UK Unicorn Startups – The UK Unicorn Companies You Need to Know About
Update: The London Startups Guide is now maintained on it’s own specialist site startups.rainmakrr.com
The UK and particular London has always outperformed on the startup scene and in recent years it’s been punching well above it’s weight in AI, Cybersecurity and Fintech categories so let’s take a look at the companies that have broken through that magical line in the sand, the billion dollar valuation and thus have earned – for now – membership of that most hallowed of internet startup categories, the Unicorn…
The Hut Group
In just 16 years, The Hut Group (THG) has become a globally renowned end-to-end tech platform specialising in taking brands direct to consumers worldwide, powered by THG Ingenuity.
BrewDog
Brewdog drunkenly stumbles onto our uk unicorn startups guide as they have absolutely got smashed building one of the fastest growing bar and brewery businesses in the UK
Deliveroo
However, despite an Amazon led £450+ million Series G funding round, Deliveroo’s future is not assured, despite this awesome funding round, due to competition from Just Eat / Takeaway.com and being impacted by Corona.
OakNorth
OakNorth was created to provide a ‘bank for entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs and has become one of the most active lenders in the UK today by providing loans, property finance and savings accounts to entrepreneurs and growing companies.
Since launching, OakNorth has lent over £3.4 billion and has over 50k customers mostly with savings accounts,
As a result OakNorth has been recognised as Leap 100 and Tech City’s Future Fifty startup.
Transferwise
Founded by Kristo Kaarmann, a former manager at Deloitte, and Taavet Hinrikus, an angel investor and former Strategy Director at Skype, Transferwise is no longer a Fintech spring chicken and possibly the most well known Fintech startup of recent years.
Transferwise broke into the marketing by allowing users to send money abroad with exchange rates eight times cheaper than most mainstream banks and also allowing users to send money easily, cheaply, safely, and quickly.
Recently Visa announced that TransferWise will begin offering its customers an additional capability to quickly and securely move money to debit cards in real-time, so watch this space as TransferWise continues to improve it’s offering and move increasingly into the mainstream.
Revolut
Revolut is providing a digital alternative to traditional banking by using prepaid cards and peer-to-peer payments and supports several cryptocurrencies on its platform.
Revolut has had some brand and culture challenges reportedly but the company is now recording an average of 3.7 million monthly active users, and an average of 1.2+ million daily active users so things could very much work out for Revolut with years of growth ahead them highly likely.
Improbable
Improbable believe that multiplayer games are going to have a profound impact on the world. If you’ve played one recently, you’ll understand why.
It’s not just that they already captivate over a billion people. It’s also the fact that they’re getting rapidly more sophisticated. Today’s games offer more than just battles and races – they offer profoundly meaningful experiences, new economic opportunities and new ways to make genuine connections with one another.
Dark Trace
Founded in 2013 by mathematicians from the University of Cambridge, Darktrace was the first company to develop an AI system for cyber security.
The company was seed-funded by Invoke Capital, a specialist technology investment fund headed by Dr Mike Lynch OBE, and the Invoke team was instrumental in working with the founders in the early days. Later investors include KKR, Samsung Ventures, TenEleven Ventures, Insight Venture Partners and Vitruvian.
Dark Trace helps stop advanced spear-phishing and business email compromise with AI that understands your organization – and detects the most advanced email threats, from targeted impersonation attacks and social engineering, to supply-chain threat and human-factor vulnerabilities.
Monzo
Monzo is probably the most known Fintech Startups London has produced recently
Winners of the Best Banking App gong at the Smart Money People awards and was at the time of press just behind Starling in terms of revenues.
Monzo entered the fray as a challenger bank scene in 2015 focussing on developing an intuitive banking experience for customers and were very much successful in this ambition and is now holding around $1.1 billion in deposits
Graphcore
believe our Intelligence Processing Unit (IPU) technology will become the worldwide standard for machine intelligence compute. The Graphcore IPU is going to be transformative across all industries whether you are a medical researcher, roboticist or building autonomous cars.
We have created a completely new processor, the IPU, specifically designed for AI compute. The IPU’s unique architecture lets AI researchers undertake entirely new types of work, not possible using current technologies, to drive the next advances in machine intelligence.
Checkout.com
This little-known fintech was founded in 2009 under a different name before evolving into Checkout.com in 2012 and have since grown to a team of more than 300 employees in eight offices, expanding into the UAE in 2013, and the US in 2017.
Checkout.com enables companies to process and accept cross-border payments from credit and debit cards, online banking, Apple Pay and others such as Klarna – all with a single integration.
Ovo Energy
Ovo Energy launched in 2009 to make energy cheaper, greener, and simpler. Since then we’ve welcomed over a million members, planted a million trees, and set our sights on helping save the planet.
Babylon
Babylon is one of the largest HeathTech and GovTech startups in the UK with a Billion+ valuation. As a mobile health platform it is used to power the NHS’ GP at Hand service which allows patients to book appointments and talk to their doctor through their smartphone in certain regional NHS trusts like Hammersmith & Chelsea
Snyk
Snyk empowers software-driven businesses to develop fast and stay secure
Snyk’s unique combination of developer-first tooling and best in class security depth enables businesses to easily build security into their continuous development process.
Gymshark
Gymshark is a fitness apparel & accessories brand, manufacturer and online retailer based in the United Kingdom, supported by millions of highly engaged social media followers and customers in 131 countries.
Created in 2012 by teenager Ben Francis and a group of his high-school friends. Gymshark has grown from a screen printing operation in a garage, into one of the fastest growing and most recognisable brands in fitness. This growth comes from a devotion to producing innovative, effective performance wear and an ever-expanding social presence, and above all a commitment to the Gymshark vision:
We hope you liked our uk unicorn startups guide. Do also check out our Startups London and category guides like our Cyber Security Startups, Fintech and AI startups guides
