47. Fussy

Marketing Award Winner

To recognise the startups that demonstrate the most creative and effective method for building early-stage brand awareness.

Startups 100: Marketing Award

Founder: Matt Kennedy

Year founded: 2020
Website: getfussy.com

Pitting itself against major deodorant brands, Fussy is on a mission to banish single-use plastics from your bathroom with natural personal care products that don’t stink.

After years working in advertising for what he describes as some of the biggest polluters in the world, founder Matt Kennedy grew dizzy from all the plastic waste his clients were propagating. Then, a lightbulb moment came when his wife could not find a natural deodorant product that worked and was convenient to use.

In 2020, he decided to launch Fussy, one of the world’s first refillable deodorants that also uses zero single-use plastic. Unlike rival deodorant startups and incumbents, the brand’s unique probiotic formula eliminates sweat by targeting the bad bacteria in your armpits for better-smelling results.

It was baptised as 'the apple of the bathroom' by Steven Bartlett for its distinct packaging

Fussy has already gained a distinct smell of success. Catching the attention of the Dragons on BBC One’s Dragon’s Den, the brand landed investment from Deborah Meaden and Peter Jones. It was also baptised as ‘the apple of the bathroom’ by Steven Bartlett for its distinct packaging which won it a coveted Red Dot Design Award.

Having sold over one million deodorants to armpits worldwide, and grown a user base of over 150,000 self-proclaimed “Fusserss”, Fussy is freshening up the lives of sustainability-driven deodorant users.

As proof of its successful consumer roll-out, Fussy launched a Kickstarter program that crowned it the highest-grossing deodorant on the platform, raising £114,723 in total. In 2022, it raised a further £1.1m in crowdfunding, and hit its target within an hour of the pitch going live.

Fussy has used these wins to forge retail partnerships with Wholefoods and Ocado. Currently, it also populates the shelves of over 800 Tesco stores around the country.

Fussy was awarded B-Corp Status and says it has stopped over 35,000kg of single-use plastic from entering landfill.

Besides supermarket success, Fussy has also made strides in its commitment to cleaning up the environment. It was awarded B-Corp Status and, with its refillable solution, says it has stopped over 35,000kg of single-use plastic from entering landfill

Fussy has the right building blocks to continue piling up successes including a great team of advisors who have previously aided fellow Startups 100 alumni, Pasta Evangelists, and The Modern Milkman.

In future, Fussy wants its name to be synonymous with deodorant, just like Tesla is for electric vehicles. To achieve this, it will expand its product line and enter new territories to create a better smelling planet for every body. That sounds (and smells) great to us!