Bulpros Consulting is the fastest-growing technology company in Bulgaria

Tech growth rates increase as Deloitte announces the 2016 Central Europe Fast 50 ranking

• The average growth rate of CE’s Fast 50 technology companies jumps to 1057% from 560% in 2015
• Last time the average growth surpassed 1000% was in 2012 (1,026%)
• Companies from 11 countries are represented, including Bulpros Consulting from Bulgaria
• 43 companies are in the ranking for the first time, including those in first, second and third places; one moves up and six move down
• Companies representing IT & Digital Solutions (41) dominate the ranking

The pace of change among Central Europe’s fastest-growing technology companies is faster than ever, with average growth rates almost doubling from a year ago. Nine of the top ten places in the 2016 Deloitte CE Technology Fast 50 report, which ranks the companies showing the strongest revenue growth rate between 2012 and 2015 are new entries to the ranking. In total, 43 companies were new entrants, emphasising the dynamic rate of change affecting the region’s burgeoning technology companies.  

The entire top five entrants in the ranking are new to the Fast 50 this year. First place in the 2016 ranking goes to the Polish tech marketing hub and software business Codewise, whose amazing three-year growth rate of 13,052% eclipses the still highly impressive 4,555% it recorded in 2015 when winning the Rising Stars award. Unsurprisingly given this growth rate, Codewise also won the Big Five award this year, an exceptional achievement for a company that just 12 months ago was too young even to feature in the main Fast 50 report.

In any other year, the second-placed CodiLime software business, also from Poland, would have dominated proceedings with its exceptional three-year growth rate of 5,038%. Interestingly, CodiLime also placed second in last year’s Rising Stars category. Third place in the Fast 50 goes to Czech IT services company Dataspring, with its three-year growth rate of 3,129%. Slovakia’s JUMP software house was fourth (1,965%) and fifth place was claimed by another software business, NSoft (1,760%), this year’s only entrant from Bosnia & Herzegovina.

The only company to retain a place in the top ten from 2015 was the ninth-placed High Tech Engineering Center from Serbia (1,109%), which slipped from the seventh place it achieved last year.

Bulgaria

Bulpros Consulting Jsc is the Bulgarian finalist ranked at 24th place in the Main Fast 50 category with four-year revenue growth rate of 560%. In 2015 Bulpros ranked at 12th place with a revenue growth rate of 746%. BULPROS is a company specialized in development of software products and solutions, web and mobile applications, Cloud, Security and Digital Transformation. According to Ivaylo Slavov, CEO of Bulpros Consulting “Bulpros is focused on providing digital transformation solutions for customer development, people enablement and product innovation. BULPROS core strengths are in Cloud services, Security solutions and Business digitalization. Our mission is to enable companies to take important part in the fourth industrial revolution and to succeed in their industries and markets.”

Special categories

The Rising Stars award marks out those companies that are too young to feature in the main Fast 50 report but have delivered such eye-catching growth since their foundation that they are likely to feature in the main report in years to come. (The truth of this was confirmed this year, when 2015’s two leading Rising Stars, Codewise and CodiLime, placed first and second in the 2016 Fast 50). The winner of this year’s Rising Star award is Lithuanian smart device company Deeper, UAB with a three-year growth rate of 3,631%. Second is Phenicoptere, (2,370%) a Polish company that has developed a reusable make-up remover that uses water only. (It is the only representative in the top ten Rising Stars of the Biotech, Nanotech & Medtech sector – all the others are IT & Digital Solutions businesses.) And third is Hungary’s IncQuery Labs, a provider of B2B technology tools, with a three-year growth rate of 1,700%.
The Big Five category is for fast-growing larger companies whose scale makes it difficult for them to compete in revenue growth with the smaller businesses in the Fast 50 ranking. That makes it all the more remarkable that Codewise headed both the Big Five listing and the Fast 50 ranking. Its astonishing 13,052% growth rate over three years dramatically exceeds the more-than-respectable 484% achieved by second-placed Slovakian software company Aliter Technologies. Third place was taken by Pigu, UAB (171%), the Lithuanian online retailer that was runner-up in the Big Five in 2015.
This year, a new category for the Most Disruptive Innovation (MDI) was introduced. This award singled out a business that might not have made the ranking but is pioneering highly disruptive new ideas or technologies. The first such award was won by Poland’s HiProMine, which is using insect-based technologies in areas including waste management and the production of food, feed and fertiliser.

Countries

Eleven countries contribute companies to this year’s Fast 50 ranking: Poland (17), the Czech Republic (7), Croatia (6), Slovakia (5), Hungary and Romania (4 each), Lithuania (3) and Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Serbia and Slovenia (1 each).
A positive environment for growth
According to Magdalena Burnat-Mikosz, Technology Fast 50 programme leader Deloitte Central Europe, “If you wanted proof that the business environment in Central Europe has been positive over the last 12 months, the average revenue growth rate of 1,057% over the last three years delivers it. This has almost doubled from 560% in 2015, showing that there is a whole new generation of dynamic young businesses coming through to challenge and complement the established order. I have to highlight the astonishing performance of Codewise, whose own growth rate might have slightly skewed the average all by itself. To move from Rising Star winner one year to Fast 50 leader and Big Five winner the next is a true achievement. I will follow its progress with interest, along with the other top performers in all categories including the winner of the inaugural MDI award.”

Sectors

In 2016, a new set of industry sectors was introduced to categorise entrants in the Fast 50 programme. These are IT & Digital Solutions (which dominate the ranking with 41 entrants), Media & Telecommunications (6), Biotech, Nanotech & Medtech (0, although one featured in the Rising Stars category) and Clean Tech & Energy (3).
More information about eligibility criteria is available at www.deloitte.com/fast50ce.