The annual Tech Track 100 listing of the UK's fastest-growing companies has just been published by The Times. This event is usually followed by a brief spike in outbound calls made by VCs to the companies on the list, in search of the next growth company that might take outside funding.
As usual, the list is a varied mix of Internet companies, service providers, small software and games developers. While I like objective rankings in principle, the trouble with this one is that it looks so far backwards to measure revenue growth, in this case covering the period 2003-2005. While this may be representative of the current momentum of a company, in some cases it reflects historical events during those years (an acquisition perhaps, or starting from a very small base) which do not ahve anything to do with organic growth or current performance.
I guess that's why we pick up the phone to learn more ...
Naturally, I'm delighted to report that three of our portfolio companies made the league tables this year (and I'm happy to say that their historical growth is mostly organic and reflects their current momentum!):
- Volantis Systems (#20) - through its multi-channel content delivery platform, Volantis enables content owners and carriers to automate the delivery of content and applications to consumers, whether they are using the web, mobile phones, PDAs or interactive television.
- Adviva Media (#25) - as brand advertisers increasingly shift their ad dollars onto the Internet, Adviva offers a high-quality, targeted online advertising network of premium web publishers in the UK, France and Germany.
- Fluency Voice Technology (#70) - in the nascent but fast-growing market for speech applications, Fluency offers a proven suite of speech solutions for call centres in the financial services, utilities, travel and other sectors.
Congratulations to the management teams; get ready to take some phone calls from inquisitive investors.
Comments