98. Much Better Adventures

Founders: Alex Narracott, Sam Bruce and Guy Bowden 
Founded: May 2012
Website: www.muchbetteradventures.com

Much Better Adventures was created to “fight against the nightmare that is finding your perfect holiday admist thousands of ‘on the shelf’, inaccurate, out of date and irrelevant search results”. Currently focusing on ski holidays, the start-up offers thrill seeking ski-lovers a tailor-made holiday with just one enquiry form – your details are then shared with local and independent specialists who pitch bespoke deals. The business concept was conceived by the three founders after they spent years working for niche travel companies and realised how difficult it was to compete with big operators and how hard it was for travellers to find the best local, independent specialists.

Since launching in 2012, the tailor-made holiday site has seen rapid growth, selling £6m worth of holidays, securing angel funds from the creators of Nokia’s Snake and more than doubling customer numbers year-on-year. Alongside being pioneers of independent companies and adventurous travellers, the start-up’s founding trio are also do-gooders having set up the Much Better Holiday foundation – whereby a percentage of every holiday booked goes towards carefully selected grassroots conservation and sustainable development projects in adventure tourism destinations.

And the start-up shows no signs of slowing down– confidently asserting that they will book 11,000 customers and £11m in bookings over the next 12 months – as well as new hires, 20 plus new locations and targeting the lucrative (and travel hungry) Australian and American markets alongside steady European expansion.