COVER STORY: 50 to watch 2002
by Real Business - Thursday, 30th August 2007
This is the page
Striptease, world-changing medical advances and salad. Entrepreneurs will always find a niche in which to thrive. This year's "50 to watch" features some of Britain's most high-potential young firms. What distinguishes them is a great (and distinctive) idea, tough and determined management and a lot of flair. If you're scouring the UK for new business opportunities this list is a great place to start.
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aircrafts worth 625m year,
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british roads,
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Brian Ellis once endured a sleepless night at home in Norwich. A diesel-powered generator was doing the roadworks. Ellis, a former heating engineer with the Home Office, had come across alternative forms of power before - he had a brainwave. Use solar power to charge up the generator during the day, run a silent generator at night. It would cut out the noise and exhaust pollution. Simple? Not quite. The problem was getting enough power from the panels to feed the lights for a prolonged period. Then Ellis came across a German company supplying LED panels. The panels use NASA technology and what are called "photo-voltaic panels", more solar-assisted than solar powered. The Highways Agency's standards on this equipment are stringent but, after eight months, eight wooden and two steel prototypes later, he got it right. Interest has been high around the world. With up to 2,500 sets of lights in use on British roads, the potential for growth is significant.
Taran tara. A British engineering firm with a world-beating technology. Only 18 months old, Surface Transforms makes high-spec brakes out of carbon ceramic materials - offering strong friction, as well as being 70 per cent lighter than steel brakes. This year it signed a deal to make and develop brakes for a leading F1 team. Unlike standard carbon brakes, Surface Transform's brakes work from cold. Next year, the company is moving onto the Alternative Investment Market, and it's also gearing up to service other big markets including high-performance cars (a market that could be worth £157m in seven years); high-speed rail (worth £16m a year) and aircrafts (worth £625m a year).
Believe it or not, a new British mobile phone company. It produces high-performance, "feature rich" mobile phones for the mass consumer market. Headquartered in Birmingham, Sendo also operates in Hong Kong, Italy, France, Spain, Germany, Taiwan, Netherlands and Australia. Industry veteran Hugh Brogan is CEO. The company started in August 1999 with an initial $10m funding by CCT, a Hong Kong-based telecoms conglomerate. The company supplies big-name operators such as Virgin Mobile, Wind in Italy and Telecel Vodafone in Portugal. It has grown rapidly to more than 200 employees.
Sprue Aegis is behind the world's first rechargeable fire alarm and the only new concept in domestic smoke alarms for over a decade. Started with an injection of £55,000 of EU funding in 1998, the company now manufactures FireAngel - a plug-in fire alarm that, the company hopes, will "redress the balance of unacceptably high fire alarm failure rates." "The modern world wants instant fit, or plug and play," says Graham Whitworth, chairman and CEO. "When people see something that needs drills, power tools and wall plugs, they don't bother." Quoted on Ofex, the likes of B&Q, Tescos, Woolworths and John Lewis already stock FireAngel; sales are predicted to rise to £18.6m in 2003.
"I've done a bit of a Victor Kiam," says Nick Child, chain-smoking while perched on his Powabyke. A friend approached him with an idea for an electric bike that he had seen in China. Child borrowed the bike for a week and ended up buying the company. Developed over 18 months, the Powabyke has already sold 10,000 units. "We're reinventing the bike market," says Child, "targeting the over-forties and people who have not been on a bike in years. It's effective transport. Simple as that." It comes in six styles, from a 21-speed bike to a shopper bike, to a seven speed folding version. Give it two turns of the pedals and you're cruising. It goes up to 20 miles without pedalling, but you can have it minus the battery power or semi-electric, meaning it goes even further. One to watch then? "We're looking for investment next year and then we're taking it to Europe. Then the US, then Australia. The biggest problem we face is getting it into the retailers. As soon as people try it, though, they're hooked."
Seawater Greenhouse can turn the desert green. It's an invention that addresses the growing problems of water and food supply in arid countries. The Seawater Greenhouse harnesses sunlight, seawater and air-movement to produce fresh water and a cool, humid, growing environment. "It enables year-round cultivation of horticultural produce in regions where crops are otherwise difficult or impossible to grow," says MD Tim Mott. Benefits: water savings (agriculture uses 80 per cent of the supply in many countries); the transformation of unproductive land; employment and crop production for domestic consumption or export. As with most good ideas that save lives, governments and politics have slowed the company's investment programme and development. Projects are at various stages in the Cape Verde Islands, Crete, Egypt, India, Morocco, South Africa and the Middle East. A "world launch" is planned for 2002.
Manufacturing is in the doldrums, allegedly. One company bucking the trend is Metalfacture, a fast-growing Leicester-based company that does sheet-metal manufacturing for items such as shelving, gas fires and car components. Behind the growth is a £2m investment in machinery (an ongoing investment programme) and, says commercial director Ben Jones Fenleigh, its young, fresh approach to business. "We're a flexible, customer service-driven company in an industry that often struggles to adapt to change," he says.
If you've ever wished you could put all your favourite Manilow tracks onto one CD, your luck is in. VMS is a new technology that allows you to choose from hundreds of artists, listen to samples of your chosen tracks, record your own CD and design your own cover. All in less than four minutes. The sound quality is indistinguishable from manufactured CDs and is far superior to MP3 files. The company plans to install machines in thousands of UK stores. HMV, WH Smith and Sainsbury's already stock the machines. Adam Turner runs the show.
A TV production company that secures £6m in first-round funding must be worth a look. Founded by Elisabeth Murdoch and Lord (Waheed) Alli, the business is valued at up to £30m. Industry mutterings say that it's close to making acquisitions. The company has secured two deals - a two-year TV and film output agreement with BSkyB (thanks dad) and a deal with magazine publisher IPC to develop a broadcast strategy. Murdoch: "Securing funding from 3i is a great leap forward for us. We started out with a best-of-breed team to create popular and compelling content, and we now have best-of-breed funding partners to bring us where we need to go."
Enigma and Waking Ned are two of the best British films of recent years. Both were made possible by the Future Film Group. "It's unique in the UK," says co-founder Tim Levy, pictured with colleagues Stephen Margolis and Jeff Abberley. The company invests money into UK film production and can also act as co-producer and executive producer. By March 2002 Future Film should have completed £650m of fund-raising, and invested £8m of its own cash into the British film industry. It will have been involved in helping to finance more than 100 film and TV projects.
One of the few success stories to come out of the much-maligned Millennium Dome, The Generating Company has now become one of the UK's largest contemporary circus acts. It has performed to more than four million visitors across the UK. The company has a new show, Storm, seed funding from the European Regional Development Fund, and several potential commercial partners and investors. Hopes, understandably, are high. Mark Fisher: "We've learned from the enthusiastic response to the Millennium Show that there is a huge market for modern UK circus."
He founded and sold the Firkin pubs chain in the eighties and developed the Slug & Lettuce chain in the nineties. But now, David Bruce is shunning brands. He has set up The Capital Pub Company and raised £7.9m to fund the acquisition of freehold pubs. He's aiming for 30 pubs within the next two to three years and then either "floating or flogging it."
The first of Living Ventures' "Living Room" bars opened in Manchester in December 1999 and turned over £1.9m in its first year. The company now runs sites in Liverpool and Birmingham, too. Says co-founder Jeremy Roberts, it's the design, the live music and the staff that set it apart.
What's next? More sites. The aim is to be running 25 venues in the next three-and-a-half years.
"Healthy eating without the preaching," is how Verde founder Sunil Panjabi explains his new chain of food outlets. It has shops in Birmingham and London, and serves fresh, home-made food at a good price. "Where else can you get a French chef cooking coq au vin for £3.50?" asks Panjabi. Another Verde motto is: "eat well in 15 minutes." Plans are in place to open 12 new outlets per year for the next three years. "We're filling the gap between the sandwich bar and restaurant," says Panjabi.
The nation seems obsessed with healthiness. And as long as that lasts, Insalata and MD Bob Camping could be on a roll. Pre-packed, tasty salads are tipped to be latest food fad. Insalata's first outlet opened in June 2001, the second in November. It also offers an office delivery system. Camping predicts the first store will be profitable in January 2002, then the company will begin rolling out stores at the rate of one per month.
Bio-Diagnostics has developed a broad range of diagnostic systems, mostly targeted at autoimmune disease, the third-biggest killer in Europe. Recently, it developed Quickcard, a credit card-sized device that can detect certain diseases in just five minutes, and with 96 per cent accuracy. The company has also begun to license a series of "blockbuster" tester products.
Super-sophisticated digital image software from Segmentis, the firm founded by Dr Andrew Bangham at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, may well capture a significant proportion of the vast future market in the recognition of objects within digital images. The company is tackling "the holy grail of unconstrained object recognition," says CEO Don McCrae.
He's at it again. Former 50-to-watcher Charlie Muirhead announced first-round funding for his "internet infrastructure company" in March 2001. Muirhead's own investment outfit iGabriel led the £3m round with an investment of £600,000. The company is being quite secretive about its solutions, but with Muirhead at the helm, InterProvider is one to watch.
Daniel Densham, with colleague Eddie Fowles came up with an idea while at college. And it wasn't how to make lethal alcoholic cocktails. It was about speeding up the process of gene sequencing. If someone is suffering with, say, cancer, in the time it takes to sequence that person's genes and therefore start to find a suitable treatment, the patient may die or at least endure a nasty illness. Densham can speed-up the process a staggering 365,000 times. Plans are afoot to partner some "major" drug firms next year. Many are eager, says Densham.
The drugs industry has achieved little in the way of new approaches to pain relief for 50 years or so. Ionix Pharmaceuticals plans to change all that. It is commercialising some neat research by Professor John Wood, at University College London. Apax Partners led an £8m investment in Ionix in July 2001. The Wellcome Trust, the world's biggest medical charity, which had backed the research along with the Medical Research Council, also invested.
Nothing irks a retailer more than an empty shop, with five staff standing idly by. That could soon be a thing of the past if Andrew Howarth's company has anything to do with it. Storetech is a system that tracks people going into a shop using infra-red technology with a clever software package to back it up. The system can quickly see how many people are in a shop at various times of the day and then work out how many staff should be on duty. Already signed up are Clarks, Etam, Waterstones, Moss Bros and Ravel, Mexx and PC City.
Alphamosaic has developed a high-power, low-energy processor to give it a headstart in the huge future market in low-power video chips for cameras in items such as mobile phones, PDAs and stand-alone security cameras. Co-founder Dr Robert Swann: "The breakthrough means that much higher-quality MPEG-4 pictures can be created, and all at a fraction of the power consumption of existing solutions." It has raised £6m from investors. Swann: "We knew we couldn't grow this concept gradually or we'd miss the market, so we decided to go hell for leather."
A new treatment for diabetes that involves patients being given human cell transplants so that they can produce their own insulin. It's very difficult to get donors, which is where Iceni comes in. The company grows cells in a lab that it can then make into insulin-producing cells. Issues for the next two years: getting more patients involved; and discussions with the regulatory authorities to determine how to take this discovery to market. Tony Talbot pictured right.
There are 169 million impotent males in the "global erectile dysfunction market" which, in 2004, will be worth approximately $1.320bn. Of these, 7.2 million are Brits. Enter Futura Medical. The company has developed MED2001, a unique rub-on cream for treating impotence. The cream is "a potent vasodilator that improves penile blood flow thereby increasing the rigidity and duration of a naturally occurring erection." The company is looking for investment in the spring, hopes to list on AIM and is due to unveil new products in 2002.
Avanade, a joint venture between Microsoft and Accenture, was founded in April 2000. In its first year, it's grown to 300 staff in 11 countries and has taken on more than 400 assignments. What does it do? Digitise under-utilised assets, such as individual bits of music for EMI, and turn them into revenue-earners. "Radio stations will no longer have their own archives," says Mark Taylor of Avanade. "All they will do is download songs from the internet when they want them and EMI will get the royalties automatically." Plans for 2002? Doubling in size.
Fender Sturrock sells and markets financial services products and brands. Not too exciting. Until you look at the numbers. In year one, turnover was £225,000; year two, £2.95m; year three, £7.2m. The company sets itself up in airports, shops or at exhibitions and sells to the passing public using teams of trained agents. It is responsible for a hefty 15 per cent of all credit cards issued in the UK in 2001. "We've established ourselves as the serious alternative to direct mail," says CEO Chris Grant. It has quadrupled its sales force, so look out for a financial service coming your way in 2002.
"When an organisation gets stuck in its orthodox approach to business, that's where we come in. We help by using innovation," says a Nowhere spokesperson. So is it like going in and solving a problem? "No. We help create a company's future." It employs 12 people, but has no assets and not even an office. It works with retailers, manufacturers and service companies, and works "at the edge." As long as you can find it, it's one to watch.
LevelSeas is an online marketplace and software platform that "provides ship owners, brokers and charterers with an integrated and secure web-enabled environment to manage their overall chartering process." So far, LevelSeas has more than 700 customers from a variety of organisations. Apart from having the "coolest technology", Kevin O'Connor is sure the system means a fundamental improvement in the way the shipping business is organised.
Numerica and Tenon are on the acquisition trail. Tenon is a "quoted accountancy business" and in 2001 acquired corporate finance boutique Livingstone Guarantee among others. Numerica is "bringing together entrepreneurial advisers to provide a complete business solution for entrepreneurial business people." It raised £30m in an AIM float, and kicked off its spending spree with accountancy firm, Levy Gee. This year Kemp Little became the first UK law firm to be run as a limited liability partnership. Founder Richard Kemp says it is the only firm to offer an online work-in-progress tool. Finally, 4CAssociates advises clients on making better use of their spend on HR & recruitment, strategy consultancy and marketing & PR.
The brainchild of one-time Dundee motor mechanic John McLaren-Stewart, Alliance is an ambitious insurance group. Shortlisted in this year's Growing Business Awards (in the "Most Promising Young Company" category), this could be a national brand in the making.
If you're not a make-up loving female (or male) then you may struggle to understand the appeal of a sexy, fun make-up playground, but trust us, it's a winner. The first store opened in June 2001, 18 months after Emily Cohen, Chantal Laren and Anna Singh had the idea for a beauty utopia. It's got a cult following, achieved by the non-intimidating environment, exclusive brands and services such as the "heavy duty hand job" (it's a manicure). In 2002, the girls will be developing their own label and taking that range wholesale. They'll also be opening a second store and adding more services to their popular range.
It's taken Serve 20 months to become the largest independent operator of well-being and beauty centres across the UK. Its key customers are time-poor office workers. The company offers special corporate services and de-stressing massages and therapies. Over the next three years, it aims to have 50 sites across the UK. It was set up with cash from the founders and the obvious next stage is outside investment. But Serve's "keeping its options open," says co-founder Suki Kaliran.
Ren produces and retails affordable but high-quality skincare products. The first shop opened in September 2000, 18 months after Antony Buck and Robert Calcraft came up with the idea. That gives you some idea of the time spent developing the products. Ren's brand is very strong. It's clean. The company refuses to use any questionnable ingredients. Next year Ren's concentrating on creating lots of new products, opening a shop in Hamburg and stocking exclusive stores in Japan and Singapore.
Under the tutelage of doyenne of entrepreneurship, Professor Sue Birley, The Entrepreneurship Centre at London's Imperial College is one of the most promising sources of new companies in the UK. Most famously, Imperial yielded successes such as Charlie Muirhead's Orchestream and Turbo Genset. New businesses in the pipeline include Device Research. For its ability to generate promising new businesses, this dynamic educational institution is certainly worth keeping an eye on.
Steve Parks was working as a BBC journalist when he came up with the idea for The Red Tape, an audio business programme. It was set up in 1998, initially targeting Yorkshire companies. A tape is produced every month covering all sorts of business issues with the aim of giving entrepreneurs ideas and information while driving their car. The tapes qualify as Continual Professional Education points for the listeners, recognised by professional bodies such as the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, ACCA and the Chartered Institute of Marketing. First target is to break even in the next year. Parks is concentrating on getting businesspeople to listen to that first tape and then he'll look at setting up similar regional programmes nationwide.
A member of the William Grant distillery family, Grant Gordon knows about family businesses. Having witnessed the success of the Family Business Network across the world, he decided to set up his own version. The Institute for Family Business, backed by some of Britain's leading family firms, will provide the sort of specialist training and inspiration that's commonplace in corporate Britain, but often lacking in our family companies.
She began stripping 22 years ago in London's pubs and tried her hand at stand-up comedy. "I'd died with my clothes off so there was no problem dying with them on," says Jo King, founder of London School of Striptease. After hanging up her g-string, King started teaching for a living. She runs workshops for groups of 12, does one-to-one tuition and hen nights. Real growth will happen when she gets her own studio and recruits former colleagues. Franchises in the UK and in Paris are the longer-term plan.
The first Moneybox machine appeared in June 1999; today there are more than 1,600 across the UK. With £3.5m VC funding, it plans to float in the next 12 to 15 months. With machines being installed in Holland - Germany is next - expansion looks likely. Until 1999, it wasn't even legal to provide such a service but, after much lobbying of the banks and the Treasury, there's no stopping Moneybox now. Spar's Chris Davies, one of the chains that's taken up the cash machines, says: "Since installing the machines, store sales have increased by as much as ten per cent." CEO is Paul Stanley.
Excited by the range of goods and services available for home delivery, but frustrated by missed deliveries, internet mover-and-shaker John Hale decided that there must be a better way. BearBox is a container that's left outside your house. Delivery people turn up and deposit goods, using a PIN code system, in the box. BearBox's soft launch in November 2000 in south-west London was a success. Spring 2002 sees the full roll-out.
A slight exception here. Paybox was originally rolled out in Germany but has made such a success of its operations over there that we reckon it's worth a mention. It's a payment system that enables users to shop online securely, send and request money from other users and pay for services/goods in locations where Paybox is accepted, all with their mobile phones. It turns your mobile handset into a direct debit card. But because you don't hand your card or details over to anyone, at any point, you eradicate most of the risks of card fraud. Since its launch in the UK in September, MD Barry Shrier has been concentrating on signing up merchants for the service, such as Circus restaurant in central London.
Husband-and-wife team Ann Louise Roswald and Nick Harvey established their clothing design business in October 1998. They financed the start-up themselves after Roswald - whose graduation collection featured in the press worldwide - was approached by Liberty to do a collection under her own label. Roswald specialises in print-based garments with a hand-crafted edge with the objective to "provide beautiful design, enriching our employees and customers' lives." The designs sell in London and Paris through Liberty and specialist boutiques. Season-on-season growth is rapid. The firm is still self-financed and the pair are in talks to secure distribution deals in Asia.
"We think we're quite funny," says Abi Williams, co-founder of Rude. This design company is about "doing things in a cheeky, rude way." The company was set up in 1999 after Rupert Meats noticed the dearth of really good t-shirts. The pair came up with some eye-catching designs for their clothing range, which were quickly picked up by celebrities such as Gail Porter and Zoe Ball. In the early days, the company received a loan from the Prince's Trust but "we blew it on ties," says Williams. "Which we still have." These days the company is more solvent, with deals from Selfridges and Urban Outfitters in the bag and agents in Tokyo, Scandinavia, Italy and the US. Over the next 12 months it'll be looking at outside investment to finance ambitions of a flagship London store and a new household products line. Pretty ambitious? "If you believe in yourself you've got to put your money where your mouth is," says Williams.
Perspective is a design company with a competitive edge. The firm's catalogues are full of funky, trendy and saleable gifts. Twenty-five per cent of the products are changed every year so the company produces an entirely new range every four years. And 2002? Distribution in the US, research in France and Germany, and celebrity ranges. "We're seeking to actively improve our profile and come out from behind the scenes," says co-founder Suzanne Beechey.
He may be only 35, but Howard Pearce knows his way around the property world. After spending ten years on a major residential and commercial development in Wiltshire, this October Pearce turned all that experience to the minefield of planning. Propertymind aims to bring together all the UK's current planning applications onto one web site, charging businesses and individuals for access. Building such a database sounds an administrative nightmare, but Pearce is sensibly starting slowly. Gloucestershire is his test market; after that, it's the UK and beyond.
More than 700,000 people die each year in the UK. And each year, more than 8,000 pieces of mail addressed to dead people are received by 2,000 families every day. Not a great marketing policy. Indeed, such errors form the largest complaint received by the Data Protection Register. Enter the Bereavement Register. "We're a data marketing solutions company," says group MD Mark Roy. The Bereavement Register has 117 UK agents collating the data. It also works through funeral directors, hospitals and registrars, and aims to get the family of the bereaved to fill out a small card that will then inform all direct mailers of the change in circumstances. It's got details of 1.1 million people so far. The Bereavement Register is already working with 800 companies and has seen its turnover rise from £2.2m three years ago to £10.2m in 2001.
One of the few dot-coms to have captured the imagination of the public without any marketing activity. The fashion for satchels and the increasingly popular School Disco has left many a former pupil wondering what happened to old William Jennings. Here's where you find out. The success of the web site will depend on how many are willing to splash out a fiver on their old mates' contact details. Still, 3.6 million hits a day and almost three million registered users isn't bad going. It's also managed to spawn a Bullies Reunited web site. Plus, the reason why it's one to watch, it has also signed up with format company, Substance, and is developing a number of Friends Reunited-branded TV projects.
Ladies and gentlemen, the wild card in the pack. Mex2go is a Scottish, Mexican fast-food chain. No, you really did hear right. Mexican and Scottish. But what do we know? The company opened its third branch at the end of 2001 and is on course to achieve a second-year turnover of £300,000. If these guys can make it work, they deserve a huge round of applause. We'll be rooting for them.
We reckon we're so smart then, do we? Here's what happened to a few of our "50 to watch" tips over the past four years. Yes, we know, some of them bombed. But not all.
1998
Gatecrasher, a little-known Sheffield nightclub back then, is, four years later, a global brand that holds epic events across the world. It also has a tasty (and very profitable) line in merchandise and music. Then there was Cutty Catering, which floated the idea of a chain of fish restaurants. Today, its Fish! brand is a fixture on many high streets. LK Bennet is another brand that made it. The chain of shoe shops is valued at around £30m. And The Color Company lived up to its promise to bring some vim to the fuddy-duddy world of high-street photocopying. We picked a few successful floats, too. Since December 1997, recruitment outfit HW Group went onto the stockmarket. So, too, did encryption specialist nCipher and knowledge management firm Autonomy. Shares in both have, though, been hit by the change in sentiment in the technology sector. Notable no-nos include Jerry Brand's mid-range restaurant chain, The Orange Balloon. After launching in Dorking, little's been seen of it since.
1999
In 1999, Real Business was on the ball again. In the fourth quarter to September 30 this year, Lastminute.com's total value of transactions on the site jumped from £29.3m to £46.9m. Crussh, the juice bar chain, has just got its second round of funding and, with nine shops already open, there are another 30 planned before 2003. Earthcare's business is going very well. It's currently "developing products aimed at really making a difference." "We want to be more than a cottage industry," said Pasta King founder Sally Wheaton, in 1999. In 2001, business is going "very well" and the company is about to expand its premises. Select-a-Skip, James Keay's company, now has a £4.5m turnover and the company has built a new 6,000 sq ft head office in Shrewsbury. Kuju Entertainment now has more than 100 employees. Kuju is currently developing games for PC, PlayStation 2, X-box, GameCube, handhelds and mobile (wireless) technology. Lennie Moffat's Telecom Service Centres went from a £4.6m turnover in 1998, to a £26.6m turnover in 2001. "The company has made good progress," says Metris Therapeutics' Ann Hacker. It has licensed a new product for the menopause, plus is taking others to trial. The disappeared? Asian style magazine Turban Guerilla. Good name, though.
2000
Another useful year of predictions. Ready2Shop duo Trinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine are appearing in their own TV show, What Not to Wear, on BBC2. It's been a disappointing year for personal injury specialists Claims Direct. Reporting pre-tax losses of £11.5m, new cases have fallen in September from 30,388 to 9,337. There are currently talks of a merger with smaller rival, Claimline. Following a re-branding in 2000, interactive systems integrator Rubus (formerly NVision), now shows revenues in excess of £17m after just three years. IFX, the primary market maker in spot and forward foreign exchange, was acquired by Zetters. In May 2001, IFX launched a spread-betting division, IFX Financial. Livingston-based Kymata has had a busy year. September 2001 saw its acquisition by Alcatel, the world-leader in optoelectronic components. After a re-brand and a bit of brainstorming, Pizza Piazza has launched several new outlets. Also, with the help of charming cockney chef, Jamie Oliver, Pizza Organic was launched. Since its inception just over four years ago, RiverSoft has attracted $50m in funding from the likes of Apax Partners, Bay View, Cisco, Meyer Duffy Ventures and Morgan Stanley Dean Witter. Cashtec has announced that the Post Office has taken a 49 per cent share with an initial investment of £7m. The missing? The Blue Bar Café. Any ideas anyone? FocusDigital is the company behind Shopsmart - the web site said to receive twice as many page hits as Microsoft. With a new site, it's aiming to become the UK's largest online shopping centre.
2001
Dooyoo.com got a further £7m in funding from 3i and others in summer 2001. Mantra has been another good performer. Staff numbers have risen to 30, revenues have doubled and clients such as Autonomy, Yahoo!, Unilever and John Lewis have been won. NetFM "Internet radio: the first incarnation," is no longer with us. The good always die young. Despite the "extremely impressive and capable" Richard Jacobs, the gap between revenue earned and expenditures "was not narrowing." The investors weren't satisfied. Bye bye, NetFM. Groovy Chocolate re-did its business plans, revised its expectations and sales are growing steadily. "Things aren't too good," says Franck Jeannin of Linkguard, but it is hanging on in there. The company has downsized and is now "sitting on a pile of money, waiting for the market to pick up." So whatever happened to Moonfruit? "We're still here," says founder Tan. "But we've had a tough time and had to let people go." It's been a very good year for Queercompany. It's launched a glossy magazine, a credit card and started a property company. It's been a "shit year," according to one of the founders of Burgundy Global. "We're a travel company. Given the impact of the recession, foot-and-mouth, September 11, numerous train crashes and having Enron as a major client, we're quite happy."
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