188 young UK entrepreneur superstars revealed

The Hurun Research Institute has released its annual Under30s and Under35s lists of young British entrepreneurial talent.

Some 79 entrepreneurs feature on the Hurun UK Under 30s list, while 109 feature on the Under 35s list.

They feature well-known billionaires such as Gymshark’s Ben Francis and Johnny Boufarhat of Hopin, the video conferencing service that thrived during the pandemic but has since sold off its core business units to a California tech giant.

Also featuring are lesser-known entrepreneurs who have quickly built businesses worth at least $10 million.

Twenty-two of the business leaders have created unicorns – ventures worth at least $1bn. Boufarhat created the most valuable company of the U30s – his video conferencing operation was valued at $5.7bn by its final funding round.

Two fellow unicorn founders among the Under 30s are Christian Owens and Harrison Rose, who set up online payments provider Paddle.

The most valuable company created by the U35 cohort is Blockchain. Peter Smith co-founded the cryptocurrency wallet service and fundraising has valued the operation at £4bn. 

Three FinTech pioneers behind Lendable – Martin Kissinger, Victoria van Lennep and Jakob Schwarz – also appear in the Under 35 list. The credit provider was valued at £3.5bn by a similar fundraising.

Herman Narula, Peter Lipka and Robert Whitehead teamed up to launch Improbable – a developer of virtual worlds valued at $3b – and appear on the Under 35 list. Other unicorns with founders who feature in Hurun’s research include Beamery, Marshmallow, Tractable and Wayve.

This year’s new entries include Susie Ma, the Shanghai-born entrepreneur behind Tropic Skincare. A former contestant on The Apprentice, Ma secured investment from Lord Alan Sugar after appearing in the reality TV show and her London cosmetics brand has grown turnover to £64.8m.

The 2024 debutants also include Phil and Tom Beahon, founders of sports clothing label Castore. A recent fundraising recently valued the brothers’ Manchester-based business at £750m. Tennis star Sir Andy Murray is one of the investors backing the group.

Barney Hussey-Yeo is one of 15 entrepreneurs from the FinTech sector. His app-based service Cleo, star of our sister publication BusinessCloud’s FinTech 50 ranking last year, helps users keep tabs on their spending habits. A fundraising last year valued the venture at $500m.

Cleo – The AI assistant dedicated to personal finance

“Our research shows Britain’s entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well,” said Rupert Hoogewerf, Hurun’s report chairman and chief researcher. 

“Many of these young business leaders have managed to quickly build successful companies despite a difficult geo-political environment, persistent inflation, and the many other headwinds our economies have experienced in recent years.

“We believe each of our Under30s have quickly built businesses worth $10m. The enterprises created by our more experienced Under35s group are each worth around $50m. 

“Some are worth a hundred times that. In time we expect many of our young Under30s to graduate to the more senior list as their ventures take flight.”

Forty women appear in this year’s lists. Twins Joyce and Raissa de Haas launched Double Dutch Drinks in 2015. Their mixers are now stocked in more than 5,000 places and are exported to over 20 countries.

There is also a strong showing for young business leaders from ethnic minority backgrounds, reflecting Britain’s diverse entrepreneurial landscape. In just five years of trading Vishal Karia has grown annual sales at his wholesaler Affinity Fragrances to more than £100m.

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Hoogewerf added: “Hurun’s analysis shows that while there is extensive home-grown talent across the UK, Britain is also a magnet for entrepreneurs from around the world. 

“World-class universities attract some of the very brightest people to this country and after completing their studies these graduates often decide to launch their businesses here.”

“By analysing the backgrounds of our Under 30s and Under 35s we’ve been able to learn about how many of these co-founders met one another. There were some who met at school and others who got to know each other while working together at an investment bank or in another graduate job. But we can also see that universities are playing a crucial role in bringing like-minded people with a passion for enterprise together.”

The universities of Cambridge and Oxford each had 12 representatives. There were also strong showings for three universities in London. Imperial College London, University College London and King’s College London had 10, 8 and 6 of their graduates in this year’s research. Five of the founders attended Bristol and there were four each from Durham, Edinburgh, the London School of Economics, Loughborough, Nottingham, Southampton and Warwick. However, 23 of the entrants did not attend university.

Most (116) of the entrepreneurs featured in this year’s Hurun UK U30 and U35s have based their ventures in London. There are 19 in the South East, 17 in the Midlands and 13 in the North West.

Manchester-based Alex Solomou has turned LADBible from a small Facebook group into a publishing platform with revenues of around £63m. He floated the media group on the stock market two years ago with a value of £360m and the shares have climbed strongly over the past year.

Solomou was one of eight of this year’s Hurun UK Under 30s and Under 35s to have based their businesses in Manchester, making the city the second most popular choice after London. Bristol and Birmingham each have four entrepreneurs who appear in this year’s lists. Edinburgh, Maidstone, Nottingham, Plymouth and Solihull each have three.

To appear in the Hurun UK Under30s list a person needed to have either founded or co-founded a company judged to be worth around $10m. Inclusion in the Under35s list required entrants to have built a business worth around $50m.

The Hurun UK Under30s and Hurun UK Under35s are part of a family of over 1,600 young entrepreneurs from 5 countries, the others being China, India, US and Canada.

Hurun UK Under 30s 2023

Hurun UK Under 35s 2023