Five North West companies feature in the latest Sunday Times 100 Tech, the annual ranking of Britain’s fastest-growing technology companies.
Oxbury Bank, a banking fintech company based in Chester, has topped the second annual Sunday Times 100 Tech ranking of fastest-growing tech firms in the region. It was placed third overall in the rankings.
Specialising in loans for farmers, Oxbury received its banking licence in 2021 and has since lent more than £1.5bn and attracted £2.5bn in savings. It also offers insights from its Earth technology platform and funding that rewards farms based on their progress in cutting carbon emissions and improving soil health, which it helps them measure.
Co-founders James Farrar, 59, and Nick Evans, 62, have raised more than £162m from agricultural and technology specialist investors. Revenues of £112.5m represent total interest income.
The other North West-based companies featured in the list are:
- Blackpool banking fintech, Tandem, which achieved 84.7% annual sales growth over the past three years. Its latest sales stood at £87.5m).
- System Loco, a Lancaster-based supply chain sensors specialist. Its annual sales growth over the past three years stands at 63.98% and its latest sales figures were £14.9m.
- ITS, a Warrington-based fibre infrastructure provider. Annual sales growth over the past three years is 54.7% and latest sales were £34.5m.
- C4X Discovery. Based in Manchester the business is focused on drug molecule visualisation. Annual sales growth over the past three years is 45.7% and the current sales annualised figure was £17.5m
The Sunday Times 100 Tech ranks Britain’s fastest-growing private technology companies, shining a spotlight on the entrepreneurs and teams driving their success.
It is a sister league table to The Sunday Times 100, a ranking of Britain’s fastest-growing private companies.
The ranking is published online today (January 16) at thetimes.com/100tech and will also be available as a supplement in the print edition of The Sunday Times this Sunday, January 18.
To qualify, companies must be independent, privately owned, and headquartered in the UK.
For the purposes of this ranking, a technology business is defined as one that either sells its own proprietary technology or has developed proprietary technology that is essential to delivering its products or services.
The research for The Sunday Times 100 Tech found that collectively the 100 companies on the list generated sales of £3.7bn, up by £3bn in the past three years.
In total these companies employ 23,100 people, having created 11,600 jobs in the past three years. Eighty one companies on the list disclosed that they plan to make additional hires in the next 12 months, with 4,300 jobs planned in total.
Out of the 100 companies featured in the ranking more than a half (57) are based in London, with the rest spread throughout the country.
This includes 14 in the South East, 11 in the East of England, five in the North West, four in the South West of England, four in Northern Ireland, three in Scotland, and one each in Wales and West Midlands.
Nearly a fifth (16) of the businesses are founded or led by women.
This includes the number one company in the software category, Michelle He is co-founder and chief operating officer of fintech firm Abound.
Others include Clare Grey, co-founder and chief scientific officer of energy storage technology developer Nyobolt, Raj Kaur, co-founder and deputy global chief executive of bid writing software developer AutogenAI, and Thuria Wenbar, co-founder and chief executive of digital pharmacy Evaro.
Nearly three fifths (58) of the companies were founded in the last decade – in 2016 or after. Fuse Energy, No 1 company on the hardware list, is one of the youngest businesses on this year’s ranking, founded in 2022.
The oldest company on the list is Hampshire-based subsea technology developer Sonardyne. Started by engineer John Partridge, 86, in 1971, Sonardyne operates in a group alongside sister companies working in energy, environment and defence.
The majority (90+) of the companies have received external investment, raising a combined total of £11.3bn (£3.8bn for the software list, and £7.5bn for the hardware list). The combined total is partly skewed by some companies that raised large amounts, including CityFibre, Netomnia, and Zenobē.
It also includes Synthesia, which is number 11 in the software category. It makes hyper-realistic AI-generated video for companies to use for marketing or employee training, and its ‘video agents’ can hold real time video conversations with users.
The business was valued at around $2.1bn in January last year when it raised $180m, bringing total external investment to more than $330m.
Synthesia is one of nine unicorns included in the list – companies valued at more than $1bn by their investors, potential buyers, or based on a multiple of their profits. Others include energy supplier Fuse, DNA manufacturing firm Touchlight, medical devices and service firm Huma, and battery storage technology developer Zenobē.
More than two thirds of the companies (70) trade internationally. Some generate nearly all of their revenues from outside the UK, including Cleo AI (No 19 Software, just opened to customers in the UK), Reacta Health (No 12 Hardware), Cycle Pharmaceuticals (No 22, Hardware).
Jon Yeomans, business editor of The Sunday Times, said: “Despite a challenging economic backdrop, Britain’s tech sector continues to produce businesses of extraordinary ambition and momentum.
“This year’s Sunday Times 100 Tech highlights founders who are scaling at remarkable speed, creating thousands of jobs and exporting British innovation to the world.”
He added: “From fintech and AI to energy and life sciences, these companies show that the UK remains one of the most dynamic technology ecosystems globally.”
The research for the Sunday Times 100 Tech was conducted by its business reporters, in partnership with Beauhurst, a source of private company data.