High-tech firm tops UK league

A Sheffield-based ebusiness consultancy which has spurned all offers of venture capital since it was launched six years ago, has topped the first Inner City 100 (IC100) Index.

In all there were 21 high-tech firms in the list.

Run by think-tank the New Economics Foundation, the IC100 is designed to promote some of the UK's poorest inner city areas as places of enterprise and reward entrepreneurial companies who have set up business there employing local people.

Technophobia founders, Amelia and Pip Thorne, were presented with their award at last night's ceremony by Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown.

Their company - which is the design agency behind the Co-op's online bank, smile.co.uk - has seen its turnover grow from £40,000 in 1996 to just under £1m last year.

Pip Thorne told silicon.com he had venture capitalists knocking on his door during the dot-com boom but he and his wife chose to go it alone. Given the rise and fall of internet valuations Thorne said he was glad he chose this "less stressful" route.

Among the other IT firms featuring in the IC100 are software developer, Strategic Systems Solutions, training firm, Remarc Technologies and web design agency, Lateral founded and run by 30-year-old Jon Bains.