People’s Champion Finalist: Whisk

Start-up name: Whisk
Founder: Nick Holzherr
Started in: 2012
Based in: Birmingham
Business description: Digital shopping list

Shortlisted category:

App Business of the Year

The Whisk story:

Fans of The Apprentice may remember Whisk’s founder Nick Holzherr from series eight of the BBC show, where he failed to get Lord Sugar’s support for an app that combines recipes and online shopping. A few years later and digital shopping app Whisk has partnered with some of the world’s largest recipe publishers and is integrated with Tesco, Ocado, Waitrose and Asda.

The smart app lets you turn recipes into instant shopping lists and immediately purchase the ingredients from an online store or in-store. Whisk also learns its users’ preferences and recommends relevant recipes and products.

The platform derives revenue from brands and retailers, who can target shoppers with in-app ads tailored to their recipes and preferences. Its latest innovation is WhiskConnect, which enables brands to make any of their online content shoppable – that goes for video content, displays and social media.

With brands spending a whopping $7.2bn on digital marketing across multiple channels, Whisk provides them with an integrated, less intrusive and more targeted approach.

Why Whisk made our 60:

Lord Sugar will be kicking himself he didn’t hire this promising entrepreneur –Nick Holzherr’s digital shopping app has the potential to reach 30 million people, across 11 countries and six languages. With the percentage of consumers buying groceries online expected to double by 2020, Whisk is poised to become the go-to app for the market.

Where to find out more about Whisk:

Website: https://whisk.com
Twitter: twitter.com/WhiskTeam
Facebook: www.facebook.com/Whiskapps