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Independent visual effects company Coffee & TV puts the magic into ads for brands like Volkswagen and Innocent smoothies, but co-founder and CEO Derek Moore believes the secret to success was to “go it alone” without external funding.

Raishma Islam has created over 2,000 couture and bridal gowns since 1998. In 2013, with the help from the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme-qualifying investment, she entered the ready-to-wear business, creating a range for the premium high street.

After founding and selling trend-forecasting company WGSN, CEO and founder Marc Worth started again by self-funding Stylus, an innovation research and advisory firm that has scaled to reach a turnover of over £10m.

Early investment from friends and family helped Cafepod enter the lucrative coffee capsule market when Nespresso’s patent expired, and six years on the company’s pods are stocked in every major UK supermarket.

Founder and CEO Charlie Bradshaw started his product design and manufacturing business Matrix APA at 19, but over 20 years later he’s come a long way on his human and emotional capital journey, placing team values and cultural fit at the heart of his success.

With minimum external investment, online betting exchange Smarkets disrupted the industry by building its own proprietary platform to become one of Europe’s fastest-growing companies.

Selling contact lenses online might have little to do with a Japanese arcade game, but CEO Michael Kraftman credits the company’s success to its acquisitive “Pac-Man” strategy.

An impressive 55.9% annual average revenue growth rate between 2012 and 2015 helped confirm Longitude’s place on the FT1000 fastest-growing businesses in Europe list. But it has done so entirely from cashflow, rather than relying on external financial support.

ToucanBox is among the UK’s fastest-growing education technology businesses thanks to early backing from the co-founders of Innocent Drinks and equity investment from BGF.