Startups are springing up everywhere in Europe at an increasing rate. At the beginning of this year, we took a look at major European countries and tried to come up with a list of 5 startups for each country to look out for in 2014. We started with France, and now it’s time for the UK.
As with France’s list, it’s been hard to narrow this list down to just five. Despite this, we’ve decided to select five promising British startups, each coming from different sectors. All of them entered the market within the last three years and each of the listed startups has something special to add to the web experience in 2014.
Cezanne HR – The London-based startup Cezanne HR is taking a new approach to HR software. Founded in 2013, the company has developed an online HR software system that offers all of the sophistication of older-style hosted and on-premise HR software, but is faster to deploy, easier to manage and considerably more cost effective. Cezanne HR offers a pay-as-you-go pricing (with monthly fees adjusted to reflect the number of employees) along with many other benefits as part of this SaaS platform.
Ziffit – Launched in May 2013, Ziffit.com is a UK-based media buying website. The startup enables its users to sell books, games, CDs and DVDs online. Quotes are provided instantly, while funds can be transferred directly to a bank or PayPal account once a trade is complete. Ziffit also cooperates with JustGiving to allow customers to donate any proceeds to charity. To get a quote, users simply enter the bar code for all games, CDs and DVDs or an ISBN for books. They will then be given a price, which can be rejected or accepted. Currently, Ziffit’s service is only available to customers in the UK, although further expansion is planned in future.
lovemycourse – The UK’s first specialist site for buying and selling courses. Think of it as: “You wouldn’t visit 30 hotel sites to book a hotel room, so why do so for courses”. The London-based startup lovemycourse.com already offers over 70,000 courses, classes and lessons of any kind. The team behind lovemycourse found that only 19% of course providers offer online booking on their own website. This was one of the reasons why they saw a need to create lovemycourse. Founded in 2012, the site has now become an inspiring place to find new things to learn and to book your perfect course (Update – May 2023: The startup seems to be no longer in business under this website, and we therefore deactivated the original link).
StreetHub – This startup offers a hyper-local, online-to-offline marketplace for brick and mortar retailers. Founded in 2013, the London-based startup StreetHub allows consumers to discover what products are available around them, in real time, from the comfort of their smartphone, tablet or laptop. For independent home and fashion retailers, StreetHub gives them the scale and technology to market themselves and drive more customers. In December of 2013, StreetHub secured $1.2 million in Seed funding (Update – May 2023: The startup seems to be no longer in business under this website, and we therefore deactivated the original link).
Zesty – Founded at the end of 2012 and launched in 2013, Zesty is an online Healthcare appointment booking service. The startup’s vision is to make booking your next Healthcare appointment as easy, fast and convenient as booking a flight, hotel or restaurant. With Zesty you will be able to find Healthcare professionals near you, read user reviews and book healthcare appointments in real time, 24 hours a day on your laptop, tablet or smartphone. The London-based startup has been financially backed by Mangrove Capital Partners and Business Angels.
By the way: If you’re a corporate or investor looking for exciting startups in a specific market for a potential investment or acquisition, check out our Startup Sourcing Service!
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