The Top 10 Highest-Valued Companies in the UK | 2023 Ranking
Sarah Cheesman, 20 december 2023
It’s been hard to ignore the staggering decline in startup valuations over the last few quarters. With high interest rates, examples like the stock trading app Freetrade seeing a 65% drop in valuation earlier this year, have raised concerns among investors and entrepreneurs alike. Against this backdrop of a fluctuating market, we wondered which companies in the UK currently have the highest valuations. So, we dug into our valuation data to uncover the 10 companies leading by valuations.
By looking at private UK companies with an equity finance round between 1 June 2020 and 31 October 2023, we’ve ranked the top 10 highest-valued companies based on pre-money valuation.
There are a total of 26 companies in our list bringing in nearly £500m turnover in their latest financials. Let’s take a look at the companies leading the way in this area of the country.
Top 10 UK companies by valuation
We’ve ordered our companies from 10 to one.
10.
Rothesay Life
Latest pre-money valuation: £2.74b
Date of latest round: September 2020
Total amount raised: £1.31b
Sector: Insurance
Region: London
Incorporated: 2013
Rothesay Life provides life insurance, specialising in pension security services for businesses. With offices in North America and Australia, they source key investment opportunities in their markets, contributing to a diversified portfolio of long-term, high quality and secured assets. As a leading pensions insurance specialist in the UK, they manage over £48b in assets and secure pensions for over 84k people.
09.
Zepz
​​Latest pre-money valuation: £3.22b
Date of latest round: August 2021
Total amount raised: £528m
Sector: Consumer banking and financial services, SaaS
Region: London
Incorporated: 2009
Fintech Zepz (previously WorldRemit Group) provides online money transfer and airtime top-up services, working with WorldRemit and Sendwave. Customers can download the app for free and send money online to over 130 countries, in a fast and secure way. In 2020, Zepz transferred over $10b for customers and processed over 50m customer transactions.
08.
Graphcore
Latest pre-money valuation: £5.01b
Date of latest round: October 2023
Total amount raised: £528m
Sector: Technology / Manufacturing
Region: Bristol
Incorporated: 2016
Graphcore has developed a processor optimised for machine-learning tasks, and technology to accelerate machine-learning applications both in servers and in the cloud. It also provides an open-source machine-learning development framework in C++ and Python. With offices in Bristol, London, Cambridge, Palo Alto, Oslo, Beijing, Hsinchu, Seoul, New York, Seattle, Austin, Machine, Paris, and Tokyo, they enable innovators around the world to achieve next-generation machine intelligence breakthroughs with their IPU technology.
07.
Hopin
​​Latest pre-money valuation: £5.18b
Date of latest round: March 202
Total amount raised: £766m
Sector: Events, SaaS
Region: London
Incorporated: 2019
Hopin provides a cloud-based event management platform, designed to help businesses to create networking events. The company has 10m+ users and five product lines. Hopin’s proprietary software combines video with live chat, polling, and randomised breakout rooms to increase event participation and interaction. Its customers include the United Nations, NATO, and Unilever.
06.
Teya
​​Latest pre-money valuation: £5.55b
Date of latest round: April 2021
Total amount raised: £358m
Sector: Fintech, E-Commerce
Region: London
Incorporated: 2019
Teya develops payment processing and point-of-sale technology for merchants. The company operates in 16 countries with 2,000 employees. Its latest figures show the company has 300k+ active users making over £500m in transactions every year. To date, it has made four acquisitions with its latest one—that of payment authorisation system startup, Paymentology—closing in December 2021.
05.
Callsign
​​Latest pre-money valuation: £5.88b
Date of latest round: June 2023
Total amount raised: £215m
Sector: Cyber security
Region: London
Incorporated: 2010
Callsign develops software that combines biometric, device, and location data for authentication purposes, with the aim of improving efficiency and security of financial transactions. In 2021, they established an engineering and development site in Abu Dhabi, to assist the UAE’s Vision 2071 to build a nation that places digital transformation at the heart of the national strategy. They were also chosen by Visa as their preferred behavioural biometric digital and device intelligence provider in October 2021.
04.
Inspired
​​Latest pre-money valuation: £6.18b
Date of latest round: May 2022
Total amount raised: £474m
Sector: Education
Region: London
Incorporated: 2013
Inspired operates a group of independent schools, with around 50k students globally. Its schools are non-denominational and co-educational, and cover nursery until 18 years. The education services company buys as well as builds schools around the world. Currently, it offers its services to 70,000 students in over 80 schools across 24 countries. In 2022, the group acquired a virtual teaching company, My Online Schooling.
03.
Howden Group Holdings
​​Latest pre-money valuation: £8.93b
Date of latest round: April 2023
Total amount raised: £1.98b
Sector: Insurance services
Region: London
Incorporated: 1994
Howden Group Holdings is a group of businesses, spanning the insurance value chain. Its trading operations include wholesale and retail insurance broking, reinsurance broking, and underwriting agencies. The Group consists of Howden (an international challenger broker), DUAL (an international MGA – Managing General Agent), and HX (a leading digital, data, and analytics business). It operates in 45 countries globally.
02.
Revolut
Latest pre-money valuation: £25.5b
Date of latest round: July 2021
Total amount raised: £1.27b
Sector: Fintech
Region: London
Incorporated: 2013
Challenger bank Revolut is a payment services provider, originally offering money transfer and exchange, and expanding to enter the cryptocurrency business in 2018. This fintech company has dozens of products which allow customers to make transactions and invest money, varying from free to paid subscriptions. It already operates in several countries, with plans to launch in Brazil, India, and New Zealand soon.
Our client, Coutts, uses the BeauhurstInvest product to find and build relationships with the founders of high-growth businesses
01.
AMO Pharma
​​Latest pre-money valuation: £35.2b
Date of latest round: May 2022
Total amount raised: £62.8m
Sector: Genomics
Region: Leeds
Incorporated: 2015
AMO Pharma specialises in developing drugs for rare childhood-onset neurogenetic disorders with limited or no treatment options. In April of this year, the company announced the successful completion of their current clinical study, REACH-CDM, which is a double-blind, placebo-controlled study targeting myotonic dystrophy. The study aims to support future marketing authorisation for congenital myotonic dystrophy treatment.
What are the top companies in the UK based on annual turnover?
We track every private company in the UK. Using this data, we’ve taken a look at private UK companies with an equity finance round between 1st June 2020 and 31st October 2023. We’ve then ranked the top ten based on annual turnover. At the very top of the list is Howden Group Holdings, which provides insurance brokerage and underwriting services. Their most recent annual turnover was listed as £1.56b. To date, they have secured nine fundraisings, worth a total of £1.98b. They have also received one grant from Innovate UK in September 2013.
Second on our list is Rothesay Life, the pension security specialists. Their most recent annual turnover came in at £1.40b. They have raised a total of £1.31b through six rounds of equity fundraising.
OnlyFans, an online platform where content creators can upload videos and images which are accessible to users on both a subscription and pay-per-view basis, was in third place on our list. They had a turnover of £911m in their most recent financials. They have completed one round of fundraising to date, in June 2021, however, this was for an unspecified amount.
What are the top companies in the UK based on annual profits?
Using the same parameters as above, we then looked at the top companies in the UK based on their annual profits.
Wintermute tops the list, with their most recent post-tax profit of £429.9m. They operate a market-maker financial business for cryptocurrency projects and exchanges, and have undergone four fundraising rounds to date, totalling £17.6m.
In second position was OnlyFans, with a total of £337.7m profit after tax, followed by Rothesay Life at £143m.
What are the top companies in the UK based on number of employees?
The number of staff that a business employs is also an important measure of their success.
In looking at this data set, we can see that Howden Group Holdings is far out in front of the others in the table, with over 10.7k staff members. In second position is independent school group, Inspired, which employs 8.7k staff. Close behind them in third position is Cera. They provide homecare, telehealth consultations, and prescription services, which can be managed through a mobile app, which also allows users to book appointments with nurses on demand. The company has over 6k employees.
Looking to the future
The future of high-growth businesses in the UK appears promising, poised to play a pivotal role in shaping and improving the country’s economic landscape. These dynamic enterprises, often characterised by rapid expansion and innovation, are expected to contribute significantly to job creation, bolstering employment rates and fostering a culture of entrepreneurship.
As these businesses continue to push boundaries and embrace emerging technologies, they are expected to contribute not only to economic growth but also to the evolution of industries and the transformation of traditional business models.
How Beauhurst can help
Here at Beauhurst, we work hard to ensure our users are armed with the best information to put them in the position to succeed. We collect data on every UK private company—that’s over 5m profiles—to give our clients a complete view of the UK private market. Our 60+ data analysts work with machine learning models to ensure the data you see is always current and accurate, so you can stay ahead of the competition.
Additionally, our team of experienced Account Managers are always on hand to help build collections, set up alerts or undertake particular searches.
If you’re interested in finding out more about our services, speak to a member of our team today or see how the platform works by booking a demo.
