P2P property lender LendInvest has topped Startups.co.uk‘s prestigious Startups 100 2016 – the definitive index of Britain’s best and brightest start-up companies launched in the last three years…
- 100 companies boast average turnover of £1.54m and employ average of 20 staff
- Businesses have raised combined funding of over £213m
- Proptech, food and drink, fintech, and retail among burgeoning start-up sectors
- 31% of companies founded outside of London, with South East and West Midlands becoming popular start-up destinations
- 32% of businesses started by female founders or co-founders
16 May 2016 – London
Three-year-old peer to peer property lending marketplace LendInvest has polled first place in Startups.co.uk‘s Startups 100 2016; the only index of its kind which ranks the UK’s 100 fast growth-potential new businesses launched in the last three years.
A brand new entry to the list, LendInvest matches investors looking for prime retail opportunities with property entrepreneurs looking for short-term mortgage finance. It captivated the judges having already attracted £22m investment, revenues of over £15m, and a team of 90 staff, and succeeds fellow proptech start-up Purplebricks’ reign in the Startups 100 2015.
Running for its seventh year, the Startups 100 index identifies privately-owned UK companies launched on or after 1 January 2013 which demonstrate innovation, solid financials, economic impact and the ability to scale.
This year’s index offers up a host of encouraging figures for the growth-potential of the country’s start-ups; collectively the index boasts average annual turnover of £1.54m and a team of 20 staff, and many have achieved this rate of growth in just two and a half years of trading.
The 2016 ranking also demonstrates the increasing diversity of entrepreneurship in the UK today with the youngest founder in the index aged just 20, the oldest aged 65, and 32 of the 100 businesses started by female founders.
What’s more 31 of the businesses featured were founded outside of London – a 2% increase on 2015 – which suggests that while London is still a popular start-up base, other regions such as the South East and West Midlands are becoming fast-growth start-up hubs.
Even more impressive is that six of the 2016 Startups-100 listed start-ups have already amassed turnover in excess of £4m – demonstrating that you don’t need to be an established company to achieve solid financials.
This year’s winners, unveiled on Startups.co.uk today, join an exclusive club of alumni companies which includes Captify, notonthehighstreet.com, Zoopla, YPlan, Hello Fresh, and many more esteemed businesses.
Startups.co.uk editor, Lucy Wayment, commented: “The average turnover of the start-up businesses in this index is £1.54m, nearly £400,000 more than in 2014, which is a good indicator that the UK’s start-up businesses are thriving and are only set to scale further in the coming months.
“Year-on-year, the Startups 100 index celebrates the fast-growth potential of UK start-ups and shines a light on the game-changing new businesses helping to drive the economy.”
On LendInvest’s ranking, Lucy Wayment added:
“The proptech industry has been growing at pace so it’s not surprising that LendInvest – with plans to rapidly scale its profitable offering this year – has taken the top spot in what is an extremely well-regarded industry-ranking. Given that property platform Purplebricks took the top spot of the 2015 index, it’s clear that the proptech sector offers ripe start-up opportunities; in fact, there are nine proptech companies that feature in this 2016 list alone!”
2016’s best and brightest start-ups
Featuring 100 start-ups, 201 founders, and with 68 new entries this year, the Startups 100 2016 index paints a positive picture of the UK’s flourishing start-up community. The list also reflects the growing appetite for start-up businesses among investors, with the companies featured having secured over £213m in funding (up from 140m in 2015).
From the world’s first mobile-bank, to gourmet sausages, and an e-commerce business that specialises in helping cancer patients, the 2016 index is as varied as ever. Alongside marked growth in proptech, it showcases several evolving markets including edtech, fintech, subscription services, and marketplaces focused on used cars to unique venue spaces.
Lucy Wayment continued: “What we’ve noticed in this year’s list, more than ever, is clusters of mini-trends with a handful of emerging and competing start-ups all vying for success.
“It will be interesting to see how each of the businesses – and trends – progress over the next 12 months, but there’s no denying we have 100 very exciting, ambitious and disruptive start-ups.”
The full list can be viewed here or found in the separate doc, titled ‘Startups 100 list.’
The Startups 100 Twitter hashtag is #Startups100.
2016 Startups 100 index in numbers
New entries this year: 68
Total number of founders: 201 (2015: 187)
Geographical spread: 31 companies founded outside of London (2015: 29), 2 based in Scotland, 3 in Wales and the following spread in England: East (4), East Midlands (2), North East (2), North West (2), South East (6), South West (3), West Midlands (4) and Yorkshire and the Humber (3).
Average number of employees: 20; 3 businesses have 90+ employees (2015: 19)
Average age of entrepreneur: 35 (2014: 34)
Youngest entrepreneur: Ellie Keeble, Heck!, 20 (2015: 22)
Oldest: Dr Richard Wood, Bioepic, 65 (2015: 57)
Gender: 32 businesses were started by female founders or co-founders (2014: 24)
Average turnover for 2015 (for those that disclosed): £1,543,710 (2015: £1,147,674)
Businesses with turnover of £4m or above: 6
Total funding raised: Over 213m
Average age of the business: 2.53 years (17 in their first year; 29 in their second year; 37 in their third year; 17 in their fourth year)
Most popular start-up sectors: Food & Drink (19) Fintech (9), Retail (8), Proptech (8), Marketplaces (8), Subscription services (5), On-demand services (5), Edtech (4)
