BitBrawn & RIFT
Rescuing an aging tax platform.
RIFT's tax refund platform had become a liability. Built years earlier on aging architecture, it was slow, difficult to change, and couldn't deliver the self-service experience their customers now expected.
Who are they?
Since 1999, RIFT has delivered more than £281 million in tax rebates for over 160,000 customers.
Operating across the Armed Forces, Construction, Oil and Gas and Security sectors. RIFT handles the process of identifying eligible costs, and then puts together a claim which it submits to HMRC, passing the refund back to the customer after a small service fee.
How we helped
Turning an aging platform into a modern self-service system.
We first stabilised their customer portal, MyRIFT, securing the old Ruby on Rails application and upgrading it to the latest version of the framework. From here we worked to modernise the platform with dramatically improved customer self-service features.
We also took on a data consolidation project for RIFT. Replacing multiple aging and poorly structured data stores with a unified Data API for all customer and claim data that they could use to power their business and apps into the future.
The result? A 192% jump in claim submissions, an 84% rise in unique sign-ins and over 99% accuracy on essential claim data.
Calm, measured and pragmatic
“BitBrawn have been brilliant for RIFT; they have led numerous successful web application development projects, and their calm, measured and pragmatic approach immediately instils confidence. They understand the business issues we’re trying to solve and develop practical solutions to drive us forwards.”
BitBrawn & Allocate
Stepping in when their developer disappeared.
When Allocate's lead developer left abruptly, we stepped in to unravel years of undocumented code and get the platform back on track.
Who are they?
Allocate provides booking management software used by businesses across the UK. When their previous developer relationship broke down, they were left with a system that worked but had become difficult to maintain and extend.
Their platform allows property managers to take bookings and payments directly through an embedded widget on their websites. Their dashboard centralises room setup, availability, pricing, offers, extras, and booking management. They also connect to major payment providers and integrate with platforms such as Pitchup and Siteminder.
How we helped
We stepped in when their lead developer left abruptly.
Allocate is made up of many small services. We methodically unravelled these to understand their structure, then set about making them easy to update and deploy. We cleared critical bugs, improved performance, delivered new booking admin tools, and added key integrations including a new payment provider and a third party booking platform.
We continue to work with Allocate to this day, strengthening platform reliability through systematic assessment, stabilisation, and enhancement.
Has been invaluable
“BitBrawn have not only performed exceptionally well on two projects for me, but stepped in to help when an issue arose with a former developer. Without assistance they methodically unravelled older web applications in order to understand their structure and setup. Their assistance has been invaluable.”
BitBrawn & Laced
Strengthening architecture as scale demanded it.
We helped Laced launch in 2018. When they returned in 2023 needing European expansion, we rescued and strengthened the architecture that success had outgrown.
Who are they?
Laced turned a niche sneaker-trading community into Europe’s leading authenticated marketplace.
Every product is verified by Laced’s internal specialists, removing the trust issues that plague peer-to-peer sales platforms, and buyers can purchase items like they could on any ordinary e-commerce site.
They’ve grown fast too. £100 million+ in sales, new categories beyond sneakers, and a high-performing mobile app that drives significant user engagement.
How we helped
Laced’s platform was booming, but wasn’t ready for European expansion.
We were brought on board to help transform their Ruby on Rails platform, enabling proper multi-market support. This involved numerous upgrades, rewriting shipping logic, supporting multiple languages, separating marketplaces by country, and putting in place the foundations for long-term stability.
The result? Laced Launched their European Expansion project in Summer 2023, and now ship globally.
Significantly reduced time and costs
BitBrawn were pivotal in developing our bespoke web application. After its launch, they provided crucial support as our business scaled. They also assisted us in establishing an engineering team. BitBrawn significantly reduced both our time and costs across multiple intricate web application development projects.”
BitBrawn & Purplebricks
Improving a legacy system under constraints.
Purplebricks needed targeted improvements within an established, complex platform. We delivered focused enhancements that worked within the legacy constraints.
Who are they?
Purplebricks reshaped the UK estate agency market with a simple promise: Sell your home online for a fixed fee.
Their clear model and streamlined platform fuelled rapid growth and international expansion into Australia and the US, resulting in a market cap exceeding £300 million.
How we helped
Working within legacy constraints to deliver targeted improvements.
We came into an existing, complex operation and delivered a focused engagement that added a clean, intuitive way for sellers to submit essential property details upfront.
Understanding the legacy constraints, we delivered focused improvements that sharpened valuation accuracy and removed a significant volume of repetitive agent queries. Sellers moved faster. Agents saved hours.
Experience, pragmatism and humility
“BitBrawn have experience, pragmatism and humility that helped them immediately gain the trust and respect of our team. As a legacy from their engagement, we’re equipped with understanding how to improve our web application development cycles, front-end development environment and approach.”
