Canada’s fastest growing companies: PROFIT 100
by CanadianManufacturing.com Staff
TORONTO: Regardless of the volatile economic climate over the past two years, Canada’s fastest growing companies are showing impressive performance, according to the PROFIT 100 ranking released today.
The PROFIT 100, now in its 22nd year, ranks 200 companies—the “Top 100” and the “Next 100”—by their five-year revenue growth rates, which are calculated using a base-year revenue of at least $200,000.
This year’s top 100 averaged an impressive 1,753 per cent growth rate.
“Given how bad was last year was, that [1,752%] is a really great number,” says Ian Portsmouth, editor of PROFIT. “The average revenue of these companies was $197 million, but that’s a very high number due to the presence of one or two giant companies on the ranking. The median, which is probably a more meaningful number, was $11.5 million.”
This year’s number one company is Toronto-based Varicent Software Inc., a sales performance management software provider, that exports 96 per cent of its product and had a five-year growth rate of 12,473 per cent.
Other companies in the top five, and their 2004-2009 revenue growth include:
- Win-Mar Freight Management Inc. – 7,304%
- Tundra Technical Solutions Inc. – 6,570%
- Healthscreen Solutions Inc. – 6, 412%
- Marport Canada Inc. – 5,234%
Marport Canada, a St. John’s, Nfld.-based manufacturer, develops sonar technology and products for underwater sensing and communications applications for commercial fisheries, underwater defence, offshore energy and ocean science markets.
Founded in 2003, Marport Canada has grown from four to 100 employees and exports 90 per cent of its products.
According to PROFIT’s overview of the study, foreign markets are a key source of revenue for the top growth companies—71 of the exporters on the Top 100 list sold $17 billion abroad in 2009.
Another surprising figure is 76 per cent of companies were profitable last year despite the recession.
