30 startups to watch in 2019: Are these the tech giants of tomorrow?

Facebook was born out of a dorm room, Airbnb was founded by three friends forced to rent out part of their home to pay rent, and Apple was formed by two college dropouts in one of their parents’ garage. The leading startups of today weren’t always the multi-billion dollar enterprises that they are today.

Plenty of startups have been deemed to have the potential to enter those elite ranks, but plenty have also fallen short. However, Tech Nation, a network for digital technology entrepreneurs, wants to ensure that the next generation of UK tech talent reach their goals.

The Upscale programme, now in its fourth year, invites 30 of the most ambitious UK startups to receive coaching from some of Britain’s most successful entrepreneurs and startup founders. These companies will embark on a six-month programme to teach them the skills that they need to survive in an increasingly saturated market.

So who are the startups to watch in 2019 deemed worthy by Tech Nation, and what are they doing in the hopes of becoming the tech giants of tomorrow?

Airsorted – London – Proptech

Airbnb makes renting out your properties easy. Airsorted makes it even easier. Airsorted takes the hassle out of hosting by managing your properties for you, from communicating with guests, to cleaning the sheets.

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Apperio – London – SaaS

Apperio is a platform helping to make some of the world’s biggest startups, including Monzo, Just Eat and Deliveroo, to be better.  Apperio’s automated legal spend management and analytics tools allow in-house lawyers to track legal spend across all law firms in one place.

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Automata – London – Hardware, Devices & Internet of Things

Affordable robotic arms built to make professionals more productive by taking over the physical, repetitive tasks that need doing, but take up valuable work time.

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BookingLive Software Ltd – Bristol – Enterprise Software & Cloud Computing

BookingLive promises the “best enterprise booking system for businesses”, offering a leading scheduling, reservation and purchasing system that is already being used by government departments, NHS trusts, retailers and an abundance of large organisations and industries.

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Cleo – London – Fintech

Cleo is an personal accountant that looks after your money, helps you to stick to your budget and save. The artificial intelligence-driven technology makes quick calculations to decide whether that second coffee is a good idea.

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Doctify – London – Healthcare & Biotech

Compare and book the best doctors in your area through Doctify’s online booking tools. Complete with patient reviews, users can make informed decisions when booking appointments, treatments or scans.

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Fertility Focus – Coventry – Healthcare & Biotech

Fertility Focus’s OvuSense uses core temperature to predict ovulation in advance, providing users with a better chance of falling pregnant and insight via a handy smartphone app.

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Fluidly – London – Fintech

Fluidly is an intelligent cashflow management tool, using artificial intelligence to forecast in real time how your finances look and how they might look in the future.

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Funding Options – London – Fintech

A rare solution aimed at the small businesses of the world, Funding Options helps “the small walk tall”. Its award-winning technology connects SMEs with the right funding options to suit their situation out of more than 50 providers.

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FUTRLI – Brighton & Hove – SaaS

FUTRLI builds forecasts for SMEs based on income statements, balance sheets and cash flow statements, helping businesses to plan ahead with live business plans, budgets and reports.

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Healthera Ltd – Cambridge – Healthcare & Biotech

One of a number of startups attempting to make prescriptions digital, Healthera connections patients with hundreds of pharmacies and GPs across the UK. Patients can access GP services, order prescriptions and monitor their medication all in one place.

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Hubble – London – Ecommerce & Marketplace

For those businesses looking to relocate, Hubble cuts the average move time from three months down to just three weeks. Hubble, London’s biggest online marketplace for flexible office space, provides businesses with the space that they need.

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Immersive Labs – Bristol – Data Analytics & Cybersecurity

With costs resulting from cyberattacks expected to cost businesses $6trn annually by 2021, Immersive Labs is helping organisations to start taking cybersecurity a little more seriously. Its virtual learning system allows businesses to upskill their current workforce amid the cybersecurity skills shortage.

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LendingCrowd – Edinburgh – Fintech

Connecting businesses with financial providers across the UK, LendingCrowd helps SMEs to find the funding they need in just a minute. After 30 minutes, businesses can complete a loan application and within two days the funds will be ready to spend in their account.

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MoveGB – Bath – Eccomerce & Marketplace

MoveGB is the UK’s largest activity marketplace, providing its 300,000 users access to tens of thousands of gyms, classes, studios and activities from more than 6,000 providers all on one convenient platform.

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OLIO Exchange Limited – London – Tech for Good

OLIO is using technology to bring an end to food waste. Approximately 1.3bn tonnes of food get thrown out each year. However, with OLIO, users can photograph their surplus food, which is then sent out to those nearby who can make requests, ensuring surplus food ends up with somebody that wants it, rather than in landfill.

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Open Cosmos – Oxford – Space

If your business needs access to space technology, Open Cosmos is here to help, offering simple and affordable space missions  from start to finish, from the planning stage right up to take off.

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OpenRent – London – Proptech

No longer does renting a property have to eat into your savings. OpenRent provides a fair, safe and cheap platform that connects landlords and tenants at a fraction of the cost that traditional letting agents charge. Landlords can put their adverts on the UK’s biggest property marketplaces for as little as £29, while tenants don’t pay a penny in admin fees.

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Oxehealth – Oxford – Healthcare & Biotech

Oxehealth’s medically certified technology watches over vulnerable patients when a member of medical staff isn’t around. From monitoring vitals to detecting risky situations, such as a dementia patient getting out of bed at night, Oxehealth lets healthcare professions know that all is well in their absence.

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Previse – London – Fintech

Previse wants to bring an end to late invoice payments using its artificial intelligence technology to ensure that suppliers are paid, instantly. Previse’s technology analyses millions of data points to predict when a buyer is likely to pay an invoice. Funders then pay suppliers instantly, allowing them to avoid liquidity issues and grow their businesses.

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Koru Kids – London – Edtech

Kids’ system trains and deploys more than 100 nannies each week through its modern training platform, ensuring that every family has access to high quality childcare.

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Shepper – London – Data Analytics & Cybersecurity

Like a real life Google search, Shepper allows businesses to send real people to physical locations to collect data and insights. From checking the condition of a property to inspecting practices in a retail store, Shepper provides handy media and commentary quickly.

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Sweatcoin – London – Tech for Good

Get paid to walk. Sweatcoin uses the accelerometer in your smartphone to track your steps and rewards you with everything from new shoes, to holidays, to gadgets and devices.

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Tessian – London – SaaS

Rather than protecting humans from machines, Tessian is a machine intelligent security platform designed to protect machines from human attacks. Tessian analyses all incoming emails and automatically safeguards against phishing attempts, misaddressed emails, unauthorised email delivery and more.

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The Accountancy Cloud – London – Fintech

Designed to aid new startup founders, The Accountancy Cloud automates accounting, finance and cashflow tasks, freeing up time to focus on product development and customer acquisition.

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The Plum Guide – London – Ecommerce & Marketplace

Airbnb meets Michelin at The Plum Guide, a holiday home rental platform for the top 1%. Each property listed on the platform has been independently tested by a hospitality critic to ensure that it lives up to The Plum Guide’s high standards. Using data, The Plum Guide picks out the best of the best to make trip-planning that little bit easier and comfier.

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Voxpopme – Birmingham – Enterprise Software & Cloud Computing

Voxpopme provides quick and easy access to video research through solutions that “revolutionise the process of capturing, analysing and sharing video feedback”. As a result, businesses can now capture real human stories that support the data points that they capture.

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Wazoku Ltd – London – SaaS

Wazoku encouraged organisations to engage with their workforce, ecosystem, customers and the world. Through its cloud-based idea management system, businesses are encouraged to crowdsource solutions to the challenges holding them back.

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WeFarm – London – Agtech

With 1.4m registered agriculture workers, WeFarm is the world’s largest farmer-to-farmer digital network, which allows the one billion farmers globally without internet access to gain insight from the industry. Farmers can ask any question in any language and WeFarm uses its machine learning technology to provide answers that help to deliver results.

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