Deloitte unveils its top 50 Canadian tech companies to watch

Deloitte is celebrating its 20th anniversary of its Technology Fast 50 program, which recognizes technology companies for their entrepreneurial spirit, innovation, rapid revenue growth, and world-class achievements.

This year’s Canadian top 50 accomplished an average four-year growth rate of 4,625 per cent, which is a 74 per cent increase over 2016 numbers.

Topping the 2017 list is London, Ont.-based social entertainment media company Diply.com, which publishes lifestyle and pop culture content targeting North American millennials. Taking second place is Prodigy Game, a game-based mathematics learning platform based out of Burlington, Ont., and in third is Prodigy Ventures (no relation to Prodigy Game), a Toronto company that creates enterprise platforms and consumer apps with emerging technologies.

Majority of this year’s Fast 50 winners are based in Ontario (29), followed by British Columbia (13), and Quebec (five), with the remaining coming from the Prairie region (four). In addition, this year’s Leadership award winners include Geotab, Index Exchange, iQmetrix, Kinaxis, PointClickCare, Real Matters and Shopify.

You can find the rest of the Fast 50 list below.

“Fast 50 winners achieve incredible growth. These companies foster the economic prosperity and success of our country,” Anders McKenzie, managing partner for technology, media, and telecommunications at Deloitte Canada, said in a Nov. 9 press release. “The technology, media and telecommunications sector has achieved significant advances in the last twenty years. This current innovative cohort of companies continues to lead the pack in transforming the way we live and work. They should be incredibly proud of the impact they are making across all industries and how they are shaping the world as we know it today and what it will look like tomorrow.”

Survey findings

In addition to listing the top Canadian technology companies to watch going forward, Deloitte also surveyed the companies. Despite the remarkable year-over-year growth, almost half (47 per cent) of the survey respondents pointed to finding talent as the biggest challenge facing their business.

There has also been a shift in the demographics of Fast 50 companies, Deloitte found. The majority of the workforces at these companies are now more than half millennials born between 1981 and 2001 (53 per cent), and a quarter of respondents said that 21-30 per cent of new hires for all positions are women, which represents a significant increase from 13 per cent in last year’s survey.

In terms of new and emerging technologies, all Fast 50 companies reported that they are using more or the same about of artificial intelligence (AI) and cognitive technologies than ever before, with machine learning and natural language processing being the most popular. In fact, 60 per cent of respondents said that leveraging AI helps their companies work faster, more efficiently, and with more flexibility – without replacing employees.

And when it comes to accessing capital, majority (62 per cent) of the Fast 50 companies felt that their ability to access such funds has improved over the last five years. Interestingly, 64 per cent of survey respondents indicated that access to US sources of capital has gotten better.

“The achievements of this year’s winners and the improvements in their ability to access capital demonstrates that the Canadian technology sector is strong and continues to show promise. But like other industries, it continues to face a talent shortage against the backdrop of economic growth,” Erica Pretorius, partner and national leader for the Technology Fast 50 program at Deloitte in Canada, explained. “Canada is a prosperous country and showcasing our diverse and inclusive workplace will help attract highly qualified talent.”

Rank Company Name City Province Growth %
1 Diply London ON 92881.1%
2 Prodigy Game Burlington ON 18933.0%
3 Prodigy Ventures Toronto ON 16790.9%
4 Bench Accounting Vancouver BC 12814.3%
5 SkipTheDishes Winnipeg MB 10969.6%
6 StackAdapt Toronto ON 10301.0%
7 SendtoNews Victoria BC 9277.7%
8 Maropost Toronto ON 7038.2%
9 Refresh Financial Kelowna BC 5482.7%
10 Benevity Calgary AB 5410.7%
11 Unata Toronto ON 4269.7%
12 Bold Commerce Winnipeg MB 3692.1%
13 Influitive Toronto ON 3682.7%
14 Awesense Vancouver BC 3058.3%
15 FixMeStick Technologies Inc. Montreal QC 2698.2%
16 Vidyard Kitchener ON 2139.9%
17 Wave Toronto ON 1949.6%
18 Canada Drives Vancouver BC 1759.5%
19 IntraGrain Technologies Inc. Regina SK 1496.7%
20 PixMob Montreal QC 1253.0%
21 Foodee Vancouver BC 1035.6%
22 Visier Vancouver BC 989.2%
23 Axonify Waterloo ON 958.2%
24 Shopify Ottawa ON 896.5%
25 BroadbandTV Vancouver BC 888.7%
26 Allocadia Vancouver BC 852.2%
27 TouchBistro Inc. Toronto ON 838.3%
28 Sortable Kitchener ON 801.9%
29 Plusgrade Montreal QC 785.7%
30 Big Blue Bubble London ON 785.4%
31 Neurio Vancouver BC 781.3%
32 RateHub Toronto ON 768.7%
33 Unbounce Vancouver BC 680.5%
34 Buyatab Online Inc. Vancouver BC 626.8%
35 Motoinsight Toronto ON 625.7%
36 Top Hat Toronto ON 616.9%
37 mobileLIVE Richmond Hill ON 601.1%
38 Arcane Digital Inc. London ON 553.0%
39 eSentire Cambridge ON 531.8%
40 Voices.com London ON 506.4%
41 Dealer-FX Markham ON 506.2%
42 Klipfolio Ottawa ON 505.2%
43 You.i TV Ottawa ON 499.0%
44 Budge Studios Montréal QC 482.4%
45 Media Resources Inc. Oakville ON 477.4%
46 Eastside Games Inc. Vancouver BC 472.1%
47 Big Viking Games London ON 424.7%
48 Magnet Forensics Waterloo ON 399.6%
49 GSOFT Montreal QC 386.7%
50 500px Toronto ON 382.9%
50 TextNow Waterloo ON 382.9%

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Jim Love, Chief Content Officer, IT World Canada

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Mandy Kovacs
Mandy Kovacshttp://www.itwc.ca
Mandy is a lineup editor at CTV News. A former staffer at IT World Canada, she's now contributing as a part-time podcast host on Hashtag Trending. She is a Carleton University journalism graduate with extensive experience in the B2B market. When not writing about tech, you can find her active on Twitter following political news and sports, and preparing for her future as a cat lady.

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