UK success story Huddle sees sales triple in three months

British social networking firm Huddle has released its quarterly earnings for the three months from May to July, reporting a tripling in sales overall and a fivefold increase in sales to enterprise customers.

Huddle chief executive Alastair Mitchell told V3 the results show that security and scalability concerns about cloud computing are starting to fade.

"Companies are no longer willing to put up with legacy systems, like SharePoint, that just do not work for the user," he said.

Huddle is arguably the UK's most successful start-up in the social networking space, and Mitchell's ambition is to grow the firm into a billion dollar global business and go public within the next three years.

"Our vision is to replace email for sharing content in a business context just as Facebook has replaced email for sharing social content such as photos," he said.

Huddle also confirmed that its team will grow by 60 per cent this year, and that the company is likely to open offices on the US east coast as it continues to expand.

As part of this growth Huddle also revealed that Simon O'Kane, former UK managing director of Salesforce, has joined the start-up's management team.

"Having played a key role in building one of the pioneers in cloud computing, I am excited to be joining Huddle," O'Kane said in a statement.

Huddle recently announced a 10-year deal with the UK government, in which the firm's project management and collaboration software will be hosted in a private cloud by FCO Services, part of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

The deal is likely to boost Huddle's use in the public sector, as all sorts of data can be shared between departments through the private cloud.