1st Formations shortlisted for the Lloyds British Business Excellence Awards 2026

Billed as the UK’s largest and most prestigious business awards programme, the Lloyds British Business Excellence Awards span a wide range of categories celebrating business achievement. The Vistage Growth Business of the Year category – for which 1st Formations has been shortlisted – recognises growing businesses with revenues of up to £25 million, and assesses financial performance and growth, leadership and innovation, employee and customer engagement, and purpose beyond profit.

The recognition comes in a record-entry year, with just over 200 businesses and business leaders shortlisted across 20 categories.

• 1st Formations shortlisted for UKCXA™ 2026 award
• 1st Formations founder, Graeme Donnelly, shortlisted for Great British Entrepreneur Award
• 1st Formations x Zero Gravity: Supporting students in 2026

Why we’ve been shortlisted

The Vistage Growth Business of the Year category weighs four areas: growth (30% of the judging criteria), leadership and innovation (25%), employee and customer engagement (25%), and purpose beyond profit (20%).

Our shortlisting reflects how we’ve performed against all four, particularly against a backdrop of major regulatory change.

The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act (ECCTA) 2023 brought the most significant overhaul of UK company law since 2006. It introduced new identity verification requirements, changing how company formation agents operate. Fewer companies were incorporated across the UK as a result.

We prepared early, building automated identity verification and compliance workflows into the formation journey. 1st Formations also became an early Authorised Corporate Service Provider (ACSP), allowing us to carry out Companies House identity checks on behalf of customers.

Integrating our verification technology with internal systems cut manual processing by an estimated 60–70% and reduced compliance turnaround times by 30–40%.

Those changes strengthened our operations at a time when the wider incorporation market was contracting.

Growing through industry change

Despite the wider slowdown in incorporations, 1st Formations continued to grow. We’ve recorded double-digit growth every full year since 2020, with Q1 2026 becoming a record quarter.

We track our position in the company formation market using Companies House public data. Across Q1 2026, BSQ Group, of which 1st Formations is the flagship brand, accounted for an average 23.2% of agent company formations. That share rose to 23.5% in May 2026.

1st Formations in numbers

The figures show how that growth extends across the business:

• More than 27,000 verified Trustpilot and Google reviews give us a near-five-star average.
• Our B Corp impact score is 87.6, following our certification.
• We’ve helped form over 1 million companies since 2014.

Preparing early for regulatory change

New regulatory requirements also made compliance more complex for our customers.

In early 2026, our teams identified a need for a more accessible, year-round alternative to our Full Company Secretary Service. We developed the Hassle-Free Compliance Service (HFCS) and launched it within three months. That pace reflects our “small teams, big decisions” approach, drawing on live customer data to identify needs and act quickly.

HFCS gives customers access to expert guidance, support with annual filings, and 400+ legally reviewed business document templates.

In May 2026, the first full month with HFCS live, net renewal value rose 28.5% month on month. The average monthly increase over the previous six months was around 4%.

Growing responsibly

The category also considers purpose beyond profit. 1st Formations became the first UK company formation agent to achieve B Corp certification, following a 17-month assessment.

Our environmental work predates that certification. Certified carbon-neutral through Carbon Neutral Britain since 2022, we’ve removed printed documents from our service and now operate zero waste to landfill offices.

The same focus extends to our people. Every full-time employee has a structured career-development plan, with existing employees prioritised for internal opportunities. Three current senior leaders began in customer-facing roles, bringing direct experience of customer needs into business decisions.

Beyond our own team, our partnership with the WONDER Foundation – including a three-year £150,000 donation commitment, of which £50,000 has been donated to date – supports access to education for underprivileged women and girls around the world. And we provide rent-free office space to seven charities from our Covent Garden headquarters.

Looking ahead

Graeme Donnelly, Founder and CEO of 1st Formations, said:

Being shortlisted is a proud moment for our team and a great validation of the direction we’re heading in. We’re focused on our future, and our ambition isn’t to become a bigger business – it’s to build an even better one. One that earns trust and makes it genuinely easier for our customers to start a company in the UK. There’s still plenty of work to do, and that’s exactly what keeps us going.

What this recognition means for our customers

Choosing a company formation agent involves trust. Customers share sensitive company information with us, and many continue to rely on our services as their compliance needs evolve.

Our place on the shortlist provides independent recognition of the business behind those services. It also sits alongside other recent recognitions for our work, including being shortlisted at the UK Customer Experience Awards 2026. For our customers, that offers another reason to feel confident in the company they’ve chosen to work with.

What happens next

The next stage takes place in London on Friday, 2 October 2026, when we’ll present to the Vistage Growth Business of the Year judging panel. The winner will be announced at Grosvenor House on Tuesday, 10 November 2026.

In the meantime, you can learn more about our story and how 1st Formations has grown.