, a tech and media investment banker, believed that technology held the key to improving the supply chain.

And improve it they have: Heartier now advertises food that can be cut fresh to order and delivered within 24 hours. By not holding any of the stock itself, the unique business ensures that not a single slice of cheese or chunk of chocolate goes to waste – orders are simply passed on to its partnered suppliers, who gain an important additional revenue stream in turn.

The innovative start-up is already profitable and achieved £1m turnover in 2016 from its customer base of 25,000.

Over the next year, Heartier is looking to sign up more suppliers with an intention to become “even more local” to customers across the country. Eventually, the promising start-up plans to rival global food giants “using the power of local producers”.

Founders: Iain Fraser and Luke Barlow
Launched: December 2014
Website: www.netduma.com

Iain Fraser and Luke Barlow started Netduma with a £6,500 loan. Within six weeks, they had made enough money to pay the loan back ten times over.

In today’s internet-reliant society it isn’t surprising that Netduma’s innovative router software – which eliminates congestion, lag, and other connection issues – is used by tens of thousands of customers across more than 95 countries, from the US to the remote Cayman Islands.

Bedfordshire-based Netduma was created out of a common problem. While studying at university, Fraser and Barlow found that they were being prevented from playing online games as their housemates had used all of their internet bandwidth to download HD films.

Keen to solve this problem – and get back to gaming! – engineer Fraser embarked on a PhD and eventually came up with anti-flood: one of Netduma’s pioneering features. From here, the unique software began to take shape.

When research and development was almost complete, Barlow quit his job to join the venture thus fulfilling a decade-old promise the friends had made to start a business together. In 2014, the Netduma R1 gaming router was launched.

In a testament to the power of influencer marketing, sales soared when popular YouTube vlogger Drift0r posted a beaming review of the router in June 2015. Since then, Fraser and Barlow say the business “hasn’t stopped growing” with awards and accolades pouring in. Netduma was named winner of Nectar Small Business Innovation in 2015 and was a two-time winner at the 2016 Startups Awards; clinching Lean Start-up of the Year and Export Business of the Year.

Netduma has become synonymous with seamless online gaming, disrupting the space with innovative router software where competitor companies concentrate only on hardware.

And with big plans ahead, we are confident that Netduma will retain its stronghold in the market.

Founder: Charles Taylor and Michele Trusolino
Founded: March 2015 (Launched November 2015)
Website: debut.careers

An arduous process, applying for jobs is never easy or fun – particularly if you’re a student looking to get on the career ladder.

So, what if you could just simply play games on your phone and attract big brands to recruit you? Sounds too good to be true? Well that’s what Debut offers users.

The business was founded by Charles Taylor, an entrepreneur who arguably boasts the most diverse CV in our entire Startups 100 list.

Having studied politics, philosophy and economics at the University of York, the entrepreneur originally trained as a policeman, before working in the House of Commons, then the Royal Navy, and as a senior consultant advising multinationals on exporting via the Ernst and Young graduate programme.

For Taylor, Debut was created out of his own frustrations in finding a job after leaving university when he applied for 40 different jobs and attended 10 assessment centre days to no avail.

Using Debut, businesses use a ‘Talent Spot’ feature to invite prospective candidates to interviews or fast-track them to assessment centres without the need for CVs or a covering letter.

Significantly, the app also provides mobile games designed in collaboration with employers to test particular skills and abilities. Students can sign up for free and immediately enable push notifications for potential careers that suit their interests, while employers pay a 12-month subscription.

Having raised £2.2m worth funding to date, including a £1.7m of seed funding from LocalGlobe, Initial Capital Entrée Capital and Indeed co-founder Paul Forster, the London-based start-up aims to grows its team to 20 by the close of 2017.

Already counting the likes of Microsoft, Barclays and L’Oréal among the employers on its app, Debut is set to go from strength to strength. Looking for a job? Get playing!

Founders: Doron Meyassed, Imran Arshed, Alex Lee and Arif Meherali
Founded: December 2015 (Launched February 2016)
Website: www.plumguide.com

Booking a last-minute Airbnb trip to Tel Aviv, the founders of The Plum Guide were bracing themselves for a raw deal. Cheap, and holding a suspiciously low number of reviews, the team were convinced their chosen apartment would be an experience they’d probably never forget – for all the wrong reasons.

Upon arrival and during their stay however, the team were met with an immaculate apartment boasting a beautiful outdoor terrace facing the sea, and a loving host who presented them with fresh hummus and local produce every morning.

Truly in awe of their experience, the founding team of Doron Meyassed, Imran Arshed, Alex Lee and Arif Meherali began wondering how many more hidden treasures were lost in millions of online listings of holiday homes and apartments.

Founding The Plum Guide in late 2015, the start-up seeks to radically change the sharing economy by testing each and every one of London’s best holiday homes.

Using a proprietary algorithm, Plum finds the highest rated homes in London and personally tests them with strict criteria.

A meticulous process, of the 62,327 homes tested thus far, just 622 have been deemed worthy enough of making it into The Plum Guide.

Targeting affluent, cosmopolitan, urban-dwelling ‘creative appreciators’, The Plum Guide charges a 3% booking fee for hosts and a 12% fee for the guest.

Laudably ambitious, Plum says its goal is to “revolutionise the sharing economy” and that its mission “won’t be over until we’ve vetted every single holiday home on the planet and created the ultimate collection of the world’s best homes”.

Founders: Alexander Stevenson and Robert Bruce
Founded: January 2015
Website: www.ridelink.com

Peer-to-peer car sharing platform RideLink allows users rent their cars to other people.

Aiming to make cars to become more accessible to those who can’t afford to buy or manage a car full-time, RideLink also seeks to prevent more cars being bought and clogging up our roads and environment.

Founded by Alexander Stevenson and Robert Bruce, the pair have equally impressive backgrounds in tech and finance respectively.

Stevenson, who has a master’s degree in computer science, worked at Microsoft for several years on the Windows team before completing an MBA in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology – with special emphasis on entrepreneurship and innovation.

More recently, he served as a strategy consultant at Bain and Company, being their expert in technology strategy for the entire European/Middle East/Africa region.

While Bruce, who is a qualified accountant has worked as a financial controller at General Electrical, a VP finance at Lehman Brothers, and, most recently, a senior finance manager at Lloyds Banking Group.

With over 30,000 users spread across various cities, RideLink prides itself on being a much more accessible and user-friendly service than traditional car rental companies which typically have limited opening times and are restricted to airports and city centres.

Supporting a range of car makes and models – compared to a standard fleet – car owners get to set their own price and keep 70% of this. RideLink takes a 30% cut but this also covers the cost of insurance and roadside assistance for ever rental whereas those renting out their car are charged a 10% fee on top of the price of the rental car.

Having already expanded to Spain and Germany, “the Airbnb of car rental” looks set to give hitching a ride a whole new meaning.