Introduction Introduction The UK is at an exciting intersection, where new business ideas meet new technological possibilities and a fertile startup environment. This is Bloomberg Business Innovators 2016, the companies and founders transforming how the UK lives, works and thinks. We’re seeing change in five key areas: Changing Industries These innovators are driving sector-wide change, from finance to media, retail to manufacturing. Changing Lifestyle These innovators are transforming the good things in life, from how we eat to the way we travel. Changing the Environment The social and environmental impact of these innovators is changing the world around us. Changing Thinking These innovators are changing the way we think about the world and how we engage with it. Changing the Future These innovators are fundamentally impacting the world we will experience tomorrow. Contents Introduction 02 — — Loaf 06 Darktrace 08 EVRYTHNG 10 Farmdrop 12 Deliveroo 14 Open Bionics 16 Blippar 18 Jukedeck 20 Pavegen 22 Bloom & Wild 24 Metro Bank 26 Open Utility 28 Pact Coffee 30 Entrepreneur First 32 Made.com 34 Boldmind 36 Appear Here 38 Digital Shadows 40 M Squared Lasers 42 Qubit 44 Signal Media 46 Seedrs 48 Brightbridge Ventures 50 Neighbourly 52 Onfido 54 Notonthehighstreet.com 56 Transferwise 58 Cambridge Quantum Computing 60 CityFibre 61 Rapha 61 Blaze 62 Sky-Futures 64 Purplebricks 66 Graze 68 Secret Escapes 70 RealityMine 72 Improbable 74 Crowdcube 76 BBOXX 78 RateSetter 80 Nutmeg 82 MyOptique Group 84 DueDil 86 Property Partner 88 Lyst 90 Grind & Co 92 Busuu 94 Flypay 96 Funding Circle 98 GoCardless 100 Heat Genius 102 Onefinestay 104 WorldRemit 106 Judges 108 Credits 109 Loaf Charlie Marshall Founded: 2008 HQ: Loaf Shack, 255-259 Queenstown Road, Battersea, London SW8 3NP Loaf is a retailer of comfy, tables, chairs, rugs and laid-back furniture. After lighting. The 80-strong team spending 6.5 years as an has almost doubled in the online business, October last year, and annual sales 2015 saw the company currently stand at £30 million, launch its first physical up from £20 million in 2014. showroom in Battersea, 2016 will see the company London. The company launch more showrooms – started selling just beds, dubbed Loaf Shacks – but has since expanded initially in the south-east its range to include sofas, of the UK. loaf.com Changing Lifestyle Darktrace Jack Stockdale Founded: 2013 HQ: Broers Building, Poppy Gustafsson 21 JJ Thomson Avenue, Emily Orton Cambridge CB3 0FA Dave Palmer Nick Trim Jack, Poppy, Emily and general counsel Rachel Haverfield at Darktrace HQ in Cambridge. Changing Thinking Darktrace creates by more than 100% and enterprise cybersecurity doubled its number of technology that uses employees to 175 between machine learning 2014 and 2015. In July techniques to adapt 2015 the company also to new threats (such as raised $22.5 million in malware, ransomware, funding from US venture server hijacking or other capital firm Summit suspicious activity) – much Capital. Darktrace’s like the human immune customers include BT, system. The startup says Virgin Trains, Sisley it has grown revenues and AccorHotels. darktrace.com Changing Lifestyle EVRYTHNG Vlad Trifa Dominique Guinard Niall Murphy Andy Hobsbawm Founded: 2012 HQ: Unit 4, 122 East Road, London N1 6FB EVRYTHNG is a platform that connects any physical object – whether that’s a bottle of alcohol or a bicycle – to the internet, managing real-time data relating to how the products are made, sold and used. The platform gives each object its own discoverable profile – a little like a Facebook page – that contains digital information associated with that product, whether it’s warranty information, entertainment content or a virtual representation that can be tracked in real-time for logistics purposes. The company attracted investment from Cisco, Samsung Ventures, Atomico and BHLP LLC, raising a further $7.5 million in June 2015. It has also worked with major brands including Coca-Cola, Diageo and Mars in multiple regions and has partnered with GOOEE to build a smart lighting system and Avery Dennison to make smart packaging labels. evrythng.com Farmdrop Ben Pugh Founded: 2014 HQ: J305 Biscuit Factory, Drummond Road, London SE16 4DG Changing the Environment Farmdrop is an online attracted an additional marketplace that lets £500,000 funding from people buy food directly investors including from local farmers and Hoopla founder Alex producers. Consumers Chesterman and ASOS are promised fresher founder Quentin Griffiths. food – delivered the same In November, Farmdrop day it’s picked from the launched a smartphone field – while the producers app for consumers and get a better deal than they a range of alcohol would from supermarkets. products including craft The company launched beer, cider and gin. in 2014 after raising £750,000 through crowd- funding platform Crowdcube and has grown revenue by 230% year on year. In September the startup farmdrop.co.uk Changing Lifestyle Deliveroo William Shu Greg Orlowski Founded: 2013 Deliveroo provides a pick-up and drop-off deliveroo.co.uk delivery service for routes to ensure that HQ: Deliveroo, restaurants so that they deliveries arrive in an Roofoods Limited, don’t need to invest in average of 30 minutes. 22-24 Torrington their own fleet of vehicles In 2015 the company or online ordering expanded from just Place, London systems. The startup also operating in London WC1E 7HJ partners with premium to 52 cities across 12 restaurants – including countries, with daily those with Michelin stars orders increasing tenfold – that typically don’t since January. The provide delivery. The startup also raised $195 company has developed million in three rounds of a proprietary logistics funding throughout the platform to optimise year to help fuel growth. William at Deliveroo’s west London HQ. Changing the Environment Open Bionics Samantha Payne Joel Gibbard Founded: 2014 HQ: Bristol Robotics Laboratory, University of the West of England, Frenchay Campus, Coldharbour Ln, Bristol BS16 1QY Joel at Open Bionics’ Bristol University HQ. Open Bionics creates on the Disney Accelerator custom prosthetic programme run by bio-electronic limbs for TechStars and gained amputees at a low price licences to create point – around $3,000 Disney, Star Wars and rather than $100,000 for Marvel-themed bionic a typical high-functioning hands for children. prosthesis. This cost The company also won reduction has been several grants and achieved through the use engineering awards – of 3D printing. Last summer, including the James Open Bionics won a place Dyson Award. openbionics.com Steve, Ambarish and Omar at Blippar’s south London HQ. Blippar Steve Spencer Ambarish Mitra Omar Tayeb Jessica Butcher Founders Founded: 2011 HQ: Blippar UK, 5th Floor West, 1 London Bridge, London SE1 9BG Changing the Future Blippar uses augmented reality to make the physical world interactive using a digital overlay viewed via mobile phones and wearable devices. Initially the company focussed on enabling marketing campaigns but in January 2015 the company made a strategic push into education. That same year also saw the company raise $45 million in Series C funding, acquire AR and virtual reality app maker Binocular and invest in WaveOptics, a company that makes wearable smart glasses. blippar.com Changing Industries Jukedeck Patrick Stobbs Ed Rex Founded: 2012 HQ: TechHub, 20 Ropemaker Street, London EC2Y 9AR Video creators can easily add soundtracks to their footage using Jukedeck’s artificially intelligent online composer, Jukedeck MAKE. The tool lets users create unique, customisable and – most importantly – royalty- free music for their movies in seconds. Within 18 months Jukedeck has gone from a team of two to one of twelve, and music generated using its composer has been featured in more than 1,000 YouTube videos. In December 2015 the company raised £2 million in funding in a round led by Cambridge Innovation Capital. In the same month it won a £30,000 cash prize in the TechCrunch Disrupt startup competition. jukedeck.com Pavegen creates flooring that harvests the kinetic energy of people’s footsteps as they walk over it to generate electricity. The tile technology – already used at Heathrow Airport and under a football pitch in Rio de Janeiro – is combined with a back-end system that stores and manages the renewable energy. Pavegen Laurence Kemball-Cook Founded: 2009 HQ: 5-15 Cromer Street, Kings Cross, London WC1H 8LS In July 2015, the company used crowdfunding platform Crowdcube to raise £2.06 million – 275% over its £750,000 target – to expand the company outside of the United Kingdom. The startup opened new offices in Cambridge and San Francisco and made a couple of high-profile appointments to its advisory board: former Apple head of Global Media and Entertainment Jeff Martin and former president of Interface FLOR Greg Colando. In 2016 the company will launch a sleeker version of its tile that is more efficient in terms of production cost and energy output. pavegen.com Changing the Environment Bloom & Wild is an online florist that aims to simplify the process of ordering and sending flowers. Its app and website streamline the process of sending a bouquet, while the packaging allows for flowers to be delivered through letterboxes. Bloom & Wild Aron Gelbard Ben Stanway Founded: 2013 HQ: The Plaza Unit 2.21 The Plaza 535, Kings Road, London SW10 0SZ 2015 saw the company increase its revenue sevenfold compared with 2014, with more than 1,000 boxes of flowers delivered every week. In July 2015 the company raised £2.5 million in Series A funding led by MMC Ventures, then in December it launched a two-hour on-demand delivery service in central London through a partnership with logistics company Shutl. bloomandwild.com Changing Lifestyle Aron at Bloom & Wild’s west London HQ. Changing Industries Metro Bank Vernon Hill Founded: 2010 HQ: One Southampton Row, London WC1B 5HA When it launched in 2010, In 2015 the company Metro Bank was the first opened its 40th store, high-street bank to open won its 650,000th in the UK for more than customer and grew its 100 years.