Fast-growing Avecto aims to dominate software security

TWO of the founders of technology firm Appsense have big ambitions for their new venture, hoping it will become a major international software player.

Paul Kenyon and Mark Austin founded Cheadle security software firm Avecto in 2008 and this year it was ranked as the fastest growing software firm in the UK in Deloitte’s Fast 50 list.

Sales grew by around 90% last year to £8.2m and a similar rate of growth is expected in the coming years.

The company now employs around 65 staff and has a US office which accounts for some 60% of revenue. Customers include large corporations and local authorities.

Mr Kenyon was Appsense’s first employee when it was launched by entrepreneur Charles Sharland in 1999, with software developer Mark Austin joining soon after. It has since grown into a multi-national technology business with sales of more than £100m, and two years ago attracted investment from Goldman Sachs.

But in 2008 they decided to sell their shares and go it alone. “We didn’t know quite what we were going to,” said Mr Kenyon. “I remember we were sitting in my front room and we decided to set up a software company and went through a list of 17 different ideas.”

They settled on windows privilege management software which allows companies to control the settings on a large number of computers. Some staff will have very few restrictions, for example, while others will be prevented from downloading software or changing the computer’s settings.

When they launched in September 2008 there were few competitors, with only the US-based Beyond Trust selling similar services, and it is a big market with around 600 million computers that require some sort of cover.

“The market is huge. The fact we’re growing as quickly as we are is indicative of market opportunity out there. The biggest problem we have is getting enough people into the business,” said Mr Kenyon who owns the business with Mr Austin and a third investor, Tony Bolland.

He added: “We have no plans to sell out and move on. We’re going to build a big business. We want to go as far as we can take this. The only thing that will stop us is our own bottle. Maybe someone will come along and offer us so much money we can’t turn it down. It hasn’t happened so far and hopefully we can take it all the way.

“I would love for us to be another thing that puts Manchester on the map. We want to build it into a well-known British name that sells globally.”