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Technology companies in the Thames Valley leading the way
Thames Valley companies not surprisingly again featured highly in the latest Tech Track 100 table, published by the Sunday Times. Ranking Britain’s private tech companies with the fastest-growing sales over the latest three years of accounts, the table saw three of the region’s companies in the top 10.
Leading the way was Reading- based Cloud Distribution, a next-generation value-added distributor that specialises in bringing new, innovative and disruptive security and networking solutions to market. “We are passionate about maintaining the value in distribution and believe that partners will be more successful if they are supported and rewarded throughout the sales process and enabled with tools to successfully take products and solutions to market,” says the company.
Scott Dobson took a gamble in 2009 when he set up the company before cloud computing became as common as it is today. It paid off, with sales hitting £9.6 million in 2013 to average annual growth of 181%. The company started life as the UK distribution partner of the American firm Meraki, but now its small staff of 16 at Green Park works with some of the world’s leading cloud security and networking companies.
Fidelity Group, a Henley-on- Thames company that provides businesses with a joined-up communications system, putting all their telecoms on one network, was eighth in the UK table. Its products include Anvil, a web-based portal for customer management and billing.
The group was founded in 2008 by industry veterans Alan Shraga and Simon Taylor Payne who previously founded and sold two telecoms firms including Cable Telecom.
With an even smaller staff than Cloud – just 12 personnel – sales in 2013 reached £5.7m, averaging 134% growth over the past three years.
Also making the top 10 was
Cobalt Light Systems based at Milton Park near Abingdon, which provides technology to support airport security as restrictions on liquids in aircraft hand luggage end. Cobalt’s technology is used by 65 international airports, including Gatwick and Heathrow, to detect liquid explosives even if concealed in opaque containers. The company’s technique can also be used in drug production.
Spun out of Oxfordshire’s Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in 2008, it achieved turnover of £11.6m in 2014 (averaging annual growth of 125%) with a staff of 37.
Just making the top 20 was Invenio Business Solutions, launched at Reading by finance director Manish Goyal in 2006. Managing director Partho Bhattacharya has since led its expansion into India, Mauritius, Dubai and America.
Invenio specialises in the sale and integration of SAP business management software, and has built its own system Prometheus. Sales hit £10.9m this year (average 106% growth) through a staff of 400.
Pulsant of Reading (35th) provides managed IT services, including cloud computing and hosting, to 3,000 businesses from its 10 data centres in the UK. It was formed in 2010 when private equity firm Bridgepoint bought Lumison and later merged it with three more firms that it acquired. Chief executive Mark Howling oversaw sales of £43.7m in 2013 (averaging 79% growth) before a consortium of investors, led by New York-based Oak Hill Capital Partners, acquired the company in June. It has a staff of 172.
The Newbury IT consultancy Ntegra (38th) has four main strands to its business. It offers consulting and managed services, social collaboration and knowledge management, integration and data optimisation and an advisory unit. Chief executive Andy Davies oversaw sales of £14.6m in 2014 (averaging 74%) through a staff of 81.
Olive Business Solutions (49th) at High Wycombe manages IT
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – NOVEMBER 2014
systems and phone networks and has a staff of 160. Sales reached £19.6m this year (average growth 65%) after buying rival Wish Communications.
After receiving investment from Summit Partners and FleetCor Technologies, Marlow-based Masternaut (62nd) returned to the Tech Track 100 after a four-year absence. Its technology in vehicles allows real-time monitoring of everything from driver hours to fuel consumption. Sales totalled £69.7m in 2013 (average growth 57%) with a staff of 500.
Displaydata (70th) has a staff of 62 making electronic shelf labels at Bracknell that can be wirelessly and instantly updated either individually or across a retailer’s estate in response to market conditions. Sales reached £14m in 2014 (average growth 51%).
The largest Ruckus Wireless distributor in Europe, Wantage- based Purdicom (80th), provides equipment for indoor and outdoor networks in schools, hotels, offices and on oil rigs, ferries and military bases. It increased sales to £12.5m in 2013 (average growth 46%) with a staff of 33.
The 14th annual Tech Track 100 was sponsored by Hiscox and compiled by Oxford-based Fast Track.
In the December/January issue of The Business Magazine
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