Nick Robinson, 33
Company: World First
Web: www.worldfirst.com
Focus: Foreign exchange
World First competes with banks on both service and rates and has transacted with over 10,000 private clients and 1,000 UK companies in its three-year history. Robinson and co-founder Jonathan Quin recently secured investment from Prudential chairman and former deputy governor of the Bank of England Sir David Clementi. They project £1m profit on a £3m turnover this year and will soon be expanding online services. Hedging tools for corporate clients and invoice discounting will follow.
Dominic Speakman, 31
Company: Destinology
Web: www.destinology.co.uk
Focus: Luxury travel
Aiming to be the ‘Expedia of luxury travel’, Destinology offers a unique proposition at the high end of the market. Foregoing flashy brochures, the business generates enquiries online which are then dealt with personally by its 45-strong call centre. All growth so far has been organic, the company was voted 14th in this year’s Sunday Times Best Small Companies to Work For list and its £20m turnover should increase to £30m next year.
Raj Rana, 30
Company: Itihaas
Web: www.itihaas.co.uk
Focus: Fine-dining Indian restaurant
Serial entrepreneur Raj Rana has proved himself to be an accomplished restaurateur. Itihaas boasts 20 of India’s fi nest chefs and service staff, and its traditional tikka masala-free menu has been extremely well received. Its fine-dining experience won it the prestigious restaurant of the year title at the Cobra Good Curry Awards in December, and the Birmingham-based business is now expanding rapidly, catering for top hotels.
Alastair Lukies, 33
Company: Monitise
Web: www.monitise.com
Focus: Mobile banking
Recognised as a technology pioneer by the World Economic Forum, Monitise can now count Google and eBay among its peers. Not bad for a 100-strong, AIM-listed, London-based fi rm. The technology, which enables customers to use mobile handsets to access their bank accounts, is used by major UK banks and the business is expanding globally through joint ventures and licensing. Lukies is also reaching out to the non-banking population of four billion, two-thirds of whom have access to a mobile network.
Steve Andrews, 29
Company: SimpliGroup
Web: www.simpligroup.com
Focus: Finance & property
Steve Andrews co-owns finance and property company SimpliGroup with twins Rob and Chris Downham. What began as a financial services provider in the UK has now morphed into a diverse group of companies offering property development and financial and insurance services across Bulgaria and the UK. Its pièce de resistance is a 90,000 sq m environmentally aware “wellbeing village” in Bulgaria. The development of 150 properties, spa centres and organic restaurants has won a five-star award. The group should turn over around £9m this year and is looking to expand its international fi nance arm into Egypt and Turkey.
Ben Allan, 31
Company: The Insert & Leaflet Team (TILT)
Web:www.tilt.co.uk
Focus: Marketing & publishing
Big brands are literally queuing up to advertise in TILT’s asrecommended consumer guides, which cover areas such as insurance, loans and mortgages, motoring and money. TILT is now partnering with experts such as celebrity chef Antony Worrall Thompson and money-management guru Alvin Hall, who provide tips on a sponsorship basis. Around 53 million guides will be distributed this year and TILT looks set to increase this figure to 67 million in 2008. The five-strong team will generate a turnover of £6.7m this year, with profits in excess of £1m. It runs campaigns via doordrop, mailing, inserts and online and will introduce two new guides next year, in entertainment and health and fitness.
Tom Savage, 27
Company: Bright Green Talent, Blue Ventures, Make Your Mark With A Tenner, Tiptheplanet.com
Web:www.brightgreentalent.com, www.blueventures.com
Focus: Various
Savage was recently recognised as New Statesman Edge Upstarts Young Social Entrepreneur of the Year. In 2003 he and Alasdair Harris set up Blue Ventures, running marine conservation trips to Madagascar. It makes about £350,000 a year, has won two UN prizes, responsible travel awards and recently, an award worth £140,000. He has also set up a ‘wiki’ for submitting eco-friendly tips called Tip The Planet, launched Make Your Mark with a Tenner with Oli Barrett and sits on the board of Young Enterprise London. His latest venture, Bright Green Talent, founded with Paul Hannam, is a recruitment agency helping companies with a CSR or environmental agenda recruit and retain talented staff.
Shaa Wasmund, 35
Company: Brightstation Ventures, Osoyou, Miomi
Web:www.brightstation.com, www.osoyou.com, www.miomi.com
Focus: Various
Serial entrepreneur Wasmund turned down the position of CEO at Bebo (and the sizeable equity stake that went with it) 18 months ago, after falling in “the business equivalent of love at first sight” with business partner Dan Wagner. They now manage the $100m Brightstation Ventures fund, along with fellow Young Gun Ben Way, have a 50% stake in Shiny Media, and have worked on a number of new ventures, including timeline history site Miomi. A shopping site for women, Osoyou, has just launched and her social enterprise project will be next.
Andrew Crawford, 35
Company: The Book Depository
Web:www.bookdepository.co.uk
Focus: Book publisher and distributor
Crawford started up with a mission – to make all books available to all. Three years later, the company is one of the UK’s 10 largest booksellers, has a turnover of £24m and can source and dispatch 1.7 million titles within 48 hours from its Gloucester distribution centre. A site allowing customers to self-publish books for £4.99 and a comprehensive book database are coming soon.
Amy Farren, 27
Company: MOMA Foods
Web:www.momafoods.co.uk
Focus: Healthy breakfasts
Founded last year, MOMA sells healthy oat-based breakfast products at five busy London railway stations. Amy and partner, Tom Mercer, have just taken out a loan through the Small Firms Loan Guarantee Scheme, to ramp up production to meet the rapidly expanding wholesale division. MOMA products are on sale at Selfridges and are proving a huge hit in office cafés.
AND ONE FOR 2008
Satish Jayakumar, 28
Company: Adjug
Web:www.adjug.com
Focus: Advertising
Having started contextual advertising business Nixxie, which he helped build to its current £11m turnover before leaving in 2005, Jayakumar’s latest offering, Adjug, enables website owners to sell space directly to advertisers. Created with co-founder and MD of online community Gumtree Michael Stephanblome, it allows advertisers to control how much they pay for traffic from any particular site. He argues transparency has never been more important as user-generated content becomes more prominent. Benchmark Capital and 2004 Young Gun Seb Bishop (who sold his own online advertising business for $200m) clearly agreed investing £1m. He expects a fi rst year turnover of £500,000.
