Data & AI Literacy Academy ranks #61 in the Sifted 250 Leaderboard

Data & AI Literacy Academy has been named in the Sifted 250, Sifted's annual ranking of Europe's fastest-growing startups. We placed #61, with a two-year revenue CAGR of 291.10%.

There's no shortage of awards and growth lists, however, not every list is built in an unbiased way in the manner the Sifted 250 is. Sifted ranks companies on realised revenue across their latest three financial years, and every company has to submit signed documentation to support its figures.

Sustainable growth metrics versus biased hype

The ranking rejects annual recurring revenue as a sole metric. Because ARR is a projection, a strong month multiplied by twelve, and one big contract or a short-lived spike can distort it. Three years of realised revenue shows something a projection can't: whether customers retain trust and keep renewing.

Besides the fact that we're proud to keep serving our early customers and delivering programmes that have clear ROI attached, being one of the few startups in the UK outside of London making the list is showing how a strong team can be built outside of the capital.

Our sole mission will continue to be supporting data leaders in their unlock of value beyond post-purchase of AI, BI and other data tools which is always is the easy part. The return depends on whether people across the business can use them well.

Where AI programmes stall

Sifted's report is full of AI. The number of AI-native companies in the ranking more than doubled this year, to 56. It also includes a candid estimate from Jan Oberhauser, CEO of n8n, that around 95% of AI agent projects are "stuck in MVP hell".

That matches what we see inside large organisations. The technology usually works in the pilot. Progress stops when the pilot meets the wider business: managers who can't separate a strong use case from an impressive demo, and teams who don't trust the output enough to change how they work.

"It's incredible to be ranked among so many high-scale startups, especially now AI is taking the landscape in a whole new direction. We believe that enabling leaders to report on what AI has contributed to their bottom line, is one of the most important value drivers over the next 5 years. By taking a human-led approach, organisations can finally bridge the gap between what was promised and what's being delivered.
Greg Freeman, Founder & CEO, Data & AI Literacy Academy

If you're being asked to prove the value of your organisation's AI investment, book a consultation so we can run you through our ROI model calculation.

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