Until last year, Wayne Starkey still filed his own VAT returns. Many co-founders of four-year-old companies do – old habits die hard and it saves a few quid in accountancy fees. What VAT-DIYers don’t do, however, is turn down £85m buy-out bids. Ever. Yet that’s the jaw-dropping offer Wayne and co-founder James Whiting rejected just a few months ago. Those facts indicate how far and how fast The Skinny Food Co has come since its 2018 launch. They also reveal how down-to-earth yet ambitious these two entrepreneurs are.

Beijing-born twins Jake Xu and Shane Carnell-Xu launched this men’s cosmetics brand in 2019 after raising funds from angel investors Sally Preston and Neil Mather of Kiddylicious, the children’s snack business. Bestsellers in Shakeup’s skincare and makeup range include moisturiser, under eye concealer and face masks. The brand is stocked by national and overseas retailers, such as Harvey Nichols, Superdrug and Australia’s Myer, and it recently launched its new Face 4ward range in China. The Xu brothers previously set up READY, a creative agency based in Bath.

In 2010, James Hyde and James Strachan built a cloud based e-commerce fulfilment platform in the corner of a Cambridgeshire warehouse. They now operate fulfilment centres across the UK, the Netherlands and America. Last year, it added 92 recruits and expanded operations with a new 200,000 sq ft fulfilment centre in Northampton. The business continues to build on its proprietary technology platform, enabling retailers a single global view of operations.

George Taylor, founder of FRIVE, joins us to share how he went from addiction and chaos in East London… to building one of the UK’s fastest-growing healthy food brands. This isn’t just a meal prep business. It’s a company built around a much bigger mission: Fixing Britain’s relationship with food. At 23, George was at […]

This start-up is transforming the way music royalties are paid. The Audoo Audio Meter™ tracks and identifies music played in public places, such as shops, gyms and bars. The data is sent to performing right organisations to ensure that artists are compensated for their work.

Love Cocoa was created in 2016 by James Cadbury, who was inspired by his great-great-great grandfather John Cadbury who founded Cadbury Chocolate in 1824. Love Cocoa has an ethical and sustainable focus: its chocolate bars are free from gluten and palm oil and use recyclable and compostable packaging.