For the 13th year running, Startups has unveiled its ranking of the 100 most disruptive and innovative small businesses. Yorkshire startups featured in this list include:
Founded: 2018
It’s clear why Vet-AI finds itself in the top ten, with over 3.2 million households in the UK acquiring a pet since the pandemic began, and veterinary services offering only emergency appointments during every lockdown. Having remote access to pet care and veterinary advice via Vet-AI’s app has been a lifeline for pet owners around the country.
The app, launched in spring 2019 on the back of rising pet care costs and vet bills, offers pet owners remote consultations with certified vets and nurses via their smartphones. Vet-Al’s artificial intelligence allows pet owners to diagnose their animals’ conditions and receive the appropriate medication or treatment from the comfort of their home, which has been massively important during the pandemic.
The company’s growth catapulted following their partnership with Animals Friends Insurance in 2020, which provides access to the insurer’s 1.1 million customers, and since their launch in 2019 Vet-AI has supported over 150,000 registered pets back to full health.
Unlike traditional in-house veterinary competitors, the app allows pet parents to access quick, trusted advice 24/7 from the comfort of their homes. It has been described as a ‘lifeline’ 111 triage service for pet owners, revolutionising the industry by offering round-the-clock consultations with no out-of-hours charges, in line with its ethos of keeping costs low.
Vet-AI is improving healthcare for pets around the UK, and is supporting pet owners by making pet care more accessible and affordable, and with rising inflation, tax increases, and universal credit cuts, we can see Vet-AI going from strength to strength as its popularity continues to rise.
Founded: 2016
myenergi was founded with a noble and necessary purpose: to help households transition towards a greener, more sustainable future. How does it do this? By innovating game-changing smart devices that help customers take control of their energy use.
Founded in 2016 myenergi has designed and manufactured a variety of sustainably-minded devices. These include zappi, an electric vehicle charger that can utilise 100% green energy; and eddi, a solar power diverter that can help you make the most of your solar panels or wind generation system. The myenergi team has also built a physical hub and an app, from which you can control your home’s flow of energy.
With innovation at its heart, myenergi has gone from strength to strength since its launch. The business recently sold its 100,000th device, and the myenergi app currently boasts more than 25,000 users. myenergi may be based in Yorkshire, but its customers can be found around the world – the business has subsidiaries in Germany, Ireland, and the Netherlands, and its network of over 3,000 approved installers is currently spread across the UK, Germany, and Benelux.
Throughout this success, myenergi has held fast to its principles. The team is visibly passionate about what it does, with ambitions to change the way people think, feel, and behave when it comes to sustainability. And these ambitions are reflected in the startup’s plans for future growth, with new devices set to hit the market over the next six months, and more overseas expansion in the pipeline.
In 2021, the importance of proliferating sustainable thinking and technology can’t be understated. We’re certain that myenergi is in an excellent position to continue its good work long into the future.
Founded: 2018
Champion Health was founded back in 2018 as a way to unite all areas of wellbeing under one platform. For users, this means no more separate apps and subscriptions for workouts, nutrition plans, mindfulness exercises, and the like.
Once a company chooses Champion Health, every employee will be able to complete a digital health assessment. These assessments are then used to generate a unique health report for each person, and to provide action plans and personalised recommendations.
Champion Health was developed alongside over 60 health and wellbeing experts, from GPs to behavioural change experts and even Olympians.
Operating on minimum three-year payment terms, Champion Health offers clients the time and support necessary to implement lasting changes to their wellbeing strategies and to actually see the results. Better yet, those results are based on real-life data tailored to each employee.
Employers in both the public and private sectors have been reaping the benefits of Champion Health since it launched in 2018 – and in 2021 the wellbeing wonder has even partnered with England Athletics, rolling out its service to 100+ employees.
Founded: 2020
A new entry to the index, Amity was determined to not let the pandemic delay their charge. The founders opened the company’s first ‘brewpub’ in December of 2020 in the idyllic town of Farsley, just outside of Leeds.
Whilst many small breweries attempt to get their products into supermarkets and shops as quickly as possible, Amity decided that selling directly to customers, inspired by US breweries doing the same thing, was a more sustainable way forward.
This has resulted in around 90% of the brewery’s beer being sold in house or through the company’s website, which is all the more impressive considering Amity relies exclusively on free press coverage and spending on adverts falls short of £300 per month.
The bold strategy has allowed the company’s staff team to grow to ten and build relationships with local farms that use the brewpub’s waste grains to feed their animals.
Creating high-quality craft beer is no easy task, and Amity’s appreciation for traditional beer styles, combined with a willingness to take the plunge and try something different, is a key component of the company’s roaring start to life.
Brewing aside, Amity has gone to great lengths to create an inclusive workplace for all. It’s one of the few Craft beer companies with a female director at the helm and a 50% female bar team.
With a clear direction, welcoming ethos and a commitment to getting beer into the hands of local people, the sky really is the limit for Amity’s Yorkshire brewers.
The full list can be found here.
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