NB: Firstly, can you give our readers a little background of Signifly ,18 months new to the UK but enjoying great success in Scandinavia and North America for 14 years?
JV: Signifly was founded in Copenhagen in 2010 by our three founders; Michael Valentin, Alexander Spliid & Patrick Rønning. The three were from backgrounds in technology, design and strategy respectively and those backgrounds have been the bedrock of Signifly's service offerings. 

We experienced strong organic growth from the very start, priding ourselves on the quality of delivery and our super talented team. As a result, client-referral drove our growth for much of the first 10 years, working with the likes of Novo Nordisk, Google, Uber and becoming the digitalisation partner to the Danish Government.

About 5 years ago, international expansion became a key goal for the business and we elected to open in Montreal, to serve the North American market. Once more, we focused on the team and our quality of delivery and now count organisations such as Bank of Montreal, Novartis and the Canadian Government as our clients.

NB: Danish and indeed Scandinavian companies in general have a history of producing successful companies at the cutting edge of digital and other advanced technologies. Why is that?

JV: It's a good question, and it certainly speaks to the positive perception that Danish businesses seem to have in the UK. Having now spent a good deal of time in Copenhagen, all things tech are quite different to the UK. The levels of technological literacy are some of the highest in the world. Their driving licences, health cards and various other things that would be physical items in the UK & US are now digital (both examples were actually designed by us).

The other thing that they focus on enormously is user experience. For digital products and advanced technologies to be adopted, used and enjoyed, the UX has to be first class. In the UK we are very used to poor levels of UX, but the Danes focus on it enormously, to ensure that what is being developed is fit for purpose and well received by its intended audience.

NB: How has the UK launch gone, still early days at a year and a half in a new market?

JV: We are really happy with where we have got to in the first 14 months. We have exceeded many of our targets in a financial sense, but more importantly have a really strong founding team of 8 who are delivering very high quality work. Over 90% of the 25 or so clients that we have won since launching have returned to do further projects, which is the metric we are most proud of to date.

NB: What type of UK client are you attracting? 

JV: We are attracting a really fun range of clients so far, including Anya Hindmarch, Nasstar Group, Cape Capital & Rapport London. From funded scale-ups to mature PE backed businesses, we have clients with revenue ranging from 6 figures to 9 figures. If I was to say a single business case that we are assisting with most, it would be within commerce; both in e-commerce (site builds, growth marketing, CRO) and also in enhancing our client's lead generation efforts (UX/UI, development).

NB: The UK has a well-developed and well-funded digi-tech business sector. What has Signifly brought to the UK that is going to replicate the success enjoyed in the countries above and in the UK also, in a reasonably mature and competitive market?  

JV: This was the question we asked ourselves most before launching. The UK is our biggest market, but also probably the most competitive. What we have seen so far is that our positioning and in-house teams have seemed to resonate strongly with our prospective clients. We can support end-to-end, from strategy consulting to design, and all the way through to development and implementation.

We have also seen that people have a really positive perception of Danish design, which has seemingly given us a point of difference when in competitive pitches.

NB: How pleased are the founders of Signifly with the progress made in the UK so far and the prospects here for future growth?

JV: The founders and the rest of the team are really pleased with the progress we have made to date, especially with the team we have built and the amount of clients that we have won. We think of Signifly LDN as having a start-up within the broader organisation, so everyone enjoys following along with the progress. 

Looking forward, everyone is aware of the opportunity that the UK represents and so having now proved profitable business can be done here, we are looking to continue investing in the UK so that we put ourselves in the best position to replicate (and maybe even one day exceed) what we have done in Scandinavia and North America.

For further information please visit Signifly