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Lisou
Lisou was founded by former stylist, Rene Macdonald, in 2018 inspired by the vibrant colours of Tanzania. The company name comes from Rene’s mother’s childhood nickname for her and is focussed on injecting ‘fun and joy’ into women’s wardrobes. Lisou’s collection is made from silks with all prints designed in-house by Rene. Having grown up in Tanzania, Rene moved to the UK at a young age but travelled back and forth to Africa where her family still were, which provided much of the inspiration for the business today. Lisou combines unexpected colours and creates vibrant prints to stand out and designs a range of womenswear and accessories.
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Humble Crumble
Humble Crumble is an in-store and online crumble bakery founded in 2018 by Kim Innes. Starting with a single stall at Primrose Hill Market in London, her approach of letting customers build their own crumble order from scratch, gained attention. This led to the opening of three bakeries across London. Humble Crumble’s growth has been fueled by its use of social media, with nearly 250k followers across Instagram and TikTok. Kim focuses on creating visually appealing posts and featuring classic recipes such as apple crumble to creative variations like trifle and sticky toffee pudding inspired crumbles. Humble Crumble also encourages customers to share their own photos and videos, which has helped grow its customer base organically.
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Hello Klean
London-based Hello Klean supplies a range of beauty tools, hair care and body care products. Founded by Karlee Zhang and Omer Ozener, Hello Klean was inspired by Karlee’s own battle with hair and skin issues as she travelled for work. Identifying hard water as the root cause, she set out to create a solution. Launched in 2020 with its flagship shower filter, Hello Klean has expanded its product line to include hair care and body care products. Hello Klean has a customer base of over 200,000 individuals worldwide and is sold in retailers such as Sephora, Selfridges, Cult Beauty and Douglas. In 2023, the company secured investment from Steven Bartlett during the company’s appearance on Dragon’s Den and achieved a revenue milestone of £5.5m.
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Goodrays
Goodrays was founded in 2020 by Eoin Keenan, who experienced anxiety, and found CBD helped him manage his own stress, anxiety and sleep issues. Today, Goodrays design and manufacture CBD products, including a range of CBD gummies and oils, for consumers across Europe. The omnichannel business has over 10,000 distribution points, selling online and via national retailers, including supermarkets such as Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Ocado and Waitrose, helping the brand reach over £10m in retail sales value in 2023.
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Freja
Husband and wife team Ed Armitage and Jessica Leather founded the Gloucestershire-based bone broth company Freja in 2020. Ed noticed the growth in the bone broth market in the US and wondered why it was not well known in the UK. The pair set out to recreate the bone broths of their childhood, with the benefits of a long shelf life, natural ingredients, and high animal welfare standards. Freja’s range of broths includes beef, chicken, fish and a vegan variety, all of which are stocked at Ocado, Selfridges, Booths, and Whole Foods. In January 2024, Freja raised £2m in equity funding, which included investment from footballer Harry Kane and Olympic triathlete Alistair Brownlee.
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Farrar & Tanner
Cheltenham-based Farrar & Tanner sells high-end, personalised gifts online, including watches, decanters, and kitchen knives. The brand is named after co-founders, Matthew Farrar and Ricard Tanner, who launched the gift website in 2016, having acquired an outdoor brand selling knives and torches in 2014 that allowed them to focus on personalised gifting – a key focus of Farrar & Tanner. It sources products from heritage brands and established suppliers across the UK and Europe, and stocks over 4,000 products from brands such as Barbour, Robert Welch and Vera Wang. In 2023 Farrar & Tanner opened a showroom in Cheltenham, where customers can see the range of products and have items personalised in-store. The company grew group sales to £10.7m in 2023.