Written by Stan Williams
Fuel Ventures portfolio companies continue to dominate the Deloitte '50 fastest-growing companies' annual awards, outranking firms that have raised many millions more in funding.
The Deloitte ‘Fast 50’ awards analyse which companies have grown the fastest based on revenue increase over the previous four years. Deloitte partner Duncan Down called the growth of our companies "nothing short of exceptional" and "a testament to the innovation and success enjoyed by the UK's technology industry."
Our success in these awards is not a new phenomenon. Paddle our team’s first investment featured sixth in both 2017 and 2018, achieving 3900% growth in its second showing.
The limelight is now on our newest entrant to the Deloitte awards Moteefe. Our fastest growing portfolio company helps brands sell custom merchandise online with a plug and play online store. They grew a massive 9034% this year. This growth story earned them a lofty 4th place in the Deloitte rankings, with the outranking companies raising £48m, £900m and £300m more than them respectively.
You may be asking yourself how Fuel Ventures companies are consistently outperforming rivals with significantly more funding? The answer is simple. Growth is not all about finance. Without unlimited funds, companies must have other advantages. Incredibly ambitious founders who are always pushing the boundaries of their company’s capability is a must. Your marketing strategy needs to be highly scalable and efficient. You need to have fantastic margins which allow you to reinvest operating profit into further growth. And finally, you must have a product that customers love and spread virally through word of mouth.
Here at Fuel Ventures, we look for these key traits in companies when making investment decisions. We are not so interested in vanity metrics such as ‘total funds raised’. We want great businesses with impressive margins and talented, ambitious founders. Once we invest, we then guide our companies towards translating these early signs into real results. We sit hand to hand with our portfolio, guiding them through the challenges that come with finding product-market fit and growing revenues.
We believe this investment and advisory methodology will continue to deliver fantastic results in the Deloitte growth awards. The growth stories we see in our portfolio make us even more bullish about this.
For now, we could not be prouder of Moteefe and Paddle for their achievements. It is a rare thing for an early stage seed Venture Capital firm to have two of the fastest-growing companies in the country within their portfolio. We believe it shows our strategy to invest, incubate and nurture companies towards success is working and we are excited to continue this approach over the next decade.
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