Six companies from region in top 100 of UK fastest-growing private tech companies
Region businesses among top 100 in this year’s fastest-growing private tech companies
Companies from across Oxfordshire, Reading and Gloucester feature in this year’s Sunday Times Tech Track fastest-growing private technology companies.
Coming in at No 5, is VoCoVo. With 40 staff and based at Shipton-Under-Wychwood in Oxfordshire, the company’s software and equipment significantly improves a company’s staff’s ability to communicate with each other.
It uses technology which allows voice data to flow simultaneously in both directions. Sound complicated? “This means your team can listen and talk at the same time, just as they would face-to-face” the company says. “A warehouse manager can reach someone on the shop floor instantly, and colleagues can get help from an expert in a different store, without being distracted by dropouts of delays.”
The company turned over more than £13 million, according to the league table.
At No 11 is Reading-based consumer insight platform Qmee. This is a free app, available on desktop and mobile. Qmee allows users to share their opinions through surveys tailored to you, as well as earn instant cash rewards when shopping and searching online. For brands, Qmee is a technology solution that gets better, faster and more accurate answers that can help influence the brand’s decision.
Qmee employs 15 people and turned over just under £7 million in its last accounts, says the league table.
At 19 in the League Table is Oxgene, which manufactures DNA plasmids – loops of genetic material for use in genetic research and engineering.
The contract-research organisation is based in Oxford, and its materials are distributed in the UK, Japan, the United States and other global locations. In 2020, the company raised £3 million, taking the total raised to £20 million. It is Collaborating with another Oxfordshire business, the Native Antigen Company, to scale up production of Covid-19 antigens. The league table reports revenues of more than £6 million and 85 employees.
And next to it, at N0 20, is Oxford Nanopore. This Harwell-based company, which employs 466 people, and turned over more than £52 million, according to the league table. Oxford Nanopore was spun out of the University of Oxford, and has since developed and brought to market a new generation of tools for biological analysis. The Company opened up a new, high-tech manufacturing facility in Oxford in 2019 to support rapid-scaleup of production. It has developed a low-cost and scalable test for Covid-19, which gives results in one hour.
At 31 in the league table is AI-driven drug discovery company Exscientia. Employing 43 people, and turning over more than £9 million, according to the league table, the company uses AI to design a drug that has entered human clinical trials.
At 44 Goto Group, based at Watlington in Oxfordshire, is a property management platform. Employing 44 people, and turning over more than £6 million, according to the league table, Goto Group’s platform provides estate agents with an easily customisable website through which home buyers and sellers can access services such as online auctions, surveys, conveyancing and removals.
At 63 in the league table is Gloucester-based medical device developer Spectrum Medical.
The company aims to become a single “solutions provider” of a platform of high-performance technologies that include Quantum Informatics, Quantum Technologies and soon to be launched Quantum Sterile, Single-Use Technologies. The combination of these world leading technologies will lead to greater patient safety, improved patient outcomes and significantly improved health economics.
Its life support systems have been used to treat critically ill Covid-19 patients. Employing 144 people at its Meteor Business Park based in Gloucester, Spectrum Medical turned over more than £33 million last year.
