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Living Things
Founded at the end of 2023 by Ben Vear and Jonathan Relph, Living Things is an all-natural range of lightly sparkling soft drinks enhanced with prebiotics and probiotics and low in sugar. Their range has five flavours and they are one of the fastest growing “better-for-you” drinks in the UK. In 2024, Brewdog co-founder James Watt led a pre-seed investment round and today the brand has over 3,000 stockists in the UK including Booths, Co-op, Waitrose, Tesco, Ocado and Wholefods and is available in over 12 countries across Europe and the Middle-East.
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Laylo
Laylo is a boxed wine brand founded in 2020 by Laura Riches, who was previously the marketing director for Naked Wines. Laura aimed to reinvent boxed wine as a more stylish and sustainable option. She identified that modern box packaging preserves wine for up to six weeks, allowing wines to last longer and therefore reduce waste and has a 90% lower carbon footprint than glass. From an initial batch of 2,000L of rioja sold directly via Shopify, Laylo is now sold through retailers such as Ocado and Whole Foods. The brand has also secured seven-figure investment, enabling expansion into canned wine formats, tapping into their rise in popularity in the UK.
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Knoops
Jens Knoop founded Knoops – a chocolate café chain – in 2013. The first store opened in Rye, East Sussex, offering a customisable menu of hot and cold chocolate drinks, allowing customers to select from various chocolate percentages and flavours – a concept termed “Knoopology”. Alongside the stores Knoops sells chocolate flakes so customers can craft their own chocolate drinks at home. Knoops now has 28 stores across the UK, with further stores now open in Dubai, and it has attracted over £15m in investment. The company plans to open its first US stores in Utah later this year, with further expansion into China and the Middle East agreed.
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Kind Bag
Maria Rodriguez founded Kind Bags in Hackney, London, as a sustainable accessories brand committed to reducing plastic waste through designing eco-friendly bags. Inspired by the plastic pollution she witnessed while traveling in Asia, Maria created Kind Bag to transform discarded plastic bottles into reusable bags made from 100% recycled RPET fabric. Since its inception, Kind Bag has repurposed over 6m plastic bottles and expanded its product range to include backpacks, totes and laptop pouches. The company achieved B Corp certification in 2024 and now exports to over 25 countries as well as being sold in UK retailers including Selfridges and John Lewis.
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K9 JETS
K9 JETS was launched in 2022 by Adam and Kirsty Golder as a pet-dedicated, pay-per-seat private jet service. The company was created to offer an alternative solution for dog and cat owners who wish to fly with their pets by their side, enjoying the benefits of private jet travel at a reduced cost. The company states that in many cases, the price is comparable to that of flying pets in cargo. By addressing a gap in the market for pet-friendly air travel, K9 JETS has flown over 3,500 pets across the Atlantic and the Middle East in just two years.
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Incador
Sisters Alice and Karen Chave launched Incador – a fine jewellery brand – last year. With backgrounds in engineering and material recovery, they set out to create a brand rooted in responsibly sourced, bespoke 18-carat gold pieces. Incador sources gold through two channels: first, from artisanal small-scale mining partners producing fully traceable gold and second, gold extracted and refined from old electronics. Building on the brand’s commitment to circularity, the sisters have launched the Tech for Treasure campaign, an initiative that partners with electronics recyclers and academic institutions to encourage responsible recycling of electronic waste.