The channel continues to dominate the technology industry across Australia, with a host of emerging and established partners recording increased growth during 2017.
Published by The Australian Financial Review (AFR), the Fast 100 and Fast Starters lists are billed as the leading indicators of growth across the industry, based openly on hard facts.
This year, a bumper of list of tech firms featured across both publications, spanning cloud expertise, artificial intelligence, application development, managed services, digital agencies, start-ups and consultancy firms.
From a technology perspective, findings highlight Amazon Web Services (AWS) as the leading platform of choice for growth hungry providers, playing host to several businesses across both lists, including Versent, Idea 11, Instaclustr, Zimbani, Cevo and Venn IT Solutions.
Highlighting the emergence of an expanding ecosystem, findings emphasise the value of future thinking businesses, backed up by reliable providers.
From the Fast Starters perspective - recognising start-ups which commenced trading after 1 July 2013 - cloud consultancy experts Versent led the way for the industry, placing 2nd with revenue at $26 million, and growth of 30 per cent.
The AWS partner was joined in the top ten by managed print, cloud and IT services specialists EFEX Group, who ranked 5th with 96.1 per cent growth following $22.45 million of revenue.
Fast Starters are ranked by revenue for the most recent year with growth over the current and previous year also noted, with the list also playing host to Cloud9 Consulting (12 - $12.62 million / 117.3 per cent) and Tech Mpire (17 - $9.01 million / 24.7 per cent), Basis Networks (25 - $6.28 million / 167.9 per cent) and Hivint (31 - $4.96 million / 66.5 per cent).
Rounding off the list from a technology standpoint was Instaclustr (39 - $4.21 million / 198.8 per cent), Cevo (40 - $4.15 million / 248.8 per cent) and Venn IT Solutions (44 - $3.75 million / 58.4 per cent).
Furthermore, digital agencies were recognised through Convert Digital (54 - $2.62 million / 72.9 per cent), Yoghurt Digital (81 - $1.25 million / 64.2 per cent) and Vine Digital (83 - $1.16 million / 61.9 per cent).
Fast 100
Across the market, the Fast 100 list featured a wealth of Australian IT expertise, ranked according to annual average growth rate across each of the periods they provide data for.
Specifically, the AFR calculated the annual growth between (financial years) 2014 and 2015, 2015 and 2016, as well as 2016 and 2017, before reckoning up the average of those three annual growth rates.
Melbourne-based IT experts Thomas Peer Solutions ranked 12th, following 100.2 per cent growth off $4.8 million revenue, while fellow Victorian, and cloud advisory firm Onel Consulting, came in at 18th, posting 85.7 per cent growth and $4.6 million revenue.
Further down the list, technology providers BlueRock (28 - $13.92 million); Terem Technologies (34 - $2.32 million) and Cloud Plus (35 - $8.88 million) also featured, recording growth of 70.4 per cent; 65.9 per cent and 65.4 per cent respectively.
Meanwhile, Touchpoint Technology (45 - $9.72 million), MNF Group (47 - $191.75 million) and Outware Mobile (51 - $30.03 million) continued the trend, posting increased revenue of 53 per cent, 50.5 per cent and 49 per cent respectively.
With revenue of $6.04 million, Zimbani (52) achieved 48.9 per cent growth during the past 12 months, while VMtech (53) recorded 48.7 per cent following $32.6 million revenue.
Delving deeper into the list, distribution was represented through Nextgen (61 - $109.51 million / 45.8 per cent), while BlueScale (64 - $2.3 million / 42.6 per cent) and Idea 11 (70 - $3.86 million / 37.5 per cent) continued to fly the flag for the channel.
NEXTDC also made an appearance, placing 71st with 37.2 per cent growth and $123.55 million revenue, followed by Over the Wire (74 - $34.22 million / 37.1 per cent).
The list also played host to players operating on the peripherals of the traditional technology channel, including Octopus Deploy (3 - $8.61 million / 133.3 per cent), an automated release management tool for modern developers and DevOps teams.
Likewise, Supple Solutions (22 - $4.25 million / 79.9 per cent) continued to demonstrate the value of digital agencies across the industry today, alongside fellow digital experts Transpire (42 - $4.37 million - 54.5 per cent) and Acquire BPO (83 - $157.75 million / 33.3 per cent).
