A start-up in the county has won recognition from Dragons' Den star Theo Paphitis.

Goal 17, a mentor training programme which uses football to help transform lives, won the Theo Paphitis #SBS (Small Business Sunday) award.

Held each week, it allows small firms to tweet the businessman with the top six winning the prize of not only being featured on the Small Business Sunday website, but also retweeted to the star's 500,000 Twitter followers.

Founders of Goal 17, Fran Boorman from Tunbridge Wells and Keith Mabbutt from Maidstone met the businessman the day after they came out on top.

The company teaches mentoring skills by pairing corporate staff with homeless young people who are on a 10-week transformational academy with Goal 17’s charity partner, The Street Soccer Foundation.

Fran Boorman said: “We feel honoured to receive so much wonderful recognition at such and early stage in our business. Whilst the awards are lovely what really matters to us is the impact we are making on the lives of both our young people and corporate mentors.

"We are driven by a passion to break down boundaries and bring two very different sides of society together. For us, the biggest rewards is seeing the change our programmes create and the many different people that we are able to effect.”