A message to SpinVox sceptics: stop the sniping

Recently, there's been a bit of controversy surrounding SpinVox, the UK-based voice to text messaging company led by Christina Domecq. Certain bloggers and journalists have accused the firm of not paying suppliers, and of not possessing the intellectual property that can convert spoken voicemails into text, instead of relying on an army of call centre workers.

Ariadne Capital, my firm, is a shareholder and advisor to SpinVox, and I know the allegations to be untrue. The firm is a leader in its sector, is profitable, and secured new financing just last week. Those behind the slurs are jealous of its success.

Sometimes businesses fail, and some have middling success. Sometimes founders swing for the fences, and they hit the ball out of the ball park. SpinVox is a turbo-charged success story of which the UK should be enormously proud. Many venture capital-backed mobile data companies go nowhere. SpinVox has sold its product to some of the world's most demanding customers, including Spanish telecoms giant Telefonica.

These firms wouldn't have bought from SpinVox if its technology or its business plan didn't pass their extensive due diligence.
Rapid growth isn't always pretty, however. Sometimes employees are let go for failing to keep up with the pace. And sometimes those employees make untrue allegations to soothe themselves when the firm they left goes from strength to strength, which is what is happening at SpinVox.

Suppliers aren't always up to the job either. Sometimes clients don't pay on time, and yes, sometimes employees are asked to make sacrifices, which is why some SpinVox staff have accepted shares in the firm in lieu of salary. It's part of living in what I call "Entrepreneur Country". No one ever said that building a billion pound, game-changing global leader would be easy and fun all of the time.

SpinVox is a breakthrough with strong intellectual property. No one else has sold voice technology as a managed service to carriers. No other woman has created a business of this size or importance out of the UK.  

We should be rooting for British entrepreneurs that have gone global, not sniping from the sidelines. If commentators want to indulge their cynical streak, I can provide them with a list of failures. But when confronted with excellence, leadership and entrepreneurship which has created a new category of communications and been built out of the UK, we need to get behind it - or go home.

Building a valuable firm from scratch is not an insignificant thing to do, as one entrepreneur - a household name - recently told Domecq in a message: "The better you are, the more passionate and driven, the more giving and caring, the more unique it makes you. That scares others. Those that matter know."

We should be proud of this home team in Marlow, and cut the sniping. The company is helping to make Great Britain great.

Julie Meyer is chief executive of Ariadne Capital.  SpinVox is a portfolio company of Ariadne Capital.