Founder: Nelson Sivalingam
Founded: June 2015 (Launched January 2016)
Website: www.learnhownow.com

HowNow is the brainchild of Sri Lankan-born award-winning filmmaker and entrepreneur Nelson Sivalingam.

As well as two previous appearances in the Startups 100, Sivalingam has been recognised by Virgin Media Business as one of the top 30 young innovative founders in the country, and featured in North American magazine Anokhi’s annual list of noteworthy South Asians from around the world, alongside the managing editor of Huffington Post and Miss America.

His latest venture HowNow is a cloud-based platform that allows those with expertise and skills (‘educators’) to teach what they know. The platform equips users with the tools needed to create, deliver and monetise digital learning through their own websites.

Educators pay a monthly or annual subscription to licence the HowNow software, which gives them the ability to post interactive videos, broadcast webinars to up to 1,000 learners, teach one-to-one or group virtual classes, create articles and audio content, and create smart assessments to track the progress of their learners.

Prices start at £29 per month plus 10% commission for the starter plan, £79 per month plus 5% commission for the essentials plan, and £299 per month with no commission for the growth plan.

Since launch in January 2016, over 600 educators from 30 countries have turned their “passion into profit” by joining the platform.

Users include teachers, social media influencers, universities and corporates, with the software being used to create online schools for everything from singing to photography.

Not satisfied with 600 customers, HowNow will use the next year to grow the number of educators on its platform and develop the platform further to “build an ecosystem of apps that help deliver the best teaching and learning experience online”.

In 12 to 18 months, Sivalingam expects to be able to raise growth funding and fulfil his mission to “empower educators everywhere to educate anyone anywhere”.

Founder: Hellen Bowey
Founded: June 2014 (Launched in 2015)
Website: www.youralcove.com

The care industry has undergone major changes over the last few years, on the back of bad press about how customers were being treated and spiralling costs.

Where most of the start-ups that have stepped up to disrupt the industry are changing the nature of care provision, Alcove is focused on updating the equipment used to keep old people safe and living independently in their own homes.

The idea was inspired when, in her previous job working for Capital, founder Hellen Bowey  was tasked with pulling together a managed service proposition for the CEO of a large council.

Bowey was “staggered” to see the dated ‘telecare’ equipment deployed at scale for old people and so, 2015, she launched Alcove.

In an age of the Internet of Things, Bowey decided to look into replacing these items with sensors, wearables, video calling, Alexa emergency response and smart home automation.

Alcove’s design-led smart technology products include a ‘fall prevention package’, ‘a dementia concern package’ and ‘a take your meds package’.

Its technology can also collect a wealth of vital data such as movement, light, eating, medication compliance, bathroom use, carer visits, heat, family visits, sleeping location and time, doors being left open, wandering, bedwetting, visitors, voice calls, and video calls.

Already, Alcove has 800 live users and customers across councils and social housing organisations including Essex County Council, London borough of Newham, London borough of Enfield and Wigan Council.

Bowey is also in the process of expanding Alcove to France, Germany, Spain, Poland, and North America.

And, if you needed any more evidence of the importance of Alcove’s offering, the business helped to save someone’s life within its first three months of trading:

An elderly woman tripped over in her bathroom. Having fallen unconscious,, she wasn’t able to activate her personal alert button or her old-school emergency pull cord.

However, the woman’s home was also fitted with Alcove motion sensors, which detected that she wasn’t moving and alerted her family meaning that the woman could be given appropriate care and treated immediately.

Founders: Scott Woodley and Mark Hughes
Founded: August 2015
Website: www.tutorful.co.uk

After graduating from the University of Sheffield with a masters in law, Scott Woodley began working as a primary school teacher.

While he found teaching “incredibly rewarding”, Woodley decided he could accomplish more by working as a private tutor in his local area.

Finding himself frequently oversubscribed, he started to work with other tutors in the area and this sowed the seeds for Tutorful.

Woodley enlisted the help of his childhood friend Mark Hughes and the pair launched Startups 100-listed Tutorful in August 2015 as a platform that connects learners and tutors across the UK.

Tutorful thoroughly vets every tutor on its platform and its tutor base ranges from school teachers to degree level students to experienced tutors.

For those looking to learn from a tutor, you simply enter your desired subject area and postcode into the platform to find a tailored list of the best tutors in your local area. You can then message them and confirm a booking.

There is no minimum number of lessons and payment is only taken 24 hours after each lesson.

Three years since launch and Tutorful now has over 9,000 active tutors on the platform, who have delivered more than 200,000 lessons in 300 different subjects across the UK.

This growth has made the business a compelling investment opportunity and, in March 2017, it secured more than £700,000 via crowdfunding platform Crowcube from 540 backers; fundraising that also saw it recognised as a finalist for Crowdfunded Business of the Year at the Startups Awards 2017

While the online tutoring sector is becoming increasingly competitive, Tutorful tells us that, by offering an alternative to services that only provide a solution to one particular problem, it’s intent on becoming the largest tuition provider in the UK.

And it’s ambitions don’t stop there. If Tutorful continues to scale at its current rate, the start-up will look to take its transparent and trust-focused approach to international markets to “help learners across the globe”.

Founders: Digby Vollrath and Hugo Campbell
Founded: May 2016 (Launched February 2017)
Website: www.feast-it.com

The UK seems to have an insatiable appetite for street food, with new vendors springing up every day.

Yet there hasn’t been an easy way to find great street food vendors in one place and book them for events. That is until February 2017, when Feast It launched.

Having worked in the festival and events industry for many years, founders Digby Vollrath and Hugo Campbell were well aware of the hassle of hunting down and booking the best catering. They decided to create a “modern and simple” solution which would allow people to book the perfect vendor for their event.

Feast It brings together the best food trucks, caterers and mobile bars on one platform so you can book them for your wedding, party or corporate event.

It operates by taking a commission from the traders who reap the financial rewards of catering for the hungry guests of anything from 50 to 50,000-person events.

More than 300 handpicked vendors – including Dirty Burger, Patty & Bun, The Breakfast Club, and Hummus Bros – have already joined the platform while its client portfolio is even more impressive.

Its clients include some of the world’s biggest brands such as Amazon, Facebook, LinkedIn, Puma, Nike, Adidas, and Disney, as well as the likes of PwC, Deloitte, the National Trust, and the Guardian. Feast. It is also providing all the catering for all of Secret Cinema’s Blade Runner events.

Backed by $440,000 in seed funding, the start-up has big ambitions for the next year.

It will build on its London success to take the concept nationwide, with the aim of serving three million portions of food and hitting millions in revenue by the end of 2018.

In just three years’ time, Feast It hopes to be the world’s largest online marketplace for booking event supply. As a start-up helping other start-ups to get noticed, we’ll be keeping our eyes peeled over the coming months.

Founders: Estelle Lloyd and Douglas Lloyd
Founded: September 2014 (launched April 2016)
Website: azoomee.com

As children increasingly look for entertainment and educational resources online, parents now find themselves contending with a myriad of safety and security concerns for their kids.

Parents Douglas and Estelle Lloyd faced this in a very real way when their children stumbled upon inappropriate content while doing their homework.

Frustrated, the couple decided that children should have a safe online space where there’d be no risk of accessing something – or someone – they shouldn’t.

The solution they came up with was Azoomee: a safe and secure entertainment subscription service which is packed with thousands of games, videos and activities for kids aged three to 11.

With parent-approved instant messaging and no ads or hidden costs, Azoomee aims to prepare children for the digital world through hand-picked content which teaches them to be smart, safe and kind online.

This unique approach to children’s entertainment has struck a chord across the UK and beyond: currently, a whopping 10,000 new children join Azoomee every week.

The start-up has also joined forces with huge brands and charities such as O2, Argos, easyJet and the NSPCC. In securing such international partnerships, Azoomee has gained access to more than four million families in the UK, 40 million in Europe and 100 million worldwide.

To date the business has attracted £5m in funding, and more recently Azoomee was selected for the prestigious Upscale 3.0 programme. A reflection of its growth, the business has climbed from 56th position in last year’s Startups 100 index to 33rd this year.

Now, Azoomee is developing new interactive tech so it can work on any platform in any language, and support futuristic features such as augmented reality

While digital giants haven’t necessarily always made safety and privacy their priority, Azoomee is “passionate about making a genuine positive impact on society globally to give every family the safe, fun and educational service they need”.

Founders: Ian Smith and Jack Davies
Founded: August 2016
Website: www.visiondrive.co.uk

With a background working as new car salesman, Jack Davies and Ian Smith would often witness scruffy, unkept, unprofessional, and rude delivery drivers dropping off cars for customers at their dealerships.

Whilst the feel of a car salesroom is typically slick, clean and professional, on the contrary Davies and Smith found the image presented by delivery drives to be anything but. They also discovered that this lacklustre approach was common for delivery drivers across the industry.

Having spotted a gap in the market, the duo set about to raise the bar for delivery drivers and began coming up with ideas for uniforms, a set of standards, and branding to improve customer loyalty and recognition.

These ideas would lay the foundations for VisionDrive, the disruptive, customer-focused, single-vehicle transportation specialist founded by Davies and Smith in August 2016.

The business, which is already becoming a trusted commodity, works on a partnership model and joins forces with its clients rather than just being a supplier.

Pendragon PLC, GEFCO UK, Pentagon Motor Group, Marshall Motor Group, JCT600, Lookers PLC, Northgate Vehicle Hire, Enterprise Rent a Car, and Thrifty Car are just some of its clients, encompassing smaller dealer groups to large blue-chip companies.

Having secured contracts across the UK and grown to a team of 24, Davies and Smith are ready to open operational hubs for VisionDrive nationwide in Coventry, Leeds, Doncaster, Hull, and Stoke on Trent.

To support this growth, it’s also in the process of hiring another 65 full-time employees and 30 additional single car transporters.

Within the next five years, Davies and Smith want VisionDrive to be the UK’s leading automotive logistics brand and to have become a household name for vehicle logistics across the world.

Founders: Will Read
Founded: 2014 (Launched 2015)
Website: www.sideways6.com

According to Sideways 6, nine out of 10 employees have ideas to improve the business they work for. That’s a lot of potentially lucrative innovation that could be wasted if companies don’t act to harness it.

Will Read came up against this exact problem during his time working for Sky TV. He felt unable to share or implement his ideas for improvement as he found that his line managers simply weren’t interested.

Inspired, he left his job and joined the New Entrepreneur’s Foundation where he was able to gain an invaluable insight into how to solve the problems of large organisations by working for consultancy business WM360.

This insight enabled him to launch Sideways 6 – featured in the Startups 100 2017 – to give large companies the power to harness and action the ideas of their employees, helping to improve processes, generate savings and revenue, and, most importantly, giving employees a voice.

The platform connects to communication tools like Slack, Facebook Workplace and Microsoft Yammer, allowing employees to share and discuss ideas. An integrated back-end tracks, analyses and prioritises the ideas to discover and implement the best ones.

The start-up has became a quick hit with employers and it now boasts a client list of names including Sainsbury’s, Kingfisher, ABB, British Airways, British Gas and Virgin Trains.

These clients are exclusively ‘high-touch’ enterprises with more than 1,000 employees which equates to a reach of more than 40 countries, three million employees and over 100,000 ideas.

Having cemented its growth in the UK, Sideways 6 has recently sought to grow internationally.

It recently acquired its first clients in Australia and the US and will continue to focus on its approach of ‘Ideas from Anywhere’ ; launching new integrations with different platforms.

Read’s vision for Sideways 6? To create a wider culture of innovation “where ideas are encouraged, supported, communicated and implemented with a minimum of fuss”, proving to the world that “ideas really can come from anywhere”.

Founders: Ben Saul-Garner and Chris Elrin
Founded: March 2015 (launched April 2017)
Website: attachment.london

What do Gwen Stefani, Craig David, Lady Gaga, Ellie Goulding and Emeli Sandé all have in common?

Apart from being some of the world’s biggest and best in music and entertainment, they’re acts which Attachment London can help brands connect with to “make the impossible possible”.

Started by Chris Elrin, who previously held a senior role at Universal Music UK and has been active in the media industry for 15 years, and ex-marketer Ben Saul-Garner, Attachment London enables brands to tap into its service which combines performances with campaigns, endorsements and incubation.

For performances, brands can book exceptional talent through its streamlined end-to-end solution. For campaigns, it provides the talent and strategy so brands can have the desired impact.

And for incubation, “it can put rockets underneath exciting start-ups using unique commercial models”.

In just one year since launching, this three-pronged approach has fast become a hit. The start-up has worked with a roster of some 20 high-profile brands including Google, Airbnb, YouTube, WeWork, Westfield, Spotify and Unilever.

The next 12 months will see the start-up consolidate is client base and work with key companies to create incredible partnerships and relationships.

In time, Elrin and Saul-Garner’s goal is for Attachment London to help people and make working in the entertainment space fun (after all, that’s what it should be!). And the duo want to change the belief that working within music and entertainment is difficult and stressful.

The pair also want to focus long-term on helping a handful of “talent” and unique start-ups to connect in interesting and unique commercial ways.

Founders: Freddie Blackett and Ed Barrow
Founded: December 2015 (Launched May 2016)
Website: www.patch.garden

Patch – the start-up helping people to discover, buy and look after the right plants for their space – believes nature is fundamental to the sustainability of urban life.

With so many of us Brits constantly moving around to new houses, flats or offices, plants are a way to make each new place feel like home.

It was when he faced with trying to turn his own new, and very bare, balcony into a garden that Freddie Blackett realised he had no idea which plants he liked, let alone what plants would be most likely to thrive in a small east-facing balcony.

He was sure he wasn’t the only one facing this problem and, with the help of co-founder Ed Barrow, started Patch.

A place for green-fingered urban dwellers, Patch enables you discover plants for indoor and outdoor spaces and have them delivered to their door. It also sells pots and accessories and provides ongoing advice for plant care.

Plants can be large and fragile, so Patch manages all its deliveries in-house, hiring its own drivers to ensure all deliveries are made with care. Whilst it admits it can be a struggle to find enough drivers to meet demand, Blackett says it’s worth it to make sure customers are satisfied.

Unlike traditional garden centres, which target baby boomers, Patch focuses on millennials. Most of its 15,000 customers are 25-35 year-olds that live in London.

With this blooming customer base, it’s not surprising that Blackett and Barrow have expansion on the cards for 2018.

The coming months will see the start-up focus on expanding its delivery radius, invest in product and technology and bring more talent to the team.

Patch has a vision for greener cities “where urban dwellers can connect with nature as easily as they can connect to the internet”. Until then, they’ll carry on growing their Patch.

Founder: Shumel Lais
Founded: June 2015 (Launched in August 2016)
Wesbite: www.appsumer.io

Up from 57  in 2017, we welcome back Appsumer to our esteemed Startups 100 index.

A Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform, Appsumer enables app businesses to optimise their marketing campaigns and, therefore, achieve maximum return on their advertising spend.

Unlike many of the businesses in this list, founder Shumel Lais – who has worked in marketing roles for M&C Saatchi Mobile and Fetch – admits that Appsumer wasn’t launched on the back of an “aha moment”.

Instead, he says, the business idea was inspired from his years of “experiencing the problem all marketers face without effective reporting systems”:

“Traditionally marketers had to download reports from each media channel and then spend hours compiling and fixing the data before they could analyse it and make decisions.”

Since launch in August 2016, you could say that the “aha moment” has in fact been achieved with the clients the business works with.

In just over a year of launching its product, Appsumer already powers some of the largest mobile app ad spenders globally. This includes top grossing apps across multiple verticals from dating to gaming such as Lovoo, Viber, Outplay, and more. It also proudly boasts a 100% customer retention rate.

Backed by $1m in funding from specialist angel syndicate Galvanise, which includes a host of angel investors who are experienced ex-advertising industry veterans, Appsumer now plans to triple its SaaS business over the next 12 months. This growth will be facilitated with the help of its 25 employees (an 80% increase on 2017).

The goalposts for Appsumer have also changed. Whereas the start-up’s goal was previously to become the Hubspot for performance marketing, its ambitions are now significantly larger than this.

Lais tells us that he wants Appsumer to influence more than half of the world’s performance marketing decisions, starting with mobile.