Founders: James Blackham and Callum Rimmer
Founded: 2017
Website: www.bymiles.co.uk

Car insurance you pay by the mile: a simple concept, but one that’s attracted a lot of attention for the UK’s low-mileage drivers. Founders James Blackham and Callum Rimmer wanted to bring a fairer pay-as-you-drive car insurance model to the market, meaning that those who drive less, pay less.

A user-friendly app allows users to maintain a detailed overview of their mileage and insurance bill at all times. A matchbox-sized Miles Tracker is sent to the driver to be plugged in under the dashboard; this syncs to the app to provide real-time journey and telematics information.

However, since the company last featured on the Startups 100 list in 2019, it’s upped its game in terms of tech. By Miles has since brought on board La Parisienne Assurances to underwrite its ‘connected car’ policy, which collects miles directly from the car’s mileometer over the Internet for Teslas and other ‘connected’ models – no need for any additional hardware or software.

By Miles has shown a commitment to disrupting the car insurance scene in the UK with the key aim of making insurance and car ownership accessible to more people. This is likely why it was voted ‘Best Car Insurance Provider’ and ‘Best Insurance App’ at the Insurance Choice Awards 2019.

By Miles has covered a whopping 1,000,000+ miles of driving a week since February last year. Its growth, forward thinking adoption of technology and industry recognition certainly shows this company still has plenty of momentum.

Founders: Julian Cook and Kim Monney
Founded: 2018
Website: howamigoing.com

Howamigoing addresses the lack of nurturing ‘feedback culture’ in business – understanding the significant impact this has on productivity and staff retention. Founders Julian Cook and Kim Monney noted that a key factor in early resignations is a lack of recognition for an employee’s work, and that more regular performance feedback increases staff confidence levels – as well as a business’s profitability.

Cook and Monney created the feedback platform as a safe space for employees to be constructive about their own and their colleagues’ work – without fear of offending, and with no repercussions to their career (remuneration-independent). Its features allow both team members and leaders to give and request feedback, recognition and praise as well as ask important questions.

The company’s commitment to ensuring its platform is user friendly and accessible certainly makes Howamigoing stand out. After discovering that 70% of UK businesses don’t use feedback software due to expensive contracts and complex onboarding, the company released a self-onboarding, Freemium platform in March 2020, addressing this problem head-on. Howamigoing also prides itself on the beautiful design and top-notch user experience of its product.

Howamigoing has already seen international success in the UK and US, UK, Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia and New Zealand. It now has several well-known companies as clients on its books.

Having been featured in the Startups 100 already in 2019, they’ve managed to climb 40 places in our rankings for 2020. And it doesn’t stop there. With exciting negotiations and potential partnerships on the horizon, it seems that Howamigoing’s responsiveness to the market and dedication to offering superior user experience will see even bigger growth and success in 2021.

Founders: Oliver Carson and Dhaval Patel
Founded: 2017
Website: www.upfx.com

Appearing in the Startups 100 for the first time, and coming straight in at position 20, Universal Partners FX is a foreign exchange service with a difference.

Founded in 2017 by Oliver Carson and Dhaval Patel – experts with over 25 years experience in the industry – the business provides users with fast, same day payment options as well as layers of security to effectively manage risk.

While Universal Partners does offer the modern payment platforms and online 24/7 accounts that are common in the industry, their focus on people is what makes them stand out.

Universal Partners trains experts to work with clients so that they can reduce risk when buying or selling currency. The people-focused approach means that users have access to experienced professionals who can ensure that the right strategies are implemented at the right time, with experience both in the general currency market, but also in specific industries and sectors.

With the ability to service customers anywhere in the world, Universal Partners FX is currently focusing on the UK market, with likely plans taking them further afield.

What stood out to us is that this personalised approach works. To date, Universal Partners have transferred over £20b through their partners across 240 countries. With such an impressive track record already, it’s no wonder this startup has leapfrogged the competition and sits within our top 20 of 2020.

Founder: Rutger Bruining
Founded: 2015
Website: www.storyterrace.com

Appearing in the Startups 100 for the first time, StoryTerrace is a London-based startup with story-telling at its heart.

On a mission to turn one million life stories into books by 2028, StoryTerrace was inspired by founder Rutger Bruining’s own experience with his grandfather’s tales of adventure and adversity in the Dutch resistance. The business wants to create stories that will help families to know and remember the experiences of their ancestors.

The process starts with a customer being matched with one of StoryTerrace’s professional writers. Then, the customer will complete a questionnaire designed to jog their memory before meeting either online or in person to talk through the most important moments of their life.

The writers will then take these details, propose a structure and write the story, with an in-house editorial team on hand to ensure that every book is written to a high standard. A hardback book is delivered directly to the client, with an e-book also available. Clients pay a fixed price to have a book created, which includes the process above as well as the actual book production.

So far, StoryTerrace has documented more than a thousand life stories, has a network of 600 professional ghostwriters, offices in both London and Los Angeles and has garnered national attention, appearing in the BBC’s Dragons’ Den Series. We know there is going to be a happy ending for this creative startup.

Founders: Darko Matovski and Maksim Sipos
Founded: 2017
Website: www.causalens.com

A Startups 100 debutant in position 18, causaLens is a machine learning business that aims to predict the global economy in real-time.

Founded by Darko Matovski and Maksim Sipos, the London-based startup offers an AI solution that provides clients with valuable insights to help optimise business outcomes. In short, causaLens helps businesses to make predictions that enable them to make the right decisions, at the right time.

In the past decades, there have been huge developments in the world of machine learning with remarkable achievements for some types of data. However, there has been far less progress when it comes to time-series data, which is essential in finance and business. Most models are curve-based, making predictions based on past events; causaLens has introduced causality, which helps machines to understand cause and effect in real-time.

causaLens believes that a new theory is required to build intelligent machines. Machines need to be able to understand cause and effect to correctly predict the future, not just what has happened in the past.

Since joining the market causaLens has unlocked billions in value for its clients, working with some of the largest US hedge fund companies, as well as some of the biggest European banks. You don’t need a machine to tell you that this startup has already shaken things up, and more is to come.

Founders: Jacob Wedderburn-Day and Anthony Collias
Founded: 2015
Website: www.stasher.com

Having previously featured at 91 in last year’s Startups 100, Stasher has this year climbed the list to the impressive position of 17.

Founded in 2015 by Jacob Wedderburn-Day and Anthony Collias, Stasher is a sharing economy solution to luggage storage. A simple idea to help make travel easier, Stasher now has over 1000 ‘Stashpoints’ in more than 250 cities across six continents.

Using a mobile app, travellers, day-trippers or anyone with baggage can drop their luggage off safely, and enjoy the city they’re in. Founded by three university friends and based in London, Stasher’s global journey has seen more than 450,000 bags ‘stashed’ so far.

Stasher has partnered with a network of both big and small businesses that provide space for safe storage. These businesses receive a share of revenue for every bag stashed at their location, while also benefiting from the increase in footfall that comes with it. Brick and mortar partners can earn an additional income stream of up to $30,000 per year, while the success of the venture has also led to key partnerships with big name brands like Marriott, Premier Inn and Expedia.

Of course, an essential part of the business model is trust, something that Stasher takes very seriously. In 2018, 2019 and 2020, the business earned the Platinum Trusted Award Service from Feefo, with a 4.8/5 customer experience rating from over 18,000+ reviews.

Having been the first business to step into the market, Stasher has achieved financial backing – as well as financial success – and is the only service in the market right now with an in-house product team and custom API.

Stasher’s success is simple – the founders identified a common problem, and they solved it. Expect to see more and more Stashpoints as this savvy startup continues its upward trajectory.

Founders: Andrey Sever, Jacob Sever, Peter Sever and Vyacheslav Zholudev
Founded: 2016
Website: www.sumsub.com

Entering the Startups 100 list for the first time in position 16, SumSub develops remote verification solutions that “empower compliance and anti-fraud teams to fight money laundering, terrorist financing and online fraud” – that’s quite a mission.

Founded in 2016 by an international team of specialists in machine learning, business process automation and compliance, Sumsub is a risk-driven lifecycle management platform that features a toolkit to help customers automate client onboarding and compliance.

An essential – but often overlooked and misunderstood – process for business, the product is designed to streamline traditionally disjointed compliance operations that would otherwise require a great deal of time and resource.

Tackling the issue of manual processes and multiple segmented solutions, Sumsub offers customer onboarding workflows based on product, jurisdiction and regulation. Regulated and fraud-prone businesses can run compliance checks on companies, transactions or individuals anywhere in the world, saving up to 50% on compliance costs in the process.

Sumsub helps its customers to make the decisions that matter. Ambiguous or questionable applications can be rechecked rather than instantly rejected, and the system works with any type of customer, providing detailed analytics, address checks and transaction monitoring.

Working with big-name businesses like Uber, Toyota and Samsung, Sumsub has over 10,000,000 unique users in more than 150 countries. They really have made huge waves in this complex industry.

Founder: Melissa Snover
Founded: 2019
Website: get-nourished.com

We all know that getting the right balance of vitamins and minerals is an important part of making sure your body is performing at its best. However, the standard approach, of various pills and tablets that top up the deficiencies in diets, is not for everyone, it doesn’t fit busy lifestyles and isn’t tailored to an individual’s unique nutritional needs.

Melissa Snover founded Nourished to change that. Nourished asks users to complete a quiz on its website to work out what they need (or they pick their own combination of vitamins and superfoods). It then uses its world-leading 3D printing technology to pack all of it into one ‘stack’ that the consumer can simply eat. A month’s supply is delivered, and one stack per day gives all the nutrition required, specifically tailored for the individual’s diet and lifestyle.

Stacks are produced using the highest quality sugar-free vegan ingredients, and come in unique plastic-free packaging. Nourished is also good for the planet, helping to reduce the mountains of plastic used in producing and packaging packs of vitamin pills.

Nourished was only founded in October 2019 and is already poised to tap into a huge market – UK sales of food supplements are expected to reach £500m by 2022, and Nourished plans to launch in the US and the UAE in the second half of 2020.

With a smart business model, cutting-edge tech and a huge target market, it looks like Nourished has found the perfect formula for success.

Founder: Shan Hanif
Founded: 2016
Website: www.genflow.com

Every social media influencer, athlete and celebrity has a problem. How do they turn their followers into consumers, in a way that goes beyond sponsored posts and impromptu endorsement deals.

Genflow has come up with a radical new solution – they work with their clients (everyone from superstar boxer Anthony Joshua to fashion/beauty vlogger Patricia Bright) at every stage of the process, helping them to create high-quality physical and digital products that are highly relevant to their audiences.

It’s an approach that clearly works, the direct-to-consumer brands that Genflow helps its clients launch record a 10x return on their advertising spend, selling to ready-made, emotionally invested audiences.

Genflow has thrived during the COVID-19 crisis, increasing its revenue substantially during this challenging period. It has also signed more than 40 new brands with plans to release new brands in 2020 alone, and Genflow’s clients have built their follower base by a combined 1,610%.

The young, digitally native team of 44 includes experts in product design, manufacturing, and marketing, ensuring that clients get tailored support at every stage of the process.

Genflow has ambitious growth plans over the next few years, so expect a lot more of your favourite influencers to start launching personal brands packed full of personality.

Founders: Andy Jefferies and Ben Muller
Founded: 2015
Website: www.dockandbay.com

Let’s face it, towels are pretty dull – they dry you and they’re great for lying on at the beach, but they’ve never been very exciting. That is, until Dock & Bay came along. They’ve shaken up towel racks across the nation with a quick-dry stripey towel that comes in (almost) all the colours of the rainbow. Suddenly the humble towel was, dare I say it, almost cool?

An appearance on Dragons’ Den quickly followed, with the fledgling Dock & Bay securing a £75,000 investment from Deborah Meaden in return for a 10% stake in the business.

Since then, Dock & Bay has been busy launching a load of new products: hooded towels, hair towels, cooling towels for the gym, and swim shorts – all packed with the trademark flair for colourful, eye catching designs.

The stripey towels have not just flown off the ‘virtual’ shelves of the Dock & Bay website (which is pretty snazzy itself), but they are also stocked in high street stores like John Lewis, Selfridges, and Oliver Bonas. Dock & Bay has sold nearly 1 million quick-dry towels worldwide.

Now, Dock & Bay is working to help the planet – over the next 12 months it will move towards making all of its products from 100% recycled plastic bottles, and, in March 2020, it began giving 5% of its profits to eco charities (this year it’s One Tree Planted and Whale & Dolphin Conservation).

Having conquered the world of towels, we can’t wait to see what’s next from this cheeky, fun-filled brand.