A  tech business launched at The Smithfield Development in Stoke-on-Trent city centre just last year already has clients across three continents.

Co-founders James Butler and Adam Morray will be taking on two staff this year and have projected a million-pound turnover within the first few years of trading.

They met while both worked for a Stoke-on-Trent recruitment company, stayed in touch and decided to leave their jobs to start Purple Digital Solutions in May 2024.

They work in digital tech recruitment and believe they have discovered a relatively untapped area of tech.

Aged 30 and 32, they have already made sales across the UK, North America, Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific but say their journey is just beginning.

They’ve grown a global following and received the Best MarTech Recruitment Company Award for 2024.

James said: “We first worked together about 10 years ago. I moved to a different company but we stayed in touch. We both found really nice specialisms and came up with the idea of collaborating on our own business.

“We both left our jobs to do this, which is a big step when you have families and mortgages. It’s quite an exciting time for us. With limited resources but limitless ambition, we hit the ground running.”

At the moment James and Adam are the entire team, but they’re looking to recruit two staff this year and are projecting to be turning over £1million within the first couple of years.

“Our vision is to have an office in Stoke-on-Trent with 10 to 20 staff within the next five years,” said James. “Given the nature of our work we’d also like to have an office in North America, but it will have all started at The Smithfield in Stoke-on-Trent city centre.

“Although we’re doing a lot of work to support businesses outside Stoke-on-Trent we want to grow this business here and create opportunities for people here. We used a lot of Stoke-on-Trent companies to help us get off the ground.”

Purple Digital Solutions has entered the Start-up Business of the Year category of the University of Staffordshire Business Awards.