Founders: James Beddows
Founded: January 2017 (Launched June 2017)
Website: www.rideto.com

Business-minded from an early age, James Beddows started a vegetable delivery business at nine years-old and then followed that with a bike sharing company which he started at university and eventually sold.

Now, Beddows has turned his attention from cycle sharing to motorbikes with RideTo: a complete platform for learner motorcyclists that makes it “easier and safer to get onto two wheels”.

The business was created out of Beddows’ own frustrations when learning to ride a motorbike.

Back in 2016, he’d found the search for clear help and advice for learner motorcyclists frustrating.

Getting a motorbike licence involved “transferring hundreds of pounds to a man in a shed in a car park somewhere for his training and hoping that when he turned up someone would be there, and you’d get a safe standard of training to properly prepare you to ride on the roads”.

With only 13% of training schools in the UK giving the option to book motorbike lesson online, it was clear the market was ripe for disruption.

With RideTo, learners can book from a hand-picked selection of top rated schools, with a price match guarantee and discounts for new riders.

And that’s not all: as the business is striving to become the entry point to the motorcycle industry for new riders, RideTo also offers insurance, motorcycle clothing and jobs for delivery drivers.

The start-up is already training 400 customers a month and this approval from the public has been matched by corporate interest. Commercial clients include Deliveroo, Quiqup and Pizza Hut and it has more than 35 partner training schools across London, Manchester, Essex and Bristol.

Growing 45% month-on-month, by the end of 2018 Beddows expects RideTo will be training more than 10,000 riders across the UK so you can expect to see the business accelerate over the coming months.

Founder: Louise Doherty
Founded: March 2016 (launched April 2018)
Website: plansnap.com

We’ve all experienced the frustration of getting friends together.

There’s always the one friend who can never make the date, the friend who’s always late, the friend who wants to opt for a different venue or location, and the absent friend who never responds.

In fact, research shows that it takes nine apps, 22 app switches, 77 swipes, 13 minutes on the phone and 10 texts to agree on a plan on average.

Louise Doherty – the organised one in her friendship group who’s always suggesting plans – knew this frustration all too well.

After attempting to organise a 20-person camping weekend and subsequently “drowning in notifications”, Doherty decided that there had to be a better way to get friends together and, in 2016, made the leap to quit her job and start PlanSnap.

A social planning app which uses cutting edge machine learning, PlanSnap helps you quickly get your friends together – even if they don’t have the app (they get a text to a web view).

The app allows you to start your plan from the who, what, where and when stages. It then uses machine learning to help you confirm your plan by making smart suggestions; Doherty asserts that nothing else on the market can do this.

Having developed the concept while part of the esteemed Techstars accelerator in NYC – where Doherty was the only female founder on the course – PlanSnap has caught the attention of industry players and consumers.

AB InBev, the world’s largest brewer, has invested in the business, Time Out magazine has come on board as partner, and the crowd has pumped over £380,000 in the business via Crowdcube.

With its official launch only last month (the app launched in beta in November 2017), Doherty tells us that her biggest challenge has been “staying focused”: “this is especially hard in the social planning space where there’s scope for so much innovation and so much of a market opportunity!”

Despite this, the entrepreneur has a dedicated strategy for the company: “My goal is for PlanSnap to become the global go-to way to make any plan on any platform.”

Founders: Alessandro Savelli
Founded: October 2016 (launched March 2017)
Website: www.pastaevangelists.com

Pasta Evangelists founder Alessandro Savelli describes himself as an “Anglo-Italian entrepreneur with a background in finance and luxury retail”. And he has recently added expertise in the UK’s best pasta to this description…

During a pasta making class abroad, serial entrepreneur Savelli thought “why aren’t we providing this?” and so sought about devising a service which would enable us Brits to taste the best Italian pasta from the comfort of our own kitchens.

Pasta Evangelists takes fresh artisanal pasta and sauces straight out of Italy and delivers them straight to people’s homes.

Savelli is on a mission to show that there’s more to pasta than meets the eye including “a world of craftmanship, centuries of artisanal tradition and some of Italy’s finest dishes”.

Mastering fresh food logistics was a challenge, admits Savelli, but the business has now settled on a top delivery partner after trialling a number of options. This delivery partner means that all of its pasta is stored at no greater than 8°C in insulated packaging to comply with food safety regulations.

Having amassed 3,000 customers already, Savelli says Pasta Evangelists’ target audience is London-based affluent foodies with disposable income to spend. However, longer-term, the business intends to pitch to the mass market and spread its reach outside of the capital.

Its successful customer acquisition strategy has been partly fuelled by partnerships with companies such as Ginger Pig, not to mention its trio of big name ‘evangelists’ including Times food critic Giles Coren, Great British Bake-Off star Prue Leith, and Masterchef judge and food critic William Sitwell.

Piggy-backing off the fresh pasta revival to great success, Savelli wants Pasta Evangelists to do in the pasta fresca market what Fever Tree did for tonic water so when someone asks “Where can I find the best pasta?”, Pasta Evangelists is the first brand that comes to mind.

Founders: Matty Cusden-Ross, Tom Reay, and Veronique Barbosa
Founded: June 2016 (Launched April 2017)
Website: www.tryflux.com

“It’s insane that today you can go from using the 21st century technology of contactless payment to the 100 BC technology of paper receipts”, assert the founders of digital receipts start-up Flux.

The trio – Matty Cusden-Ross, Tom Reay and Veronique Barbosa – had previously been among the first four employees of fast-growth digital banking start-up Revolut.

Founded in 2016, Flux delivers digital receipts to its users detailing exactly what they’ve bought, any loyalty points they’ve collected and rewards directly to their mobile banking apps. The platform is currently fully integrated with Starling Bank.

The technology is based on a patent pending algorithm that links purchases to bank cards via software that integrated into the retailer’s point of sale system without interfering in the payments process. What’s more, it can integrate with any existing loyalty scheme and “seamlessly” automate it.

Flux has secured EAT., Starling Bank, Monzo, and Barclays Bank as clients and also counts Barclaycard as a major partner.

In an age of increasing awareness of how data is used, Flux says that it takes “data safety extremely seriously” with bank level security. That means its data is stored and processed using third party servers in European data servers. It is then ringfenced to a retailer and used only for loyalty and rewards.

Supported by $1.5m funding from high-profile backers such as PROfounders and Techstars, the coming months will see the start-up announce a number of new and expanded partnerships with major high street retailers and banks.

The end-goal? “We’re on a mission to digitise and organise the world’s receipts and usher in an era of truly seamless transactions.”

Founders: Matthew de la Hey, Alex Hanson-Smith, and Chris Mackie
Founded: November 2015 (Launched February 2016)
Website: inploi.com

Searching for a student job during university holidays, Matthew de la Hey was “astounded” by the old-fashioned method of looking for jobs in the hospitality industry:

“You walk around with a hard copy CV handing it in to places in case a job comes up, you send off scores of applications through jobs boards and hardly anybody responds”.

In an age of services like Uber, Airbnb and Tinder, de la Hey wondered why there wasn’t an equivalent on-demand platform for job seekers that would efficiently connect supply and demand.

This was an experience shared by Alex Hanson-Smith and Chris Mackie, the pair which de la Hey joined with to start inploi; a community-driven recruitment marketplace which matches job seekers to employers looking for staff in the hospitality sector.

Positions advertised on the platform, which is accessible online and on your mobile, range from assistant front of house manager, to baristas, waiting staff, and chefs in locations across London.

inploi – which raised £250,000 in seed funding last January – charges employers on a subscription basis, with a basic, premium and enterprise model to choose from depending on their needs.

The platform facilitates every stage of the recruitment process from job advertisement, through candidate-job matching to interview. For employers, this results in reduced time to hire, reduced cost, improved quality, a better candidate experience, and a generally more efficient process.

More than 25,000 candidates are already registered (with applications growing by 33% month-on-month), as well as 1,000 employers including the likes of Gaucho, Young’s Pubs, Hilton Hotels, the Hurlingham Club, and Polpo.

Currently focused on the high staff turnover and labour mobility hospitality sector, inploi has its sight set on UK and international expansion through 2018 and 2019 as it looks to give a radical shake up to the £10bn industry…

Founders: Pip Wilson and Kate Daly
Founded: August 2015 (Launched November 2016)
Website: www.amicable.io

Divorce is not something we like to contemplate. But, after the heady bliss of the honeymoon has faded and reality starts to knock, many couples realise they aren’t prepared to spend the rest of their lives together.

Whilst divorce rates in the UK have decreased considerably from their 2003 to 2004 peak, data from the Office for National Statistics shows that the number of divorces rose by 5.8% from 2015 to 2016.

Talking of triumph from disaster, these statistics for separating spouses provided Pip Wilson and Kate Daly with a business idea.

And, after going through an unpleasant and expensive divorce of her own, Daly decided to join forces with Wilson to create amicable.

An app with technology at its heart, amicable helps divorcing partners to remain on good terms and helps create a better outcome for families.

The cost of all this? A mere £300 per couple if you have no children or financial arrangements, and £1,200 for a divorce with consent (for couples who want to get divorced and know what financial arrangements they want to make).

amicable’s full divorce service – which gives couples access to one of its ‘Divorce Coaches’ to guide them through the process – costs £2,850. This is five times cheaper than using a lawyer for comparable services.

While Wilson and Daly are keen to stress amicable is not a law firm, this lack of legal status is actually helpful for the business as it avoids the legal loophole that a lawyer can only act for one person in the UK, which can complicate proceedings.

Already, amicable has attracted over 1,000 app users across 52 countries, alongside another 300 paying customers in England and Wales.

The data gathered from these users will help to inform the development of an AI chatbot that will be able to answer common divorce questions round the clock.

Fundamentally, amicable’s mission is to change the way the world divorces by providing a better way to divorce that doesn’t cost the earth and helps couples to separate amicably; breaking away from the current model of ‘fault-based’ divorce.

Founders: Toby Mather and Adit Trivedi
Founded: September 2015 (Launched February 2016)
Website: www.lingumi.com

Toby Mather had spent a year teaching English to kids in Russia and Italy before starting Lingumi.

He began to research language acquisition and found that children are actually “neurologically best positioned” to start learning languages in their pre-school years. But there was no affordable, scalable way to help them do it.

Until now.

Teaming up with Adit Trivedi – who had formerly worked on the tech teams at JP Morgan and Hubble – he started Lingumi: a fun and playful way for children aged two to six to learn English.

The app uses practical English teaching experience combined with research from top linguists at the University of Oxford. It features hundreds of fun learning games that can be accessed on iOS or Android to help kids pick up English in a natural way.

There are hundreds of lessons in the Lingumi app so far and more are added every month, equating to over a year’s worth of curriculum.

As well as charging a subscription for this service, it also sells physical learning products such as play cubes (interactive foam cubes) and jumbo word cards (large colourful learning cards featuring more than 70 verbs and nouns).

In just over two years since launch, Lingumi has signed up 10,000 families to use its curriculum service every month and now the start-up is set to scale its platform to new global markets.

We’re told that it has some “exciting partnerships” lined up to help it to enter the lucrative Chinese market next year, where it will be used in homes and kindergartens across the country.

Ultimately, Mather and Trivedi would like to bring education to billions of pre-school learners around the world and become the “Disney of early education”.

Founders: Clara Vaisse and Paul-Adrien Cormerais
Founded: May 2017 (launched September 2017)
Website: www.getapony.com

This is the first appearance in the Startups 100 for bike hire app Pony Bikes, but the second for Clara Vaisse.

Sibberi – which Vaisse founded with Mehdi Meghzifene in 2014 – a tree sap-based drink that found favour with top models and fitness fanatics, came in at 65 in last year’s index.

After the start-up was acquired by one of its distributors, Vaisse joined forces with her partner Paul-Adrien Cormerais to turn her attentions to a new venture; Pony Bikes.

Based in Oxford, Vaisse and Cormerais were sick of the “little frustrations of riding a bike in the big city”, such as finding a space to lock up your bike and the risk of having it stolen.

An engineer and computer scientist, Cormerais then spent two years developing a smart lock prototype for shared bikes that would evolve into the technology behind the Pony Bike. This negates the need for a docking station and enables the start-up to sustain itself without institutional funding or government subsidies.

Dubbed “Boris bikes without docking stations”, Pony Bike users just need to download the app to hire a bike for 50p per 30 minutes, which they can then drop off wherever they want.

The bikes are designed to be low-maintenance with puncture free airless tyres and magnetic bike lights that don’t require batteries. The business also uses fleet management with live optimised routes to lower the cost of rebalancing.

More than 12,000 Pony Bike accounts have been created to date, operating across Oxford and the French city of Angers but, according to Vaisse and Cormerais, that’s only the start of Pony Bikes’ story.

Aiming to eventually have bikes in every European city, Pony Bikes doesn’t just see itself as solving a personal transport problem but also having the potential to improve air quality and solve the congestion problem of the UK’s busiest – and most polluted – cities altogether.

Founder: Daniel Burton
Founded: October 2015 (launched February 2018)
Website: wondrwall.co.uk

Internet of Things-based home automation systems such as Hive and Nest are on the rise, offering the ability to “control your home from your phone”.

But, what if we told you there was a more advanced, intelligent system available that learns and controls all the main functions of your house autonomously?

Enter Wondrwall.

The Manchester business has pioneered the first intelligent living system to transform how you interact with your home. It automatically controls your heating, lighting, security and safety with voice control, and cleverly adapts its home supervision by understanding how you live and behave.

One of the biggest benefits of Wondrwall’s intelligent system is its autonomous security and safety features.

For instance, Wondrwall can recognise the sound of your fire or carbon monoxide alarm and automatically flashes the lights and sounds an alert in every room to make sure everyone is safe. It can also turn the lights in your home on and off to simulate occupancy when you are away to deter burglars.

Other impressive safety features include the ability to receive instant notifications when your children arrive home from school.

And there’s more. Unlike other smart home technology, Wondrwall will intelligently learn from your behaviour so, if you leave the house without turning a light off, Wondrwall will turn it off for you. Then, at the end of the month, you can see a report of everything the system has saved you in costs.

The brainchild of Daniel Burton – who previously invented electronic wallpaper and developed this concept to create Wondrwall – the business has grown to a team of 14 and is proving attractive to the property and home services market.

It’s already being rolled out by 8 of the top 15 house builders in the UK, while its offering has secured take-up among home service providers such as utilities and insurance companies, and the assisted living space.

Backed by a £2m finance facility from NatWest, Burton and his team plan to scale up the business across the UK over the next year and no wonder!

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

Moving home is still regarded as one of the most stressful times in our lives, taking an average of 16 weeks – if you’re lucky.

One in three house sales still fall through after an offer, resulting in £250m a year in wasted fees for UK consumers.

Having worked as estate agents where they got to peek “under the hood”, brother-and-sister duo Gemma and Paul Young were familiar with these pain points and understood the limitations of the property market.

Perceiving the industry to be largely business rather than customer-focused, they began to explore the potential for a customer-centric, digital solution that would make for hassle-free home buying and selling.

And, in 2015, they realised this idea by launching Settled.

An end-to-end platform, Settled enables those selling their home to book a free visit where its team will take care of the photos, floor plans and provide a free valuation. From £499, it then posts your ad across popular property sites and helps with viewings and offers.

Offering low-costs and minimum effort for the customer, Settled’s consumer-centric approach has been very effective.

More than £300m worth of homes have been sold through Settled to date which is said to have saved customers £6m in estate agency fees. The near future will see the platform further streamline its service to create an even better customer experience.

With growth on the ascent, the Youngs believe that developments in the current landscape will only serve to work in Settled’s favour:

“The world is moving with us – the government’s efforts to modernise the buying and selling process and the wider regulatory developments which are taking place mean a new era of property technology is emerging”.