48. Digital Shadows

Founders: Alastair Paterson and James Chappell
Founded: May 2011
Website: www.digitalshadows.com

Since being featured in our list last year, cyber-intelligence firm Digital Shadows has continued to grow in popularity among its prestigious, blue-chip target market, generating impressive revenues which look set to break the £1m barrier in 2014. Its unique set of automated language-processing algorithms sort 80 million sources of information in real-time, identifying threats to the security and reputation of Digital Shadows’ clients at an early stage. For all the business benefits of the cloud, mobile and social media, the company has firmly positioned itself as a solution to mitigate the risks with a round-the-clock intelligence service.

Early breakthroughs for the business were in part attributed to it securing a place in Canary Wharf-based Fintech Innovation Lab London, which is hosted at Level39 and gave the founders instant access to some of the major banks during the trial phase. Backed by its growing list of customers, which now include some of the largest banks in the world, Digital Shadows is set for an ambitious 2014, as founders Alastair Paterson (32) and James Chappell (39) plan to double the size of their team, release their new SearchLight Client portal and launch in the US for the first time. Not bad for a business started with £20,000 of savings.