Sam Rickett: Everlution

Sam Rickett, 34
Company: Everlution
Web: www.everlution.com

Sam Rickett’s company, Everlution, is facially a web app development company that specialises in building data-heavy applications for businesses. With clients ranging from start-ups to household-name multinationals including William Hill and Société Générale, and multi-million pound revenues, it is an impressive business in its own right, but serial entrepreneur Rickett is just getting started. Unusually for an app development company, Everlution also boasts a “technical venture capital” arm which utilises the team’s tech expertise to incubate their own start-ups and turn their own ideas into high-growth businesses themselves.

One of these, online school rewards start-up Vivo Rewards, already has revenues approaching £4m, with 40 staff, and its app is used in 20% of all secondary schools in the UK. Another, The Internet Works, increases and monetises third-party website traffic and has grown 300% in the last year, with turnover expected to break the million-pound barrier this year. The combined turnover of the companies on Rickett’s portfolio is around £10m, and it is clear his multi-faceted approach to enterprise is paying off handsomely. The young entrepreneur has also had a hand in growing a number of other successful businesses, including Startups Awards 2013 finalist Perfect Channel, stock market game Bullbearings, and e-cigarette shop Vapeemporium.com – with such a record, his inclusion in this year’s Young Guns index was a no-brainer.