When a tempting offer came in for Daisy Communications, his telecoms business, Matthew Riley had access to better advice than most young entrepreneurs. Thanks to an award he had won in 2007, the 35-year-old had a direct line to Sir Philip Green, the Bhs billionaire.

Yesterday, after Daisy, which supplies communications services to small and medium-sized businesses, floated on the Alternative Investment Market, Mr Riley said: “He helped me all the way through. I can’t thank him enough.”

The deal, which was achieved through a reverse takeover by Freedom4, part of the former Pipex telecoms group, has left Mr Riley £80 million richer and more determined than ever to gun for BT, the market’s main player.

The entrepreneur, from Barrowford, near Burnley, endured an inglorious employment debut when, aged 16, he left school and joined a youth training scheme fixing fax machines. Like all good entrepreneurs, he had displayed a capitalist streak from an early age, shovelling snow from neighbours’ paths for 50p a go when he was a boy. At 22, he abandoned fax machines to join Deutsche Telekom. His work included helping to set up a Leeds office.

In 2001, when the telecoms sector was still smarting from the dot-com crash, he decided it was the perfect time to go it alone. “Instead of ploughing fibre into the ground like the other phone companies had done, I intended to concentrate on the customer,” Mr Riley said.

With three employees, he launched Daisy, whose slogan is “The fresh approach”, from his garage. The firm, which provides everything from landlines and mobile services to broadband, lured in minnows with heavy discounts and the promise of better customer service than they were used to getting from the sector’s titans.

The newly combined business has more than 40,000 customers and revenues of £100 million. It has acquired more than 20 rivals and aims to continue gobbling up competitors.

Mr Riley received £27.6 million in cash for Daisy and 24 per cent of the shares in the enlarged company, worth almost £50 million, after raising another £83 million from institutional investors. He is one of a series of entrepreneurs whose fortunes have been made by Peter Dubens, the technology entrepreneur and Pipex founder. Others have included Daniel Conlon, who, aged 22 in April 2005, secured £4.5 million in cash and shares by selling Donhost, his web-hosting company, to Pipex.

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