by Real Business - Thursday, 30th August 2007

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This isn't a scientific survey. There's no guarantee that all of our 30 will shine. Equally, it's quite likely that a newcomer will soar, unnoticed by us, into the stratosphere. But we feel confident that we've selected 30 UK Web companies with real potential. Venture capitalist Peter Sturn has scoured the Web and First Tuesday, the UK's foremost Internet networking group, for hot prospects. And in John Browning, European editor of Wired, and Julie Meyer, co-founder of First Tuesday, we have two of the most well-informed collaborators around.

A few ground rules. Our 30 are specifically Web companies, not the bright sparks building the infrastructure of the Internet (some may quibble with Argo's inclusion, but the story about raising money via e-mail was too good to miss). So you won't find highly rated companies such as Riversoft and Orchestream in our ranks. And we've excluded public (or about-to-be-public) companies such as Freeserve and QXL. Instead, you'll find independent UK businesses that are actually doing business on the Net - selling personal finance advice, taking orders for booze, even building online communities.

UK businesses are changing their view of the Internet. After much hesitation, they are seeing the opportunities. They might even have advantages over their American counterparts. As Jonathan Nelson, founder of Organic, co-creator of HotWired (the original online Bible) and one of the true pioneers of the Internet explained to Real Business: "In the UK you have several advantages over the States in building a Net economy. One, you have free Internet service providers - there's a culture of people trying to get you online. Two, everyone uses cell phones here, the whole messaging infrastructure is way ahead of the US. And three, there is much greater understanding here of the potential of interactive television."

The stage is set. Meet the players.

e-Exchange
www.e-Exchange.com

Puts buyers and sellers together on a neutral, virtual trading floor on the Internet to negotiate to buy and sell PCs, peripherals and components.

Facts: Founded November 1998. Full launch October 1999. Founders are Rakesh Gandhi, Tan Kok Hin (ex-MD of Compaq in Asia) and Tim Burrow (ex-electronics industry and MD of Yardley). 30 staff worldwide.

Financials: Undisclosed start-up capital from management and outside investors. Recent deal with Broadvision, in which the US software house gets a slice of equity and a percentage of future revenues in return for its customer management software. "Currently in negotiations with global VCs," says Burrow, to complete at the end of November 1999. Will be profitable "within the foreseeable future," says Burrow.

Competitors: Businesses in different industries such as eSteel and ChemConnect. Auction sites such as buy.com, eBay and QXL are business-to-consumer rivals.

Goals: "We want 30,000 to 40,000 businesses worldwide using the system at least once a month by the end of 2000," says Burrow. Intention to take the company public in 2000 in Singapore, Easdaq or Nasdaq, or a dual listing.

Pros and cons: Powerful software underpinning the site. Ultra-competitive arena (see Mondus).

Moreover.com
www.moreover.com

Takes your dull, static old Web site and gives it links to relevant, newsy sites all over the world.

Facts: Founded August 1998 by Nick Denton, an ex-FT journalist who now works out of Silicon Valley,

Financials: $120,000 start-up capital from Nick Denton. Subsequent investment by Atlas Venture and a group of Amazon.com executives in June 1999. Post-money valuation of $3.75m. Current valuation, according to Denton, $10m-plus. Won't be profitable until 2002. Currently has 2,000 affiliate sites, growing at about 70 per cent a month.

Competitors: Lexis-Nexis, NewsEdge and in-house Web surfers.

Goals: "To gain 100,000 affiliates - sites that subscribe to our headline links," says Denton. "And to generate one million clickthroughs a day on those headline links."

Pros and cons: A very powerful, seriously editorial tool (www.real-business.co.uk gets lots of traffic through moreover.com). Content is, however, the toughest nut on the Web. Just how does it generate revenue?

Peoplesound
www.peoplesound.com

Visitors get personalised music - free. New artists get a forum for their wares. The music industry gets a source of new talent. Could it bring new efficiency to a notoriously scattergun industry?

Facts: Founded in June 1999 by Ernesto Schmitt, Martin Turner, Paul Levett and Bruno Heese. 28 employees.

Financials: The start-up valuation was "in excess of $20m" after investment from Europ@web. The capital figure is a jealously guarded secret. The business is valued at $100m based on the current investment round. Further investment negotiations are under way."Profits will come within three years," says Schmitt. "We could make profits now, but that would mean milking the brand and milking the business." Revenues come from sales of CDs, MP3 kit, advertising, a cut of artists' sales through peoplesound, and through acting as an information source (aagh, "infomediary") to the music business.

Competitors: mp3.com. And the whole music industry?

Goals: To expand rapidly across Europe and become the premier brand for entertainment on the Net.

Pros and cons: From most angles, the idea stands up. But music-lovers will always want to listen to the stars. Will peoplesound's wannabes stand up to the scrutiny?

Mondus
www.mondus.com

Online marketplace for smaller companies, selling everything from stationery to legal services - as long as it launches successfully this month (October).

Facts: Founded by Rouzbeh Pirouz and Alexander Straub, two Rhodes scholars in 1997. To be launched this month (October).

Financials: Start-up was financed when the founders won a £1m prize from 3i to set up a technology company. In August 1999, Mondus secured a $12m investment from Eden Capital, to open offices in Hamburg and New York and for worldwide marketing. Mondus is valued at between $60m and $80m.

"We won't be profitable in the short term," says Pirouz. And he's chary about revenue forecasts. "They can create false expectations."

Competitors: Anyone who sells any business services. And e-exchange. In the US, bizbuyer.com, works.com and onvia.com

Goals: An IPO in the next 12-18 months. "We want to be the pre-eminent site for SME purchasing," says Pirouz.

Pros and cons: This arena is a natural for the Web. But it could become a battlefield.

HotBox
www.hotbox.co.uk

Great gadgets and gizmos for 18 to 34-year-olds. (Not to be confused with Hotbox.com which is something quite different.)

Facts: Founded by Michael Smith and Tom Boardman in June 1998 in Cardiff. Originally a catalogue business, until April this year. Three employees.

Financials: An Internet business that turns a profit! That's largely because Boardman has a degree in artificial intelligence and created the site. And they have no external finance so have to make money. The pair started the company with £1,000 and still own 100 per cent, but have been talking to VCs. Says Smith: "We'd love to be losing money, just as soon as someone will lend us some." Sales were £100,000 in the year to June 1999. Since April, HotBox has taken 1,400 online orders.

Competitors: The Gadget Shop; www.boysstuff.co.uk; and there are mutterings that EMAP will enter the fray, too.

Goals: To be the Internet superstore for exciting new products. And to create a new sales channel for manufacturers.

Pros and cons: Run by enthusiasts. That gives a personal touch and should breed loyalty. But will HotBox have the buying and marketing clout to beat off the competition?

Lastminute.com
www.lastminute.com

E-commerce site offering last-minute offers on just about everything. Runs online auctions, too. Launched in France in September; Germany is imminent.

Facts: Founded by Brent Hoberman and Martha Lane Fox in 1998.

Financials: Raised $1m first-round funding from Arts Alliance, Innovacom, New Media Investors, Venture Partners. Second round raised $10m from Global Retail Partners, Harvey Goldsmith and Intel and Deutsche Telekom. Current valuation? Well, lots. Could be as high as £400m if the company floats. The forecast is for $10m gross revenues in 1999. When will Lastminute be profitable? "Within two years," says Hoberman.

Competitors: Anyone who gives you a good idea about what to do for the weekend. Plus the inevitable copycats.

Goals: IPO in the first half of 2000, probably in London and on Nasdaq.Pros and cons: Great brand. Everyone knows the site. But how loyal will Net customers be when there are options?

Liv4now.com
www.liv4now.com

The UK's first online community site?

Facts: Serena Doshi (ex-Schroders) and Ewan MacLeod came together when Ewan came to fix Serena's printer. They launched Liv4now.com in March this year.

Financials: Raised $250,000 start-up capital in the US through private investors. Connections led to a big-name board including Herb Schlosser, ex-president of NBC and former Time Warner director William Vanden Heuvel. Currently in negotiations for further investment. Three revenue streams: ads and sponsorship; the "spend" channel; designing chat rooms for corporations (four contracts are already signed). "Within a year of launch we aim to have 900,000 unique visitors (users),"says Doshi. "And we should be profitable within two years."

Competitors: AOL, freeserve or anywhere that 18 to 34-year-olds currently "hang out" on the Net.

Goals: To build the business in the UK, Europe and US. Looks like a potential acquisition target for a US company that wants to "buy rather than build" in Europe.

Pros and cons: Has "first-mover" advantage. And visitors have an average linger time of 27 minutes on the beta site. Obstacles could be cultural. Will British youth really hang out in pubs, clubs and restaurants online, when they can do the real thing?

Beenz.com
www.beenz.com

Electronic credits, or loyalty points. You accumulate them by shopping online or just visiting a Web site. As founder Charles Cohen says, "people's time is valuable so people expect to be rewarded."

Facts: Founded by ex-political speechwriter Charles Cohen in March 1998. Eighty to 100 employees in the US and UK.

Financials: Start-up capital zero. Early angel round of $300k, followed by private rounds. Recently completed third-round funding of $20m from private investors, including Larry Ellison of Oracle. Other investors include Japanese retailer Hikari Tsushin, French investment company Artemis. Also signed exclusive marketing deal with UK portal Excite.co.uk - Excite will offer beenz to the three million monthly visitors to its site. Beenz are currently offered on some 200 sites; you can buy 2,000 to 3,000 products using them.

Competitors: Online loyalty schemes.

Goals: Ubiquity. Or, as Cohen puts it, "beenz everywhere."

Pros and cons: "It's a global economy," says Cohen, "so it needs a global currency." There have been mutterings - refuted by Cohen - about the quality of sites on which beenz are traded. The brand is strong and fun (some may call it cheesy).

Iglu
www.iglu.com

An all-in-one ski site.

Facts: Launched at the Daily Mail Ski Show on October 29, 1998. Founders are ex- Richard Downs and Emmanuelle Drouet. Four full-time staff; 11 part-timers.

Financials: Financed by credit cards and a "friends' round" before launch. First-ever investment by London Business School's Sussex Place Investment Management, of £50,000. Total start-up capital: £250,000. About to announce VC funding.

Valuation: "north of £10m," says Downs. Won't make profits for a couple of years, although its £500,000 of business in its first ski season proves it can make money, says Downs. Aims to increase revenues by ten times in the next season.

Competitors: "We're paranoid about everyone," says Downs, refreshingly. All the traditional retail travel agents.

Goals: "The best and largest choice of property backed up by auxiliary product information and insanely great order fulfilment," says Downs. Looks a prime target for acquisition by a big travel agent.

Pros and cons: Already ahead in locking in ski chalets etc. Very niche. But competition will hot up and marketing is everything in this arena.

Darker than blue
www.darkerthanblue.com

Black online community, although founder Glen Yearwood calls it "an online community that celebrates the urban lifestyle."

Facts: Founded March 18, 1999 by ex-media salesman Glen Yearwood and designer Everton Wright.

Financials: The two founders put "a significant amount" of their own cash into the start-up. Currently in first-round investment negotiations with "a major UK ISP" (sounds like Freeserve). Business valued at £5m, says Yearwood (based on those negotiations). Then looking for a £5m to £10m venture capital round in March 2000, with a potential listing on Nasdaq and the London Stock Exchange in October 2000. Will be profitable in spring 2000. The main revenue streams will be music download and worldwide sale of Darkerthanblue's own TV content. "That's the battering ram for expansion," says Yearwood. Already generating £2,500 a month through sales of books and CDs - "enough to pay the rent."

Competitors: No direct competition online.

Goals: To make the business irresistible to investors, while "repurposing our unique content for broadband technology and digital TV" (ie, selling its content to TV stations).

Pros and cons: Very sales-led, with a track record of making money. Already getting 500,000 to 700,000 impressions a month on the site. But there's a little brand confusion - is this a site for the black urban community or anyone who lives in the middle of cities?

Obongo
www.obongo.com

One of the brave few UK pioneers to tackle the American market head-on.

Facts: Founded by John Hunt, Ben Gladstone and Adam Gold in January 1999. Now based in Silicon Valley.

Financials: Start-up funded by $3m from high-profile business angels, including Esther Dyson. Since then, it's received further $2.5m investment from Sequoia Capital. Current valuation is not disclosed. And Obongo won't make a profit until 2001.

Competitors: eWallet, Microsoft Passport, Qpass.

Goals: "To become the de facto e-commerce accelerator and personalised portal for the Web," says Gold.

Pros and cons: For all those users baffled by registration procedures to get onto Web sites, Obongo could be the saviour.

Boo.com
www.boo.com

The biggest deal - and the biggest splash - in the UK Internet market so far. Technology problems have held up the launch of the online clothes retailer so far, but if the real site is anything like as good as the working version, we've a treat in store.

Facts: Founded by Kajsa Leander, Ernst Malmsten and Patrick Hedelin in September 1998. Due to launch in spring 1999; likely now to be in November.

Financials: Terribly coy about the details. Raised great gobbets of money in its first round - some $100m from Markas Holdings, the investment fund of Bernard Arnault, chairman of Louis Vuitton Moet-Hennessy (LVMH), Bain Capital, Goldman Sachs and Benetton. Won't give any forecasts about when it will be profitable.

Competitors: Insiders say none, "because it is the world's first global sports fashion retail site." But dressmart.com is a new entrant. Every fashion store in the land will count itself a rival.

Pros and cons: The delays are embarrassing, but at least they are ratcheting up the hype levels.

Confetti
www.confetti.co.uk

Everything you ever needed to furnish a wedding - all in one site.

Facts: The holding company was formed in August 1998 by Andy Doe and David Lethbridge. The site was launched in February 1999.

Financials: $3m start-up capital raised from Atlas Venture and Botts & Co. Currently raising second-round financing (valuation, therefore, isn't known). "We're forecast to be profitable in year three," says Doe.

Competitors: US-based theknot.com, dellajames.com and weddingchannel.com - not to mention, as our sites often don't, all the traditional retailers in the sector.

Goals: "To maintain our leadership position by continually adding new content, interactive features and e-commerce facilities and to expand into other major European markets," says Doe.

Pros and cons: Has the fabled "first-mover" advantage in Europe. Should benefit from the imminent rise of the "women's portal." But there will be copycats, from both the online and traditional sectors.

Origins.net
www.origins.net

For anyone with a hint of Scots blood, here's the place to discover your ancestry.

Facts: Founder Dr Ian Galbraith approached the General Registry back in 1997 for permission to put its information on the Web. Since then, he has built the only Web site providing official births, deaths, marriages and census data for a complete country (Scotland) going back to 1553. A cool 30 million records.

Financials: The start-up capital of £200,000 came from Galbraith, but the Scots Origins applications software was implemented by Realtime Anywhere, on a profit-share basis. Currently raising £2m of development capital to boost site infrastructure and marketing. "Some 30,000 people have spent money on the site," says Galbraith, "but we need more genealogical information to achieve our goal of covering the whole of the UK." Wow, profitable, on first-year sales of £500,000 ("we'll more than double that this year," says Galbraith).

Competitors: Not many. Maybe familysearch.com and ancestry.com

Goals: "To become the primary Web site for high-quality genealogical information."

Pros and cons: Looks like the perfect Web application: loads of information; worldwide demand; and the only other way you'll get it is by hacking up to Edinburgh. But can Galbraith stay ahead? He'll need money.

Newsbase
www.newsbase.co.uk

For anyone with a particular interest in Eastern European, this is the site.

Facts: Newsbase was founded in 1995 by Gavin Don.

Financials: Newsbase has 300 blue-chip clients, paying an average £700 subscription to its online news service. This year sales have hit £250,000 (and Newsbase is profitable). It's notoriously difficult to make money out of "pure content" sites, but Newsbase operates a micropricing system: visitors build up an account based on how many times they visit the site; once they hit a certain level (probably £30), they're chased for payment. It is a consume-before-you-buy policy, but at least Newsbase is getting leads.

Competitors: Reuters, Internet Securities, Interfax.

Goals: A niche market and those profits might come in handy in tempting a trade buyer.

Pros and cons: Newsbase looks a strong and steady niche content site.

Ihavemoved.com
www.ihavemoved.com

You're moving house. You've got to tell everyone you're moving. Instead of hundreds of lengthy calls to the gas board, you can fill in the details once, online, and everyone will know. And the service is free.

Facts: Founded by David Anstee and Francesco Benincasa in January 1999. Full launch this month (October).

Financials: Private investors put in the first £100,000. The founders are in discussions for further VC investment. Where will IHM make money? Well, the call centres that currently handle changes-of-address for business currently charge about £2 per call, says Benincasa. Processing paper forms is even more expensive. Those costs disappear with IHM. For business, it could become a very valuable service.

Competitors: None (apart from your PA).

Goals: Simple, says Benincasa. "To become a fantastic service for everyone moving home in the UK."

Pros and cons: One of those ideas that makes you go, wow that's smart. Apparently, over 60 per cent of customer defections (in the US) are down to residential moves. The big if is the partners - IHM will have to cover everyone, from banks to supermarkets to mobile phone companies.

Travelstore
www.travelstore.com

Business travel for the smaller company market.

Facts: Founded by Darryl Mattocks (ex-Internet Bookshop and one of the earliest UK Internet players), Martin Furner, Bill McFarlane, Robert Winder, Colin Hastings in 1998

Financials: Private placement of £437,000; public placement of £2.75m. Valuation (as of May 1999) of £8.4m. The plan is to expand the customer list in the UK and Europe, so it's not likely to be profitable in the immediate future. Not very open about sales. "Encouraging and on target," says an insider.

Competitors: There's no shortage of travel agencies out there. Those traditional ones look under threat from online rivals. Travelstore claims to be the "only online booking engine that focuses on the SME travel market."

Goals: Expansion into Europe.

Pros and cons: Another sector that could become a battlefield. But the management looks strong.

Two timers: FIT and Onboardinfo
www.fit.com
www.on-board-info.com

Two new Web companies are focusing on that most precious of assets, your time. Cont@cter, the imminent "Lotus Notes for SMEs" from Future Internet Technologies, allows you to update and synchronise your diary and contacts - across any computer or device with Internet access (and FIT hosts the service, online). Onboardinfo brings together details of sports, business, cultural events and automatically updates them on your electronic diary: so if you're an Arsenal-supporting devotee of Boyzone who's also a member of the CBI (heaven forfend) with a subscription to Onboardinfo, your electronic diary will always know when to let you have ticket details.

Contrasting entrepreneurs are behind the two ventures. FIT's Ziad Salem and Nick Leigh-Wood are quintessential young, multi-cultural Internet whizzes. Salem, in particular, is a ferment of new ideas - over lunch he dreamt up a new service that would record conversations, convert them into text and email them back to your office in time for your return; later in the year FIT is launching www.officialsites.co.uk where you'll be able to type in a company's name and only get the official site, not the wacky offshoots.

The forecasts for FIT are startling. "If we sell 10,000 (with a £10-£15 monthly fee), we're already in profit," says Salem. "If we achieve 100,000 SMEs, we're already £12m in sales which is four times Freeserve. Lotus has 35 million readers."

Salem confronts the what-about-the-profits? argument head-on. "Do we make a profit? Of course not. Do we want to make a profit? No. It's spend, spend, spend. All the money that we make from the Web development side of the business, we reinvest in the software side." So where will it get the money to splash? FIT, like so many of our 30, is in negotiations for a £5m VC investment.

Ray Eitel Porter, the former LEK management consultant and son of a newsagent, is not so flamboyant. But again, he sees a big future for Onboardinfo. "We could be a a $100m company in three to five years," he says. "We're a bit like your PA because we have control over your diary. We make sure that you don't miss key dates."

With $1m of seed capital from NatWest's IT fund, CRIL and one angel, Eitel Porter now has the money to bring in his most critical assets - new content partners (he already has The Economist and Sporting Life signed up).

Both companies face big challenges. Many business users expect Web services for free these days. And it's a tough task for small companies to get themselves noticed. As Eitel Porter says, "the single most challenging thing that I hadn't recognised is reaching the customer. I made the naïve assumption that the customer would find you if you have a great product." Welcome to the world of entrepreneurs.

Ten more to watch

First Tuesday
www.firsttuesday.com
It's not often that investment bankers start wooing cocktail party organisers, but First Tuesday has become the venue for Europe's Internet entrepreneurs and financiers.

fourleaf.com
www.fourleaf.com
Growing numbers of online investments could bring growing demand for Murray Hancock's venture capital matchmaking site.

Interactive Investor International
www.iii.co.uk
Well-financed and impressive personal finance site, founded by chairman Sherry Coutu in August 1995.

Lastorders.com
www.lastorders.com
An online off-licence, founded by Scottish Web entrepreneurs, Ian Gardiner and James Oliver, due to launch this month.

Football365
www.football365.com
The ubiquitous Danny Kelly has a strong sports site that could be set for a £100m float.

Sportal
www.sportal.com
Rob Hersov's well-financed sports site to be launched this month (October).

Speech Machines
www.speechmachines.com
The great imponderable - marrying speech and the Net. Will the Great Malvern company be the one to crack it?

Funmail
www.funmail.co.uk
Crazy email address site founded by Graham Goodkind.

Jobsite
www.jobsite.co.uk
Recruitment and the Web go hand in glove. But this site looks special.

Intertrader
www.intertrader.com
Online payments are a thorny issue. Will Rachel Willmer's Edinburgh firm be the pioneers?

Argo
www.argogroup.com

Ever tried e-mailing your clients for equity funds? Andrew Foyle did.

"We were too insubstantial for the bank and too small for venture capital," says Foyle. "And after speaking to a few business angels, I just wasn't prepared to accept the rich terms - 30 per cent of the company for not a lot of money - they all seemed to want. I called them devils, not angels.

"Where to turn next? I think I had probably read about Wit, the small US beer company which carried out the first Internet capital-raising. Obviously we were in a good position to see if we could do the same thing."

At 6pm one evening in March 1996, Andrew Foyle e-mailed the 900-odd subscribers to ArgoNet, the Internet service provider set up by his tiny company whose main business was writing software for the Acorn computer. Acorn, you will recall, was the Cambridge firm which scored a fabulous success with the BBC computer in the eighties, but was steamrollered by PCs in the nineties. The e-mail said that Argo intended to develop specialised software for what then seemed to be a promising area, "network computers" - cheap machines which relied for most of their processing power on the server to which they were connected. The e-mail asked whether ArgoNet subscribers would like to fund this development. "We didn't actually ask for money," says Foyle. "We just said, if we raised some, how would they feel about participating?"

They felt great about it. By 6.30pm, they'd thrown £17,000-worth of expressions of interest at Foyle. Within two days, £70,000. After a week, £200,000.

But how to get his hands on the money? "Our lawyer nearly fainted," says Foyle, and then he unceremoniously introduced Foyle to the battery of legislation and penalties designed to prevent cowboy promoters conning innocents out of their savings. Five months, £60,000-worth of professional fees, endless verification meetings ("Sorry Andrew, you can't say the Internet is "exciting"... that's just too abstract"), and one e-prospectus later, £300,000 was in the Argo bank account. Six months down the road, a second prospectus tickled another £300,000 out of the same pond.

In 1997, Argo shifted from network computers to the Internet. "We decided our USP was connecting any kind of non-PC device to the Internet. Full-colour set-top boxes. Greyscreen palmtops. Games consoles. Mobile phones. They all have idiosyncracies," says Foyle. "What's needed is a program at the Internet end of things that says, 'So what kind of a device are you? I see you are a very small grey screen. So you need the content in this dialect. Stand by, here it comes... Next up, a TV screen. OK, you want it like this. Are you ready..?"

Two months ago, the US firm which is closest to Argo, while being - in Foyle's estimation - behind them technologically and in size terms, was snapped up by Yahoo Inc for $80m. But if Argo sounds as though it should be a £100m flotation next week, the facts to date are remarkably prosaic. A second round of financing with 3i raised £1.4m in March 1998 and will enable Argo to triple its headcount and lose more money (Argo is in negotiations right now to raise even more). Sales have recently crept past the £1m mark. "We're not making money yet. Good heavens no. But our investors are. 3i has paid around three times as much per share as our e-mail subscribers paid back in 1996." Argo is probably worth between £10m and £20m.

Not bad progress for the firm Foyle set up in his year off between school and university nine years ago. But he did get a head start. After the first year, he got them to give him an extension. They're still waiting for him.

Contacts
Matthew Rock is editor of Real Business.

Peter Sturn works with the new venture capital fund XATF.

Alistair Blair, PPA Business Writer of the Year, wrote the Argo profile.

Our thanks, too, to Julie Meyer and John Browning of First Tuesday. If you want to find out more about their truly extraordinary networking events, have a look at www.firsttuesday.com

We will also be updating this list over the coming months, so if you have any news, info or reckon you're worth including in the ever-expanding roster of bright UK Internet start-ups, let us know at editors@realbusiness.co.uk

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