Use case Leads and enquiries
Who in the UK is scaling
If you sell to UK companies, the ones worth writing to this month are the ones where money just came in, directors just joined, or the team on LinkedIn is climbing. All of that is public. Reading it means opening the filing history for every company on your list and counting forms by hand. I did that once for forty companies, and this is what I built so I would never do it again.
The question this page answers
How do I find UK companies that are growing right now, using public data, and what do I say to them?
How the working version is put together
Give it the list, or a search
Company names or numbers, one per line, or a search by keyword, SIC code and postcode prefix. A number is looked up directly. A name is only accepted when the register's top hit is the same name once case, punctuation and Ltd against Limited are ignored. Anything looser comes back unmatched with the three closest candidates, so a person decides.
Read the register properly
For each company I pull the profile, every officer including the ones who resigned, and the filing history back to the start of your lookback window, six months by default. From those I count board appointments and resignations. I also count share allotments with the nominal capital on the form, an office move and a change of name. Then the company's age, and whether the accounts and confirmation statement are on time.
Look the company up on LinkedIn
With the LinkedIn lookup on, the Actor runs the LinkedIn Company Details Scraper on your own Apify account and reads the employee count and follower count. The headcount is stored under your watch key, so the next run with the same key reports the change. Give the LinkedIn URL on the input line when you have it and the name search is skipped, along with its chance of landing on a similar name.
Score it out of 100
New share capital up to 25, board appointments up to 20, headcount growth up to 20, company age up to 10, filings on time 10, an office move 5, a name change 5, and board stability 5. The lines add to exactly 100. Fifty-five or more is GROWING, 30 to 54 is STEADY, below that is QUIET.
Write the reasons as sentences
Every line that fired comes back with its numbers, and the strongest are rewritten as pitch angles built only from that row. Filed two share allotments since March, so new shares were issued. Added eight people on LinkedIn since June, from 38 to 46. Nothing in a pitch angle is generated; every figure is read back out of the row.
What two real companies scored
The first real run read Monzo Bank, Octopus Energy and Greggs off the register with a six month window starting on the seventh of March, and looked each up on LinkedIn. Octopus scored 30, STEADY: one share allotment filed on the thirtieth of March for three pounds of nominal capital, accounts and confirmation statement both on time, a board with no movement either way, 5,852 people on LinkedIn. Monzo scored 20, QUIET: one officer appointed in June against six who resigned in May and July, named in the row, 5,732 people on LinkedIn. Greggs scored 20, QUIET, on one appointment against three resignations.
Those are big, established companies and the register is a lagging, board-level signal for them, so QUIET is the honest read. The Greggs row also shows the trap the README warns about: given the name alone, the LinkedIn search landed on the Greggs ADR page with six employees rather than the bakery chain, while Monzo and Octopus were given their LinkedIn URLs and came back right. Give the URL when you have it and check the LinkedIn name against the company name when you do not.
Three pounds of nominal capital
The capital on a share allotment form is the face value of the shares, not the money paid for them. Three pounds of nominal capital can be a large round at a premium. So the count of allotments is the signal and the figure is context, and the pitch angle says shares were issued rather than guessing at a sum.
Why a first run caps at 80
A first run with a new watch key has no previous headcount to compare against, so the headcount line cannot fire and the most any company can score is 80. Run it monthly with the same key and every run after the first carries the change. Different lists get different keys and never touch each other.
A QUIET score means the public record is quiet. A company can be growing hard without any of these signals showing on the register yet, because filings arrive when somebody files them.
What it costs to run
Three cents per company checked. An unmatched name or a failed lookup costs nothing. The LinkedIn lookup runs on your own Apify account and is billed there on top, under half a cent per company at the entry tier. Switch it off and the score is built from the register alone at the same price.
Read this before you spend anything
When I would tell you not to bother
If your list is large, old companies, expect a page of QUIET and STEADY. The register moves slowly for them and the signal you want is headcount, which needs the LinkedIn leg and a second run.
The LinkedIn employee count is people who list the company on their profile, not payroll. When a company only carries a range, the bottom of the range is used and the row says so.
None of this is a judgement about the company or advice about who to sell to. It describes what the public record showed on the day it was read.
What lands on your desk
- One row per company: growth score out of 100 and a GROWING, STEADY or QUIET band
- Appointments, resignations, share allotments, office moves and name changes in the window, with names and dates
- LinkedIn headcount and followers, and the change since the last run under the same watch key
- Every rubric line that fired, with its numbers and points
- Up to three pitch angles written as sentences from that row alone
- If you want the GROWING rows flowing into a CRM with a first email drafted per company, that is the work I do
Open the proof
Published case studies of systems that are running. Each links to the thing itself.
Other builds in this cluster
Same pattern, each one aimed at a different part of the business and linking to its own page.
Questions this page answers
- What counts as a growth signal?
- Share allotments, board appointments, headcount growth on LinkedIn, a young company, filings on time, a registered office move, a change of name, and a board with more arrivals than departures. Eight lines that add to 100.
- Do I need a Companies House key?
- Yes, and it is free. Register at the Companies House developer site, create an application, add a REST key. Without one the Actor runs in demo mode with three sample rows and charges nothing.
- Why does the first run score lower?
- There is no previous headcount to compare against, so the headcount line cannot fire and the ceiling is 80. Every run after the first with the same watch key carries the change.
- Have you run it on real companies?
- Yes, on Monzo Bank, Octopus Energy and Greggs from the register with the LinkedIn lookup on, and the rows are on this page with their headcounts. The first run under a watch key has no previous headcount to compare against, so the change line arrives on the second run.
- What does it cost?
- Three cents per company checked. The LinkedIn lookup is billed to your own Apify account on top, under half a cent per company at the entry tier.
Want this built and handed over working?
One line is enough to start. You get an honest answer on fit, and a number rather than a discovery call.
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