The second city is renowned for start-ups, and that was found in the study conducted at the beginning of 2019 which found that Birmingham was the top city outside of London for business.

The organising research team from Think Tank Centre for Entrepreneurs found that of the 660,000 companies that were formed; 18.590 of them were launched within the West Midlands. This is a significant rise from 12 months before, where only 13,165 were launched. It was the second successive year that the city had ranked as the highest outside of London for business.

Here are five start-ups that Brumies should be on the lookout for this year.

Buckt

Daniel Bridgewater founded this marvellous company in 2017 and began trading the following year. It is a brilliant idea, which sees members save thousands on doing a range of popular activities around the area.

Buckt is predominantly an activities and tickets subscription service that sends their members five tickets per month that could range across every possible genre. The tickets are delivered to subscribers via a Buckt Box, and has been widely received with acclaim by everybody that deals with the company.

EVezy

Electric cars are growing more and more popular due to their environmental benefits, and EVezy has pounced on that fact and created a whole new market that has excelled. They have created a new model for EV usage, which provides all the users with the benefit of using electric cars without the long-term commitment of owning one.

EVezy users pay a subscription to become a member and can pick up an electric car at one of their depots. The idea was the brainchild of CEO Rob Jolly and began trading in 2018, and since then has raised over £250,000 in seed funding.

Magic Candy Factory

Everybody has their own preference for sweets, and this company appeals to people who prefer different variations on their favourite sweets by incorporating 3D technology into the manufacturing process. The printer enables everyday use in designing and customised printed sweets.

The company was founded in 2015 after Melissa Snover had sold her other company Goody Good Stuff, and has formed a productive partnership with Bastien Fassin from the Katjes confectionary sector. It has already received wide acclaim and picked up the 2017 award for Best UK Tech startup from Disruptive Tech TV.

Wambiz

Andrew West and Harry Jawanda formed this company in 2013, and it has gone on to raise $2.6 million in angel and seed funding thus far. It is predominantly a customer experience specialist company that creates private social account networks and smart applications for the corporate and educational markets.

It is best known for specialising in university, colleges and schools as a way of allowing students and teachers to communicate effectively. The way that it works to engage users without blurring the lines has been remarkable in day-to-day educational use.

Voxpopme

This company was founded by Andrew Barraclough, Tom Williams and Dave Carruthers in 2013, and has gone on to raise $5.6 million to date; this is in no small part down to their global client list which consists of companies such as Microsoft, Visa, Twitch and Tesco.

It is predominantly a video insight and analytical platform. It develops end-to-end video research that captures data before analysing the content to allow work with video to run smoothly and effortlessly.