7 UK Startups You Need To Know About in 2021

A now-you-know list of Tech Fictionᵀᴹ’s shithottest Britfirms currently producing the blue chip designer applets that made London’s ‘Silicon Carwash’ the top European unicorn paddock in 2020.

Khazee

After one ladle of fruit punch too many, West London reggae boys Barty and Giles had a familiar call of nature during Notting Hill’s annual Caribbean street food conference… and hit upon a multimillion pound app idea that has 15 million downloads already.

Discovering the carnival’s woeful record for above board toileting, Khazee’s current directors reached the conclusion that any domestic bathroom in the W11 postcode should be fair game when it comes to relieving themselves. Khazee allows its users to rent out their own private pans for public use, as well as live maps for nearby conveniences should you yourself be caught short; with a growing database that includes Occupied, Vacant and Blocked statuses.

Antlex

With the ultimate goal of monetising the hot air generated from mouthy social media fandom, Antlex is an online trading floor for buying and selling previously worthless football theories, insults and opinions harvested from online comments and micro-blogging sites.

Anything from an angry tweet following a misguided Panenka to an abandoned Gegenpress theory underneath an old YouTube video are mined and verified for their value, to be traded anonymously and passed off by young bucks repeatedly, whilst advanced traders can build a Farm alongside top influencers to speculate and indeed lucratively opine on a truly sustainable emerging industry of shit-talking.

Convolut

Imagine an app where all those loose pennies saved on online purchases are automatically invested in some of the UK’s leading tech companies, by copying top performing traders without ever having to consult the markets, understand stocks or even have a settled opinion on what’s six times seven.

Play the markets blindfolded, confidently wagering a crafty 20p here and there on who knows what; surfing asunder on top an incalculable labyrinth of technocapital from the comfort of your iOS, forever at bay like a dutifully spade Wolf of Wall Street.

SimplyFollow

Three-quarters owned by the same buccaneering venture capitalists that fund the dreadnoughts of the Eastern European cam girl sites, SimplyFollow is a pornographic Harrier Jump Jet from a British entrepreneur who saw added value in the emptiest corners of the lone human condition.

Providing a competitively authentic girlfriend experience, professional girls-next-door from Bedford to Birkenhead have taken home up to a $1 million a month from subscribers looking to simulate the slow decline of shared erotic embers; from longplay clips of post-coital disappointment to expertly crafted performances of not really making an effort anymore.

Hello Awesome

Biking a box of rainbow seed selections straight to your home or workplace, Hello Awesome is the leader in joyfree protein snacking for a growing customer base who deep down are craving to be pellet-fed between the knuckles of a giant benevolent master, as would a rare, exotic budgerigar.

Hello Awesome lets customers input the exact amount of protein they nutritionally require, and in return receive a mystery denomination of seeds in a colourful arrangement, with an app interface so infantilising it was developed by a breastfed team of UX designers all under the age of five.

Loboto

Turning his back on a promising career in fire poi entertainment with a first class degree in Māori Performing Arts, the Bristolian founder of the mindfulness app Loboto was training as a monk at a Nepalese Airbnb when he realised how much of his hard earned inner peace was profoundly lucrative.

The app offers a library of meditations, and a handful of Loboto-Freeᵀᴹ sessions are available designed to talk you out of a panic attack or minor breakdown, whilst some of the premium relaxation seminars are so successful they have occasionally come with warnings against involuntary erections in case listened to aboard public transport.

Weekndr

Over-conceived over several years to the point of madness until a crucial funding round, the entrepreneurs behind the lairy Weekndr app asked themselves the previously seldom-proffered question; what if your whole weekend was taken care of in the palm of your hand, with the challenge gamely taken up by millions of housebound young British men in 2020.

Enter live betting, dating and a streaming offering all on one app, with a naughty graphite interface that chants: I’m the spirit of mid-Noughties indie landfill reincarnated as malware for an iPhone 7; hear my prayer.

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