Bristol-based energy supplier Ovo Energy has leapt into a widely-respected league table of the country’s fastest-growing private businesses at number 10.
The firm’s staggering 140% average annual sales growth over the past three years has put it among the top performers in the 18th annual Sunday Times Virgin Fast Track 100 league table. 
Ovo was founded five years ago by Stephen Fitzpatrick and has since taken on nearly 385,000 customers, helping sales grow to £171.7m in 2013, a figure which includes the cost of the energy it supplies.
In January, Generation Investment Management, an investment fund founded by former American Vice-President Al Gore, invested £8m ahead of Ovo’s planned stock market listing. The firm, which employs 247 staff, is also about to move to a showpiece office in Bristol.
The table ranks Britain’s private companies with the fastest-growing sales over three years.
Also appearing in the table for the first time is Bristol-based Loungers. It enters at 98th place with an average sales growth of 46% over three years. It employs 880 people in its Bristol head office and across its 51 Lounge and Cosy Club outlets. The firm was formed by long-standing friends Alex Reilley, Jake Bishop and Dave Reid and opened its first venue on North Street, Bedminster, in 2002. In the year to April it turned over £33.7m.
The Fast Track 100 will be published as an eight-page broadsheet supplement with the business section of The Sunday Times this weekend in print and in the digital edition,
The Fast Track 100 league table and awards programme is sponsored by Virgin, Barclays, BDO and BGF and is compiled by Fast Track, the research and networking events company.
Sir Richard Branson of Virgin, the title sponsor for all 18 years, said: “This year’s Fast Track 100 is packed full of examples of entrepreneurs taking on many different challenges head-on.
“Their success is based on real team spirit and it is this togetherness, above and beyond any other factor, that sets great businesses apart from also-rans. The Fast Track 100 are testament to that spirit of creativity and camaraderie.”
