4 Bytes Technology Group

Gross invoiced income: £958m (+33%)

Net profit: 2.1% Staff: 647

This software licensing giant leaps four places in the Top VARs rankings following its first annual results as a public company (which - for the first time - reflect its enlarged scale following its 2017 acquisition of Phoenix Software).

Having floated on the LSE in December 2020, Bytes Technology Group saw gross invoiced income (GII) power up by a third to £958m in its year to 28 February 2021 (with Phoenix generating £326m of the total). Net profits dropped from £24.1m to £19.9m as IPO costs of £8.1m sapped the bottom line. In an interview at the time with CRN, Neil Murphy highlighted Azure migration and demand for Mimecast, Crowdstrike, Sophos and other security technologies as two growth hotspots.

The Surrey-based outfit's growth spurt shows no signs of abating, with GII in its fiscal H1 2022 hiking 26 per cent to £638.2m. Bytes was admitted to the FTSE 250 in March, with a market cap topping £1.3bn as Top VARs went to press.

Covid impact

Adoption of cloud-based licensing has "accelerated" thanks to the pandemic, Bytes claimed, adding that its Phoenix brand posted "particularly strong results" after helping "many" public sector organisations move to the cloud during lockdown. It also saved over £1m in travel costs last year.