Insights
Unsurprisingly, here at Growth Index we talk about growth a lot. But growth isn’t just about profit- personal growth is key, too, and we’re always learning. Here, we share with you what we’re learning each day about what works (and what doesn’t) in the UK business landscape, revealing insights from the experts at Growth Index.
In 2019, Simon Mellin launched The Modern Milkman as a technology platform. In some respects it closely resembled the milk round of old, even using the same bottling machines, which have seen little to no innovation in decades. But unlike
Our inaugural Retail Index tells a story of exceptional companies outperforming a sluggish market that has seen shoppers prioritise essentials like groceries during the cost-of-living crisis. Yet their impressive average 61.9% two-year CAGR indicates much more than the slow recovery
Jessica Hanley started homeware brand Piglet in Bed in her mum’s Sussex shed in 2017, selling quality, sustainable linen bedding with a scruffy chic. Instagrammers loved it, helping the business capitalise on the pandemic-era DTC boom, with sales surging sixfold
After a brief test period, Wild secured £500,000 in angel investor funding and launched in early 2020 with a refillable, plastic-free product. They achieved rapid growth, hitting revenues of £12.5 million the following year, and £46.9 million by the end
Whatever Castore is doing, it’s doing it right. By 2021, the business was turning over £17 million. The following year, it hit £48 million. Last year, it was £115 million. Equally impressively, it has achieved this rampant growth alongside healthy
Growth Index companies can operate in any sector. They can be B2B or B2C, growing organically or via M&A. What unites them is their ability to transform their top line, putting them on a trajectory to be major players of
When growing a business, money helps. Unfortunately, there’s less of it around these days. As interest rates rose around the world, global venture capital deal-value halved between 2021 and 2023 according to Pitchbook, while exit value was the lowest since
In 2016, it was clear that electric vehicles (EVs) were the future of mobility. But given the rate of adoption – barely 37,000 plug-in cars were sold in the UK that year – you’d have been forgiven for thinking they
This is the year that Growth Index went green. Three of the top ten fastest-growing companies in the UK participate in the clean and renewable energy market, offering electric vehicle charging (InstaVolt)
Social and environmental impact is firmly on the corporate agenda, but the proliferation of purpose statements and ESG brochures doesn’t necessarily mean that companies are being run for the greater good
Sustainable beverage business Belu was doing well by doing good long before it was fashionable. A social enterprise launched in 2007, its purpose is to change the way the world sees water. It’s donated all of its profits since 2011
React Group Plc isn’t your typical cleaning company. Alongside conventional services like the regular commercial cleaning of windows, facilities and facades, it looks after what you might call ‘extreme’ cases: ad-hoc specialist cleaning of crime scenes, railway fatalities and biohazards.
Over half of British women wear size 16 or above, and the figure is rising. Yet for years plus-sized fashion was largely an afterthought. “Curvier women want the same look and contemporary style as everyone else, but they’ve just felt
Consumers are demanding fast deliveries and businesses are looking for cost-effective, efficient transport options to customers worldwide. One company that provides these solutions is UK based DG International, a logistics firm that specialises in logistics and supply chain management.
In popular imagination, the fastest way to grow a business is with an app or algorithm. Yet it is retail, not tech, that dominated this year's Growth Index, the definitive list of the UK’s 100 fastest growing companies.
Grow Group is a leading distributor and medical cannabis brand in the UK, specialising in cannabis-based medicines to mostly ease chronic pain or help treat conditions such as epilepsy.
Fashion UK isn’t your average fashion business. Licensing is at the heart of the Leicester-based company, which makes and designs clothing featuring popular characters from the likes of brands such as Disney, Warner Bros, Netflix and Lego.
Mattress Online started in December 2003, appropriately from co-founder Steve Adams’ bedroom. Starting with just five products, it took two weeks for the company to sell its first mattress, and another two weeks to make another. Sales fortunately picked up
It’s been a challenging couple of years for retailers, with the cost of living crisis impacting sales and increasing costs for businesses. But one company managing to weather the crisis is Sosandar, an online fashion firm targeting the over-30s.
The companies on this list are achieving exceptional things and deserve our warmest congratulations. Wouldn’t it be amazing if we had more of them? For too long, we’ve been like a plane running on one engine, with opportunity limited for
If you ask CEOs what their company’s purpose is, very few will say to make money. Most will reel off their mission - the thing they aim for that, if satisfied, will produce a financial return.
There was a slight drop this year in the number of GX companies that had received venture capital or private equity funding, from 47 to 41.
It’s been a bumper year for retail, with 26 companies making our top 100. That’s a significant improvement even on last year, when there were 21 (including those previously defined as fashion companies).
The idea behind Huel is simple. The company sells a powder product designed to replace meals, and since launching in 2015 has attracted legions of fans worldwide who refer to themselves as Hueligans and swear by its benefits.
In popular imagination, the fastest way to grow a business is with an app or algorithm. Yet it is retail, not tech, that dominates the definitive list of the UK’s 100 fastest growing companies.
The chemistry swots among you may find it fitting that this year’s fastest-growing company is named after the chemical symbol for every winner’s favourite element, gold. GX winner AU Vodka has dazzled the drinks industry with its signature gold bottles
Companies that monetised games through in-app purchases, like the business I co-founded in 2007, Product Madness, used to look down on companies that monetised through advertising, because the revenue per player was much lower.
Appropriately enough for a brand that began with leather footwear, Fairfax & Favor was thoroughly bootstrapped. Founders Marcus Fairfax Fountaine and Felix Favor Parker funded the Norfolk-based business through its early days by working summer jobs in the local pub
Beauty Pie is a buyer’s club for luxury make up, without the markup. To illustrate the concept, founder Marcia Kilgore holds up a lipstick sample she received from a supplier.
GX leaders offer their advice for retaining entrepreneurial spirit. No company stays young forever. With success comes size, and size inevitably slows you down: eventually, today’s disruptors will themselves be disrupted.
Bambino Mio aims to make reusable nappies mainstream and cut the thousands of single-use plastic nappies sent to landfill
Mark Wilcox lasted just two weeks in retirement before he got the idea for Activate, a technology-led vehicle insurance and accident management company that now employs 750 and has annual sales of almost £200m.
Unlike many other pharma companies that focus their efforts on launching new treatments, Cycle’s aim is to improve drugs that already exist.
Recent years have seen a rise in purpose-led businesses, with missions going beyond making a profit. One of these businesses is Bboxx, a solar energy firm dedicated to ending energy poverty.
Founded in 2016, Storal Learning is a community of day nurseries born from a belief in the power of early years education. The company is growing steadily through acquisition: with five new sites in the last 12 months, it has
“I’m always making mistakes. But it’s about what you learn from those mistakes and how you take a business forward that matters,” says Ronnie Miller, a serial tech entrepreneur who is currently on his sixth business, Paysend.
There’s a clear correlation between education and career success, which is why the vast majority of FTSE CEOs have a degree. The proportion among GX leaders is notably less, with over three in ten attending the famed university of life.
Sex discrimination has been banned in the workplace since at least 1975, so it’s a matter of great disappointment that today barely 5% of the UK’s public companies are run by women.
Ali Hall and Julie Lavington ran a magazine before launching online fashion brand Sosandar. Thanks to their flair for marketing and focus on careful planning in the face of rapid change, the AIM-listed business is now among the UK’s fastest
Not all of our fastest growing companies were rooted in science and technology. The fastest-growing sector among Growth Index companies was in fact Arts & Media.
Purpose has assumed a central place in business thinking over the past five years. Gone, at least, are the days when CEOs could comfortably defend Milton Friedman’s famous position that their business exists only to make a profit for its
It’s not always popular to say you believe in growth. Environmental and social activists have rightly called into question the desirability of pursuing economic growth at all costs, while others have pointed out that raising GDP is a poor policy
The premise behind the government’s levelling up agenda is that, for far too long, economic opportunity and prosperity have been concentrated in London and the South East, leaving other regions to languish.
Babylon, which was founded in 2013 by Anglo-Iranian entrepreneur Ali Parsa, now has a presence in 15 countries. It helped a patient every six seconds in 2021, and is one of the world’s fastest-growing digital healthcare firms.
Beauty Pie, the online beauty membership service founded by the serial entrepreneur behind Soap & Glory and FitFlop, saw turnover increase 140% during the Covid-19 pandemic as Britons quickly adapted to shopping online for makeup and skin products.
Companies are ranked by compound annual growth of revenue over two years. To be included, companies must be registered in the UK – however, their ultimate holding company may be offshore.
The company, which helps governments and organisations automate the detection and investigation of threats from criminal activity such as money laundering, has been on a growth spurt since raising £28m in September 2020 in a funding round led by US-based
What started as a tiny market stall business in 2004, when 15-year-old entrepreneur Susie Ma wanted to help her mum with the bills, has grown to become a multimillion-pound skincare brand.
Shailen Jasani's veterinary referral hospital, The Ralph, focuses on three key elements - core values, culture and mission - which have helped propel it to become Britain's fastest-growing company over the past two years.
For most businesses, ‘growth’ is a default part of their strategy. But what do we mean by ‘growth’, and how do we grow sustainably in a model rooted in enlightened self-interest which we can all believe in?
Learning from the best is the fast-track to accelerated growth in your own business. We speak to the innovators and business leaders listed in Growth Index to hear how they achieved such rapid growth, and what lessons can be learned.
Business is no longer about simply making a profit for shareholders. We examine what the Growth Index reveals about the pursuit of deeper social or environmental missions reverberating across the business world, with people putting money where their mouth is.
What do a veterinary hospital, cybersecurity specialist, brewer and building company have in common? You can find out in the leadership lessons breakdown, in which we highlight some of the best leadership success stories from Growth Index.
