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YourParkingSpace
This online marketplace offers more than 350,000 parking spaces that are bookable by the hour, day or month. The platform enables people to earn money by renting out their driveways to motorists. The company also lists spaces in commercial car parks and provides services, such as cashless parking, to clients including Premier Inn. Serial entrepreneurs Harrison Woods and Charles Cridland co-founded YourParkingSpace in 2013, and Andrew Higginson, the former chairman of Morrisons, joined as nonexecutive chairman five years later. The business is backed by private-equity firm Pelican Capital, which invested £5m in 2020. Sales rose 47% last year to £18.2m.
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Urban Jungle
This ‘insurtech’ start-up uses technology to deliver online insurance and detect fraud. It offers insurance policies to renters and people in house shares, as well as homeowners, and has amassed more than 100,000 customers since it was founded in 2016 by Jimmy Williams and Greg Smyth. This May, the London-based company secured £16.5m in a funding round led by North American investor Intact Ventures and the Ingka Group (the world’s largest IKEA franchise), bringing total funds raised to £32m.
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Unmind
Co-founded in 2016 by former clinical psychologist Nick Taylor, Unmind is a mental health platform for the workplace. It offers self-guided courses, exercises and assessments to help employees look after their mental wellbeing. Customers include Sainsbury’s, the NHS and British Airways, and the platform is used by more than 2.5m people across 110 countries. Last year, Unmind raised $47m in a funding round led by EQT Ventures, to fuel product development and international growth. The company employs 180 people across offices in London, Sydney and New York, and sales doubled in 2021 to £6.2m.
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The Wave
The Wave is an inland surfing destination near Bristol which exists to enable people of all ages the opportunity to surf. It’s powered by Wavegarden Cove technology, which produces waves for all abilities – from a child to a pro surfer training for the Olympics. As well as the 180m surfing lake, it also has a cafe bar, surf shop, and accommodation in 25 glamping tents. Founder Nick Hounsfield and chief executive Craig Stoddart opened their first park in 2019, and this year, the company announced plans to build six more venues across the UK and Ireland.
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The Coconut Collaborative
James Averdieck launched this dairy-free dessert brand in 2014, after selling his previous venture, Gü puddings, to Noble Foods for £32.5m in 2010. The Coconut Collaborative makes coconut-based yoghurts, ice creams and puddings, which are sold in major UK supermarkets such as Tesco, as well as overseas markets including America, France and Germany. Sales rose 28% in 2020 to £15.2m. In the same year, US private equity firm PowerPlant Partners invested $7m in the business to fund expansion in America. This May, the company debuted its plant-based, gut health yoghurt in Sainsbury’s.
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SKOOT
SKOOT Eco Group is helping businesses identify, avoid and offset their carbon footprint. SKOOT has developed a suite of initiatives, from a carbon calculator focussed on the 5.5m UK SME’s, to a plug-in API for hospitality, allowing guests to purchase in the moment transactions to remove carbon through recognised climate solutions. It also has a carpooling app with 30,000 users across 120 cities which helps users share journeys, reduce congestion and remove CO2 from travel. SKOOT was founded in 2019 by Greg Gormley and Mark Stringer and has raised over £4m to date including from the Low Carbon Innovation Fund.