Performance Horizon

603% growth
28th place
North East regional winner

Performance Horizon is the leading provider of software as a service (SaaS) solutions that enable enterprises to better manage the performance of their business development partnerships. Launched in 2010 by successful serial entrepreneurs, their solution gives companies real-time access to the data generated by their partners, enabling them to make smarter business decisions.

Businesses looking to create new partnerships to drive growth, are challenged by the practicalities of on boarding, tracking, reporting, reconciling, and paying those partners. By providing them a centralised platform to manage all of their business development partnerships, Performance Horizon enables it’s customers to be more strategic and agile in their approach.

“We took advantage of a unique opportunity early on to roll out a truly global infrastructure for managing partnerships which now provides us with a fantastic platform to serve the needs of the worlds largest companies,” says Performance Horizon CEO and co-founder Malcolm Cowley. “We’re passionate about helping our customers optimise their partnerships activity through better control, accountability and transparency.”

With offices in the US, UK, Japan and Australia, Performance Horizon is responsible for over US$3 billion in top line revenues driven by over 190,000 marketing partners in 185 countries. On the payments side they process partner payments in 50 currencies, and provide customer support in over 80 languages. The company’s headcount is now 150 strong, compared to just 75 in 2015 and is expected to double in 2017 as it plans to accelerate its sales and marketing efforts globally.

Malcolm ultimately attributes the company’s success to the ambition, vision and values of its people. “Great people want to join amazing teams that are building category defining businesses. Performance Horizon has a huge runway ahead of us, in transforming how companies manage their partnerships today” says Malcolm. “In the early days it was far easier to foster a winning culture, but with 150 employees split across four continents today, continuing to build on this required us to bring in the right leadership at the right time.”

For example, the company recently brought in a Human Resources Director to oversee the creation of a global communication programme, and fine-tune its performance management processes across multiple locations. Malcolm hopes this focused investment will help them to not only to retain their best talent but also help them to keep their competitive edge in the search for global talent.

Fresh off the back of a $15MM funding round, Performance Horizon plans to expand rapidly in the years ahead by dedicating resources to double down on its existing markets while exploring further global expansion.

“Performance Horizon has the opportunity to become a top ten global software business,” he says. “This is a time of transition for enterprises as they look for technology to solve their most pressing growth challenges. We’re excited to be helping them unlock the power of partnerships to drive their next phase of growth.”

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