How ranking in the Startups 100 was a “launchpad” for MVF’s growth

Entries for the Startups 100 2018 – this year’s index of the UK’s top 100 most exciting start-ups to have launched in the last three years – officially closed at midnight on Tuesday 3 April, and excitement is now mounting for the index’s reveal on 21 May 2018.

Ahead of the reveal, we caught up with Michael Teixeira, CEO at MVF – which was ranked in third position in the Startups 100 2012 – to discuss the many impressive milestones that the business has hit since being listed, and how the ranking helped to enable these feats.

Founded by Titus Sharpe, Tom Morgan, Jules Hopkinson, David Walton and Simon Venturi in 2009, MVF is an award-winning, rapidly-growing customer generation firm, which Teixeira joined in 2012. Having acquired Startups.co.uk in February 2017, MVF is now our parent company – a stunning example of the tremendous growth it has experienced since we featured it as a young start-up six years ago.

So, what has the business achieved since the Startups 100 2012, and what did featuring mean to MVF? Read on to find out…

How big was MVF when it featured in the Startups 100 2012?

MVF’s inclusion on the Startups 100 in 2012 actually coincided with a pretty huge milestone for us – we hit 100 team members! At this point we’d launched our own business-to-business comparison site, ExpertMarket, and were gaining some serious momentum in the London tech scene.

That being said, we were much smaller than we are today, with revenues of just over £8m for the year to March 2012.

What did it mean to MVF be recognised by the Startups 100 index?

Being featured in such a prestigious awards programme was a real highlight for us, and genuinely helped to put our company on the map.

From the launchpad that was the Startups 100, MVF went on to take the number one position in the Sunday Times Tech Track 100 in 2013. So really, from 2009, when MVF was founded, to 2012 there was a huge period of growth, but we’re pleased to say our growth has continued since then!

In what ways has MVF grown since 2012?

Our revenue growth has remained strong – revenues are about nine times greater now than they were in 2012 – and so we are still ranking on high growth lists like Inc. 5000 Europe and the Sunday Times Tech Track 100, but we’ve also grown in many other really exciting ways.

In 2015 we opened our first international office in Austin, Texas to ramp up our US growth and we’ve continued to expand our customer generation services into more product areas and more markets (we generate customers in around 120 countries at last count!).

Today, we’re at almost 500 team members across the globe, and we’re proud to have been able to build a really great place for them work.

Most importantly, over this period we’ve made massive advances in our business model and technology platform to better serve our clients and drive return on investment for them, creating a strong foundation for our next stage of growth.

What does the next year hold for the business?

Well, this year kicked off with a bang; we acquired leading US tech news site Tech.co. This is really exciting for us as we continue to build our global audience and expand into even more new product areas.

We also achieved our highest ranking ever on the Sunday Times Best Companies to Work For list, coming in at number one for London and number two for the UK.

I think this year will see some major changes in the digital marketing sector, for example with Facebook being under political pressure to make policy changes, and regulatory changes such as the GDPR, and I’m excited about the opportunities this will provide for us compared with less sophisticated advertisers.

The capability we have built up over the last year means we are in a good position to launch into even more new product areas over the next year!

Why do you think start-ups should apply for the Startups 100 2018?

The start-ups sector is hugely competitive, particularly in tech, so it can be hard to really put your stamp on things and get noticed, perhaps now more than ever.

Even if you don’t make the final list, taking the time out to apply for these sorts of things can help you reflect on what you’ve achieved so far and what work you’ve still got to do to get to where you want to be.