A cybersecurity and AI governance compliance business founded by Bristol-based tech entrepreneur Rob Hall has hit its six-year target of 300 clients and \u00a32m revenue in just two \u00a0years.<\/p>\n
Hall, who previously founded restaurant discovery and offers platform Wriggle, launched Tempo Audits in 2024, applying the experience of building and scaling a tech business to the compliance challenges facing the sector.<\/p>\n
While Covid stopped Wriggle its tracks, running it showed Hall that impersonal, jargon-heavy compliance certification processes were built for corporates, not founders.<\/p>\n
So he set out on a mission to bring a human face to ISO certification for tech businesses.<\/p>\n
Tempo Audits secured its first clients in July 2024 and has since grown its team to four full-time auditors and 10 contract auditors.<\/p>\n
At the outset, Hall set a six-year target of 300 clients and annual revenue \u00a32m \u2013 and has just witnessed his firm outpacing its own ambitions by achieving both ahead of it entering its third year.<\/p>\n
The Bristol-based business supplies ISO certification support across ISO 27001, ISO 42001 and related standards to technology businesses in the UK and EU.<\/p>\n
The EU’s cybersecurity\u00a0directive\u00a0NIS 2, which came into force in late 2024, has created mandatory cybersecurity obligations for thousands of organisations that did not previously have them while ISO 27001 has become a recognised compliance standard for technology companies.<\/p>\n
ISO 27001 certifications have nearly doubled globally in a single year to almost 100,000, with ISO 42001 for AI governance looking likely to follow a similar trajectory.<\/p>\n
They are both rapidly becoming a condition of supply chain access in data-sensitive sectors such as financial services, healthcare and the public sector.<\/p>\n
Tempo\u2019s positioning as a specialist with tech and early-stage companies has helped to drive its growth – as onerous procurement requirements increasingly force smaller companies through these certifications.<\/p>\n
Where previously the implementation of standards such as ISO 27001 and SOC 2 was seen as the preserve of larger 100-person plus companies, increasingly the market is seeing one-10 employees companies requiring.<\/p>\n
Tempo\u2019s specialism, as well as positioning as one of a small number of UK firm currently developing auditing capability across all three standards simultaneously, places it at the front of what its founders believe will be a significant market shift as AI governance regulation moves from voluntary to expected.<\/p>\n
Hall said: \u201cWe set the year-six targets because we thought they were ambitious, but it looks like the market had other ideas.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe businesses we work with are not waiting for enforcement to arrive.<\/p>\n
“They are seeing ISO 27001, SOC 2 and ISO 42001 show up in procurement questionnaires and RFPs right now, and they need an auditor who understands both the technical standard and the commercial pressure they are under as well as being a human being and able to communicate \u2013 be part of their team.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is the gap we built Tempo to fill, and the demand has been faster and larger than we planned for. It\u2019s likely the next stage of our development will see even faster scaling as AI compliance takes centre stage.\u201d<\/p>\n
The business has recently invested in a rebrand, introducing a new visual identity positioning designed to reflect Tempo\u2019s ambitions in the UK and EU market.<\/p>\n
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