The first two companies from BusinessCloud’s ‘101 Tech Start-Up Disrupters’ and ‘101 Rising Stars of Tech Start-Ups’ lists have been revealed, with the remaining companies named from Tuesday onwards.
Used car search engine Carsnip is the first company to be announced from the disrupters list, with Instagram planning and scheduling tool Hopper HQ making the cut from the rising stars list.
Following months of research the list, which showcases the cream of the UK’s tech start-up community, will be announced in blocks of 25 online from next Tuesday. It will also appear in full in the next edition of BusinessCloud.
The two companies – along with the other 200 start-ups included – were chosen from an exhaustive UK-wide search to find the best start-ups from across the whole of the UK.
Carsnip’s founder Alastair Campbell shared his feelings on his company’s inclusion in the disrupters list in light of its mission.
“It’s fantastic. It’s exactly what I’m doing,” he said. “The spend on advertising and Google AdWords and all the listing fees that we currently pay to all the incumbents is about £500m a year. It’s dominated by two companies – Auto Trader and Google – and everyone else is side-showed.
“I’m never going to be Google but if I can disrupt the market and force the other portals to at least look at the way they’re doing things then that disruption is huge.
“There’s a lot of money being spent and if I can change it to a more efficient model the car retailers are better off and the consumers are better off and that’s all disruption is about.”
Hopper co-founder Mike Bandar told BusinessCloud that his company’s inclusion in the rising stars list will be a massive boost for his whole team.
“It’s a real privilege. What we tend to do as a team is focus on providing value to people alongside the mission that we have,” he said.
“This means we’re not in the business of making ourselves look great because we need to get investment or anything like that. We’re not playing that vanity start-up game.
“We don’t often submit ourselves for lists, we don’t often go in the press or for the start-up ego thing which means that when something like this does come through it really does mean a lot.
“It’s a real boost for the team. We’re confident in what we’re doing for the marketing community so it’s nice to know that’s recognised and a thumbs-up from the wider business community.”
All the companies on both lists have been invited to attend a prestigious half-day conference at UKFast’s Manchester campus on June 7th.
To comment on Twitter on either list use the hashtag #BCloud101