79. Zap&Go

Founders: Stephen Voller, Tim Walder, Dr Jonathan Tuck and Dr Marappa Rajendran
Founded: September 2013 (Launched February 2016)
Website: www.zapandgocharger.com

Technology has transformed all our lives in the last few decades, but no matter how advanced it gets, it’s useless when the battery runs out and you don’t have time to charge it.

As a regular business traveller, Stephen Voller was utterly dependent on his mobile phone but became exasperated with the amount of time he spent sitting on airport floors waiting for his phone to recharge. This fuelled the development of Zap&Go, a graphene supercapacitor-based charger that claims to be able to recharge mobile phones, laptops, cordless appliances and even electric vehicles in five minutes or less.

Due for launch this summer, the product has already pre-sold to customers in 70 countries – currently retailing at a price of $149. While there are other supercapacitors on the market, they typically operate at a voltage of 2.7v, whereas the Zap&Go boasts 6V – actually giving it five times the capacity of competitors.

The business is currently in the process of raising a Series A round of $20m, with plans to launch a sales office in the US and a joint venture company in China, as well as investing in its research and development facilities in Oxford. Ambitious seems almost an understatement. Ultimately, Zap&Go’s aim is for its supercapacitor to replace the lithium-ion battery inside mobile phones.