Offering exotic escapes, from jungle adventures to beach retreats and ‘big five’ safaris, this online tour operator specialises in the luxury travel market. Chief executive Nena Chaletzos founded the company after becoming frustrated with the complexity of tailor-making a luxury holiday. The company developed technology that makes the process of multi component trip building easier. Luxtripper is chaired by travel and media veteran Roger Flynn, a former BBC Ventures chief executive and Virgin commercial director, who chaired Loveholidays from 2011 to its sale in 2018. In January 2021, Luxtripper secured £1.2m of funding, bringing total investment to £3.1m.
‘Why all great leaders are vulnerable’
More Founder Stories
‘I’ve raised millions but money doesn’t make you happy’
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.
‘As an entrepreneur my job is to be a hype-man and recruiter’
Founded in 2016 by then 23-year-old George Melhuish, this West Bromwich based company supports over 30,000 customers. Safe Fence is a manufacturer, hirer, distributor and installer of non-mechanical construction site plant. Expansion into areas such as groundworks, scaffolding and material handling equipment has seen sales more than double in two years, reaching £13.8m in 2021.
THE MOMENTS THAT MADE ME AN ENTREPRENEUR: FROM PLAYGROUD RACISM TO BAD BOSSES
23 Years Ago The future co-founder of Universal Partners FX gallops to school with a rucksack crammed with Haribo. He’s ten years old, and Dhaval Patel’s classmates mob him in the playground and give him their pocket money for the sweets. Each Monday, Dhaval buys a bag of sweets with his allowance, sells it, then buys two bags on […]
From dressing up as Santa to raising $50M and hitting the Deloitte Fast 50
Aged 10, Christer Holloman launched a Rent-a-Santa business in his hometown. He’d dress up as the Big Guy each Christmas Eve and, as per Swedish tradition, hand out gifts to excited kids. “I’ve got a picture of me aged 13 counting out my earnings on Christmas Eve, I guess I was destined to become an entrepreneur.” 30 years on, Christer is living out that destiny…
‘WE’RE FOUR YEARS IN AND WE’VE JUST TURNED DOWN AN £85M BID’
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.
The story of how one business has grabbed the gin sector by the juniper berries and given it an almighty shake
Any discerning gin drinkers will already know the compelling Warner’s Gin story. Corporate behemoths would pay a fortune to have that amount of authenticity. But the funny thing about authenticity is this: it can’t be bought or copied. If you try to do either of those things, guess what? It disappears faster than your Friday night G’n’T…