96. bio-bean

Founders: Arthur Kay and Benjamin Harrison
Founded: January 2013
Website: www.bio-bean.com

Green energy start-up bio-bean has one of those rare propositions that is at once fascinating, unusual and immediately graspable. Conceived by co-founder and architecture graduate Arthur Kay when designing a coffee shop, the start-up collects used coffee grounds from coffee shops and wholesale producers across London, and converts them into high-value biodiesel and biomass pellets to sell on to the heating and transport industries.

Londoners get through a notoriously high amount of coffee per day, and with US and EU patent protection for its novel biofuel conversion process obtained in 2013, bio-bean has the exclusive right to tap into this hugely lucrative resource. With £200,000 grant backing, a growing list of big-name customers, and a rapidly growing market (according to Marketline data, the UK biofuel market is expected to double in size in the next three years), bio-bean looks set to become a big name in UK green energy.