The Angel or VC-backed Business of the Year award recognises the achievements of a new business that has raised money from investors and demonstrates signs of achieving real greatness. The category demands evidence of originality and achievement in excess of targets. Adfonic joins an esteemed crop of previous winners at the startups awards including Wonga and Three Sixty Entertainment.
“We are delighted to be recognised with this award win, which is testament to the progress we have made in the last 12 months. The operating environment is difficult for the majority for businesses but mobile advertising is experiencing a boom, which we expect to continue for the foreseeable future. Our industry is being driven by the continued proliferation of smartphones and because large brand advertisers are beginning to integrate mobile into their overall marketing campaigns.” Commented Victor Malachard, CEO Adfonic.
He continued: “The last few years have seen a certain amount of experimentation with mobile advertising but in 2011 we saw that transition into well-integrated campaigns with committed budgets.”
Steph Welstead, editor of Startups.co.uk, said: “We were blown away by the standard of entries to this year’s Startups Awards. All of the businesses who made it to the 2011 final have shown innovation, guts and determination and the success they have achieved against the backdrop of the economic downturn is a true testament to the strength of UK entrepreneurship.”
The winners of each category were selected by a judging panel consisting of some of the UK’s most successful entrepreneurs, including Joe Cohen, founder of Seatwave, Mitesh Soma, founder of Chemist Direct, Rosemary Forsyth, founder of the Forsyth Group, and Lara Morgan, founder of the Pacific Direct Group. Judging was based on criteria such as sales volume, visionary leadership and social and community responsibility.
This award recognises a period of considerable success for Adfonic, which has seen the company grow its revenues ten-fold over the last 12 months, increase its network of publisher sites and apps to more than 10,000 and drive monthly ad requests across the network to over 20 billion. Thousands of campaigns are run across the network each month by leading brands including Peugeot, Yell, Tesco, Skype, Groupon, Google and many more, giving them access to an estimated audience of 100 million mobile unique users.