Five companies from the Midlands have won an area on the league table of Britain’s fastest-growing tech firms.
Published a few days ago, the 18th annual Sunday Times Hiscox Tech Track 100 league table ranks Britain’s private technology, media and telecoms (TMT) companies while using the fastest-growing sales.
The five companies headquartered within the Midlands (in comparison with three in 2009) have grown their sales by about 91% annually over a couple of years with a total of £100m, and together they now employ 570 people.
The five companies include three new entrants towards the table. Most notable is Nottingham-based UNiDAYS, which could instantly verify students for retail brands which consists of technology. It says its website and mobile app widely-used by 10m students worldwide, to access brands including Apple, Asos, Virgin and McDonald’s. Sales hit £27.4m in 2018.
Also featuring in my ballet shoes this current year is Solihull’s Biosite Systems, that has a lot more than 200,000 UK construction workers registered on its workforce management systems. Over 1,000 construction sites in the UK used its technology, including its biometric fingerprint recognition system, helping sales hit £6.4m in 2017.
The companies within the Midlands appear with businesses from around Britain, including currency transfer provider TransferWise, peer-to-peer lending platform Funding Circle and web-based entertainment community LADBible Group.
Past stars include travel browser’s search engine Skyscanner, that is bought by Ctrip, China’s largest travel company, for £1.4bn in 2016, to listed takeaway website Just Eat, now worth £5bn.
The Tech Track 100 is sponsored by Hiscox, Barclays, BDO, BGF and N+1 Singer, and authored by Steps for success, the Oxford-based research and networking events firm.
Steve McGerr, head of direct commercial at Hiscox Insurance UK, said: “Tech businesses during the Midlands are thriving because of fearlessness and determination of those who run them. We now have great popularity of the talented entrepreneurs that make up the lenders within this year’s Tech Track 100.”
The national picture
This year’s Tech Track 100 companies achieved average sales growth over 3 years of 101% a year towards a combined total of £3.3bn. They employ 19,300 staff, having added 14,000 employees on their combined workforce over the period.
London is regarded as the popular area for company headquarters with 58, with the northwest (11). On the remainder, seven information mill located in the southeast, six while in the northeast, five within the East, five during the Midlands, three in Wales, two each in Scotland as well as the southwest, and one in Northern Ireland.
