Fastest growing UK tech firms listed in Fast 50
LONDON-based real-time advertising exchange Infectious Media has been named the UK’s fastest growing technology company with revenue growth of nearly 10,000 per cent since 2008.
The title was awarded yesterday as part of Deloitte’s Technology Fast 50, a ranking of the 50 fastest growing UK technology companies.
“With the financial crisis in full swing, we were forced to bootstrap the business. It didn’t feel great at the time, but in retrospect it was a good thing. We had no choice but to be profitable from day one, and it also made us very disciplined with costs,” said Infectious Media co-founder and chief executive Martin Kelly who’s business boasts average growth of 9,774 per cent per year over a five year period.
The companies together generate over £672m in annual revenues and share an average five-year growth rate of 1,382 per cent.
“Britain’s technology companies have faced a challenging five years, even though the winners have grown significantly faster than the economy over the past five years, but they cannot, and do not, operate in isolation,” said Deloitte partner David Halstead who ran the Fast 50 ranking.
Deloitte said that the 50 companies named this year are the most regionally diverse group ever, however London still led the way in the rankings with 40 per cent of the businesses based in the capital.
Mobile payment services provider Monitise came sixth on the list – a slight slip from its third place position last year – with a 2,319 per cent growth rate over the past five years.
Monitise finance chief Brad Petzer said, “We are extremely pleased to have been named as the UK’s sixth fastest growing technology company, and more so to have maintained our top 15 position amid such strong competition for the last three years.”
Financing the rapid growth came largely from banks with a quarter of the companies taking on bank debt, while crowdfunding came in as the least popular source of finance, with only a small number of the chief executives using it within the past five years or intending to use it in the future.