100 Fastest growing Northern Tech Companies of UK 2018

Good to discover a number of companies I've not heard of before. Long live Northern Tech Awards!
About Techcelerate Ventures

Tech Investment and Growth Advisory for Series A in the UK, operating in £150k to £5m investment market, working with #SaaS #FinTech #HealthTech #MarketPlaces and #PropTech companies.
company year busi E R growth tech work
Good to discover a number of companies I've not heard of before. Long live Northern Tech Awards!
About Techcelerate Ventures

Tech Investment and Growth Advisory for Series A in the UK, operating in £150k to £5m investment market, working with #SaaS #FinTech #HealthTech #MarketPlaces and #PropTech companies.
company year busi E R growth tech work
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N O R T H E R N  T E C H  1 0 0
If you’ve ever wondered who the top 100 tech companies in the North of 
England are, look no further. This publication showcases and celebrates the 
fastest-growing businesses in the region. 
It marks the second Northern Tech 100 league table, a list produced by our 
partner GP Bullhound, and it’s great to see so many companies remain on the 
table, as well as seeing so many new faces join the ranks.
The Car Buying Group topped the table in 2017, and it’s impressive to see them 
take third position in 2018 having doubled staff numbers in the past year and 
grown 191% in three years.
New entries this year include the social media influencer agency Social Chain 
and we were delighted to see data analytics firm Peak make it onto this year’s 
table – a company that’s been on both our Northern Stars and Upscale growth 
programmes.
The league table was born out of GP Bullhound’s annual Northern Tech Awards. 
We saw an opportunity to work together to shine an even bigger spotlight on 
as many companies as possible, and that’s what this publication aims to do.
We want to celebrate the growth of the sector in the North of England, chal-
lenge the perception that most tech startups are based in London, share 
insights from the companies that are blazing a trail, and openly discuss some 
of the challenges the sector faces.
We’d love to hear your views on this year’s league table and the growth of 
the tech scene in the North – let us know on Twitter using #NorthernTech100 
and we’ll see you there.
V I C K I  S H I E L
E D I T O R  I N  C H I E F 
Head of Content & Learning, Tech Nation
@ V I C K I S H I E L  O N  T W I T T E R
INTRO-
DUCTION
CON-
TENTS
Introduction
Gerard Grech, Tech Nation
Hugh Campbell, GP Bullhound
Emma Rawlinson, In Touch Networks
Darren Jobling, ZeroLight
Coworking Spaces of the North
Laurence Newman, CurrentBody
Sarat Pediredla, Hedgehog Lab
James Hall, Parallax
Tech Nation Report 2018
Natasha Sayce-Zelem, Sky 
Rod Knox, Virtual College
Credits
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1 .  I N  T O U C H  N E T W O R K S
M A N C H E S T E R ,  E - C O M M E R C E  &  M A R K E T P L A C E S
A Deloitte Fast 50 regional winner two years running and the 86th Fastest 
Growing Company in Europe according to the Financial Times, In Touch 
Networks has transformed the way companies hire board members and senior 
freelance professionals.
 
 
 
 
 
In Touch Networks is made up of an expert group of online networks, remov-
ing costs from the recruitment process and bringing elite professionals and 
employers together. The networks enable organisations like KPMG, Santander 
and the NHS to gain access to candidates of the highest calibre.
2 .  C H A M E L E O N  T E C H N O L O G Y
H A R R O G A T E ,  H A R D W A R E
 
Harrogate-based Chameleon Technology is one of Europe’s leading providers 
of connected home solutions — winning the European Energy Monitor of the 
Year award at the Smart Energy Summit in 2014, 2015 and 2016.
 
Energy retailers across the UK and abroad rely on Chameleon’s accurate, 
easy-to-use in-home energy monitors. A focus on innovation and user-centred 
design underpins the company’s approach.
3 .  T H E  C A R  B U Y I N G  G R O U P
W A K E F I E L D ,  E - C O M M E R C E  &  M A R K E T P L A C E S
 
Since topping the Northern Tech 100 league table in 2017, The Car Buying 
Group has almost tripled its turnover, surpassing £50m within just four years 
of the company being founded.
 
The company started when its founders recognised the opportunity to disrupt 
the monopoly held by one company in the online car purchasing and selling 
industry. 
By making customer convenience the firm’s primary focus, The Car Buying 
Group succeeded in grabbing a significant market share and enjoyed 191 per 
cent growth over three years. Since 2017, the company’s staff has doubled in 
size but the firm has remained loyal to the North, retaining its headquarters 
in Wakefield.
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4 .  F R U U G O . C O M
U LV E R S T O N ,  E - C O M M E R C E  &  M A R K E T P L A C E S
 
Fruugo has made it possible for people in 32 countries 
to access its transactional marketplace, offering retail 
services in 17 languages and 21 currencies — all from its 
base in Ulverston, Cumbria.
 
With a mission to “provide great choice and the freedom 
to shop safely wherever you are”, Fruugo has attracted 
retailers by offering its services on a no sale, no fee basis. 
The company handles transactions, payments and the 
vast majority of customer service issues, making it excep-
tionally easy for retailers to sell their products through 
Fruugo’s global checkout.
 
Year-on-year growth of 141 per cent has helped Fruugo to 
forge partnerships with e-commerce firms like Visualsoft, 
whose client, online footwear retailer Charles Clinkard, 
reported an extra £40,000 of monthly revenue from 
having its products available on Fruugo.
5 .  T H E  L E A D  A G E N C Y
L I V E R P O O L ,  D I G I T A L  A G E N C Y
 
Anton Hanley was 19-years-old when he founded The Lead 
Agency. Just 16 years later, he is at the helm of the largest 
new car lead generation business in the UK.
 
The Lead Agency supports more than 25 UK automotive 
manufacturers, helping them to grow their customer base 
through lead technology and a multi-channel contact 
centre. The firm names Audi, BMW and Volkswagen among 
its clients and, on the back of its proven track record in 
the automotive industry, has expanded its offering into 
property and higher education.
 
With a £10m turnover expected this year and new offices 
already open in London and New York, the Liverpool-
based firm has doubled its workforce in the last 18 months.
6 .  S O C I A L  C H A I N
M A N C H E S T E R ,  D I G I T A L  A G E N C Y
 
Steven Bartlett, the 25-year-old CEO and co-founder of 
Social Chain, has become a sought-after public speaker 
and widely followed internet personality after the rapid 
success of his marketing agency.
 
The company formed in 2014 and quickly attracted huge 
global brands to its client list by taking a “social first” 
approach to marketing, tailoring content for particular 
platforms and engaging audiences with remarkable 
success.
 
The growth of Social Chain prompted Bartlett to establish 
Media Chain, which aims, in his own words, “to own big 
social media properties”.
7.  O R I G I N  B R O A D B A N D
 R O T H E R H A M ,  I T  S E R V I C E S
Origin Broadband is the UK’s sixth largest broadband 
company and is on target to surpass 250,000 customers 
by 2020.
 
The company’s growth since its launch in 2011 attracted 
£5m investment from Calculus Capital in 2017, which 
allowed Origin to move its head office from two sites in 
Doncaster to a single, larger base in Rotherham.
 
The award-winning ISP has made staff welfare a priority 
and the company’s team of 149 were offered shorter work-
ing hours and increased holiday allowances. 
8 .  G I A C O M
H E S S L E ,  E - C O M M E R C E  &  M A R K E T P L A C E S
 
Winner of Distributor of the Year (sub £100m) at the 2017 CRN Channel awards, 
East Yorkshire-based service provider Giacom is enjoying unprecedented 
growth.
 
Ranked 24th in last year’s Northern Tech 100, Giacom World Networks has been 
operating since 1991 and recently partnered with world-leading cyber security 
company Symantec to enhance the email and web protection it offers to tens 
of thousands of consumers and businesses.
 
Giacom is the largest cloud marketplace in Europe for IT support professionals, 
providing customers with Office 365, Hosted Exchange, Acronis Cloud Backup, 
BitDefender Hosted Backup and Anti-Virus.
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GERARD GRECH, CEO, TECH NATION
LONDON
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GERARD
GRECH
CEO OF TECH NATION
W H A T  D O E S  T E C H  N A T I O N  O F F E R  T E C H  C O M P A N I E S  I N  T H E 
N O R T H  O F  E N G L A N D ?
The digital tech sector in the North has expanded rapidly in the last few 
years, with many new companies, more jobs and more investment attracted 
to companies based in the region. We’re excited about this growth and are 
encouraging more companies to join our programmes and activities this year.
The Northern Tech 100 league table shows just how many fast-growth compa-
nies there are and we’d like to see more of them enter our growth programmes 
including Founders’ Network, Upscale and Future Fifty, depending on which 
growth stage. The Digital Business Academy also offers free online courses 
on everything from developing a digital product to running a social media 
campaign.
W H Y  T H E  M O V E  F R O M  T E C H  N O R T H  A N D  T E C H  C I T Y  U K  T O  T E C H 
N A T I O N ?
We’re bringing together the resources of Tech City UK and Tech North to help 
us spread the lessons learned from the vibrant ecosystems in London and the 
North to other parts of the country. We aim to build a strong national network 
that is capable of helping businesses compete on the world stage.
In April this year, Tech North and Tech City UK merged to become Tech Nation. 
The new organisation will take its growth programmes and initiatives to 
startups and scaleups across the UK. Here the organisation’s CEO Gerard 
Grech talks about what this expanded remit means for companies in the 
North of England.
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“Pulling together the resources 
of Tech City UK and Tech North, 
Tech Nation will provide new 
momentum to the acceleration 
of the digital tech sector in the 
North.” 
— GERARD GRECH, TECH NATION
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W H A T ’ S  T H E  B I G  V I S I O N ?
We believe the UK is the best place in the world to start and grow a digital 
business. We demonstrate this through our data, insights and storytelling. We’re 
also facilitating this by building a national network of ambitious entrepreneurs, 
all of whom will benefit from improved access to knowledge and connections 
across the country.
H O W  W I L L  Y O U  A C H I E V E  T H A T ?
We focus on four main areas - growth programmes tailored to each stage of 
the business lifecycle, sharing digital entrepreneurship skills through the Digital 
Business Academy, providing access to Tier 1 visas to bring exceptional talent 
from overseas to the UK, and championing the UK’s digital sector through 
data, case studies and outreach. To carry on the work we have started in the 
North we want as many Northern companies as possible to join our growth 
programmes and other initiatives.  
H O W  D O E S  T H A T  L O O K  O N  T H E  G R O U N D ?
Our team is spread out across the country, including Liverpool and Manchester 
in the North West, Leeds and Sheffield in Yorkshire, and Newcastle in the 
North East. This includes our National Entrepreneur Engagement Managers in 
Manchester, Leeds and Newcastle, whose role it is to work with companies in 
their wider regions to help them get involved in the programmes and networks 
that are right for them and their business.
W H A T  C A N  C O M P A N I E S  G E T  I N V O LV E D  W I T H  N E X T ?
Tech Nation is going on tour across the UK. There are events scheduled from 
May to October in 11 cities, and we hope to see a strong turnout from members 
of the UK’s digital tech community. I’d encourage companies to check out our 
new website technation.io for details on our events, programmes and initiatives 
that might benefit them, and to get involved in Tech Nation’s powerful network.
 TECHNATION.IO
 TECHNATION.IO
 TECHNATION.IO
 TECHNATION.IO
 TECHNATION.IO
 TECHNATION.IO
 TECHNATION.IO
 TECHNATION.IO
 TECHNATION.IO
 TECHNATION.IO
 TECHNATION.IO
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T H E  U K  N E T W O R K  F O R  A M B I T I O U S  E N T R E P R E N E U R S
We empower ambitious tech entrepreneurs to grow faster 
through growth programmes for early, mid and late-stage 
businesses, digital entrepreneurship skills, a visa scheme for 
exceptional talent, and by using data to champion the UK’s 
digital sector.
Find out how we can help your business at technation.io
     @TechNation
@TechNationHQ
@TechNationHQ
# W E A R E T E C H N A T I O N
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HUGH CAMPBELL, CO-FOUNDER, GP BULLHOUND
MANCHESTER
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2018 marks the first year in which we have taken the Northern Tech Awards 
outside of England, in an effort which we hope will strengthen ties across the 
border. Scotland is already famous for delivering world-famous technology 
companies such as Skyscanner and FanDuel, however we are also excited 
by the long list of fast-growing businesses such as TVSquared, Outplay and 
Aquila Insights, which we hope will enjoy similar success.
2017 proved to be a prosperous year with stock markets finishing the year at 
all-time highs. The UK technology sector continued to demonstrate its promi-
nence across Europe, securing over $5.4bn in VC funding – more than twice its 
nearest rivals in Germany and France. Such investment is coupled with strong 
competition to secure the best talent from around the world. 
The technology industry’s focus is shifting away from China and the USA 
towards Europe, where the UK is in pole position for investment. This has cre-
ated an unprecedented opportunity for the North. Capital is being pushed to 
Europe by the high valuations of Chinese and American tech businesses. That 
capital is looking for better value, which is exactly what the North has to offer. 
HUGH 
CAMPBELL
MANAGING PARTNER & 
CO-FOUNDER OF GP BULLHOUND
Hugh has worked with all the leading growth equity funds in Europe and 
has sold businesses to Google, Facebook, Disney, Accenture and Experian 
amongst others. Here he reviews highlights from the GP Bullhound Northern 
Tech 100 league table and current challenges for the North.
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The Northern Tech 100 league table shows that it’s not just about Manchester; 
it’s about the whole region. It demonstrates that successful technology busi-
nesses can be built outside of the core tech clusters in the UK. Never before 
have we so consistently created billion-dollar technology companies, and the 
likes of Blue Prism, Radius Payments and The Hut Group are breaking through 
the Unicorn level.
Institutional funds have huge amounts of capital to invest and they are looking 
at the region for the first time and they are seeing the success stories that they 
have missed out on. The recent acquisitions of CallCredit and Sky Bet, both 
with headquarters in Leeds and previously in the Northern Tech 100 League 
Table, for £1bn and £3.4bn respectively are testament to the value being 
created by businesses in the Northern tech ecosystem.
We ran analysis on public-quoted technology companies and found there are 
13 based in the North with a market cap of over £500m pounds. Public com-
panies in this region are massively outperforming the general benchmarks, 
and underneath them are a whole bunch of firms that are growing quickly, 
some of which will remain independent while others go public. 
E-commerce remains a very strong sector across the whole region, particu-
larly in Manchester where we have a history of trading that goes back to the 
industrial revolution. The success of businesses like Currentbody and Music 
Magpie underline the region’s prowess in e-commerce. 
Gaming continues to be another huge success story for the region. The stand-
out deal in this space was the sale to Warner Brothers of Playdemic, whose 
game Golf Clash hit the App Store’s top five and is grossing somewhere 
between $1m -$2m dollars a day. Other notable recent successes in the gaming 
sector include Dundee’s Outplay, whose revenues are doubling year-on-year, 
and Sheffield-based Sumo, which acquired its fourth studio. 
Current challenges for the North centre around access to talent. The advent 
of Brexit means we have a reduced inflow of skills from the EU. The resulting 
uncertainty means a promising Polish software engineer might choose to 
go to Berlin rather than the UK. Hopefully that’s going to be temporary and, 
when there’s a clarification around freedom of movement, it might not be 
too restrictive. 
The second challenge is to build public recognition that this region is home to 
many great technology businesses. People look at the UK and still think about 
London alone. The PR challenge for the region is to change perceptions until 
the North is known less for football and more for tech. 
The graduate talent across all of these wonderful universities in the region 
continues to be strong. The big challenge is to make sure it doesn’t leave and 
go to London or overseas, thinking very carefully about how you get that and 
make sure that talent finds work locally. Here in the North we can offer much 
better, much lower costs of living and a much higher quality of life; local suc-
cess stories provide the evidence that those who are thriving here, should stay.
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“Here in the North we can offer 
much better, much lower costs 
of living and a much higher 
quality of life; local success sto-
ries provide the evidence that 
those who are thriving here, 
should stay.” 
— HUGH CAMPBELL, GP BULLHOUND
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EMMA RAWLINSON, CEO, IN TOUCH NETWORKS
MANCHESTER
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EMMA 
RAWLINSON
CEO OF IN TOUCH NETWORKS
H O W  D I D  I N  T O U C H  N E T W O R K S  B E G I N ?
It was originally set up to turn the industry on its head, in a 
way. Our founder was an executive headhunter who had 
a lot of clients wanting non-exec roles, and a lot of clients 
on the other side who wanted non-execs but didn’t want 
to pay the fees for them.
He said: ‘You know what, I’m going to put you guys 
together and we will charge the people who want a job, 
but not charge the people that are looking for non-execs.’
That was the initial concept and the business has just 
grown from there.
H O W  W O U L D  Y O U  D E S C R I B E  A  N O N - E X E C U T I V E ?
 
Our business helps people transition from being an 
executive, for example from being a CEO, to being a 
non-executive. When you’re a CEO you’re used to being 
the loudest voice; you delegate, you’re in the detail and 
the day-to-day running of that business. When you switch 
into the role of a non-executive it’s very, very different. 
You’re there to influence, to add a different perspective, 
to look at the long-term strategy of the business and give 
an overview.
That’s quite a transition for people. And that’s where we 
realised that just putting two groups of people together 
isn’t necessarily the best for either party. We developed a 
course called ‘Ahead of the Curve’, which is a seven-week 
webinar program taking people through that shift in 
mindset, including what will be expected of them in the 
boardroom, how they will add value, and how people will 
perceive them.
H O W  H A S  T H E  B U S I N E S S  D E V E L O P E D ?
 
It has been very fast-paced, but crucially we have devel-
oped a culture that allows us to recognise the gaps in how 
customers’ needs are served. When customers say: ‘Does 
your membership do this?’ and our answer is no, we find 
out whether there is any reason why it can’t. We listen to 
what our customers want and try to offer them everything 
they need along the journey to achieving their goals.
We met with Emma Rawlinson of In Touch Networks to talk about the 
Manchester-based company’s development, international expansion and 
what comes next.
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“When customers say: ‘Does your 
membership do this?’ and our 
answer is no, we find out whether 
there is any reason why it can’t.” 
 — EMMA RAWLINSON, IN TOUCH NETWORKS
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IN TOUCH NETWORKS, 
MANCHESTER
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H O W  H A S  T H E  C O M P A N Y  G R O W N ?
Our membership expanded; revenue growth has also come from the ad-
dition of products, such as Ahead of the Curve, our CV writer service, and 
the one-to-one executive coaching we offer people who want to achieve 
specific goals.
We also run a suite of events, because ultimately people need to network. 
There tends to be a speaker covering a specific topic at those events, but then 
there’s also the opportunity for candidates to speak to each other.
Attendees tend to be people who are all at the same level, at the same stage 
of their career, and they all have similar questions, so it’s a good forum where 
they can bounce ideas off each other.
H O W  D O  Y O U  K E E P  U P  W I T H  G R O W T H ?
 
Our biggest recruitment drive is in sales. On average, we take on six people 
a fortnight in sales and trying to bring people in can be tough. You have to 
interview a lot of candidates to find people who fit with the culture and who 
want to be here.
 
When a business grows very quickly, departments sprout up and you get to a 
pivotal point where you need a leader for each of those teams. We’ve just been 
on a recruitment drive for new directors in each of our different departments 
to make sure that each has its own leader.
We have created a really fun culture and it’s all about people enjoying being 
at work. Everyone is on this growth train; they know where the business wants 
to get to and everybody has bought into that. When you’re all trying to achieve 
the same thing and you all believe in the business, that’s a happy place to be.
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H O W  D I D  Y O U  B E C O M E  C E O ?
I joined about six months ago. My background is predominantly private equity 
and finance, so I’d say my role here is to look at the business with a financial 
set of eyes and say: ‘Okay, how can I work alongside our sales and marketing 
director to make sure the core of this business is strong?’
C A N  Y O U  T E L L  U S  A B O U T  B E I N G  I N  M A N C H E S T E R ?
 
It’s brilliant, and it’s really exciting. It means it’s hard to recruit developers, 
because there’s a number of tech businesses based in Manchester all going for 
the same pool of people, but it’s exciting that Manchester has got so many of 
those businesses here. There’s more acceptance in the market that tech busi-
nesses are expanding and that they are going to be the growth of the future.
 
W H A T ’ S  N E X T  F O R  I N  T O U C H  N E T W O R K S ?
 
We’re moving into the US imminently, which is a big step for us. There’s a 
huge shift in the US towards people having a freelance career rather than a 
full-time career.
 
International growth is one way that we can expand, and the other way is 
through our networks. We take a network and we grow it and build it and look 
at what is the best product for our customer. We’ve also got our eye on future 
networks; we are looking at what is working for various groups of people so 
that we can establish the most useful areas to build products around.
9 .  H E D G E H O G  L A B
N E W C A S T L E  U P T O N  T Y N E ,  I T  S E R V I C E S
 
With offices in the UK, USA, Denmark and India, Hedgehog 
Lab has grown rapidly since Sarat Pediredla and Mark 
Forster founded the technology consultancy in 2007.
 
Having built its reputation on exceptional digital applica-
tions for smartphones, tablets, desktops and wearables, 
the Newcastle firm’s expanding team is now exploring 
how mobile, immersive and AI technologies can influence 
sectors such as retail, energy and utilities.
Hedgehog Labs’ mission is “to be the best post-PC tech-
nology consultancy in the world” and the company’s 
clients include Santander, Mitusbushi, EDF Energy and 
Channel 4 among others.
1 0 .  M A T I L L I O N
A LT R I N C H A M ,  I T  S E R V I C E S
 
Altrincham-based firm Matillion was founded in 2011 and 
hit the headlines three years later when it achieved reve-
nues of £1m for the first time.
 
The foundations of Matillion’s success were built on busi-
ness intelligence and analytics software, which quickly 
became popular in the UK and abroad, helping the firm 
to achieve at least 50 per cent year-on-year growth in its 
first three years.
 
The company’s focus is now on delivering modern, 
cloud-native data integration technology, providing 
simple, scalable, cost-effective cloud integration tools.
 
Having launched in Knutsford, Matillion moved to its 
Altrincham office in 2017 following the launch of two flag-
ship products: Matillion ETL for BigQuery and Matillion 
ETL for Snowflake.
1 1 .  B I G C H A N G E
L E E D S ,  E N T E R P R I S E  S O F T W A R E
 
Leeds-based app development firm BigChange cele-
brated its fifth birthday in January, and has achieved 
remarkable growth since its launch on New Year’s Day 
2013.
 
While helping more than 600 SME and corporate clients 
to manage their business operations using mobile apps, 
BigChange doubled its turnover every year following its 
launch. The company specialises in providing manage-
ment solutions for local and multinational logistics firms, 
such as Nixon Hire, Jet Aire, Silentnight and Komatsu.
 
As well as helping businesses to go paperless through 
the use of BigChange apps, the company is launching 
an on-demand service app that allows firms to configure 
the service to their own requirements and apply their own 
branding to the tool.
 
1 2 .  O U T P L AY  E N T E R T A I N M E N T
D U N D E E ,  B E T T I N G  &  G A M I N G
 
After acquiring Eight Pixels Square in 2016, Outplay 
Entertainment co-founder Douglas Hare set his sights on 
a larger share of the independent mobile games market.
 
The vast popularity of Outplay’s free-to-play games, such 
as Crafty Candy and Mystery Match, have helped the com-
pany race towards its goals. In 2018, the Dundee-based 
company reported a 1,904 per cent growth in revenue 
since 2013, with revenues almost doubling year-on-year.
 
The firm’s latest game, Angry Birds Pop, is its first venture 
into branded titles and the company remains focussed on 
user acquisition and running games as a service.
10.
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1 3 .  H Y P E R D R I V E  I N N O VA T I O N
S U N D E R L A N D ,  H A R D W A R E
 
Electrification partner Hyperdrive Innovation has been 
recognised for its contributions to electric vehicle devel-
opment with a number of industry awards.
 
The Sunderland developer and manufacturer of lith-
ium-ion battery technology was the first to secure the 
supply of battery modules for the trailblazing Nissan LEAF. 
The firm also supports customers in defining and integrat-
ing systems for homes and businesses.
 
Over the course of six years since the company launched it 
has helped to establish the North East as a global battery 
hub and recent projects include the government-backed 
High Energy Density Battery (HEDB) project, which allowed 
the company to triple its staff and grow its manufacturing 
capabilities.
1 4 .  C A S T L I G H T  F I N A N C I A L
G L A S G O W,  D A T A  A N A LY T I C S
 
Glasgow-based fintech company Castlight won the 
Deloitte ‘Kick Start a Start Up’ award in 2017, enabling 
chief executive and co-founder Phil Grady to grow his 
team and plan expansion into the US.
 
Castlight developed the innovative Affordability Passport, 
which aims to change the way financial retailers make 
credit and lending decisions. By aggregating transac-
tional data and providing real-time affordability analysis, 
Castlight is disrupting the traditional credit scoring and 
underwriting methodology.
 
Founded in 2014 by Grady, along with Creditfix chief exec-
utive Pearse Flynn, Castlight is engaged with 10 high-street 
banks and is receiving significant interest from interna-
tional banks. The company’s platform is used by 60 per 
cent of the UK’s personal insolvency market.
1 5 .  A C C E S S P AY
M A N C H E S T E R ,  F I N T E C H
 
After six years of growth, Manchester-based tech firm 
AccessPay received a £1m boost through the Northern 
Powerhouse Investment Fund (NPIF).
 
The company had already been named the fastest grow-
ing fintech company outside of London in the 2017 Deloitte 
UK Technology Fast 50, following a hugely successful 
period for the company, which works with businesses and 
banks to adopt next generation payment services.
 
Founded by Ali Moiyed in 2012 to help remove unnecessary 
cost and complexity from online payments processing, 
the firm is focused on driving next-generation financial 
services, tearing up the bricks and mortar concept asso-
ciated with finance.
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1 6 .  T V S Q U A R E D
E D I N B U R G H ,  D A T A  A N A LY T I C S
 
Edinburgh’s TVSquared has developed the capability to track the digital 
impact of broadcast TV advertisements across devices, having partnered 
with data onboarder LiveRamp and its IdentityLink service.
 
The six-year-old company, founded by former Sumerian CEO Calum Smeaton 
in 2012, had already established itself as the gold standard for TV analytics 
and was working with more than 360 brands, agencies and networks across 
48 countries to measure and optimize TV.
 
Now, through its linkup with LiveRamp, the company has added the ‘who’ to 
the ‘what, when and how’ of its TV advertising analytics. This exciting devel-
opment follows TVSquared’s acquisition of Germany’s wywy in November 
2017, to bring real-time, accurate spot detection to TVSquared’s trademark 
product, Advantage TV.
 
Headquartered in Edinburgh, TVSquared has opened offices in London, New 
York and Los Angeles.
     @TechNation
@TechNationHQ
@TechNationHQ
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SKY,
LEEDS
1 7.  R E S U LT I N G
M A N C H E S T E R ,  I T  S E R V I C E S
 
Resulting is a highly specialised SAP Consultancy, which 
works with companies like Nationwide, HMRC and 
Manchester Airport to assess IT operating models and 
help build self-sufficiency.
 
Based in Warrington, Resulting provides advisory and con-
sulting services to large enterprise businesses. Resulting’s 
consulting approach, Resultology, is based on 20 years of 
experience and research and addresses the factors that 
influence SAP success. 
Planned 2018 innovations include an AI powered SAP 
knowledge auditing tool.
1 8 .  R E D U
C O U N T Y  D U R H A M ,  D I G I T A L  A G E N C Y
 
Redu partners with some of the UK’s biggest brands to 
drive high volume sales through social, mobile and data-
driven affiliate marketing.
 
Founded in 2014 by Darren Williams, Sam Morton and Gary 
Hunter, the Seaham-based company has been winning 
awards throughout its history. In 2017 the firm was named 
Small Business of the Year at the NE Business Awards and 
runner-up in the Digital and Social category.
 
Redu reaches over 33 million active buyers per month, 
driving more than 10 million post clicks and over £3m  in 
retailer sales for brands like John Lewis, TK Maxx and Asda.
1 9 .  L A D B I B L E
M A N C H E S T E R ,  D I G I T A L  A G E N C Y
 
Founded in 2012 after Alexander Solomou won £5,000 
in a student competition, LADbible Group has grown to 
become one of the world’s biggest social publishers. The 
company grew through the immense popularity of its con-
tent on Facebook and Solomou, along with childhood 
friend and co-founder Arian Kalantari, monetised the site 
through its brand partnerships licensing arm.
 
While continuing to produce content the company pro-
vides marketing consultancy services to the likes of Netflix 
and the NFL. In 2017, the company posted revenues of 
£9.2m, following a 200 per cent increase in sales over 
three years.
2 0 .  L O O K I N G 4 . C O M
L E E D S ,  E - C O M M E R C E  &  M A R K E T P L A C E S
 
Since launching its airport parking and transfer compar-
ison service in 2009, Looking4.com has expanded into 28 
countries and now covers 198 airports. Headquartered 
in Leeds and originally called Looking4Parking.com, the 
firm was renamed after a management buy-back of the 
business from Purple Parking in a seven-figure deal in 2017.
 
Managing director Martin Mansell is guiding the compa-
ny’s growth, which has included expansion into Australia, 
France, Portugal and Japan in the last 12 months, and 
there are plans to extend its services into flights and hotels 
in the future. 
2 1 .  C U R R E N T B O D Y. C O M
C H E A D L E ,  E - C O M M E R C E  &  M A R K E T P L A C E S
 
The exceptional sales growth of CurrentBody in 2017 led 
to a £5m growth capital minority investment from NVM 
Private Equity in 2018 to support the next phase of the 
company’s expansion.
 
Manchester-based CurrentBody carved out a position for 
itself by specialising in beauty devices for home use, rec-
ognising the fastest growing niche in the beauty industry.
 
CurrentBody cofounders Laurence Newman and Andrew 
Showman aim to provide the largest selection of clinically 
proven, at-home health and beauty technology, partner-
ing with brands such as L’Oreal and Unilever.
20.
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2 2 .  C L O U D  T E C H N O L O G Y  S O L U T I O N S
M A N C H E S T E R ,  I T  S E R V I C E S
 
With more than 7 million users in 74 different countries, 
Cloud Technology Solutions (CTS) was founded in 2008 
and has become one of the fastest-growing Google for 
Work Premier Partners in the world.
 
The Manchester-based company’s migration tools and 
expertise help organisations to reduce costs and maintain 
efficiencies when moving to the cloud. CTS is trusted by 
clients including Manchester City Council, the RSPCA and 
HE Simm and achieved growth of 83 per cent between 
2015 and 2018.
 
An investment deal with Northedge Capital, signed in 
2018, will underpin the continued growth of CTS.
2 3 .  P E A K
M A N C H E S T E R ,  D A T A  A N A LY T I C S
 
With offices in Manchester, Jaipur and Edinburgh, pioneer-
ing data analytics firm Peak has grown rapidly since its 
launch in 2014. Using artificial intelligence and machine 
learning, the company analyses data at scale to provide 
clients such as Morrisons, AstraZeneca and The Economist 
with clearly defined insights and recommendations that 
improve performance and drive growth.
 
The company’s development centre opened in 2016. Peak 
then partnered with cloud engineering firm Cloudit before 
securing £2.5m in Series A capital in 2017 to fund the com-
pany’s growth.
 
The company’s Edinburgh office opened in 2018, to enable 
the growth of Peak’s development and sales teams and 
to improve the service provided to Scottish and Northern-
based clients.
2 4 .  Z E R O L I G H T
N E W C A S T L E ,  E N T E R P R I S E  S O F T W A R E
 
ZeroLight has been disrupting the automotive retail sector 
since 2014, having created a multi-award winning car con-
figurator solution. The Newcastle-based company uses 
advanced rendering techniques to create a live scene of 
a product that offers unparalleled customer engagement.
 
By working with ZeroLight, clients such as Audi, Pagani and 
VW have changed the way their cars are specified and 
purchased, and the company’s agile, customer-centric 
model ensures their customers are engaged throughout 
the purchasing journey.
 
ZeroLight’s omnichannel platform empowers OEMs and 
partners to create and deliver compelling experiences 
that drive customer engagement across all touchpoints, 
leading to higher specification sales in-store and online.
2 5 .  E V O L U T I O N  F U N D I N G
C H E S T E R F I E L D ,  E N T E R P R I S E  S O F T W A R E
 
Established in 2002 in Chesterfield, Evolution Funding 
employs 270 people UK-wide and provides market-leading 
motor finance products to consumers through a network 
of more than 4,000 approved dealer partnerships and 
groups.
 
CEO Jeremy Levine is committed to reinvesting the com-
pany’s profits to drive growth across the group, optimising 
operating efficiencies and customer journeys across the 
firm’s main brand, Evolution Motor Finance, as well as its 
vehicle loans business, vehicle rentals brand and vehicle 
retail arm.
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DARREN JOBLING, CEO, ZEROLIGHT
NEWCASTLE
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DARREN 
JOBLING
CEO OF ZEROLIGHT
Darren Jobling has got a difficult job on his hands. In his own words, he is on 
a mission to bring the automotive industry “kicking and screaming” from the 
1950s and propel it into the future.
 
Fortunately, he is already well on the way to doing just that.
 
Four years ago, Darren led the creation of ZeroLight as a separate business 
from computer games company Eutechnyx, which developed a pioneering 
piece of car visualisation software.
 
Today, Darren leads a team of 100 people who are using 3D graphics to trans-
form the way people choose and purchase vehicles.
 
“We see games as highly engaging consumer experiences – that’s all they are,” 
says Darren, sitting by a window at ZeroLight’s riverside offices in Newcastle.
 
“Buying a car is one of the most expensive things you can do after buying 
a house, so why shouldn’t that be an engaging consumer experience? It 
should be a pleasurable experience to buy a car, and that’s what we set out 
to achieve.”
 
With the Tyne Bridge visible behind him, downriver from the glistening roof of 
The Sage, Darren reflects on the moment that he stepped away from game 
development after 20 years in the industry.
 
He recalls: “IBM approached us and said: ‘We’ve sold a Jaguar F-Type con-
figurator to Jaguar and it’s the Paris Motor Show in three months’ time. Sony 
recommended you - could you help us?’
 
We met with Darren Jobling from ZeroLight to talk about the company’s cre-
ation and the software that’s taking the automotive industry to new levels.
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“That’s how we got started in the industry and it just gathered tremendous 
momentum.”
 
Darren and the ZeroLight team took a bold step into the world of motoring, 
but they were armed with hard-earned experience. 
“We had dealt with the automotive industry over a number of years,” says 
Darren, whose easy-going demeanour belies the furiously innovative spirit 
of his company.
 
“But we were on the other side of the table, licensing their intellectual property 
to go into games like NASCAR, Formula 1, and Ferrari Challenge. We were famil-
iar with automotive but we weren’t experts in the people we were dealing with.
 
“It was an evolution of our relationship but not a revolution.”
 
At the heart of that evolution was ZeroLight - a piece of software that made 
perfect sense to Darren and his team but was completely alien to some of the 
world’s biggest car manufacturers.
“Sometimes it can seem like your solutions are coming from another planet,” 
Darren says. “It can be hard for them to think that something that was a manual 
process can be totally automated by software.
“They’re a little bit suspicious of how we can do this.”
Despite meeting with suspicion from automotive traditionalists, the impact 
of ZeroLight’s immersive visualisations quickly delivered results for firms like 
Audi, Volkswagen and Toyota.
The software’s performance now speaks for itself, and Darren’s job is to ascer-
tain who will listen.
He explains: “Audi has been public in saying that if you use ZeroLight, people 
spend more on a car. The data is there and manufacturers have got an appe-
tite for it, but it is quite a mindset change for those who are used to doing 
everything manually.
“It’s like the way Henry Ford used to build cars versus the production line, and 
car manufacturers are going through that evolution. They are getting that 
from all areas at the moment - every part of their business is being disrupted.”
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N O R T H E R N  T E C H  1 0 0
He adds: “Some people aren’t quite there yet. They say: ‘Look at our beau-
tiful static images’. To me, it’s a bit like the Mona Lisa versus the Shawshank 
Redemption. The Mona Lisa is a beautiful image but it can’t hold your interest 
for two hours.”
ZeroLight’s rapid success and growth has been fuelled in no small part by 
the ambition of its leader (“Whatever your forecasts are, you should multiply 
them by 10”), but also by an unswerving commitment to innovation – even 
when it fails.
“We give people a lot of time to be innovative and we don’t try and prescribe 
or say: ‘This is where we are going,’” says Darren. “What we always say is: try 
and build trust. If there’s a circle and you’re innovating at the edge of the 
circle, you need to make sure that people are there behind you and have got 
your back, because innovation works sometimes but not always.
“If the innovation doesn’t work you’ve got to celebrate that lack of success as 
much as you’d celebrate the success, because it means we learned it didn’t 
work and we’re going to do something about it nice and early.”
With four years under its belt, ZeroLight is gearing up for expansion into new 
territories in 2018, having signed its first deals in Japan and the USA.
While cars remain the focus for now, other markets are opening up as the 
software becomes more flexible, versatile and user-friendly.
Darren’s confidence in the product is obvious and well-founded, and he has 
a tendency to bring discussions about its strengths back around to a team 
he rightly feels proud of.
“Augmented reality will deliver on the hype of virtual reality,” he states, assur-
edly. “It’s easily accessible - you don’t need to wear a headset to see what a 
car would look like sitting on your drive. It’s going to be huge. The team here 
is brilliant and it’s all down to them - I just see myself as the conductor, not 
the key driver. They’re driving it forward.
“We’re definitely not complacent but we’re definitely optimistic.”
“If the innovation doesn’t work 
you’ve got to celebrate that 
lack of success as much as 
you’d celebrate the success, 
because it means we learned it 
didn’t work and we’re going to 
do something about it.”
— DARREN JOBLING, ZEROLIGHT
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2 6 .  C U B I C  M O T I O N
M A N C H E S T E R ,  E N T E R P R I S E  S O F T W A R E
 
Founded in Manchester in 2009, Cubic Motion creates 
facial animation for hit games like Call Of Duty, Spiderman 
and Hellblade. The company’s real-time capture allows 
game developers to create lifelike characters in a vastly 
reduced timeframe when compared to traditional 
approaches to CGI, and Cubic Motion delivered facial ani-
mation for three of the five nominees for Best Performance 
at The Game Awards 2017.
 
Cubic Motion’s pioneering method of capturing eye and 
lip movement has transformed the games development 
process and it has enabled actors to control virtual char-
acters in real-time, opening up applications beyond the 
gaming world.
 
The company’s production team is more than 50-strong 
and is complemented by a growing research and devel-
opment team at the Cubic Motion offices in Manchester 
Science Park.
2 7.  I D H L  G R O U P
H A R R O G A T E ,  D I G I T A L  A G E N C Y
 
Founded in 2000 by CEO Dennis Engel, Harrogate’s IDHL 
Group comprises WMG, Ingenuity Digital, NetConstruct 
and, following a buyout in late 2017, Pinpoint Designs.
 
IDHL Group employs more than 130 people across the four 
companies and its senior management team completed 
a £30m management buyout of the business in June 2017. 
The buyout followed IDHL’s record financial performance 
and move to new headquarters in 2016 and the company 
is among the UK’s largest full service digital agencies.
 2 8 .  P E R F O R M A N C E  H O R I Z O N
N E W C A S T L E ,  E N T E R P R I S E  S O F T W A R E
 
In the eight years since its launch, Performance Horizon 
has grown its digital marketing business to a point where 
more than 100 employees are delivering more than $3bn 
in top line advertising revenues.
 
The firm’s headquarters are in Newcastle, and  with mar-
keting partners in more than 183 countries, Performance 
Horizon offices have opened in the U.S., Japan and 
Australia. Clients include Nike, Emirates, Google, 
Sainsbury’s and TripAdvisor, and the success of core 
product Performance Horizon Enterprise has led to the 
company becoming the leading provider of SaaS software 
for partner marketing.
2 9 .  G O D E L  T E C H N O L O G I E S  G R O U P
M A N C H E S T E R ,  I T  S E R V I C E S
 
Placed at number one in the 2018 Megabuyte Emerging 
Stars Awards rankings, Godel Technologies provides agile 
development services to clients including Jet2, Experian 
and First Utility.
 
The company, which is headquartered in Manchester and 
employs around 500 staff, is recognised by Microsoft as 
a Gold partner and has offices in London, Minsk, Brest 
and Grodno.
 
Godel was recognised by Megabuyte for its ability to pro-
vide services in high demand areas where there are skill 
shortages, winning the Best Performing Company award 
and the Best Performing Consulting & Systems Integration 
Company award.
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3 0 .  S H I E L D  S A F E T Y  G R O U P
M A N C H E S T E R ,  E N T E R P R I S E  S O F T W A R E
 
Shield Safety CTO and co-owner Richard Jordan was 
named Business Person of the Year at the 2018 Greater 
Manchester Business Awards, in recognition for his contri-
bution to the company’s continued growth and success.
 
Jordan bought into the company in 2004 – one year after 
its launch – and joined Mark Flanagan in building Shield 
Safety’s reputation around food, fire, and health and 
safety services and software for multi-location businesses 
within the hospitality industry.
 
The company’s award-winning SaaS risk and safety man-
agement system uses a unique algorithm to calculate risk, 
and its proven track record is leading to increased growth 
across retail, manufacturing and SMEs.
3 1 .  E C O M E T R I C A
E D I N B U R G H ,  E N T E R P R I S E  S O F T W A R E
 
Working with leading organisations from private, public 
and non-profit sectors, Ecometrica helps businesses meet 
challenges around sustainability while reducing costs and 
boosting performance.
 
Founded in Edinburgh in 2008, the company was placed 
on the Deloitte 2017 Technology Fast 500 EMEA list after 
a year in which it posted record sales and profits and 
partnered with NASA and the UK Space Agency.
 
The Ecometrica Platform is used to tackle a variety 
of operational and environmental challenges facing 
businesses and has won awards for its outstanding envi-
ronmental accounting capabilities and satellite mapping 
technology.
3 2 .  P R O O F I D
M A N C H E S T E R ,  I T  S E R V I C E S
 
Founded in 2008, Manchester-based ProofID delivers iden-
tity management systems to organisations in 73 countries 
around the world.
 
ProofID’s identity and access management platform 
helps the company’s clients to secure enterprise data, 
manage hybrid cloud environments, secure mobile apps 
and provide access to services. ProofID manages more 
than 750,000 identities, with clients reporting benefits 
to their security, productivity, compliance and revenues.
 
In 2017, ProofID merged with Colorado-based PEGRight in 
a £4m transaction, increasing the group turnover to more 
than £6m and growing its staff from 32 to 48. The company 
now operates across Europe and North America.
3 3 .  C O N V E R G E  T E C H N O L O G Y  S P E C I A L I S T S
D A R E S B U R Y,  I T  S E R V I C E S
 
Converge Technology Specialists (CTS) provides hosted 
and managed IT services through private cloud to more 
than 6,000 law firms across the UK.
 
The firm was founded in Daresbury, Cheshire, in 2006 by 
CEO Nigel Wright and opened a London office in 2016 
after exceptional organic growth. CTS has achieved 50 
per cent revenue growth year-on-year for the last three 
years, and is on course to hit £10m turnover by 2019.
 
New clients and an increased demand for CTS services led 
to investment from private equity firm Tenzing in early 2018 
and the company also signed a new partnership to deliver 
enhanced cloud solutions, disaster recovery functionality 
and hosted infrastructure to Thomson Reuters Elite.
30.
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COWORKING 
SPACES
LEEDS
LIVERPOOLSHEFFIELDMANCHESTERSUNDERLAND
TEESSIDE
NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE
HULL
OF THE NORTH
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C4DI
31-38 QUEEN STREET, HULL
A workspace and incubator located at the 
Fruit Market in Hull. Tenancy comes with a 
variety of perks from companies like AWS, 
FreeAgent, PwC, FreshDesk, Cloud App and 
WP Engine.
PLATFORM
NEW STATION ST, LEEDS
Based in a former British Railways building, 
Platform is a new oce space and home of a 
tech hub. Tenants have access to 410 desks, 
meetup areas and events, including Leeds 
Digital Coee Morning, Cereal Networking 
and netWINEing.
ELECTRIC WORKS
SHEFFIELD DIGITAL CAMPUS, SHEFFIELD
Home of a three story helter skelter, the only one in 
a UK oce; tenants can ride from the top oor to 
reception in seven seconds. The space is furnished 
with pieces from designers like Vitra, Bouroullec, 
Jasper Morrison, Ray and Charles Eames and 
George Nelson.
PLATFORM
C4DI
ELECTRIC
WORKS
YORKSHIRE
& HUMBER
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AMAZING LOCATION
BEAUTIFULLY DESIGNED
INDOOR SLIDE
RIVER VIEWS
NET-WINE-ING
WEWORK
QUAY ST, MANCHESTER 
WeWork has 253 coworking and oce spaces 
in 74 cities internationally, with two locations 
in Manchester. Known for their beautifully 
designed interiors. Amenities include bike 
storage, cra beer on dra and micro-roast-
ed coee.
ALTSPACE
31 STAMFORD STREET, ALTRINCHAM
altspace is defying the traditional city centre 
location of coworking spaces. The success of 
the venture and demand for space required a 
move to a larger building in January 2018.
ZIFERBLAT
4 ST PAUL'S SQUARE, LIVERPOOL L3
Established in 2011, Ziferblat is the rst pay per 
minute coworking space in the world. With an 
international presence, Ziferblat has several 
editions in the north including Manchester and 
Liverpool. All amenities — which include coees, 
cakes and wi — are free.
ALTSPACE
WEWORK
ZIFERBLAT
NORTH
WEST
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OUTSIDE CITY CENTRE
INTERNATIONAL 
CYCLING CLUB
CRAFT BEER ON DRAUGHT
PAY PER MINUTE
CAMPUS NORTH
5 CARLIOL SQUARE, NEWCASTLE 
A coworking space and the home of accelerator 
Ignite. The organisation recently announced it will 
close its doors in December 2018, but will carry on its 
legacy as Tech For Life — an education initiative that 
introduces people of all ages and skill sets to tech.
BOHO ZONE
BOHO ONE @ BRIDGE ST W, MIDDLESBROUGH
A series of six buildings; its agship building 
Boho One is environmentally friendly, with 
heating and cooling using a groundwater heat 
pump, heat retaining concrete ceilings, com-
puter modelled natural lighting, solar shading 
and wind turbines.
SUNDERLAND SOFTWARE CITY
TAVISTOCK PLACE, SUNDERLAND
The home of more than 60 businesses. Sunderland 
Soware City oer business support, skills and 
education as well as training in the region. Known 
for their Go Reboot programme, introducing people 
from any educational or employment background 
onto a pathway into a career in digital industries.
BOHO ZONE
CAMPUS 
NORTH
SOFTWARE
CITY
NORTH
EAST
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ACCELERATOR
ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY
EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS
3 4 .  T R A K  G L O B A L  G R O U P
C R E W E ,  I T  S E R V I C E S
 
The continued success of Trak Global Group was recog-
nised in December 2017, when the telematics solutions firm 
won the Amazon Growing Business Award for Mid-Sized 
Business, having claimed the gong for smaller companies 
the previous year.
 
Since its launch in 2009, the group has grown to become 
one of the world’s largest telematics companies, gathering 
and interpreting data from connected devices to help 
organisations manage driver and vehicle risk. The Crewe-
based company received the Prince Michael International 
Road Safety Award in 2015 for its work in reducing young 
driver accident frequency.
 
In 2017, Trak Global developed an app-based solution 
called Apply Fleet, which enables employers to promote 
and monitor workplace driver safety and reduce oper-
ating costs.
3 5 .  Q U I N T  G R O U P
M A C C L E S F I E L D ,  F I N T E C H
 
Named the UK’s 40th best small company to work for by 
the Sunday Times in 2017, Macclesfield-based fintech firm 
Quint Group services over 50,000 international consumers 
a day and originates over £1.5bn of consumer lending per 
year in the UK alone.
 
The company’s portfolio of businesses includes 
MoneyGuru.com, Monevo, Monevo Data Services and 
Credit Angel, and in 2017 the firm secured a £10m financ-
ing deal with Manchester’s Tosca Debt Capital to fund its 
recapitalisation. Quint Group, which was founded in 2009 
by CEO Greg Cox, is growing its international presence 
and currently has operations in the U.S., China, Australia, 
South Africa and Poland.
3 6 .  P L A N I X S  G R P
M A N C H E S T E R ,  E N T E R P R I S E  S O F T W A R E
 
Manchester-based provider of big data analytics Planixs 
was founded in 2011 with the aim of helping compa-
nies optimise their critical decision-making. The Planixs 
Graphite Platform offers predictive analytics and decision 
automation among a suite of tools that have enabled 
clients such as Vodafone, BBC, Barclays and HMRC to 
develop real-time, intelligent solutions through cloud 
architectures.
 
In 2017, the company announced the release of Enterprise 
Workforce, which further enhances its Human Capital 
Management capabilities.
3 7.  I N V E N T R Y  LT D
L E E D S ,  E N T E R P R I S E  S O F T W A R E
 
InVentry’s sign-in and visitor management system is used 
by more than 4,000 schools, from primaries all the way 
through to sixth form colleges, and handles 49 sign-ins 
every second.
 
The company was established in 2010 in Leeds with the 
aim of helping schools to streamline their sign-in processes 
and transition away from paper records. InVentry enables 
schools to stay fully abreast of who is on site and ensures 
the security of identity information. The system includes 
a stylish touchscreen for visitors to use, and staff can use 
InVentry to sign-in via barcode or mobile app.
 
After seven years of organic growth, with the number of 
schools using the system rising from 100 in 2012 to 4,000 
in 2017, InVentry was named in Deloitte’s Fast 500 list of 
companies. 
     @TechNation
@TechNationHQ
@TechNationHQ
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3 8 .  T H E  H U T  G R O U P
M A N C H E S T E R ,  E - C O M M E R C E  &  M A R K E T P L A C E S
 
The Hut Group has gone from strength to strength since 
being named the winner of the overall judges award at 
the Northern Tech Awards in 2017. That award came on 
the back of a spectacular 2016 for the UK’s leading mul-
ti-website online retailer, in which sales rose by 50 per cent 
to £501m and investment of £252m fuelled the company’s 
international and domestic expansion.
 
The company focused on acquisitions in 2017, bringing 
international beauty box leader GLOSSYBOX and spa and 
skincare brand ESPA into its growing portfolio of brands.
Headquartered in Cheshire, The Hut Group receives more 
than 400 million website visitors each year and ships to 
192 countries.
3 9 .  V O L C A N I C
M A N C H E S T E R ,  E N T E R P R I S E  S O F T W A R E
Stockport’s Volcanic has opened offices on four conti-
nents since it was founded back in 2010 and has become 
known for consistently bringing new technologies to the 
online recruitment and staffing market.
 
The firm has created innovative websites and enterprise 
level content management systems for companies in 35 
countries and in 15 languages, proudly delivering more 
than 20 million visitors and two million candidate regis-
trations for its clients.
 
Commercial success in recent years led to the open-
ing of offices in Malaysia, Australia and Mexico, and in 
2018 Volcanic was recognised as one of Manchester’s 
most innovative companies after being named in the 
Innovation100 Report, produced by BQ and the Business 
Growth Hub.
4 0 .  S K Y  B E T T I N G  &  G A M I N G
L E E D S ,  B E T T I N G  &  G A M I N G
 
Sky Betting & Gaming was formed in 2001 and now has a 
team of more than 1,000 employees. The company is led 
by CEO Richard Flint, with headquarters in Leeds and 
offices in Sheffield, Solihull, London, Munich and Rome. 
Sky Betting & Gaming was named the UK’s 53rd best com-
pany to work for at Best Companies 2018. In April 2018 the 
company was acquired by Canadian-owned company The 
Stars Group for £3.4bn.
4 1 .  M 2 4 S E V E N
M A N C H E S T E R ,  I T  S E R V I C E S
 
When Metronet acquired M24Seven for £46.5m in October 
2016, the company began its transformation from success-
ful wireless-based ISP to a business that delivers full LAN 
and WAN connectivity as well as managed cloud services 
internationally.
 
The last 12 months have seen the company adopt the 
M24Seven branding, refresh its systems and establish a 
presence in London. This was aided by the company’s 
acquisition of London-focused network operator Venus 
Business Communications in March 2017.
 
Led by CEO Lee Perkins, M24Seven has more than doubled 
in size over the last 18 months.
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4 2 .  U I N S U R E
M A N C H E S T E R ,  F I N T E C H
 
Manchester-based general insurance provider Uinsure 
was the first company of its kind to offer advisers a panel 
of leading insurers with a common policy wording when 
it was founded by CEO Simon Taylor in 2007.
 
Uinsure offers five-star-rated insurance via trusted brands 
and provides customers with a Defaqto compare tool to 
help them quickly find home insurance products.
 
The company built on a successful year in 2017, when it was 
named Best General Insurance Provider at the Paradigm 
Lender & Provider Awards, by winning the GI Provider of 
the Year gong at the 2018 Personal Touch Live Awards.
4 3 .  R R A D A R
H U L L ,  E N T E R P R I S E  S O F T W A R E
 
Leeds-based law firm rradar has enjoyed a year of excep-
tional growth, winning a number of awards and completing 
a move to new premises along the way.
 
Originally launched in Hull in 2012, rradar moved to Leeds 
in 2016 but quickly outgrew its offices and moved to the 
Bruntwood building Platform in January 2018. Having 
started out as a company with just 10 employees and a 
turnover of £0.8m, rradar now employs more than 100 
people and its turnover is estimated at £5m.
 
The company, which focuses on delivering a modern, 
proactive, positive client experience of the law, was rec-
ognised for its groundbreaking legal virtual assistant, 
rradarGrace, when it was awarded the Innovation of the 
Year prize at the Modern Law Awards in 2018.
4 4 .  O P E N C A S T  S O F T W A R E  E U R O P E  LT D
N E W C A S T L E  U P O N  T Y N E ,  I T  S E R V I C E S
 
Newcastle’s burgeoning tech sector provided the ideal 
setting for Opencast Software’s 2012 launch and founder 
Mike O’Brien has successfully grown his technology and 
software services company from a team of one – himself 
– to a highly respected firm of more than 65 people.
 
Opencast specialises in the design, build, maintenance 
and operation of business-critical systems, providing 
software development, technology consultancy and staff 
augmentation services to help organisations work better.
 
The company has established offices in Newcastle, 
London and New York and attracted clients like Barclays, 
Betfair, Sage and NHS.
4 5 .  P U R P L E  W I F I  LT D
O L D H A M ,  D A T A  A N A LY T I C S
 
Global leaders in guest WiFi analytics, Oldham-based 
Purple WiFi has been disrupting the market since Gavin 
Wheeldon founded the company in May 2012.
Purple Wifi’s software allows businesses to monitor their 
physical spaces and promote their brand, while providing 
insights into customer behaviour. Growth in the hospitality, 
retail, healthcare and communication sectors in the last 
four years was boosted by investments of $13m into the 
company, whose global partner network has expanded 
significantly in recent months with NLT Networks and 
Shopronics both becoming Purple Wifi resellers.
 
In February 2018 Purple Wifi announced a huge shake-up 
in their free and licensed WiFi solutions by offering their 
enhanced solution, Purple SMB, free of charge to busi-
nesses with five access points or fewer.
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4 6 .  E V O K E  C R E A T I V E
W I R R A L ,  D I G I T A L  A G E N C Y
 
Evoke Creative’s move to a purpose-built HQ in January 
2018 followed an outstanding period of growth and suc-
cess during the previous few years.
 
The company was founded in 2003 by Dean Ward, Neil 
Clark, Graham Boyd and Iain Quayle, and quickly estab-
lished itself as a market-leading designer of interactive 
digital products including self-service kiosks, video walls, 
digital signage, information points, payment terminals 
and interactive experiences. The company supplies major 
blue-chip clients such as JD Sports, Debenhams, Google 
and McDonald’s.
 
Wirral-based Evoke now operates from its own 60,000 
square foot premises and was named 2017 Manufacturer 
of the Year (under £25m) at Insider’s Made in the UK 
Awards after a number of notable successes, including 
a contract with Vue cinemas to provide state-of-the-art 
ticket machines.
4 7.  B E D E  G A M I N G
N E W C A S T L E  U P O N  T Y N E ,  B E T T I N G  &  G A M I N G
 
Bede Gaming is an award-winning supplier of software 
to the online gaming industry. With headquarters in 
Newcastle and offices in London and Sofia, Bulgaria, Bede 
processes over 200 million transactions and handles more 
than £550m of wagers per month, powering some of the 
largest online gambling operators and lotteries worldwide.
 
The company started 2018 hot on the heels of the 
announcement of its expansion into South Africa through 
a partnership with Sun International, and soon followed 
up that news by announcing deals with Kiron Interactive, 
Genii, Gamevy and Playson.
 
Bede is working with leading operators to make advances 
in platform level compliance, providing its customers with 
its most robust and fair gaming platform to date.
4 8 .  E - D AY S  A B S E N C E  M A N A G E M E N T
N O T T I N G H A M ,  E N T E R P R I S E  S O F T W A R E
 
Nottingham-based e-days provides more than 1,000 
clients around the world with a cloud-based absence 
management solution.
 
e-days helps organisations in more than 80 countries 
to combat absenteeism, reduce staff administration 
time and gain insights into attendance through detailed 
reports, and the company’s clients include Canon Europe, 
Sony Music, Standard Bank and NBCUniversal.
 
The 13-year-old company has enjoyed a successful growth 
period in recent years, culminating in an investment from 
private equity firm Palatine in November 2017.
4 9 .  C O N N E X  O N E
M A N C H E S T E R ,  E N T E R P R I S E  S O F T W A R E
 
Cloud-based, omnichannel engagement platform Connex 
One allows organisations to interface with customers 
using voice, SMS, email, live chat and social media and 
has a track record of success, delivering a sales uplift of 
25 per cent within four weeks to new clients.
 
The Manchester company was founded in 2013 and has 
since worked with clients in finance, retail, government, 
education, recruitment and media, helping businesses to 
increase the amount of time they spend communicating 
with customers to boost sales and retention.
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5 0 .  S Y K E S  C O T T A G E S
C H E S T E R ,  E - C O M M E R C E  &  M A R K E T P L A C E S
 
Sykes Cottages has been at the forefront of the holiday lettings industry for 
over 25 years; in November 2017 the company won the British Travel Awards 
prize for Best Large UK Holiday Cottage Booking Company for the fifth con-
secutive year.
 
The company was founded in 1991 when Clive Sykes and his mother formed a 
family business letting their own holiday cottages and those of their friends. 
Sykes Cottages now provides booking and management services to over 
8,000 cottages in the UK and Ireland.
50.
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PLATFORM,
LEEDS
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 LAURENCE NEWMAN, CEO, CURRENTBODY 
MANCHESTER
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LAURENCE 
NEWMAN
CEO OF CURRENTBODY
According to Laurence Newman, one in five people would recognise the home-
use beauty device that has broken records by selling 15 million units worldwide.
 
That device is the Clarisonic cleansing face brush,  Manchester entrepreneur 
Laurence first encountered, more than 10 years ago when he was the marketing 
director for a chain of clinics and salons.
 
The product’s popularity was yet to take off outside of professional settings but, 
recognising the potential for the Clarisonic to lead a new market of home-use 
products, Laurence contacted its distributor with an idea.
 
“My idea was a website as a pure play in home-use beauty devices, which is 
all very well if you’ve got lots of products to sell but we didn’t really have much 
to sell at the time,” Laurence explains.
 
It was then that he met Andrew Showman, who had a track record of success 
in e-commerce for digital cameras.
 
Laurence describes their conversation at that time, saying: “Digital cameras 
were wavering a little due to the influx of camera-phones, so it was quite a 
good time for him and I to meet.
 
“I said: ‘Look, my e-commerce experience is very limited. I’ve been told that 
this is something you’re very proficient in. I’ve got a very good background in 
professional beauty products. This is my idea.’”
 
The pair launched CurrentBody.com, which has since emerged as a leading 
online retail destination for a beauty devices market estimated to be worth 
$94.4bn by 2023.
We sat down with Laurence Newman to talk about the foundations of 
CurrentBody and maintaining startup culture alongside international 
expansion.
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The company’s rapid success led to a £5m investment of growth capital from 
NVM Private Equity earlier this year, but Laurence has not forgotten the hurdles 
he and Andrew had to overcome to arrive at this point.
Back in 2009, he had to convince the beauty industry that e-commerce really 
was the way forward.
 
“Most beauty companies and manufacturers at the time wanted to see their 
products in Harrods, Selfridges, Space NK and the like,” says Laurence, sit-
ting in the mezzanine meeting room that overlooks CurrentBody’s open-plan 
offices in Cheadle, Greater Manchester.
 
“Doing it through bricks and mortar is very difficult. You need someone on a 
stand who knows enough about these products and there’s a big turnover of 
staff in stores.
 
“I was out there saying look, you need to be on our website. This is the future 
of it, this is where you need to showcase your product. It might be that we’re 
not selling thousands of them but we’ll give you content, videos, experienced 
customer service, and we can do surveys with our customers.
 
“All the things that they weren’t able to focus on, we could do.”
 
Laurence’s confidence in his idea was well placed: online now represents 51 
per cent of all sales of beauty devices and his firm has grown from a staff of 
two in a small office outside Wilmslow to a dynamic team of 30 experienced 
marketers and product specialists.
 
That growth was fuelled by a combination of intelligent business strategy and, 
Laurence admits, the odd stroke of good fortune.
 
“The first product that we were fortunate enough to start selling was Clarisonic,” 
he says. “You have the odd break and that was our break. Clarisonic was 
acquired by L’Oreal, and L’Oreal becoming a key partner was a major success 
for us as a very small business.
 
“We’ve now gone from a point where we would buy and sell these products, to 
full marketing plans with 12-month or 18-month pipelines of new products and 
touchpoints throughout the year for discounting, product launches, exclusive 
content and so on.
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“The most important thing we did in this business was put in a board and a 
chairman to help put a specific plan together. You might think to yourself that 
in a small business you don’t need board meetings, you don’t need strategy, 
you don’t need to revisit the strategy and the budget, but actually the more 
you stick to those disciplines the more you have a chance of success.”
As sales of beauty devices continue to dwindle in stores and grow rapidly 
online, the prospects for CurrentBody are of international growth and a global 
reach.
 
That will likely mean expansion for Laurence’s team, but he is keen to retain the 
small business mentality that has helped him forge a strong bond with his staff.
 
“I’ve been very transparent with the team all the way through,” he says. “I 
believe it’s the right way to be. I owe a lot to this team for getting us to this 
point.
 
“There were times when we’d be short-staffed in the warehouse and people 
from my marketing team would go and help. That’s how it should be. I’m trying 
to keep a startup feel to the business because, even though we’re bigger 
than a startup, in some respects we’re still in ‘startup mode’. I think that’s an 
important part of the culture.
 
“It’s still a bit chaotic and a little bit all-hands-to-the-pump, but that’s exciting.”
5 1 .  M O B Y S O F T
M A N C H E S T E R ,  E N T E R P R I S E  S O F T W A R E
 
During its 15-year history, Mobysoft has become an 
important part of the social housing landscape by deliv-
ering efficiencies to landlords through its award-winning 
software.
 
The company was founded in 2003 by Derek Steele and 
built its foundations by providing SMS solutions across 
various verticals through its SMS solution, MobileLogic. 
Now, its cloud-based analytic rent arrears software helps 
to tackle welfare reform, providing landlords with a 15.8 
per cent arrears reduction on average in the first year as 
well as an average efficiency saving of 25 per cent.
 
Mobysoft’s easy-to-install RentSense software picked 
up a Queen’s Award for Enterprise in Innovation and the 
Housing Excellence Best IT system in 2016.
5 2 .  C O N T R A C T H I R E A N D L E A S I N G . C O M
S T O C K P O R T,  E - C O M M E R C E  &  M A R K E T P L A C E S
 
Founded in 2000, ContractHireAndLeasing.com offered 
car leasing companies an alternative to traditional offline 
advertising and quickly emerged as the leading website 
in the car leasing industry.
 
Now the largest dedicated new car, contract hire and vehi-
cle leasing website in the UK, ContractHireAndLeasing.
com has more than four million live deals available at 
any one time.
 
The company is based in purpose-built office in Hazel 
Grove, Stockport, and works with the UK’s main dealers, 
independent dealerships and brokers.
5 3 .  A Z Z U R E  I T
S H E F F I E L D ,  I T  S E R V I C E S
 
Winner of the Yorkshire Post Fastest 50 Award for two years 
running in 2015 and 2016, and a two-time Deloitte Fast 
UK tech company, Azzure IT has continued its trajectory 
of growth to become the leading provider of Microsoft 
Dynamics.
 
From its headquarters in Sheffield and its offices in 
Reading and Newcastle, the company helps businesses 
to realise the full potential of the Microsoft Dynamics suite, 
working across sectors including manufacturing, distribu-
tion, professional services and not-for-profit.
 
Managing director Craig Such successfully built several 
ERP businesses before founding Assure IT in 2011.
5 4 .  T H E  F L O O W
S H E F F I E L D ,  H A R D W A R E
Telematics company The Floow announced the open-
ing of its first North American office in September 2017 
following an outstanding year of growth and success in 
which the Sheffield-based firm won Red Herring’s Top 
100 Europe award.
  
As well as expanding into America, the company is part-
nering with an ever-increasing number of European firms 
such as Portuguese insurance market leader Fidelidade, 
who appointed The Floow to work on its first telematics 
pilot using smartphone app technology.
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5 5 .  R 2 C  O N L I N E
S H E F F I E L D ,  E N T E R P R I S E  S O F T W A R E
 
R2C’s market-leading vehicle management platform 
is used by more than 20,000 fleets and 800 workshops 
worldwide. The company’s reputation has been built 
around specialist knowledge of the automotive space, 
along with its proven track record of low-cost accelerated 
deployment model and rapid ROI.
 
The world’s leading vehicle manufacturers and operators, 
including Iveco, Scania, Renault Trucks, Isuzu and Tesco.
com are turning to R2C’s SaaS platform, which was used 
to detect more than 3.5m safety-related vehicle defects 
in 2017.
 
The company was founded in 2003 and continues to 
grow the business internationally from its headquarters 
in Sheffield.
5 6 .  M T E C H  I T  S O L U T I O N S
L E E D S ,  I T  S E R V I C E S
 
With companies across the UK working hard to become 
GDPR compliant, Leeds-based firm MTech enjoyed a busy 
year. The 10-year-old company is a Microsoft Gold partner 
in cloud solutions and works with more than 60 companies, 
providing IT support and management advice.
 
GDPR legislation forced many businesses to review their 
security and data recovery protocols, and MTech has 
worked closely with clients like Leeds Rugby, Yorkshire 
Cricket, Springfield Healthcare and Proper Music through-
out the process, providing strategic IT support to ensure 
they remain productive and prosperous into the future.
5 7.  B E T T E R 2 K N O W
M O R E C A M B E ,  E - C O M M E R C E  &  M A R K E T P L A C E S
 
Better2Know revolutionised access to sexual health 
testing services with the launch of its round-the-clock 
appointment service in 2008. Over the course of the last 
decade, the Lancashire-based company has become the 
UK’s largest private provider of these services, delivering 
thousands of tests to patients who can remain anonymous 
and receive test results extremely quickly – often within 
minutes.
 
Company CEO Mike Asher, previously Chief Executive at 
the Centre of Excellence for Life Sciences, has 20 years’ 
experience in biotechnology and he worked with regional 
government to negotiate funding, regional development 
strategies and growth plans for the business.
5 8 .  A S P I R E  T E C H N O L O G Y  S O L U T I O N S
G A T E S H E A D ,  I T  S E R V I C E S
 
Aspire Technology Solutions achieved record levels of 
customer engagement and a net promoter score of 64 
in 2017, having made a trio of key appointments earlier in 
the year. The managed services company, which improves 
organisations’ existing IT systems, appointed a new chief 
technical architect along with new heads of services man-
agement and delivery following a sustained period of 
growth.
 
Following its launch in 2006, Aspire grew to a staff of 40 by 
2013 and surpassed 100 staff in 2017. The company works 
with organisations of all sizes and across sectors includ-
ing health, retail, construction, utilities, pharmaceuticals, 
fashion, the motor industry, and education.
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5 9 .  P R A E S T O  C O N S U LT I N G
D A R L I N G T O N ,  I T  S E R V I C E S
 
Praesto Consulting is widening access to its unique cloud-based IT solutions, 
unlocking game-changing business analytics systems for a growing network 
of clients across Europe and North America.
 
In March 2018, the company celebrated nine years since its launch by open-
ing a new office in Rotterdam, having amplified its growth in North America 
with the acquisition of CRM and business intelligence consultancy Accelsior 
Corporation only five months earlier.
 
Managing director Jem Ranson founded the company in 2009 and has since 
grown Praesto into a market-leading IT consultancy specialising in the imple-
mentation of business intelligence, enterprise performance and CRM systems.
     @TechNation
@TechNationHQ
@TechNationHQ
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6 0 .  M U S I C M A G P I E
M A N C H E S T E R ,  E - C O M M E R C E  &  M A R K E T P L A C E S
 
After 10 years of sustained growth, musicMagpie moved to 
new headquarters at Stockport’s Exchange office devel-
opment in 2017 having become the first business in the 
world to achieve a feedback score of 5m on eBay.
 
The company was founded in 2007 and run from Steve 
Oliver’s garage in Stockport, where he and co-founder 
Walter Gleeson recognised the huge demand for hard-to-
find films, novels and music. The launch of an eBay store in 
2011 accelerated the company’s growth and musicMagpie 
now employs more than 1,000 people in Stockport.
6 1 .  P A R C E L 2 G O
B O LT O N ,  E - C O M M E R C E  &  M A R K E T P L A C E S
 
Bolton-based Parcel2Go has gone from strength to 
strength since being ranked in the Sunday Times Tech 
Track 100 in 2011, running websites and customer services 
for Europe’s leading courier firms. Parcel2Go.com is the 
country’s leading parcel delivery comparison website and 
the company is also the UK’s leading parcel broker, offer-
ing a full range of national and international destinations 
with same-day, next-day and economy services.
 
The company was founded by Fil Adams-Mercer in 2004 
and works with couriers including TNT, Hermes, DPD and 
UPS throughout Europe.
6 2 .  P R O V U
H U D D E R S F I E L D ,  I T  S E R V I C E S
 
With headquarters in Huddersfield, ProVu are distributors 
of voice over IP hardware. The company’s award-winning 
ProSys reseller portal has empowered resellers to take 
control of their orders and the system’s popularity has 
fuelled ProVu’s ongoing growth and success.
 
In November 2017 the company announced that it is part 
of Sennheiser UK’s selective distribution system, providing 
its customers with some of the most sought-after office 
and contact centre headsets on the market.
6 3 .  V I R T U A L  C O L L E G E
I L K L E Y,  E D T E C H
 
Based in Ilkley, West Yorkshire, Virtual College has been 
helping people in the public and private sectors to reach 
their potential since 1995 and now has a growing user 
base of over 3m registered learners, growing at a rate of 
1,500 per day.
 
Virtual College’s learning management system pro-
vides access to more than 300 online courses, and the 
company’s commitment to helping enhance traditional 
learning through the careful integration of technology 
has earned it several accolades. Named Supplier of the 
Year by Learning Technologies in 2016, the company aims 
to reach 20m learners by 2020.
60.
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64. RIPE THINKING
M A N C H E S T E R ,  F I N T E C H
 
With an annual turnover of £11m, Ripe Thinking was named 
the UK’s Best Specialist Insurance Provider at the 2018 
Insurance Choice Awards. The company’s strategy involves 
using data and machine learning to drive growth and more 
than 190,000 policyholders are registered with the firm.
 
Ripe Thinking secured funding from the government’s 
innovation agency, Innovate UK, to develop a knowl-
edge-sharing partnership with the University of Salford 
that will investigate the use of AI and machine learning 
to improve customer experience.
65. DIGITAL NEXT
M A N C H E S T E R ,  D I G I T A L  A G E N C Y
 
Digital Next achieved a turnover of £1m within two years of 
its 2009 launch and now operates as a full service digital 
agency with 80 staff in five countries around the world. 
The company was founded by brothers Mark and Justin 
Blackhurst and joined the Federation of Small Businesses in 
its second year. In 2017 the company won the FSB’s Business 
of the Year award for Manchester and North Cheshire.
 
Specialising in SEO, SEM, PPC and paid social media ser-
vices, Digital Next is a Google Premier Partner and is on 
course to achieve a £4m turnover in 2018.
66.  AIRANGEL
W A R R I N G T O N ,  E N T E R P R I S E  S O F T W A R E
 
Warrington-based provider of guest WiFi solutions 
Airangel expanded its operations throughout 2017, acquir-
ing numerous European brands and securing significant 
investment.
 
The company, which was founded by Chris Airey and Dean 
Wilkinson in 2005, has more than 50 million registered 
users of its WiFi products at apartment buildings and large 
public venues, which cover over 360,000 rooms and units 
in 42 different countries.
 
Their clients include Mercedes-Benz, Malmaison, Hotel du 
Vin and the NHS, and the company has opened an office 
in Dubai to cover its Middle East and Africa operations.
67. SONOCENT
L E E D S ,  E D T E C H
 
Sonocent’s Audio Notetaker tool is transforming learning 
by making audio as easy to access and manipulate as text. 
The tool gained more than 52,000 new users in 2017, while 
nearly 27,000 new users utilised Sonocent’s Recorder and 
Link apps for note-taking on the go, and in a company 
survey 72 per cent of students said the products had con-
tributed to grade improvements.
 
Roger Tucker founded Sonocent in Leeds in 2007; the 
company is planning to move to new offices in 2018 
while continuing to develop products in conjunction 
with prestigious learning institutions such as Vision West 
Nottinghamshire College, The University of Bath, University 
College Cork and the University of the District of Columbia.
68. MANDO
L I V E R P O O L ,  D I G I T A L  A G E N C Y
 
Mando has been helping to shape the digital strategies 
of global brands in the utilities, manufacturing, financial 
services, and telecoms sectors for over 20 years, winning 
numerous awards along the way.
 
Ian Finch, who founded the company in Liverpool back in 
1997, picked up the Agency Leader of the Year prize at The 
Drum’s 2015 Network Awards, and Mando has since con-
tinued to strengthen its reputation for delivering simple, 
efficient digital experiences, helping organisations such as 
Warburtons, Thomas Cook Group, TalkTalk and Transport 
for London achieve success.
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SARAT PEDIREDLA, CEO, HEDGEHOG LAB
NEWCASTLE
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SARAT 
PEDIREDLA
CEO OF HEDGEHOG LAB
Founded in 2007, Newcastle-based Hedgehog Lab has built its reputation 
on exceptional digital applications for smartphones, tablets, desktops and 
wearables. With offices across North America and India, Hedgehog Lab’s 
expanding team is now exploring how mobile, immersive and AI technologies 
can influence sectors such as retail, energy and utilities.
We met with Sarat Pediredla, CEO of Hedgehog Lab at their headquarters in 
Newcastle to talk about the company’s evolution.
H O W  D I D  H E D G E H O G  L A B  B E G I N ?
I used to be a software developer. I was working for a company before I formed 
Hedgehog Lab with my co-founder Mark. It did really well and it grew mas-
sively. But there was no where else for me to go in the organisation; I wanted 
to progress. In 2007, Mark and I left our jobs and set up the company. 
In the early days, we didn’t really have a business plan. We created a software 
business in the financial services sector, because we had experience with that. 
Originally we were just doing financial software on browsers. Then in 2008 the 
financial crisis happened and the whole industry went from spending hundreds 
of thousands of pounds on software to locking their wallets up. We had a bit 
of software we had spent six months creating that no one wanted to use. So 
we had to pivot the company very quickly and we did the next best thing we 
could do, which was to become a digital agency. 
We met with Sarat Pediredla at Hedgehog Lab’s flagship office in Newcastle 
to talk about the company’s development.
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“There were people ringing up 
from Los Angeles, New York. And 
we were just baffled. I used to 
remember going on the phone 
and saying, ‘you do realise we’re 
in Newcastle, right?’”
— SARAT PEDIREDLA, HEDGEHOG LAB
HEDGEHOG LAB,
NEWCASTLE
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WHAT  C AN YOU TELL  US ABOUT  THE PR OGRESSION? 
I became really excited by what the iPhone was doing. 
We started experimenting with building apps. I remember 
saying to Mark, ‘this is going to be big’. But the problem 
was, even in 2008, 2009 there wasn’t really a market for it. 
We kept doing what we were doing, and we grew slowly. 
Then in 2010 I suffered from a serious illness and was 
out of work for about 6-9 months of that year. We had 
a really tough year with the business, and when I came 
back, everyone seemed to be doing websites. The 
business wasn’t going anywhere. We were still playing 
around with mobile apps and we thought: why don’t we 
reposition ourselves as a post-pc tech consultancy and 
just focus on apps? We’ve been growing year by year 
everP since then.
W H Y  D I D  Y O U  M A K E  T H E  D E C I S I O N  T O  E X P A N D 
I N T E R N A T I O N A L LY ?
By 2014, the business was really starting to scale out. And 
we were really struggling. Because we were considered a 
micro business we couldn’t attract people; we didn’t have 
a brand, we didn’t have a presence. No one really knew 
about us. At the same time, we had to constantly turn 
down work because of it. It didn’t seem like there was a 
lot of people that did apps, and those that do are out of 
reach in terms of the size of the market. 
I’m originally from India, and I was talking to one of my 
cousins there. He was telling me about the skills of people 
there, and it just kind of dawned on me if we set up an 
India office we could access a talent pool; that was our 
first foray into international business. We set up a team 
there, went and recruited people.
As the business grew, we started to see a lot more inter-
est from America. There were people ringing up from Los 
Angeles, New York. And we were just baffled. I used to 
remember going on the phone and saying, ‘you do realise 
we’re in Newcastle, right?’ 
We started scouting, went on some R&D missions looking 
for locations. And then fate just connected us with Pat, 
who runs our US office. In 2016 we formerly set up the US 
company.
HO W  DO YOU MAINTAIN YOUR  W ORKING CULTURE 
A S THE BUSINESS GR O W S? 
In 2016, we were named one of the best places to work 
in Newcastle by Glassdoor. When we doubled our team 
last year, there was a real challenge of maintaining the 
culture, especially in a global team. We didn’t have a tem-
plate for culture, we did things that we wanted to do. It’s 
common sense stuff. Treat people fairly, be transparent. 
There’s no secret. 
Fundamentally I think  all businesses have good culture, 
because they start with that. Our challenge was not to 
get in the way of that, with roadblocks and processes. 
As long as we’re aware of that, and we’re learning, then 
it will be fine. 
HEDGEHOG LAB,
NEWCASTLE
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6 9 .  L E A D  T E C H
L E E D S ,  D A T A  A N A LY T I C S
 
Customer generation business Lead Tech spends more than £3m on market-
ing its clients to consumers each year, and by the end of 2018 aims to have 
returned at least £1bn in revenue for brands in the financial services, legal 
and clean energy sectors.
 
Lead Tech was founded in Otley in 2008 by Nigel Borwell and Paul Walsh, and 
the company moved to new offices in nearby Pool-in-Wharfedale in late 2016, 
creating 70 new jobs as part of a business plan that includes a target turnover 
of £16.7m by the end of FY2019.
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JAMES HALL, DIRECTOR, PARALLAX
LEEDS 
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“I don’t suppose there was really any grand vision. It was just: this could be 
cool. We didn’t really know if it was going to work or not.”
 
James Hall sits under a skylight in a 150-year-old building — originally a brew-
ing and bottling warehouse — a stone’s throw from the River Aire in Leeds and 
home to his digital media company, Parallax.
 
There is a hushed air of focus around their airy office, which James puts down 
to the Parallax team being “quite devvy”.
 
But it wasn’t always like this.
 
“In the beginning it was us four playing really loud music and trying to shout 
over each other, but now it’s quite quiet and relaxing,” he says.
 
“We’ve still got a bit of that culture; we’ve got a beer vending machine. We 
used to have beer on tap but we don’t drink as much as we used to, which 
is a good thing I guess. We sometimes play video games on an afternoon.”
 
Parallax originally consisted of James and Lawrence Dudley handing “the 
techie side of things”, while Andy Fitch and Dario Grandich specialised in 
development and design, respectively.
 
“We had a good mix of different kinds of development skills, design, and being 
able to go out and sell it, and we thought: there’s enough difference in all of 
us to go and make a well-rounded company from this,” says James.
 
The four friends quickly discovered that their particular blend of talents would 
set them apart from other digital agencies.
 
“We started off doing some quite technical projects involving LED billboards, 
which is why we’ve got that techie streak throughout the agency,” he says. 
“Quite early on we managed to bag British Airways as a client. 
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JAMES HALL 
DIRECTOR OF PARALLAX
In their airy offices in Leeds, Director James Hall tells us about Parallax’s 
journey from four friends drinking afternoon beers to a burgeoning digital 
media agency working with adidas and the NHS.
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“We’re pioneers of Amazon’s 
tech in this part of the world 
and off the back of that they 
say: ‘Do you know anyone?’ And 
they’ll point to us.”
— JAMES HALL, PARALLAX
We started doing all their business lounge stuff and off 
the back of that we got Eurostar.
“We’re half development, half traditional marketing 
agency, and we’ve had an Internet Of Things streak 
running through us. We’ll often find that other agencies 
nearby pick up a lot of web jobs but when they’ve got 
something more involved to do, they’ll come to us.”
 
The company’s capability to produce software for con-
nected devices along with core online marketing assets 
put them in contention to win flagship projects for global 
brands.
 
When adidas needed interactive displays for their Kate 
Moss Originals campaign in 2016 they turned to Parallax, 
whose track record of successful public engagement has 
led them onto pioneering projects with city councils and 
the NHS.
 
“We’ve taken on two large NHS projects, one of which is 
coming to an end and has been really successful,” says 
James. “We’ve built them a minimum viable product to 
improve the way they spend their money on management 
training.
 
“We’ve moved onto doing street lighting. We’re trying to 
save councils money on their electricity bills by putting 
radios in the streetlights themselves so that they can con-
trol them over time. It’s a really cool project.
 
“I know air pollution is a big thing – there was a report 
this morning about how pollution in Yorkshire affected 
childhood asthma and there’s a direct link there. It’ll be 
interesting to see how tech can help with that problem 
and what councils are looking to do with it.”
James received personal recognition for his work when 
he was named as an Amazon Community Hero — one of 
only 13 expert developers in Europe and the Middle East 
to be given the title for their outstanding knowledge of 
Amazon Web Services (AWS).
 
“I didn’t even get a cape or anything,” says James. “We’re 
pioneers of their tech in this part of the world and off the 
back of that people go to Amazon and say: ‘Do you know 
anyone?’ And they’ll point to us.
 
“We’ve been running an AWS meetup, originally at our 
offices but we’ve outgrown it in the last couple of years. 
It is getting to the size of about 80 or 90 people so we’re 
thinking about moving it.”
 
You get the feeling Parallax may need to move its team 
to larger premises in the coming years as the company 
continues to flourish, but James has no plans to uproot 
from a Northern tech scene he believes is thriving.
 
“We have a satellite office in London,” he says. “We’ll 
often go down and meet clients in London but they’re 
keen to meet with agencies up North because the cost 
of living in London is so great, developers are expensive, 
so London companies are moving their resource to Leeds 
and Manchester.
 
“Leeds and Manchester is where it’s at, I think.”
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W A X  D I G I T A L
H Y D E ,  E N T E R P R I S E  S O F T W A R E
 
Spend Management and eProcurement firm Wax Digital 
is the UK’s number one source-to-pay vendor and among 
the top five globally. The company powers procurement 
and sourcing processes for 260,000 users in 103 countries, 
and 18 per cent of Wax Digital’s turnover is reinvested in 
project development.
 
Founded in Manchester in 2001 by Daniel Ball and Paul 
Ellis, Wax Digital’s web3 for Healthcare product is helping 
NHS Trusts to maintain service levels while delivering on 
cost-cutting and savings directives from central govern-
ment. The company also provides eProcurement products 
to Nissan, Xerox, Durham University and ITV.
7 1 .  U N I F O R M
L I V E R P O O L ,  D I G I T A L  A G E N C Y
 
Over the last 20 years, Uniform has grown from the startup 
project of three design students at Liverpool John Moores 
University, to a team of 54 creatives who provide inno-
vative solutions for clients like Gatorade, Arsenal FC and 
Canary Wharf.
 
The company was featured in the The Guardian in 2017 
after creating Solo, the ‘emotional radio’ that selects 
music based on listeners’ emotional state, and it is this 
playful approach to design that has made Uniform one 
of the country’s most sought-after agencies.
7 2 .  W A T E R S T O N S
D U R H A M ,  I T  S E R V I C E S
 
Following financial growth of close to 30 per cent in 2017, 
creative IT consultancy Waterstons announced a move to 
new premises as the company aims to continue its upward 
trajectory.
 
Founded in 1994, and with a client list including Shell, Leeds 
Beckett University, and the University of York, Waterstons 
works with businesses to define and develop technology, 
process and governance architectures, helping them to 
improve performance.
 
The company has offices in London and Glasgow, 
employing 133 staff, and is planning expansion into the 
Asia-Pacific region in the near future.
7 3 .  M O B I C A
W I L M S L O W,  I T  S E R V I C E S
 
Featured in the Sunday Times Tech Track 100 five times 
since its launch in 2004, Mobica brings next-generation, 
time-critical products to life for the connected device 
market.
 
The company was founded by Nick Stammers and Jon 
Clayton and has earned a stellar reputation for its soft-
ware services and technology solutions. Mobica has 11 
research and development hubs around the world, push-
ing the company forward in the creation of cutting edge 
products for sectors including fintech, automotive and 
semiconductor.
 
In 2017, the Wilmslow-based company announced key 
appointments to bolster its senior leadership team, who 
are working towards a target of 3,000 employees by 2020.
70.
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7 4 .  F I R E F I S H  S O F T W A R E
G L A S G O W,  E N T E R P R I S E  S O F T W A R E
 
Glasgow recruitment software company Firefish began in 
2006 when a team of recruiters decided to address the 
limitations of existing solutions by developing their own. 
Within four years of successfully growing an agency using 
their own award-winning in-house software, the Firefish 
team were in a position to offer their platform out to other 
companies.
 
The success of Firefish resides in its ability to revive ‘dead’ 
data and engage candidates who would otherwise 
remain hidden. The company won the ScotlandIS Digital 
Technology Award for Best Newcomer in 2012, and the 
company is a finalist in the 2018 Digital Tech Awards for 
Best B2B Tech.
7 5 .  V I S U A L S O F T
T E E S S I D E ,  D I G I T A L  A G E N C Y
 
Visualsoft boasts a hugely successful e-commerce plat-
form with a proven track record of helping retailers such 
as TJ Hughes, Charles Clinkard and Shoetique grow and 
sustain their businesses online.
 
Named one of Econsultancy’s Top 100 Digital Agencies 
in 2017, Visualsoft works with more than 1,000 retailers 
and over the course of two decades since its launch in 
Stockton-on-Tees the company has added offices in 
Manchester, Newcastle and London and signed part-
nerships with industry heavyweights like Google, PayPal, 
Barclaycard and Trustpilot.
7 6 .  VA I O N I  G R O U P
M A N C H E S T E R ,  I T  S E R V I C E S
 
Vaioni is a Ethernet and cloud solutions company, creat-
ing bespoke networks to put customers in control of their 
connectivity. Since launching in Manchester in 2008, the 
company has developed a carrier grade infrastructure, 
the Vaioni Ethernet Network, which connects London, 
Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and Newcastle.
 
Following a successful year of growth, the company was 
named Best Fixed Line Network Provider of the Year at the 
2017 Comms National Awards and Connectivity Provider 
of the Year at the 2017 Comms Business Awards.
7 7.  P A R A L L A X
L E E D S ,  D I G I T A L  A G E N C Y
 
Having started out as four friends working out of their 
bedrooms in York back in 2009, Parallax is now firmly 
established as a major player in the thriving Leeds tech 
scene and has worked with clients as prestigious and 
diverse as British Airways, Nespresso, Hisense, American 
Express, Dyson, and The Sunday Times.
 
As well as being one of the most trusted digital agencies in 
the north for design, development, online marketing and 
PR, Parallax gives back to the Leeds community through 
its work with local charities such as homeless shelter St 
George’s Crypt.
78. CABOODLE TECHNOLOGY
C R E W E ,  E N T E R P R I S E  S O F T W A R E
 
Formerly Salary Exchange, employee benefit and engage-
ment firm Caboodle changed its name in 2017 to reflect 
the breadth of its offering.
 
Since 2009, the company has been developing a mar-
ket-leading employee benefits platform, Salary Extras, 
which can be tailored to the specific programme and 
needs of every client.  Caboodle is now one of the UK’s 
leading independent companies of its kind, servicing more 
than 8,000 UK organisations, and was named Business 
of the Year (11 to 50 employees) in the NatWest Cheshire 
Business Awards 2017.
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79. ELEMENTARY TECHNOLOGY
L E E D S ,  H A R D W A R E
 
The opening of a Customer Experience Centre at 
Elementary Technology’s Leeds headquarters has helped 
the 15-year-old company provide a number of new ser-
vices to its customers around the country. Visitors can now 
experience the very latest interactive audio-visual tech-
nology for education for themselves, under the guidance 
of Elementary’s experienced staff members.
 
Working across education and enterprise marketplaces, 
the company supports thousands of UK schools, helping 
them to implement education technology to improve 
teaching and learning.
80. ANS
M A N C H E S T E R ,  I T  S E R V I C E S
 
Ranked at number 18 in The Sunday Times Best Companies 
to Work For in 2018, Manchester’s ANS offers public, pri-
vate and hybrid cloud services, helping more than 300 
customers to become cloud enabled. Founded in 1996, the 
company has partnered with Cisco, NetApp, Microsoft 
and AWS to develop successful cloud migration solutions 
for its customers, becoming the country’s leading cloud 
services provider.
 
ANS has been given 3-star accreditation by The Sunday 
Times to denote its ‘extraordinary’ rating as an employer, 
and the company has nurtured 65 apprentices in the last 
five years, as well as raising more than £400,000 through 
charitable activities.
81. OPENCRM
R I C H M O N D ,  E N T E R P R I S E  S O F T W A R E
 
Graham Anderson founded OpenCRM in Richmond in 
2005. Graham, who was part of Apple’s UK Mac launch 
team before establishing the company, is now system 
architect and managing director and he works alongside 
many of the firm’s original staff members. 
OpenCRM provides a cloud-based CRM solution along 
with flexible consultancy, training and support to custom-
ers such as Gresham Books, Launchpad Research and 
Waterlogic.
82. UKFAST
M A N C H E S T E R ,  I T  S E R V I C E S
 
Manchester cloud management and hosting specialists 
UKFast are renowned for servicing some of the world’s 
biggest brands and providing its growing workforce with 
an exceptional working environment.
 
Having achieved a turnover of £40m in 2016, the company 
went on to feature in the Financial Times 1000 Europe’s 
Fastest Growing Companies and won Cloud Services 
Provider of the Year at the CRN Channel Awards 2016-17.
 
UKFast has offices in Manchester, London and Glasgow, 
and provides employees with sleeping pods, on-site crèche 
services, yoga classes and office dogs, so it is little sur-
prise the company featured in The Sunday Times 100 Best 
Companies to Work For in 2017.
80.
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