Six tech startup companies, all with headquarters in Sofia, are now part of the 22nd annual edition of Deloitte’s Technology Fast 50 Central Europe 2021 ranking.
These are:
– OfficeRnD (9th place) and Endurosat (50th place), which hit the overall ranking of the Top 50 fastest growing technology startups in Central Europe;
– phyre, CloudCart and Dronamics are among the companies announced to be Impact Stars – the ranking’s special classification of entities which successfully link great products/services with a positive impact on society, business, innovativeness, environment and diversity;
– and Payhawk, which was named Investment Star 2021 – the award that recognizes companies that do not meet the main Fast 50 criteria but have received the greatest total investment between 1 January 2018 and 31 May 2021 (with a minimum amount of €500,000).
Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Central Europe ranks the 50 fastest growing public or private technology entities in the region based on the revenue growth over four years (2017 to 2020). Companies must have base-year operating revenues of €50,000 in 2017, 2018, 2019 and a current year operating revenue (2020) of €100,000 and above. Startups are allowed to self-nominate, the financial data are provided by the entrants themselves and this information is then cross-checked. A record number of nominations have been submitted for this year’s edition.
About the Sofia-based companies in Technology Fast 50 Central Europe 2021
OfficeRnD, one of the Top 10 Fastest Growing Technology Companies in Central Europe, is developing an intelligent centralized platform for easy and convenient management of shared workspaces and business centers through various features such as billing and invoicing, desk booking, management of services and many others. The OfficeRnD team consists of over 120 people in 4 offices – Sofia, Atlanta, London and Melbourne and for the period under review demonstrated 1883.9% revenue growth. A month ago, OfficeRnD raised USD 10 million to accelerate its growth and increase its market share. The main investor is the US-based Runa Capital, with the participation of previous investors Flashpoint Venture Capital and LAUNCHub Ventures.
The nanosatellite company EnduroSat recorded 558.32% revenue growth and ranked 50th. This summer, EnduroSat received third consecutive support from the Neo Ventures fund. The new investment amounts to EUR 2 million. EnduroSat was founded in 2015 and is developing low orbit nanosatellites. With the funds, the company plans to attract more specialists to its team and invest in new laboratories to manufacture and test satellite systems.
Fintech phyre started in 2015 as the first Bulgarian digital wallet and today is a digital banking platform that allows all its users in the phyre network to transfer money to each other and pay with QR codes at various merchants.
CloudCart was founded in Sofia in 2016 and since its launch aims to develop its e-commerce software as the most intuitive to use software for entrepreneurs who want to move their business quickly and easily online. In mid-2020, the e-commerce platform raised € 630 000 in funding from the venture capital fund New Vision 3 (NV3). The money comes from public funding from the Bulgarian Fund of Funds, as well as private capital.
The Sofia-based Dronamics is a company for autonomous cargo delivery drones. Earlier this year, the team announced a strategic partnership with German logistics company Hellmann Worldwide Logistics, that aimed at international expansion in delivering shipments with Black Swan drones. Dronamics has also opened subsidiaries in Ireland, Canada and Australia, where, due to improved autonomous aircraft regulations, it will be able to make air deliveries to customers from e-commerce, pharmacy and spare parts logistics. A few days ago, the Bulgarian company officially presented for the first time at Sofia Airport a full-scale prototype of its Black Swan plane, which can fly up to 2,500 km with a cargo of up to 350 kg.
Payhawk, named Investment Star 2021, is a fintech company specializing in next-generation payment instruments, automated cost management software and accounting. Payhawk software automatically retrieves data from each document uploaded to the platform and synchronizes all transaction and expense data directly with the client’s accounting programme. The company has customers across 27 countries and its software is used by SMEs as well as large international companies. The startup was founded in 2018, in addition to Sofia it has offices in Barcelona, Berlin and London and in the four years since its founding has attracted over 19.5 million euros from investors such as Eleven, Earlybird and QED – the reason for Payhawk to be announced Investment Star 2021.
According to the report, a total of 19 of the top 50 fastest-growing technology startups this year are from the Czech Republic, the leader in the 2021 ranking including – the fintech FTMO, which marks 39 432% revenue growth over the past four years. Poland ranks second with 16 companies in the Top 50, Slovakia participates with five companies, Croatia with four, Bulgaria with two, and Albania, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Slovenia with one each.
Deloitte notes that the last decade has been extremely successful for the businesses in Central Europe. in 2010, the collective value of CE’s businesses stood at around USD 10 billion. Today, that value totals USD 186 billion which is close to 20 times more.
More from Technology Fast 50 Central Europe 2021 is available here https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/ce/Documents/about-deloitte/ce-technology-fast-50-report-2021.pdf