How To Find Expanding Companies (Plus 4 That Grew During Lockdown)

5 signs a company is expanding

1. Growing employee numbers

A clear signal that a company is expanding and in need of a new office is if they’ve hired more people during lockdown and hence outgrown their existing space. This could also be a sign to recruiters that a company’s looking to bring on even more people soon. 

The Beauhurst platform tracks the number of employees of every high-growth business in the UK, so that you can see which startups have grown in headcount. Plus, it has information on key decision makers, including founders, C-suite executives, and directors, so you can quickly spot any gaps in a company’s senior leadership team and know exactly who to reach out to.

2. New funding (or a lack thereof)

A recent fundraising means that a company has new capital to deploy and typically means it’s looking to expand its operations. Meanwhile, for companies in sectors doing well during COVID, a recent lull in fundraising activity (6-12 months) may indicate that a sizeable new funding round is in the works. This is a useful way of identifying future opportunities, businesses that may soon be looking to expand. And proactively building relationships with these leads now means you’ll be ahead of your competitors once a fundraising is announced.

Beauhurst tracks all equity fundraisings into high-growth UK companies, including both announced and unannounced funding rounds. Unannounced deals (investments not disclosed to the public) typically make up around 70% of all UK fundraisings, which explains why we’ve developed a top-level process to detect them. With the Beauhurst platform, you can also see and search across the reason for funding, where it’s been announced, for instance job creation or R&D.

3. Advance in growth stage

Here at Beauhurst, we use detailed ‘stages of evolution’ to classify where tracked companies are at in their development. We go beyond ‘Series A’, ‘Series B’, and so on (measured simply by number of funding rounds completed), instead drawing on over 40 different criteria to determine which category a business falls into: Seed, Venture, Growth, or Established. 

Moving between growth stages is a good indication that a company is expanding their operations. This is especially true when a business first moves from Seed to Venture stage, as this means it’s recently gained significant traction, and has secured fundraising and a valuation both in the millions. Any company doing so during COVID is likely to be taking the next step in their growth soon, and moving to a larger office space once lockdown is over. 

4. Improving financial performance

An improvement in financial performance during the pandemic would suggest that a business is growing. And an increase in gross profit, in particular, is a good indication that a company has adequate capital to spend on a new workspace. The Beauhurst platform provides a comprehensive record of tracked businesses’ latest financials, including full company accounts, credit ratings and limits, and auditors, so you can see how they’re performing. 

5. Recent accelerator attendance

Accelerated companies usually grow at pace and, on average, raise 44% more money than their peers. Upon graduating from an accelerator, many companies are also on the lookout for offices, either for the first time (having previously been accommodated by the programme) or for new space that better fits their changing requirements. The UK’s top accelerator programmes consistently produce some of the country’s most promising young businesses, so we track their entire graduating cohorts.