2026 Startups 100 | Marketing Award winner and shortlist

Marketing is an inexact science, but our 2026 Startups 100 Index, powered by Sage, Marketing Award shortlist is doing something special. All four startups have managed to capture attention in highly competitive markets, and keep it.

Not only that, but they have also driven loyalty by offering unique products. These businesses are totally different from each other, but they have all honed in on something that was missing from their markets to create fans, not just customers.

We live in a noisy world. These brands have proved that the cleverest marketing is often engaging but not brash, and that the very best marketing is actually customer approval.

Winner – Bold Bean Co

The food industry is marketing-heavy, but the founders of Bold Bean Co decided to do things differently. As co-founder Amelia Christie-Miller explains: “We decided from the beginning that we wouldn’t sell in our marketing, we would give back.

“Consumers have become so used to being sold to by brands and in a competitive digital landscape filled with paid ads, we knew we had to do something different.”

Even from before they launched, the team have been focused on sharing “beanspo” – bean dishes that inspired a community of bean lovers to engage with the brand and each other. The website quickly hit 60k users monthly, and these recipes remain free to anyone visiting.

The team says that this “giving attitude” resonated with its foodie fans, and the brand now has 144,000 followers on Instagram and two bestselling cookbooks. The team built relationships early on with “influential stockists” Selfridges, Ottolenghi Shop, and Top Cuvee, and high street names including all of the big five supermarkets followed.

The team has also captured a celebrity following, with Bob Mortimer and Carey Mulligan both explaining how they use the jars in their cooking in podcasts and TV appearances. Bold Bean Co’s savvy team leapt on this opportunity, and immediately shared both stars’ dream recipes with their followers; a reactive win that also secured plenty of engagement online.

The startup has stayed focused on its mission to be more than just a product company. The team says they’re “genuinely trying to change food culture”, and by focusing on community, they are achieving just this. Congratulations to our winner, Bold Bean Co!

Shortlist – Hair Syrup

It started as a £300 student side hustle. Today, Hair Syrup is one of the UK’s fastest-growing beauty brands and is stocked in major retailers as well as expanding internationally. This is a testament to founder Lucie Macleod’s ability to connect authentically with her audience, which is mainly Gen Z and Millennial women.

In 2019, Macleod started experimenting to find the perfect formulation for an all-natural hair oil mask, and shared her results in a TikTok video in 2020. The video went viral overnight, amassing 600,000 views and an influx of requests to buy the product she had created.

She describes her customers as “digital-first shoppers who discover trends on TikTok and Instagram” but are “drawn to brands that feel community-led rather than corporate”. Hair Syrup has grown organically, with customers sharing before and after posts for optimum marketing without a crushing spend. Macleod also appeared on Dragons’ Den at the start of last year.

Macleod’s brand now has more than 94,000 followers, and is adding new products to its lineup all the time. Its fanbase continues to grow – including some big name influencers, which also drives sales. Not bad for a business started in her parents’ conservatory.

Shortlist – Hormona

Relatability has been absolutely key to the success of femtech startup Hormona. Co-founder Karolina Löfqvist had numerous health problems in her mid-20s and spent years trying to find the solution. She says that 80% of women have a story of undiagnosed hormone issues, as reflected by the 10 million women the brand now reaches monthly on average.

This has led to key business partnerships with brands that the founders say share their values – the latest being with activewear brand New Balance. “Building a network of key partnerships has been integral to Hormona’s growth. A big part of our success comes from fostering a team of passionate experts who proactively bring Hormona into the right conversations,” explains the team.

There have also been some huge press wins, including CNN coverage of the brand’s partnership with SpaceX. Hormona became the first femtech company to conduct hormone testing in space as part of a Falcon 9 mission in 2025.

Central to everything, though, is the fact that this is a brand created by women for women. The brand has opened up a dialogue that thousands of women can engage with and feel listened to.

Shortlist – Unravel

Traditional advertising has gone out the window in the past few years. Forget print and TV, consumers are now discovering brands, products, and services in between cat videos and viral memes. The Unravel team first noticed it when they were starting up in 2022.

“Consumer behaviour was changing,” the team recalls. “Millennials and Gen Z are spending over three hours a day watching videos. 86% discover their next vacation on TikTok.”

But businesses don’t want scrollers who just discover videos; they want audiences who shop them, too. That’s where Unravel comes in; the video-first lifestyle OS that drops personalised short-form videos into feeds, with one-tap booking inside partner apps.

The resulting solution catches consumers “at their highest moment of wanderlust”, says the team, “leading to a 12X higher conversion for partner brands”.

The last 12 months has brought impressive revenue growth, an oversubscribed Series A round, and prime placements within global travel names. The travel industry is booming post-COVID, and Unravel’s modern, customer-first business model is a big reason why.

Click below to discover the nominees and winners for our other Startups 100 Awards:

• Startups 100 Sustainability Award 2026 
• Startups 100 Technology Award 2026 
• Startups 100 Exceptional Founder Award 2026