Pixalytics is celebrating this week as we are ten years old! We were born in 2012 and the fact that we are still here is an achievement in itself! Statistics from the US reveal that almost two-thirds of business do not make to 10 years.
The last ten years have had their ups and downs, but we’ve managed to grow our turnover every single one of those ten years, and we’ve made a profit in nine of the ten years. It looks like 2021 will turn out to be strongest financial year ever, with us achieving our highest ever turnover and our best profit margin. Admittedly though, this might be our zenith of financial achievements!
We’ve had four different offices – all based at Plymouth Science Park. We started off too ambitiously with an office bigger than we needed, then we shrank down to a reasonable size office for a start-up. As we grew, we moved to a larger office – the largest one we’ve had as company – which was great for a number of years. Our last move was after the first lockdown during the pandemic, none of our employees were local and so we shrank down again! We shrank so much, that even the removal men helping us move, laughed when they say the new office! We did manage to get everything in, although only just, and we are still sorting through everything! We’re grateful to the Science Park as they support the ebb and flow of business by enabling offices moves relatively straightforwardly.
Over the last decade we’ve had 14 different employees all who add something new to the company and have been crucial to helping us get to where we are now! Our employees have gone to new roles and exciting jobs both within the remote sensing industry, who we still see regularly, and others outside it. We’re delighted to see, and proud of, everything that they have achieved after leaving us. In addition, we’ve had numerous placement students over the years, ranging for one week school work experiences to three months ERAMUS placements.
We worked on numerous wonderful projects over the years, far too many to mention individually by name, but we’ve worked with some great teams and colleagues over the years. These projects have taken Pixalytics around the globe as we’ve undertaken work based in Australia, China, Colombia, Indonesia, Kenya, Singapore, United States, and Uganda. We’ve also worked with various space agencies including the European Space Agency, NASA, Kenya Space Agency and the UK Space Agency. Certainly, working in the space industry gives massive opportunities to travel!
Over the years we’ve had some fun as well. We sponsored an F1 car at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix which saw our name on car and flying around a 200 miles per hour, we went up to the edge of space on a weather balloon – although the camera failed on the way so we only had limited footage, we’ve recently crossed the Atlantic on the Mayflower Autonomous Ship. We’ve also won a few awards along the way, the Tech South West Future Tech Award was our last one in December.
For us, this has been an exciting, occasionally stressful, journey over ten years and we know we couldn’t do it without all the customers, suppliers, partners, colleagues, employees, placement students, and friends we’ve been involved with over the years. We’re really grateful and appreciated of all the help and support we’ve had.
Future For Pixalytics
As for the future, who knows? We’re certainly not finished yet and are carrying on working on and in our business, things are evolving and developing but that’s the same for all companies and you never know what is around the corner. Let’s see if we can still be here in another ten years!
