|
The ceremony at O'Reilly Hall in UCD on Wednesday night marked the second year of the awards, which rank the 50 fastest growing Irish technology companies in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Companies are ranked based on aggregate revenue growth over three years.
Riverdeep grabbed the top spot thanks to organic growth, as well as revenues from the string of companies it acquired, including The Learning Company and Teacher Universe. Accepting the award on behalf of the company was its executive vice president Tony Mulderry, who said the company was also fortunate to have had its stock market flotation at the height of the Nasdaq in March 2000. He noted that Riverdeep didn't spend its cash reserves on advertising, but concentrated on developing the company and its products.
"We knew that it wasn't just enough to have great technology, we also focussed on the commercial aspects of our business," Mulderry said. "As well as building great content we also had to have a viable sales and marketing model that was going to drive real revenues to the business." Mulderry said Riverdeep software is now number one in US retail sales and number two in sales to US schools.
For the second year running the directory enquiry services company Conduit took the number two spot, with revenue growth of 953 percent over three years. In third place, and the highest-ranking company from Northern Ireland, was the Web site and applications developer Biznet Solutions, whose clients include government agencies, as well as BP and Aon. Biznet's aggregate revenue growth was 923 percent.
"The main benefit of an award like this is that itÂ’s recognises the work done over the past five years by all the team," Daryl Fullerton, managing partner at Biznet told ElectricNews.Net. "It will also help us achieve larger multinational clients both here in the domestic market and overseas."
He said that the company is developing products it hopes to unveil later in the year, including a performance management solution similar to Peoplesoft, as well as applications for distance learning and for data centre management. The company has offices in Belfast, Dublin and Pittsburgh, and Fullerton said he expects the company will grow from 53 to around 65 employees by the end of this year.
Of the top 50 companies listed, 13 are based in Northern Ireland. Other companies in the top 20 included the Web developers Webtrade, Labyrinth and Nebula Technologies, as well as ElectricPaper and Eurologic Systems. Overall the average aggregate revenue growth among the top 50 was more than 500 percent over three years.
The companies listed in the Fast 50 will now proceed to the European Fast 500 competition to be held in Paris in April.
|
