Four Wealth Club backed companies in the Sunday Times 100 2025
Don't invest unless you’re prepared to lose all the money you invest. This is a high-risk investment and you are unlikely to be protected if something goes wrong. Take 2 mins to learn more.
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Due to the potential for losses, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) considers this investment to be high risk.
What are the key risks?
- You could lose all the money you invest
- If the business you invest in fails, you are likely to lose 100% of the money you invested. Most start-up businesses fail.
- You are unlikely to be protected if something goes wrong
- Protection from the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS), in relation to claims against failed regulated firms, does not cover poor investment performance. Try the FSCS investment protection checker here.
- Protection from the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) does not cover poor investment performance. If you have a complaint against an FCA-regulated firm, FOS may be able to consider it. Learn more about FOS protection here.
- You won’t get your money back quickly
- Even if the business you invest in is successful, it may take several years to get your money back. You are unlikely to be able to sell your investment early.
- The most likely way to get your money back is if the business is bought by another business or lists its shares on an exchange such as the London Stock Exchange. These events are not common.
- If you are investing in a start-up business, you should not expect to get your money back through dividends. Start-up businesses rarely pay these.
- Don’t put all your eggs in one basket
- Putting all your money into a single business or type of investment for example, is risky. Spreading your money across different investments makes you less dependent on any one to do well.
- A good rule of thumb is not to invest more than 10% of your money in high-risk investments.
- The value of your investment can be reduced
- The percentage of the business that you own will decrease if the business issues more shares. This could mean that the value of your investment reduces, depending on how much the business grows. Most start-up businesses issue multiple rounds of shares.
- These new shares could have additional rights that your shares don’t have, such as the right to receive a fixed dividend, which could further reduce your chances of getting a return on your investment.
If you are interested in learning more about how to protect yourself, visit the FCA’s website here.
Four companies featured this year’s Sunday Times 100 are backed by Wealth Club investors through Pembroke VCT and the Startup Funding Club SEIS and EIS funds.
The annual list published in June ranks the UK’s hundred fastest-growing non-tech private companies. Its counterpart – the Sunday Times 100 Tech – is published in January focusing specifically on UK technology companies.
To make it onto the list, the companies must be independent and private. They must be profitable, with revenues between £5 million and £250 million in their most recent year.
The newspaper estimates the small, young, non-tech businesses in its latest list have created 10,500 new jobs in the past three years and are planning 5,300 more over the next 12 months.
Which are the four companies backed by Wealth Club investors? How might you invest in similar companies via VCT, EIS and SEIS?
Important: The information on this website is for experienced investors. It is not a personal recommendation to invest. If you’re unsure, please seek advice. Investments are for the long term. They are high risk and illiquid and can fall as well as rise in value: you could lose all the money you invest.
Read more on the companies
In alphabetical order:
- COAT Paints – Pembroke VCT
- Hunter & Gather – Startup Funding Club SEIS and EIS funds
- Secret Food Tours – Pembroke VCT
- With Nothing Underneath – Pembroke VCT
Ranked #58
1. COAT Paints – premium paint retailer
Annual sales growth over three years: 81.77%
Luxury paint brand COAT doesn’t make paint until someone orders it. The colour is then hand-mixed and shipped the same day.
The idea is to help redress how the paint industry discards millions of litres of unsold paint each year in landfills – and numerous other environmentally-damaging practices.
COAT was founded in 2020 by Rob Abrams and Rob Green to be “the first Climate Positive paint company in the world” – accredited for removing more carbon than it emits. COAT offers to recycle used tins and leftover paint. Instead of tester pots (unrecyclable), it provides colour swatches. The solvent-free, low-toxin paints are produced within the UK (or in Belgium for Europe) to minimise miles – and they’re cruelty-free and certified safe for children and pets.
The company generated £7.5 million in sales across the UK and Europe in the year to March 2025. Pembroke VCT first invested in June 2021, building to a total investment of £5 million and a 39.1% stake in the company. The position is currently valued at £10.3 million (March 2025) – past performance is not a guide to the future.
Ranked #97
2. Hunter & Gather – food and supplements brand
Annual sales growth over three years: 57.48%
Hunter & Gather creates and sells health food, including collagen supplements and condiments free of refined sugar and seed oils, suitable for ketogenic and paleo diets. These are now stocked in Tesco, Selfridges, Holland & Barrett and Ocado, and also shipped across Europe.
The fast-growing company was founded in 2017 by partners Amy Moring and Jeff Webster. They had met as teens, growing up with serious food intolerance – in Amy’s case, Coeliac disease. Both are now Forbes 30 Under 30 entrepreneurs (Europe Retail & Commerce 2021) and many of their brand’s “healthier-choice” products – such as unsweetened tomato ketchup and avocado oil mayonnaises – have won Great Taste Awards.
The company reportedly achieved £11.2 million in sales in 2024.
The Startup Funding Club SEIS fund invested in April 2018 and 2019, with the EIS fund providing follow-on funding in 2021 and 2022. Today, the combined SEIS investment is valued at 16.1x cost, and the EIS investment is valued at 3.2x (May 2025). Past performance is not a guide to the future.
Ranked #14
3. Secret Food Tours – customised tours platform
Annual sales growth over three years: 160.70%
Secret Food Tours offers premium, off-the-beaten-track experiences for foodies – from finding where locals eat, to workshops with chefs and artisans, to tasting indigenous delicacies like crocodile tongue.
The business was founded in 2013 by beer buddies Nico Jacquart and Oliver Mernick-Levene. They had an idea to organise “food crawls” – like a pub crawl but for food. Their customised-tours platform now hosts hundreds of freelance tour-guides and helps boost high-quality independent local food and drink businesses in over 80 cities around the world.
Pembroke VCT first invested in 2018, building to a total investment of £2 million to date. Having announced a profitable partial exit of the company in March 2025, the VCT continues to maintain an equity stake – you can read the details in our article New 5.3x partial exit for Pembroke VCT: Secret Food Tours. Past performance is not a guide to the future.
Secret Food Tours has featured before in the Sunday Times 100: in 2024 it was placed #22 with annual revenue of £13.5 million. The company moved up the ranks this year to #14, having generated sales of £17.9 million in the year to January 2025.
Ranked #52
4. With Nothing Underneath – luxury womenswear
Annual sales growth over three years: 87.78%
Luxury clothing brand With Nothing Underneath (WNU) was founded in 2017 by Pip Durell – a former Tatler Magazine editor and Vogue stylist. Her aim was to create the perfect women’s shirt, inspired by men’s tailoring, British heritage and timeless style. Today, such shirts remain core to the brand, which also offers a range of other wardrobe essentials.
WNU has built something of a cult following – its high-profile fans include Cara Delevingne and Florence Pugh, and its sample sales attract long queues down the street in London’s Belgravia.
Started as an online retailer, WNU now also operates two stores in London and one in Salcombe, Devon, with plans to expand into the US and Europe. The company has reportedly been profitable each year since inception, and generated sales of £5.7 million last year.
In October 2024, WNU raised £2.5 million in its first funding round, with Pembroke investing £1.5 million alongside JamJar Investments, the venture firm led by the senior team from Innocent Drinks. The investment is currently held at cost (March 2025).
How to invest in similar companies
Secret Food Tours, With Nothing Underneath and COAT Paints are part of Pembroke VCT’s existing portfolio. The VCT is currently closed. Details of a new offer for subscription for the 2025/26 and 2026/27 tax years are expected to be published in September 2025 – you can register your interest to hear when the new offer opens.
Experienced investors can get exposure to companies like Hunter & Gather (albeit not necessarily Hunter & Gather itself) by investing in Startup Funding Club SEIS fund or Startup Funding Club All-Star Follow-on Fund EIS.
Both are currently open for investment, targeting a portfolio of c.10 companies or more, and a return of 3x after five to eight years (not guaranteed) – the minimum investment is £10,000 and you can apply online.
See Startup Funding Club SEIS performance
Performance per £100 invested in each tax year
Source: SFC, as at May 2025. Past performance is not a guide to future performance. The chart shows realised returns (where share proceeds have been returned to investors as cash) and unrealised returns (where cash has not yet been returned and the value of the investments is based on the manager’s own valuation methodology). There is no ready market for unlisted shares. The figures shown are net of all fees and do not include any income tax relief or loss relief.
See Startup Funding Club EIS performance
Performance per £100 invested in each tax year
Source: SFC, as at May 2025. Past performance is not a guide to future performance. The chart shows realised returns (where share proceeds have been returned to investors as cash) and unrealised returns (where cash has not yet been returned and the value of the investments is based on the manager’s own valuation methodology). There is no ready market for unlisted shares. The figures shown are net of all fees and do not include any income tax relief or loss relief.
See Pembroke VCT performance
NAV and cumulative dividends per share over five years (p)
Source: Morningstar. Past performance is no guide to the future. Dividends are variable and not guaranteed. The bar chart shows net asset value and cumulative dividends per share for the period 31/12/2019-31/03/2025.
Wealth Club aims to make it easier for experienced investors to find information on – and apply for – investments. You should base your investment decision on the offer documents and ensure you have read and fully understand them before investing. The information on this webpage is a marketing communication. It is not advice or a personal or research recommendation to buy any of the investments mentioned, nor does it include any opinion as to the present or future value or price of these investments. It does not satisfy legal requirements promoting investment research independence and is thus not subject to prohibitions on dealing ahead of its dissemination.
Alex Davies
Chief Executive
Alex was a board director at Hargreaves Lansdown, where he worked for 15 years. He was responsible for building Hargreaves Lansdown into the biggest direct-to-consumer SIPP provider in the UK with more than 150,000 clients and over £12 billion under management. He is a keen investor with a portfolio of shares, funds, student property, EIS and VCT investments.