Welcome uilding a website, hosting, CMS...for first cheapest element – however you don’t need to time business owners, getting these online spend a fortune,’ he adds. ‘TSO Host and Krystal Bessentials in place, on a budget, can seem Hosting I would recommend. TSO at the moment daunting at first. But there are many ways to does have some issues at the moment but the ensureBR youI TISHcan set these elements up at a support is good. reasonable price. Krystal Hosting, which Blackman has used Most hosting providers come in at a similar low since the start of his web design career, offers a priceG pointRO – oftenW fromTH just £1 a month – so £99+VAT a year package that will allow you to business owners should look at online reviews and manage a site with at least 200 -300 pages and go for quality of support, says Alex Price, founder 500 visitors a day. ofS 93digital.co.uk.TARS ‘You need to know you can get With a background in digital marketing, Caroline in touch with your hosting provider quickly and Taylor, founder of Taylor’d Bundles, took the easily, at any hour, if your website goes down,’ he decision to design and build her own CMS using adds. Drupal - saving money. ‘Their plug ins and updates Getting the best web hosting package is key for are straightforward and allowed me to build a site your website to work smoothly and problem free, that worked especially for me,’ she says. ‘I have a says James Blackman, founder of website design very good friend who programmed, tested and and digital marketing agency CocoonFX Media. helped me support the site as and when I need it. ‘When we set up our business, there weren’t many I’m very fortunate but made it a priority to fully hosting options out there, however the golden rule understand and learn what the site was capable of we stuck to was rock solid customer support and so I can manage the majority of my site itself.’ UK-based servers,’ he says. Taylor works with up-and-coming designers and The key factor to consider for web hosting is the asks as many as possible to link to her site to help SLA and the hardware, he adds. ‘RAM and CPU is with link building and add her URL to as many a good start. The higher the numbers the better posts as possible to help increase SEO visibility. and also cloud is often a wise choice.’ ‘It was also really important for my site to be ‘If you want hassle-free web hosting, businesses mobile optimised so we built the site to appear should consider getting a host with cPanel, an perfectly on the top 15 mobile operators - I now easy-to-use administration package and allows use analytics to see what the site is being viewed you do things with a click of a button,’ Blackman on and optimise accordingly.’ advises. ‘Hosting should not be seen as the REPORT H1 2017 DATA PARTNER SPONSORED BY DATA PARTNER 1 SPONSORED BY Contents 3. Foreword 5. Acknowledgements Venture Capital Growth Stars 6. Farfetched and Improbable? Why European venture capital is now larger than life 11. Inside insight – Venture capital: Driving growth in the UK Crowdfunding Growth Stars 13. Has crowdfunding peaked? 15. Inside insight – Breaking the biggest equity crowdfunding misconceptions Business Growth Stars 17. Who are the British Growth Stars? 18. Seed stage stars 22. Venture stage stars 25. Growth stage stars The British Growth Stars is an independently reviewed, data-driven, editorially-led report that deep-dives into the UK’s fast-growth business landscape. This is the first edition of the report, which includes industry analysis, expert insight, interviews and profiles of top funders and unlisted UK-based start-ups that have raised funding in different stages of its growth. DATA PARTNER 2 SPONSORED BY Foreword Investors funnelled more money into British start-ups and high-growth companies in the first half of 2017 than ever before. But is it good news all around? It’s the best of times, it’s the worst of times. If there has ever been a time to gratuitously borrow from Dickens, it is now, the second half of 2017. This year’s British Growth Stars report was compiled against the backdrop of continuing concerns over Brexit and its esoteric ramifications on currency rates, policy, and investment climate. Global uncertainty also prevails, with the rollercoaster Trump presidency, and the unrelenting growth of American and Asian tech giants. However, the British entrepreneurial ecosystem has never been healthier. Dealflow data from the first half of the year shows that investment volumes have been skyrocketing compared to last year. UK-headquartered unlisted companies attracted a record £3.03 billion of equity investment during the first six months of 2017, up 74.7 per cent from the second half of 2016. Interestingly, the deal numbers reveal a different story. The first half of 2017 saw 3.5 per cent fewer transactions than the same period last year. What this shows is that the UK is now seeing larger deals enter the pipeline, fuelling growth at a rate the start-up ecosystem has never seen before. But the numbers could be skewed. In the first six months of 2017, the UK saw two of the biggest deals so far –cloud computing firm Improbable raking in £389 million from American firm, Softbank Capital, and fashion-tech marketplace Farfetch securing £313 million from China’s JD.com. Deal numbers and amount invested by half Amount invested Number of deals 3.0b 750 2.8b 700 2.6b 650 2.4b 600 2.2b 550 2.0b 500 1.8b 450 1.6b 400 1.4b 350 1.2b 300 1.0b 250 800m 200 600m 150 400m 100 200m 50 2011H1 2011H2 2012H1 2012H2 2013H1 2013H2 2014H1 2014H2 2015H1 2015H2 2016H1 2016H2 2017H1 Based on Beauhurst data DATA PARTNER 3 SPONSORED BY The UK’s record half for equity investment was largely because of fire-power from overseas investors. This suggests that the number of deals involving investors headquartered outside the UK was up by 26.7 per cent in the first half of 2017, which experts suspect is a direct impact of the weakened pound over the past year. It could also be symptomatic of the fact that early-to-mid-stage UK business now have a host of funding options, but for later-stage businesses, attracting investors to fund their Series D round and beyond is an uphill task. Top investors by deal numbers Top BanksinvestorsCrowd by dealfunding numbersCrowd funding Crowd funding Banks Crowd funding Crowd funding Crowd funding SyndicateRoom SyndicateRoom 19 19 Entrepreneur First Entrepreneur First 18 18 Crowdcube Funding London Funding London Crowdcube 11 56 Seedrs 11 56 Angel Seedrs AngelCapital Group 64 Capital Group 11 64 Accelerated 11 AcceleratedDigital Ventures Digital Ventures 13 Startup Funding 13 Business Startup Funding Club SEIS Fund BusinessGrowth Fund Club SEIS Fund Growth Fund 11 11 14 14 Finance Wales Scottish Enterprise Finance Wales Scottish Enterprise 16 17 16 17 Based on transaction data tracked by Beauhurst, a leading research platform specialising in high- growth companies, this report looks at the equity investment landscape, as well as the most promising companies in the UK, from seed to late stage in their growth. We spoke to investors in the most active venture firms in a deep-dive feature dissecting how the two largest deals to date came to be, and what the industry can expect for the rest of the year. In the first half of 2017, the number of deals secured on crowdfunding platforms, rose by 2.6 per cent, even though transaction numbers slowed in the second half of the year. Looking at the equity crowdfunding sector, we zeroed-in on the most active platforms, speaking to those at the helm on the biggest trends in alternative finance. Praseeda Nair Editor DATA PARTNER 4 SPONSORED BY Acknowledgements As banking partner to some of the most disruptive and innovative businesses in the UK and beyond, we understand entrepreneurs and what it takes to help make a venture successful. For the ambitious entrepreneur, growth can sometimes happen so quickly that you have little time to focus on your financial strategy – that’s why it’s so important to have a banking partner that can keep pace with your business. entrepreneurs.barclays Beauhurst is the leading provider of rich data on high-growth UK companies. The platform is used by hundreds of organisations around the UK to research and monitor the most ambitious businesses and their backers. beauhurst.com GrowthBusiness.co.uk is for CEOs of fast-growth businesses in the UK. The site features in-depth interviews with business leaders, and news and analysis of hot-button topics affecting the start-up world. From trends in fundraising and financial management, leadership, productivity and workplace culture, to how-to guides from Europe’s top venture capitalists and advisers, GrowthBusiness.co.uk is an essential resource for today’s savvy entrepreneur. growthbusiness.co.uk Vitesse Media is a digital media and events company specialising in enterprise technology, growth business, investment and diversity. Our award-winning magazines and content, engaging and responsive websites, exciting events and highly acclaimed research touch millions of small businesses, entrepreneurs, IT professionals, investors and professional women, as well as advisors and suppliers. Our flagship media brands, published across print and digital, include Information Age, SmallBusiness. co.uk, GrowthBusiness.co.uk, What Investment and Growth Company Investor. We also host a series of high-profile and prestigious live events that bring together thousands of business, technology and finance decision-makers.We are dedicated to building focused communities of professionals and high- net-worth individuals who consume our high-quality content across multiple platforms – including print, online, social media, mobile, email and events – and providing numerous opportunities for our clients to access, connect and engage with these audiences.