Alastair Teare, Chief Executive Officer, Deloitte Central Europe. Photo courtesy of Deloitte

Deloitte – October 20, 2016

• The average growth rate of CE’s Fast 50 technology companies jumps to 1057% from 560% in 2015

• The last time the average growth surpassed 1000% was in 2012 (1,026%)

• Companies from 11 countries are represented in the ranking 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 Deloitte Technology Fast 50 in Central Europe is a programme that recognises and profiles fast growing technology companies in the region.

The programme, which is now in its 17th year, ranks the 50 fastest growing public or private technology companies.

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.

Magdalena Burnat-Mikosz, Partner, Central European Fast 50 Programme Leader, Innovation Consulting, R&D and Government Incentives at Deloitte Poland. Photo courtesy of Deloitte

Unsurprisingly given this growth rate, Codewise also won the Big Five award this year.

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%.

Courtesy of Deloitte

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 soft 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 Technology Fast 50 award winners for 2016 are determined based on the revenue growth over four years (2012 to 2015).

Revenue growth is calculated in local currency.

Courtesy of Deloitte

Companies must meet a minimum annual revenue threshold of € 50.000 in order to qualify.
Exchange rates are based on the annual average given by the central bank of the company’s respective national currency.

Companies active in the following industry sectors are eligible:

• IT & Digital Solutions,

• Media & Telecommunications,

• Biotech, Nanotech, Medtech,

• Clean Tech & Energy.

Technology companies are invited to self-nominate for the programme via our website.

Financial data about the companies are provided by the entrants themselves and is gathered via our online survey tool.

This informations is then cross-checked using each company’s financial statements which have been verified by their accountants or a registered auditor.

Courtesy of Deloitte

The Deloitte Technology Fast 50 in Central Europe is part of Deloitte’s global Fast 500 programme.

For further information regarding the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 in Central Europe, please visit our website:

www.deloitte.com/cefast50 

Courtesy of Deloitte

Criteria for 2016 Technology Fast 50

Companies must meet a number of criteria to be considered eligible for the main CE Fast 50 ranking:

• Annual revenues of at least €50,000 in each year between 2012 and 2015.

• Develop or manufacture proprietary technologies or spend a significant amount of capital on R&D.

• Have an ownership structure that excludes majority-owned subsidiaries of strategic entities.

• Headquarters in a Central European country (Albania, Bulgaria, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia or Slovenia).

• Winners are then selected by ranking their revenue growth over the four years from 2012 to 2015.

Courtesy of Deloitte

Criteria for Big 5

This ranks large companies that have achieved extraordinary growth over the last five years.

Eligible companies must meet the same criteria as the main Fast 50 ranking, with the exception that annual revenue in the final measured year (2015) must exceed €25 million.

Courtesy of Deloitte

Criteria for Rising Star

Deloitte ranks companies that show great potential but are too new to meet the minimum of four years in operation criterion for the main Fast 50 category.

Companies must have exceeded €30,000 in each of the last three years (2013 – 2015).

Courtesy of Deloitte

Gryn, growth and geeks

Limitless technology, thinking big and enjoyment at work…
Three key factors that Codewise CEO Robert Gryn believes are fuelling his young company to the peak of the Fast 50 and onward to the upper reaches of the global adtech sector.

Every now and again, a company comes along that is so completely exceptional that the observer can do little more than stare in amazement at its performance.
One such is Krakow-based advertising technology business Codewise, whose astonishing three-year growth rate of more than 13,000% makes it the unchallenged leader of this year’s Technology Fast 50.

The story gets more impressive the more you look at it.
Codewise was 2015’s recipient of the Rising Star award, designed for companies that  are too young t o make the main ranking.
Just a year later, however, it not only stood at the top of the Fast 50.
It also led the Big Five listing, which exists to reward those companies that are supposedly too large and established to be still achieving growth rates as rapid as their nimbler competitors.

Courtesy of Deloitte

Disrupting and redefining industries

So, headed by its charismatic 30-year-old CEO and owner Robert Gryn, the company is breaking rules – and not just those of the Fast 50.
Founded in 2011, it has already opened a London office and is planning to set up in the US very soon, something that few if any five-year-old Polish companies have ever achieved.

So it’s hardly surprising that the company’s own website calls itself “Poland’s fastest-growing and sexiest start-up”, going on to highlight how its “amalgamation of geeks, scientists, creative wizards and digital marketers” enjoy “disrupting and redefining industries with serious technology.”

That theme of enjoyment is one that Robert Gryn believes in passionately, stating publicly that to perform well people must look forward to coming to work.
He lists his business priorities as “people, products, profits – in that order”. And he firmly believes that young Polish businesses should set out with greater ambition.
“There’s so much talent in Poland. However, people are generally risk-averse and often don’t think on a global scale. I would love to see this change.”

He certainly had that ambition himself, turning Codewise from a business that took on outsourced projects into a “venturebuilding” company – a business that builds companies and brands using its own internal resources.

Currently, Codewise already has two globally recognised products in the shape of the Zeropark performance traffic exchange and Voluum, a highly sophisticated tracking and analytics platform used by thousands of internet marketers across the world.

“Our third and most ambitious product is under development,” Gryn says, signaling that further substantial growth is ahead of the company.


A secret weapon

And he clearly believes in the immense power of aligning the right people with the right technology.
As he says,
“We do things many large companies struggle with. One of our secret weapons is our proprietary database technology, VoluumDB, which allows us to scale indefinitely and cost-effectively – all too often a serious bottleneck for many companies. When you put my extensive experience of the industry alongside limitless technology that allows me to think big, it puts us in a strong position to bring truly novel products to market.”

While clearly looking ahead, however, Robert Gryn isn’t one to dwell too much on the future. “I don’t like to plan too far Ahead because part of the key to our success is being nimble.” That said, the glimpse of the future that he does have is highly encouraging.
“We’re moving into a stateof-the-art 3,000 sq m office right above none other than Uber. This will be a gamechanger for us, because we’ll be able to recruit and hire even more rapidly and thrive in a beautiful environment tailored to our very own needs.”


Music and massage

He’s confident that this will support yet more of that all-important enjoyment for his people.
“Our company culture is our biggest success, and we’ve managed to sustain it even as we move towards a team of 100 people,” he says, emphasising that the new offices include a gym as well as a separate music room and masseuse service.
But when he comes to define his own biggest success, he returns to a more classically business-oriented approach.
“What makes me proudest is that even at this scale we continue to be an entirely self-funded company,” he says.

That strongly implies that Gryn himself remains very much in charge, with no pressures from external shareholders.

Given what he has driven Codewise to achieve in the first five years of its life, you have to assume that the company’s growth rate and impact on its markets will continue to be highly impressive over the next half decade.


Most Disruptive Innovation award

This is a special award for the ‘Most Disruptive Innovation’ whose inventiveness and deep technological know-how is enabling it to develop solutions with the potential to significantly disrupt established markets and value networks.

The American scholar Clayton M. Christensen first identified what he termed “disruptive innovation” more than two decades ago.
A truly disruptive innovation gives an entire new population of previously disadvantaged consumers access to a product or service that historically was accessible only by a wealthy or highly skilled elite.


HiProMine - winner of the “Most Disruptive Innovation” award

Courtesy of Deloitte

Insight, innovation – and insects

Meet Prof. Damian Józefiak, CEO of HiProMine, which has claimed a place in history as the first recipient of the Deloitte “Most Disruptive Innovation” award.

It’s a story of bugs and brilliance…

When the history of business innovation in Central Europe comes to be written, Prof. Damian Józefiak is a name that might well feature strongly.

As the CEO of HiProMine, he is at the head of a company that’s combining the power of cutting-edge industrial technologies with over 250 million years of evolution to revolutionise the future of waste management and food production.

Even the location of the company’s R&D centre in the Robakowo near Poznań in Poland is fortuitous.
The village’s name literally means “place of the bugs” – and bugs certainly feature highly in any list of the company’s assets.

Prof. Józefiak explains:
“Our technology uses various species of insect, including hermetia ilucens, mealworms, superworms and roaches, and leverages their natural capability to process biomass and residual organic matter. Our main products are insect meals (a source of protein and fat for feed, food, pharmaceuticals as well as fuels) and organic fertilisers. That means we have two main income streams – commercial bio-waste services and the sale of the biomass and fertiliser products that result from them.”


Addressing global deficiencies

He is confident that his company has an important role to play in addressing some of the societal challenges we face today and into the future.

As he says,
“Our concept provides answers to many issues, far beyond the pressing need for environmentally friendly waste management. We also can help address global deficiencies in protein, food and resources, not to mention the requirement for eco-friendly fertilisers. Our approach is based on merit and scientific evidence, enabling us to provide sustainable, lowemission technologies to help solve such problems on both a local and a global scale.”

So, is he surprised that his company has won the first Deloitte Most Disruptive Innovation award?

“Our approach is certainly disruptive, because it enables us to harness the power of nature in a fully controlled manner, using modern industrial technologies, the Internet of Things and big-data processing,” he says.
“Importantly, when you compare our approach with established state-of-the-art technologies for feed, fertiliser and food production, our approach stands out for its high efficiency, matched with low costs and minimal environmental impacts.”

He is also quick to explain that such advantages do not come at a cost to the insects themselves.

“Unlike other areas of livestock production, rearing insects on an industrial scale does not require large areas of pasture or extensive and expensive farm buildings,” he continues. “Rather, it is carried out in 3D systems that have no risk of overcrowding and no adverse effects on animal welfare.”

When he makes such statements, you had better pay attention to what he says.

For, as well as being CEO of HiProMine, Prof. Józefiak is also one of Europe’s leading animal nutrition experts and R&D Director at a major Polish feed mill: Piast Group.

Naturally, this gives him a rich source of contacts and collaborative opportunities with feed mills and scientific establishments across the world.


Credibility and authority

It also lends him considerable credibility and authority when he makes predictions for his company and its future impact on its markets.

“As our technology overcomes the huge challenges involved with biowaste management – with low emissions and minimal usage of energy, water and space – it will have a very positive impact on the environment and society as a whole. In addition, using composting to process bio-waste takes at least 20 times longer than using insects. Composting also produces low-quality fertilisers, unlike the highly nutritious, NPK-rich organic fertiliser produced by insects. So I firmly believe the wide application of our technology will both reduce global pollution and solve the problems associated with the local production of feed and food.”

Naturally, such predictions have powerful implications for the company’s growth potential.

As Prof. Józefiak says,
“With our unique technology and high market demand, we are planning within 10 years to be world-leader in insect-based technologies and insect products, including food supplements, other dietary products and raw oils for cosmetics. In fact, we believe we can be one of the most recognisable Polish brands in the global market place.”

So Damian Józefiak is as ambitious as he is visionary.

Something enormously powerful is developing in the Place of the Bugs – and we at Deloitte Central Europe and our partners at Orange, Intel, Salesforce, Adamed and KIC Innoenergy had little hesitation in making HiProMine the first recipient of our Most Disruptive Innovation award.

Courtesy of Deloitte

“As always, this year’s publication showcases an impressive line-up of innovative and mostly young businesses, many of which have the potential to make a significant impact on our markets. With an average annual growth rate of 1,057%, their performance is once again remarkable – although no one else comes close to the 13,052% recorded by Polish tech marketing hub, Codewise, which leads not only the Fast 50 ranking itself but also the “Big Five” listing of larger companies.”

- Alastair Teare, CEO of Deloitte Central Europe.

Courtesy of Deloitte

„It was particularly encouraging to see that the majority of those featured in the ranking are firsttime entrants to the competition, enabling us to bring a significant new tranche of vibrant and innovative young companies to wider attention.”

- Magdalena Burnat-Mikosz, Partner, Technology Fast 50 Leader.

Courtesy of Deloitte

“I have a very basic rule when it comes to running and managing the business and that is that people come first. Put simply, I treat them the way I’d want to be treated myself. This resulted in a naturally open and autonomous organization where the culture is relaxed yet everyone feels a good degree of responsibility and ownership over the challenging tasks at hand. This allowed our team just shy of 100 people to bring in $50m+ revenue in 2016.
People, product, profits, in that order.”

- Robert Gryn, CEO, Codewise Sp. z o.o. Sp. k.

Courtesy of Deloitte

„Over 80 percent of CodiLime employees have a strong technical background.
Our engineers graduated from some of the best universities in Poland and abroad. Many of them have also achieved outstanding successes in international programming, mathematical and algorithm contests and gained professional experience at global IT leaders around the world. Of course, our technical teams work with and are supported by some of the best business and administration specialists around.
Our recipe for success?
A simple one: hire the best people for each and every role.
That’s why we’re continuously expanding our teams to create increased value for clients and grow our company. This solidifies our market position and attracts new partners.”

- Tomasz Kułakowski, CEO, CodiLime Sp. z o.o.

Courtesy of Deloitte

“Our approach is certainly disruptive, because it enables us to harness the power of nature in a fully controlled manner, using modern industrial technologies, the Internet of Things and big-data processing.”

- Prof. Damian Józefiak, CEO, HiProMine


Source: Deloitte

http://www2.deloitte.com/global/en/  

Polskie firmy Codewise i CodiLime liderami wzrostów w Europie Środkowo-Wschodniej

W tegorocznym zestawieniu Deloitte Technology Fast 50 polskie firmy Codewise Sp. z o.o., Sp. Komandytowa oraz CodiLime Sp. z o.o. znalazły się na szczycie listy najszybciej rozwijających się technologicznych spółek w Europie Środkowo-Wschodniej.

Do Top 50 trafiło 17 podmiotów z Polski, co czyni z nas lidera w regionie.

W tegorocznym wydaniu raportu Deloitte Technology Fast 50 pojawiło się 21 firm z Polski.
17 z nich znalazło się w głównej kategorii „Technology Fast 50”, w tym jedna znalazła się również w kategorii „Wielka Piątka”, oraz 4 w kategorii „Wschodzące Gwiazdy”.

Na drugim miejscu pod względem liczby spółek uplasowały się Czechy, które w głównym rankingu reprezentuje 7 firm.

Trzecie miejsce pod tym względem przypadło Chorwacji z 6 firmami.

Poza tym w Technology Fast 50 miejsce znalazły także przedsiębiorstwa ze Słowacji (5), Węgier (4), Rumunii (4), Litwy (3) i Słowenii, Bułgarii, Serbii oraz Bośni i Hercegowiny (po 1).

Zwycięzcą Deloitte Technology Fast 50 została zajmująca się tworzeniem rozwiązań IT dla marketingu polska spółka Codewise z Krakowa, która w tym roku zadebiutowała w głównym zestawieniu.

Jeszcze w ubiegłym roku, operująca od pięciu lat na rynku, firma zajmowała 1. miejsce w kategorii „Wschodzące Gwiazdy”.
W bieżącej edycji rankingu ze wzrostem przychodów na poziomie ponad 13 tysięcy procent (przychody 2012 vs 2015 rok) znalazła się również na czele kategorii „Wielka Piątka”.

Średni wzrost przychodów firm, które zgłosiły się do Technology Fast 50 wyniósł w 2015 roku 1057 proc. (przychody 2012 vs 2015 rok).
Był to wynik wyższy od osiągniętego rok wcześniej (560 procent).

Z kolei średni wzrost przychodów polskich firm, które znalazły się w głównej części zestawienia wyniósł 1585 procent.

Aby znaleźć się w rankingu spółka musiała osiągnąć wzrost w wysokości co najmniej 324 procent.

Przedstawiciele polskiego biznesu obecni w zestawieniu pochodzą z całego kraju.
Najwięcej swoich reprezentantów (7) ma Warszawa, czterech Kraków, trzech Wrocław, dwóch Poznań i po jednym: Gliwice, Gdańsk, Piaseczno i Rybnik oraz Białystok.

Podobnie jak w poprzednich latach, tegoroczny główny ranking Technology Fast 50 zdominowały firmy zajmujące się wykorzystaniem technologii informacyjnych, choć w różnych zastosowaniach: marketing, analityka dużych baz danych, mobile UX.
Stanowią one 74 procent wszystkich spółek, które znalazły się w zestawieniu (rok wcześniej 50 procent).
W kategorii „Wschodzące gwiazdy” tegorocznej listy znalazły się 4 firmy z Polski, najlepsza z nich jest na 2. miejscu.
Zwycięzcą kategorii okazała się firma Deeper z Litwy.

Codewise okazała się również najlepszą firmą w rankingu „Wielka Piątka”.
Jest to jednocześnie jedyny polski przedstawiciel w tej kategorii.

„13 tysięcy procent wzrost w okresie ostatnich 4 lat i zdobycie pierwszej nagrody w dwóch kategoriach to dla nas ważne i budujące potwierdzenie sukcesu, który wspólnie tworzymy w firmie. Moje dążenia i ambicja stworzenia globalnej spółki jest niezmienna i dalej jestem przekonany, że to dopiero początek czegoś naprawdę wielkiego.” stwierdził Robert Gryn, Prezes Zarządu Codewise Sp. z o.o., Sp. Komandytowa.

„To był dobry rok dla firm technologicznie innowacyjnych. Kolejny raz w naszym rankingu liderem została firma, która jeszcze rok temu była zbyt młoda, by znaleźć się w głównej kategorii. Taka sama sytuacja dotyczy spółki, która zajmuje drugie miejsce w zastawieniu. To pokazuje, jak szybko można osiągnąć sukces na rynku innowacyjnych technologii. Co więcej, spółki powróciły do rezultatów osiąganych kilka lat wcześniej, gdy średnie wzrosty przychodów firm ujętych w zestawieniu sięgały ponad tysiąc procent. Wystarczy przypomnieć, że ostatni raz taki wynik udało się osiągnąć w 2012 roku.” – powiedziała Pani Magdalena Burnat-Mikosz, Partner, Central European Fast 50 Programme Leader, Innovation Consulting, R&D and Government Incentives w Deloitte Poland.


Źródło: Deloitte

http://www2.deloitte.com/global/en/  



ASTROMAN Magazine - 2016.09.29

Mateusz Morawiecki: Największą naszą wartością są polscy przedsiębiorcy i to, co robią dzięki swojej kreatywności, pracowitości i produktywności.

http://www.astroman.com.pl/index.php?mod=magazine&a=read&id=2127  


ASTROMAN Magazine - 2016.09.22

IAA HANNOVER 2016: Tytuł "Bus of the Year 2017" dla polskiego autobusu Solaris Urbino 12 electric

http://www.astroman.com.pl/index.php?mod=magazine&a=read&id=2123  


ASTROMAN Magazine - 2016.06.02

Narodowe Centrum Badań Jądrowych planuje budowę badawczego reaktora nowej generacji High Temperature Gas Reactor - HTGR

http://www.astroman.com.pl/index.php?mod=magazine&a=read&id=2072  


ASTROMAN Magazine - 2016.05.26

Buick Cascada - amerykański hit z polskiej fabryki Opla w Gliwicach

http://www.astroman.com.pl/index.php?mod=magazine&a=read&id=2070  


ASTROMAN Magazine - 2016.05.25

John Baird, Raytheon Integrated Defence Systems: Realizujemy z polskimi firmami program Poland Patriot

http://www.astroman.com.pl/index.php?mod=magazine&a=read&id=2069  


ASTROMAN Magazine - 2016.05.17

Tomasz Kulakowski, CodiLime co-founder and CEO, wins Poland's top business award for Vision and Innovation

http://www.astroman.com.pl/index.php?mod=magazine&a=read&id=2066  


ASTROMAN Magazine - 2016.05.13

Cel: Polska w prestiżowej grupie krajów G20

http://www.astroman.com.pl/index.php?mod=magazine&a=read&id=2063  


ASTROMAN Magazine - 2016.04.21

The European Council for Nuclear Research (CERN) and Polish NCBJ cooperation agreement extended

http://www.astroman.com.pl/index.php?mod=magazine&a=read&id=2055  


ASTROMAN Magazine - 2015.10.25

Intel Technology Poland czyli Polacy tworzą nowoczesne technologie teleinformatyczne dla świata w Gdańsku

http://www.astroman.com.pl/index.php?mod=magazine&a=read&id=1985  


ASTROMAN Magazine - 2015.10.24

Wywiad z Prof. Romualdem Krajewskim, Prezydentem Europejskiej Unii Lekarzy Specjalistów UEMS na kolejną kadencję w latach 2016-2019

http://www.astroman.com.pl/index.php?mod=magazine&a=read&id=1984  


ASTROMAN Magazine - 2015.04.08

Daniel Boniecki, McKinsey & Company: Polska gospodarka może awansować do światowej ekstraklasy

http://www.astroman.com.pl/index.php?mod=magazine&a=read&id=1901