Lucy Buckley, co-founder of Dr Fertility; Wais Shaifta, CEO of Push Doctor; Andy Lord, CEO or Code Nation; and Matthew Elliott, co-founder of Nivo, took part in the discussion entitled 鈥楤uilding a global business in the North of England鈥�, chaired by 老九品茶Cloud editor Chris Maguire.
All four businesses are doing well but had contrasting responses when asked if they wanted to be a unicorn.
Wais Shaifa is the CEO of Manchester-based Push Doctor, which is the UK鈥檚 No 1 online GP service and has a reach of 1.2 million people. The company has so far raised $36m in funding. Shaifa said: 鈥淭he aim is to build a scalable and safe solution for our patients. When you approach healthcare there are morals and ethics behind it. We want to build a business that can be profitable and scalable and a partner of the NHS. As we grow and scale we鈥檒l review the opportunities that come to us but that (becoming a unicorn) is not our focus for now.鈥�
Lucy Buckley is co-founder of Dr Fertility, which was launched on 2017 and is growing at a rate of 270 per cent a year. Buckley said: 鈥淚 think our main focus is to be able to offer our customers a complete end-to-end solution to support them in their fertility journey and making sure we do it in the right ethical way and making sure we give a really good standard of care. The sky鈥檚 the limit for Dr Fertility but the important thing for us is providing the right care for people.鈥�
Andy Lord is the CEO of Code Nation, which is training some of the people need to plug the estimated one million unfilled jobs there will be in the digital skills sector by 2021. He said becoming a unicorn was not on his agenda. 鈥淎 billion dollar valuation is not something we鈥檝e got our heart set on,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e鈥檝e had an offer to buy the business (but turned it down). We are in a space where eventually more and more businesses will need to be. The recruitment world specialises in moving talent around. We specialise in making the talent and it鈥檚 quickly dawning on people that you鈥檝e got to make more because there isn鈥檛 enough to move around.鈥�
Matthew Elliott is the co-founder of Manchester-based instant messaging network Nivo, which last week secured 拢2m of funding. Elliott said: 鈥淚 think we鈥檝e got potential to be (a unicorn). Our mission is to transform how easy it is for everybody to get the right product and services for them. It鈥檚 too hard at the moment. There鈥檚 too much friction. Our network is unique. It鈥檚 having incredible results so I don鈥檛 see any reason why we can鈥檛 have every single person on the street using it to contact every single regulated service provider brand in the UK and beyond.鈥�