2. Flight Club

Founders: Steve Moore and Paul Barham
Founded: December 2014
Website: www.flightclubdarts.com

Until recently, Darts has been widely regarded as a fairly passé pub game – a relic of smoky old taverns, traditionally played by burly men with ruddy faces.

Well not anymore…

Long-time friends Steve Moore and Paul Barham have brought darts flying back into the 21st century with Flight Club– a Shoreditch-based social darts venue which takes the esteemed runner-up spot in this year’s Startups 100 index.

Able to cater for groups of between two to 390 people, there’s no messing around with chalk and mental calculations at Flight Club. Instead its state-of-the-art technology takes care of all the calculations and guides the players through fast-moving multiplayer games – it can even host 100+ tournaments, moving teams around and can host player showdowns. And if you’re after pizzas, burgers, a beer or some bubbly, Flight Club also features a full restaurant and bar.

Since opening in October 2015, 150,000 customers have passed through Flight Club’s doors, throwing a collective 14 million darts between them and helping the venue towards a projected £8.7m in turnover for 2017.

With a team of 180 staff and growing, the company is set to open its second location very soon on Oxford Street before taking aim at Bristol, Manchester and beyond. Moore and Barham also have global ambitions and, over the next five to 10 years, hope to have four or five Flight Club venues in locations worldwide:

“We know people get bored easily, so we’re in a state of almost constant product development. We’re conscious of not getting complacent of the success we’ve had so far”, Moore and Barham explain.

Has Flight Club hit the bullseye? If its early success is anything to go by, we think so.