3. Mous Products

Founders: James Griffith, Josh Shires, Will Mullen, Lucy Hutchinson and James Day
Founded: March 2015 (launched November 2016)
Website: www.mous.co

A phone, camera, social media feed, shopping centre, search engine and gaming system that we can fit into our pocket – the smartphone has become an essential item to fulfill all of our needs.

Unfortunately, protecting these sleek devices from damage usually means buying a bulky case with all the elegance of a tractor tyre.

Entrepreneurs James Griffith and Josh Shires understood this and, spotting a gap in the market in 2015, began developing slim, stylish cases that could also effectively protect phones from damage.

Launched in November 2016, their tech brand Mous Products offers cases that deliver just that.

Spearheading innovation in the phone case market with tech-informed research and development, each Mous case is made from unique, impact-absorbing AiroShock material which can protect your smartphone from all levels of of damage.

To market the product, Mous unleashed a social media campaign which saw the team drop phones in Mous cases from windows, cranes and iconic London bridges. Crucially, the phones lived to tell the tale.

As a result, when Mous launched on crowdfunding platform Indiegogo in 2016, the business received a record $2.4m worth of pre-orders and attracted 50,000 backers.

This marked the most successful mobile accessories crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo, and the biggest crowdfunding round for an iPhone case, ever. So impressive was this feat that the start-up was awarded Crowdfunded Business of the Year at the Startups Awards 2017.

And the business has continued to get noticed.

Picking up clues from leaks and speculation surrounding the then-upcoming iPhone X, in 2017 Mous’ team designed a case for it ahead of the launch. They then snuck into A London iPhoneX launch, bought a phone, slotted it into their case, and threw it 20 feet into the air in front of aghast Apple fans.

Again, the phone survived, the stunt went viral, and Mous’ sales skyrocketed.

With multi-million pound turnover and a hugely creative advertising team, this start-up looks set to shake up the smartphone accessories market long into the future.