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| hedgehog lab | |
|---|---|
| Type | Privately held company |
| Industry | Mobile application development |
| Founded | 2007 |
| Founder | Sarat Pediredla, Mark Forster |
| Headquarters | , England |
Area served | Worldwide, Global |
| Key people | Malcolm Seagrave (CEO) |
| Services | software development, software testing, product design, AI development, User research, user experience design, interaction design, |
Number of employees | 120 (2023) |
| Website | www |
hedgehog lab is a B-Corp certified digital product consultancy headquartered in Newcastle upon Tyne, with additional hubs in London, Leeds, Edinburgh and Bulgaria.
hedgehog lab employs more than 120 people, concentrates on building mobile apps, web apps as well as product strategy, digital transformation, user research, user interface design, data engineering, cloud and devops services. The company had secured a £6.3m investment from growth capital investor, BGF. As part of the deal, the company announced the acquisition of York-based digital product consultancy, Netsells, in a move that will support the company's growth plans.
hedgehog lab takes its name from Jim Collins’ book Good to Great, which features the ‘hedgehog concept’ of cultivating ‘piercing clarity’ in the pursuit of being great at one thing to achieve long-term results.
hedgehog lab founders, Sarat Pediredla and Mark Forster met while working as developers at a Newcastle-based digital agency. After leaving to launch their own business, they created a tool for the financial services sector and soon generated interest in their software-as-a-service offering.
Plans, however, were disrupted by the 2008 financial crisis, at which point hedgehog lab switched to a digital agency model. This was later refined to focus on ‘post-PC’ technologies, with the company looking internationally to grow market reach while still a micro-business. After launching sites in London and India, it turned its attention to the US, opening an office in Boston in April 2015.
Having secured £1m of investment from Maven Capital Partners - one of the UK's most active equity houses - hedgehog lab had plans to grow revenues by at least 50% year-on-year until 2020. The investment was used to increase the company's delivery capabilities, helped to grow its sales and marketing functions, and allowed the business to move into larger premises to support its growing international headcount.
hedgehog lab secured a further £900k investment from Maven Capital Partners in 2020 to support its work with its international client base and further grow headcount. As part of the investment, experienced tech advisor Charles Andrews, who has previously held positions at IBM and Globant, joined the business as chairman.
In April 2023 hedgehog lab secured a £6.3 million investment from BGF – one of the growth capital investors in the UK and Ireland.
As part of the multi-million-pound deal, hedgehog lab announced the acquisition of York-based digital product consultancy Netsells, in a move designed to support the company's ambitious growth plans. The two companies came together under the hedgehog lab brand and are headed up by hedgehog lab's at the time CEO, Sarat Pediredla, alongside an executive board that includes ex-Accenture Song managing director and Karmarama founder Ben Bilboul.
In late 2025, hedgehog lab acquired another aspiring business in Label Sessions in a deal that creates a full-stack innovation consultancy. In 2026, Sarat Pediredla stepped down as hedgehog lab CEO with the consultancy setting sights on Scottish growth under new CEO, Malcolm Seagrave.