10. Neon Play

Founder: Oli Christie
Founded: March 2010
Website: www.neonplay.com

Gloucestershire-based game developer Neon Play is already seeing its mobile apps downloaded over 20,000 times a day. In his previous life as a creative director for digital marketing, Christie made hundreds of branded games for clients including Tesco (he maintains that the popular ‘paper toss’ app was inspired by a game he made for the BBC).

Applying his expertise to his own venture has paid off, and the start-up is making some of the most popular games on iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. Indeed, Rovio, the company behind Angry Birds, has admitted that Neon Play’s apps received more downloads than Angry Birds did in its first year. The firm is now extending its proposition to make games for Android and Nokia devices, which represent a huge opportunity for the company.