Startups inspired by LBS alumni make The Sifted 100

Three exciting companies that have been founded by London Business School alumni, Cult Mia, Wayflyer and XYZ Reality, have made the inaugural Sifted 100 Leaderboard. The Sifted 100: UK & Ireland, ranks the fastest-growing startups across the UK and Ireland by revenue growth.

“With a combined employee count of more than 16,000 and generated revenues of £6.5bn over the past three financial years, the significant contribution of these tech companies to their respective economies should be recognised,” reports Sifted’s editor, Amy Lewin.

To be eligible, startups had to meet the following criteria: headquartered in the UK or Ireland; founded in or after 2014; maximum headcount of 999; private and independent; majority of revenue must be generated by proprietary technology; at least three years of revenue data; and revenue (annualised if necessary) of at least £85k in the base year (2020, 2021 or 2022) and at least £850k in the most recent financial year (2022, 2023 or 2024). Companies were required to submit signed documentation to support disclosed financial information not publicly available at Companies House.

Cult Mia

Nina Briance (LBS MBA 2019) is founder and CEO of Cult Mia. Beginning life as an enterprise that had an ambition to identify designs that demanded attention, feeding the appetite for independent fashion, four years on since its launch, Cult Mia has expanded considerably, with the company’s community growing to above 100,000 members by the end of 2023 and achieving a seven-digit turnover figures.

In October 2023, Cult Mia raised an oversubscribed seed round with prominent industry backers including leading marketplace VC, Fuel Ventures, the prestigious financial sponsor Morgan Stanley, and David Wertheimer from the Chanel Family who Cult Mia sees as fashion royalty, to name a few.

More than 40 per cent of the products listed on the platform can only be found at Cult Mia. Exclusivity is a byword, with the company exploring new ways for customers to benefit from Cult Mia’s commitment to innovation, delivering exciting new brands and designs.

Environmental sustainability, and lifting local communities, are also core to the company’s ambitions, and Cult Mia now boasts top sellers from Ukraine and Lebanon. “We want to support values that both we in the business, and our very special community, care about.”

“If you’re onboarded to the platform, you become family – we’ll help you,” says Nina, adding “Cult Mia is very much a personal mission for me, and my team are very united on this mission - everyone goes above and beyond and are keen to find real purpose and meaning in their work.”

Wayflyer

Entrepreneur Aidan Corbett (LBS MBA 2013) is co-founder of Wayflyer, a company that provides revenue-based financing to e-commerce companies. “We developed a proprietary technology platform that analyses marketing performance on a daily basis and underwrites up to $20m in funding in as fast as 24 hours,” says Aiden, adding that “our growth is, in part, attributable to the proliferation of e-commerce activity during the past decade, and particularly since the pandemic. As customers and businesses migrate online, we have seen entrepreneurs going from a modest start to substantial monthly revenues. Many e-commerce companies find that while demand is strong, they face a common hurdle to growth; the lack of working capital to fund inventory and fulfil customers’ demand. It is a major hurdle that e-commerce entrepreneurs face on a daily basis.”

In 2022, the Dublin-based Wayflyer raised $150m in an all-equity Series B funding, thereby joining the unicorn club at a $1.6bn valuation.

XYZ Reality

Born out of a frustration with 2D drawings, widely used by the construction industry, an industry that experiences significant cost overruns and delays caused by correcting errors in the building process. XYZ Reality’s purpose-built integrated Augmented Reality (AR) solution, HoloSite directly addresses these issues.

HoloSite has been available to select customers through an early access programme and has already been used on many major projects.