Scotweb
Edinburgh, Scotland
Scotweb in Edinburgh sells and markets kilts, bagpipes, tartans, and other Scottish speciality goods online. The Internet has brought together a traditional industry with faraway consumers in a way which would not have been possible through traditional means. The Internet allows Scotweb to sell 17,500 types of tartan, far more than a brick-and-mortar shop could stock.
Pictured: Nick Fiddes, founder and Managing Director
Year founded: 1995
Number of employees: 9
Website: www.scotweb.co.uk
UK Tights
Macclesfield, Cheshire
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This family-owned and family-run hosiery business, based Macclesfield in Cheshire, attracts about 65,000 average monthly unique visitors and sells about 23,000 varieties of tights in the United Kingdom and beyond.
Pictured: Dawn Barber, cofounder
Year founded: 2005
Number of employees: 7
Website: www.uktights.com
Wiggly Wigglers
Hereford, Herefordshire
Located in Blakemere, a village of 65 people (and twice as many cows) in Herefordshire. Heather Gorringe created the company in 1990 to sell composting worms but it has since expanded to sell a full range of garden supplies with a green bent. An active and successful user of Google AdWords, podcasts, Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook, Wiggly Wigglers sells as much as half a tonne of worms a week online.
Pictured: Heather Gorringe, Founder
Year founded: 1990 (first started selling online in 2001)
Number of employees: 16
Website: www.wigglywigglers.co.uk
Arena Flowers
Hounslow, London
By buying wholesale (from auctions and growers) and delivering direct, Arena is able to take advantage of scale, control quality, and deliver better value to the customer. Outside the United Kingdom, Arena Flowers has local-language websites in France, Germany, Holland, and Belgium. The company is able to reach about 220 million people with next-day delivery. About 20 percent of its revenues come from overseas.
Pictured: Will Wynne, co-founder and Managing Director
Year founded: 2006
Number of employees: 50
Website: www.arenaflowers.com
Mendeley
Farringdon, London
Mendeley has built one of the world’s largest research databases in less than 20 months. The cloud allows the company to perform real-time analytics, such as text mining, statistics generation, and document searches.
Pictured: Victor Henning, cofounder and CEO
Year founded: 2007
Number of employees: 35
Website: www.mendeley.com
Mimecast
Kings Cross, London
Mimecast provides e-mail security, storage, and availability services to 3,000 business customers. It was recently ranked the second-fastest-growing U.K. technology company by the Sunday Times.
Pictured: Peter Bauer, CEO
Year founded: 2003
Number of employees: 225
Website: www.mimecast.com
Mindcandy
Battersea, London
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Moshi Monsters, the brainchild of Mind Candy, is one of the world’s fastest-growing online games for children. About 30 million users adopt and take care of their own virtual monster and play puzzle games.
Pictured: Michael Acton Smith, founder and CEO
Year founded: 2008
Number of employees: 35
Website: www.mindcandy.com
Mydeco
Notting Hill, London
Mydeco allows consumers to design rooms using sophisticated 3-D online tools. In three years, it has built a strong brand which attracts 1.2 million unique visitors per month.
Pictured: Nicole Vanderbilt, CEO
Year founded: 2007
Number of employees: 30
Website: www.mydeco.com
Always Locksmith
Edgware, London
Always Locksmith devotes 80 percent of its marketing budget to the online channel. It assesses demand for new products and services with tests conducted through Google’s AdWords service.
Pictured: Assaf Touboul, cofounder and sales manager
Year founded: 2008
Number of employees: 6 in the back office and 10 locksmiths
Website: www.alwayslocksmith.co.uk
