Deloitte unveils its top 50 Canadian tech companies to watch

Deloitte is celebrating its 20^th 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.”