Loop Earplugs wins Deloitte's Technology Fast 50 with a growth of 15275%. Venly wins the Rising Star award.
2022 Technology Fast 50
Loop Earplugs wins Deloitte's 2022 Technology Fast 50 and is named the fastest growing tech company among 50 nominees. The Antwerp-based company was founded in 2016, and has had to reinvent itself during the challenging COVID times. Especially their success on the international markets is remarkable. In the last four years, Loop Earplugs had seen a growth in turnover of 15275%. Venly was named this year's Rising Star.
Brussels, 27 October 2022
The Fast 50 and Rising Star winners were honored at the awards ceremony that took place on 27 October and which is the innovation showcase of Belgium’s fastest growing technology companies overall and the most promising rising stars in the start-up and scale-up community in Belgium. Loop Earplugs proves that hearing protection can be fun, stylish, powerful and successful at the same time.
Loop Earplugs, the stylish and protective earplugs, is the fastest growing tech company in Belgium
With revenue growth of 15275% over the past four years, Loop Earplugs not only achieved first place in the overall Fast 50 ranking, but also received the award for fastest growing company in the Life Sciences & Health Care category. Loop was founded in 2016 by childhood friends Maarten Bodewes and Dimitri O as a response to their unsuccesful quest for stylish, qualitative and comfortable earplugs. They are called ‘the best earplugs for concerts’ by The New York Times. As a consequence of the pandemic, the high fidelity product range developed by Loop Earplugs successfully got diversified from festival and concert earplugs, to earplugs suited for everyday use, including for people with noise sensitivity, to focus or sleep better. Meanwhile the company grew to 85 entrepreneurial employees and is actively recruiting another 35 people, focussing on product developers and digital marketeers in order to focus on future product innovation.
We are very happy and honored that our hard work is being rewarded by winning Deloitte’s Technology Fast 50. Loop has been growing immensely in the last years, and we have expanded with offices in Antwerp, Amsterdam, New York and Shanghai. And the future is looking bright. We are currently looking to hire 35 new team members to expand even more and to develop new innovative solutions to overcome noise pollution in our modern world.
Dimitri O and Maarten Bodewes, Co-founders of Loop Earplugs
Through the Technology Fast 50 programme, we get a good indication of where Belgium’s technology sector is now and where it is heading. It is exciting to see Belgian entrepreneurs exploring into a wide variety of fields, developing innovative solutions that address different business challenges and positively impact our everyday lives. Loop Earplugs stands out from the crowd, having overcome the pandemic and seized the opportunity to significantly boost their growth. Recognising successful businesses like Loop Earplugs and the other Fast 50 award winners is not only important for the organisations themselves, but for the continued growth of our booming tech scene
Sam Sluismans, Programme Leader Deloitte's Technology Fast 50
AppTweak, the leading ASO tool driven by data science, won the award for "Most Sustainable Growth”, an award presented to the Fast 50 participant that has achieved the highest ranking over the past four consecutive years.
Sector award categories
Deloitte's Technology Fast 50 also awards the fastest-growing companies in eight different categories. In addition to the Life Sciences & Health Care, which was won by Loop Earplugs, the following category awards were presented:
- Digital Commerce: Deliverect – Ghent – 10762%
- Electronic devices, Hardware & Semiconductor: eSafe – Waregem - 570%
- Enterprise Software: Robaws – Zwevegem – 1437%
- FinTech: Keypoint – Gistel – 5966%
- Media & Entertainment: BattleKart – Mouscron – 1728%
- Mobility: o2o – Ghent – 3049%
- Sustainability: JUUNOO - Zwevegem – 1599%
Venly elected Rising Star 2022
The Rising Star 2022 was selected from the ten most promising companies that have been operating for less than four years. An independent jury, chaired by Duco Sickinghe, Managing Partner of of Fortino Capital, evaluated each company's investor pitch based on the scalability of the business concept, overall market potential, quality of management and disruptive power of the innovation.
The Rising Star winner is Venly. Their core mission is to empower businesses and end users to use blockchain technology through their trusted and easy-to-use software solutions. With their go-to-market strategy in gaming they became industry leaders in the blockchain gaming vertical and with the rise of NFTs they successfully expanded into eCommerce. Venly will continue to grow as a developer platform and integrate in more platforms so that eventually everyone can experience the promise and value of blockchain technology.
I can’t state how valuable it is to be chosen as a Rising Star winner. It is a testament to our hard work and unwavering vision that we are on to something big. Deloitte is a strong brand with worldwide presence. This recognition will help our mission forward to empower people to use blockchain technology.
Tim Dierckxsens, CEO of Venly
MyNeo was named Most Disruptive Innovator. This award recognizes the Rising Star nominee who has developed the most revolutionary concept or product within a specific technology segment. The Ghent based company aims to use a patient's digital genetic tumor twin to design and develop fully personalised immunotherapies.
The 2022 Belgian Deloitte Technology Fast 50 competition is being organised in partnership with our partners Euronext, Fortino Capital, Salesforce, and Vlerick Business School.
For more information about Deloitte’s Technology Fast 50, please go to www.fast50.be or send an email to the Fast 50 team at befast50@deloitte.com
Deloitte in Belgium
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Our services are aimed at the largest national and international companies as well as at SMEs, the public sector and non-profit organisations. Deloitte Belgium is an independent and autonomous organisation and a member firm of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited. For the financial year 2022, a turnover of €704 million was realised.
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