Bulgarian companies occupy front positions in Deloitte Technology Fast 50 for Central Europe

Bulgarian companies captured four positions on this year’s Fast 50 ranking of the fastest growing technology companies in Central Europe and a additional position in the Rising Stars category. The annual initiative Technology Fast 50 in Central European ranks the fastest growing technology companies based on their revenue growth during a five year period. Among the Bulgarian companies, the software company Telerik and the online media company Investor.BG AD captured the highest positions with growth of 2327% and 2130% respectively. The country’s ranking veteran, the IT company Universal K and the software and consultancy company Interconsult Bulgaria occupy positions 20 and 34, respectively with 664% and 447%. The multimedia solutions provider Hand Ltd. ranks among the ten companies in the Rising Stars category.

“The improved performance compared to last year’s is both in terms of numbers of ranked Bulgarian companies and occupied chart positions”, says Asen Dimov, Partner Audit and Industry leader for the Technology, Media and Telecommunications (TMT) sector in  Bulgaria. “While the growth of the Fast 50 companies on average is down from 1271% in the previous year, the growth of 933% represent a remarkable achievement in the current business climate This is to show that despite the challenging times, software companies managed not only to survive but progress by finding alternative niches and providing unique quality solutions”, concluded he.

The Fast 50 ranking sustains the dominance of Polish technology companies as Netmedia, an Internet portal operator, took the first position with a growth of 7,210%. This year’s ranking consists of companies from ten countries: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Serbia, Lithuania and Estonia which is the most diverse in its ten year-long history of the ranking.

In order for a company to be considered for the ranking it must meet a number of criteria, such as yearly revenues of at least EUR 50 thousand in each of the last five years (2004–2008), have headquarters in a Central European country, develop or manufacture proprietary technologies or spend a significant amount of capital on research & development, and have an ownership structure that excludes majority owned subsidiaries of strategic entities. Winners are then selected based on percent of revenue growth over the five-year period from 2004 to 2008.

“The CEO Survey which is part of the ranking illustrates that companies and CEOs themselves are facing different challenges that they had in the previous years.Focus has shifted to achieving and sustaining profitability, managing risk and volatility and raising capital”, states Dariusz Nachyla, the Managing Partner for the Technology, Media and Telecommunications Industry Group in Central Europe. Nachyla also states that “confidence in growth in the next 12 months is positive as 76% of respondents expressed as being very confident and extremely confident.”

‘Rising Stars’ category

In the category “Rising Stars”, we nominate ‘young’ companies that show great potential but are too new to meet the five-year in operations criteria. These companies have to be in operation between three to five years and have to exceed yearly revenues of EUR 30 thousand in each of the last three years. Other than that, the same criteria apply as in the Technology Fast 50 category.

In this category, Multicom, a Croatian business software company, took the first position with the growth of 1,805%. “All ten companies that have placed on the ‘Rising Stars’ ranking belong to the software and internet business sector indicating the dominance of these sectors in the future Fast 50 rankings “, said Nachyla.

‘Big 5’ category

The ‘Big 5’ category of the Technology Fast 50 programme awards large fast growing companies that have achieved extraordinary growth in the past five years (2004 - 2008). To be eligible, company must meet stricter criteria of annual revenue in the final measure year (2008). In this year, companies need to achieve minimum revenue of EUR 25 million.The winner of the ‘Big 5’ category was another Polish company, Agito, with a growth of 1,744%. “Achieving such high growth in this category is remarkable and goes to show that the technology sector has great potential in Central Europe”, said Nachyla

To find out more about the ranking and criteria for participation, please visit www.deloitte.com/fast50ce. 

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