Startups Award winners Naked Wines, Crowdcube and Secret Escapes celebrate growth

Naked Wines, Crowdcube and Secret Escapes have demonstrated exactly why they hold their Startups Award winning titles after making a series of impressive announcements this week.

Boutique wine retailer Naked Wines, overall winner of the 2010 Startups Awards – Startups Business of the Year, has revealed that it has doubled its annual profits on 2012-2013 having grown its customer ‘angel’ investment network to 220,000 investors. Sales have reached an impressive £5m a month and worldwide sales have hit £53m, a 40% increase on its previous 12 months.

Since winning at the prestigious Startups Awards, the wine producer venture capital fund now ships over 25,000 bottles of wine a day across the UK, US and Australia.

Last year’s Funded Business of the Year winner Crowdcube has won the accolade for the ‘Best Equity Crowdfunded Angel Deal’ at the UK Business Angels Association Awards. The equity-based crowdfunding platform was granted the award for storage company Lovespace, which raised £1.6m through its site from both UK and European venture capital firms in June, exceeding its original target by 167%.

On the back of its Startups Award win last December, Crowdcube, co-founded by 2013 Young Gun Luke Lang, has now successfully funded over £28m in 128 businesses and has extended its investment offering with the launch of its ‘mini-bond’ scheme.

Secret Escapes, 2012 Online Business of the Year, is also celebrating further expansion of its flash sale hotel site after acquiring Polish competitor Travelist for an undisclosed amount. The deal, which will see Travelist continue under its CEO Tomasz Nowinski, will enable Secret Escapes to grow its subscribers by an additional 600,000 members and “replicate its success” in Poland.

Secret Escapes, founded in 2010 by Young Gun Tom Valentine, Alex Saint and Troy Collins, has scaled rapidly following its win in 2010 and recently purchased German mobile booking specialist JustBook to enhance its mobile strategy.

For your chance to be a part of the impressive Startups Awards alumni, enter the Startups Awards 2014 now by clicking here.