DATA management specialist Onyx has posted its first profit following a record year which saw revenues grow by 30% to £14.7m.
Chief executive Neil Stephenson says he is particularly pleased with the performance as the sales growth has come in a year without acquisitions.
The Teesside company, the current Journal North Business of the Year, was set up by Stephenson in 1994 and in that time it has made five acquisitions. Stephenson said: “2010 was a year of consistent organic growth. A year during which we integrated the businesses we have bought over recent years.”
Stockton-based Onyx saw operating profits of £1.7m in 2010 and now has 2,300 customers including the giant Balfour Beatty, as well as an unnamed FTSE 100 company for which it provides data hosting facilities.
“What we are seeing is that the size of the companies we are now doing businesses with is increasing,” he added. “The business is doing very well. It’s important that we are now starting to make profits and proves that we have a successful business model.”
In the current year Stephenson expects to see a similar magnitude of growth as it builds up its presence in the data recovery and cloud computing arena.
Onyx yesterday announced it had bought a data centre on Teesside, which will give it the capacity to add additional data hosting facilities as well as direct internet connection to Europe. Late last year Onyx secured a £250,000 venture capital investment to allow it to further develop its cloud computing presence.
