The eight firms to make this year’s Tech Track 100
A COMPANY that tracks 3 million smartphones to capture data about users’ habits and movements is the North West’s top entrant to this years annual rankings of the fastest growing tech businesses in the UK.
Manchester-based Reality Mine, which uses the results to help customers such as NBC Universal to understand which of their marketing techniques are most effective, has made its debut at number 27 in the 16th Sunday Times Hiscox Tech Track 100 league table, which ranks private technology, media and telecoms (TMT) companies with the fastest-growing sales over three years.
The company, which employs around 100 staff has seen sales growth of 109% over the last three years, with overseas growth helping the company grow turnover to £5.3m in 2015.
Making a third appearance in the league table at number 65 (down from 28 last year) is Macclesfield-based Zuto, whose software matches car buyers and loan providers.
Formerly known as Car Loan 4u, its platform attracts 400,000 monthly visitors, helping sales reach £23m in 2016.
Eight North West companies (compared to four last year) have made the ranking, with five new entrants.
They have made a strong contribution to the local economy over the last three years, with sales that have grown by an average of 69% a year over three years to a total of £159m, and together they employ 700 people.
The companies in the North West appear with businesses around the UK, including designer fashion website Farfetch, travel search engine Skyscanner, peer-to-peer lending platform Funding Circle and customer feedback service Feefo.
Nearly one third (31) of the companies on the league table were founded by serial entrepreneurs, who have started at least one other business. They include Victor, a private jet hire app whose founder Clive Jackson also set up Global Beach, a digital marketing company that featured in the first Tech Track 100 in 2001.
This year’s Tech Track 100 companies achieved, on average, sales growth of 88% a year over three years to a combined total of £2.2bn. They employ 11,000 staff, having added 8,200 employees to their combined workforce over the period.
