The shift and disruption in IT technology is from hardware or appliance-based choices to cloud-based architecture. That’s where the growth is as amply demonstrated by Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500™. Yesterday Zscaler in their PR proudly announced that they are ranked 336 out of the 500 fastest growing technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences and energy tech companies in North America.
In case you are not familiar with Deloitte, this company has recognized fast growers for more than 20 years. According to their website, “The Fast 500 companies—large, small, public, and private— define the cutting edge; transform the way we do business; combine technological innovation, entrepreneurship, and rapid growth; and disrupt the technology industry. Winners are selected based on percentage fiscal year revenue growth over a three-year period. The ranking is compiled from applications submitted directly to the Technology Fast 500 website and public company database research conducted by Deloitte LLP,” https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/pages/technology-media-and-t…
Of the 500 FAST companies 69% are private, 31% public. For the top 20 fastest growing companies the numbers are similar, 70% (14) are private, 30% (6) are public. 80% of all companies received venture capital funding.
320 of the 500 or 64% were from the leading industry, Software. The latter increased 6% from last year.
117 companies had a growth rate of 1,000% or higher, with the 3-year growth rate extending from 143% to 77,260%.The latter amazing growth was produced by the privately held SW (logistics) company SwanLeap in Madison, WI, founded 2013, and ranked #1.
After moving back to the US I have been shocked how primitive our logistics system is (from Amazon to Costco to Home Depot). The delivery services dump your merchandise in front of your door often not even ringing the bell. My current neighbors had several packages stolen from their front door. It makes me hesitant to order stuff online. When feasible I now order the merchandise to be picked up at the nearest store.
I have been spoiled during my stay in Germany where you can track your order from the moment you place it. Merchandise usually arrives within 2 days and invariably within the 2 hour time frame they give you, regardless of the company or the logistics service used, i.e. DHL (acquired by Deutsche Post), DPD (Dynamic Parcel Distribution GmbH, KG, formerly and in Germany still referred to as Deutscher Paket Dienst), or UPS. You sign for EVERY delivery on a little hand-held computer that relays delivery and signature instantly to the company and its website. They never dump parcels in front of your door. Longtime delivery drivers who know the neighborhood often have a neighbor sign for and receive your parcel. Everything is automatically digitally recorded.
For working people, DHL allows you to mark your original order that you wish it to be delivered to one of their pickup stations where they have lockers accessible 24 hours a day. They notify you when the parcel has arrived and provide a code called mTAN which allows you to open the designated locker. As soon as you remove your parcel, the code expires. Our closest station was in a large Lidl shopping center. Very convenient. Internationally Germany has been ranked #1 in logistics for several years now, the US is now #14, https://lpi.worldbank.org/international/global%20.
Sorry to rant on about one of my pet peeves. I hope some of the newer SW companies will revamp US logistics.
Since I dislike “dark” websites, seems to be the fad right now, I made tables that are easier to view (at least for me), looking at sectors, sub-sectors, and, naturally “our stocks” and some of those mentioned on this board.
**Winners by industry sector**
Software 64%
Digital content/media /entertainment 12%
Biotechnology/pharmaceutical 11%
Medical devices 5%
Communications/networking 3%
Electronic devices/hardware 3%
Semiconductor 1%
Energy 1%
**Software sub-sectors**
__SaaS **34%**__
Enterprise SW 17%
Fintech 9%
Data analytics 7%
Security 7%
Cloud services 8%
Digital platforms 6%
Artificial intelligence 4%
Mobile 4%
Consumer SW 2%
Internet of Things 1%
Social networking 1%
**3-yr median percentage growth rate by Sector**
Energy tech 639%
Biotech/Pharmaceutical 411%
Electronic devices/hardware 410%
Medical devices 396%
Communications/networking 394%
Digital content/media/entertainment 385%
**Semiconductor 206%**
Ranking of Stocks discussed on this board
**Rank Company Name/Symbol Primary Industry % Growth**
1 SwanLeap (private) Software - Logistics 77,260%
168 Trade Desk, Inc. - TTD Software 592%
191 Nutanix, Inc. NTNX Software 503%
197 Pure Storage - PSTG Electronic devices/HW 486%
206 Hortonworks, Inc. Software 469%
211 New Relic - NEWR Software 462%
248 LogMeIn Software 361%
250 Cloudera, Inc. Software 354%
255 Twilio - TWLO Software 349%
317 Instructure, Inc. - INST Software 258%
332 Alteryx - AYX Software 246%
336 Zscaler, Inc. - ZS Software 242%
338 Zendesk, Inc. - ZEN Software 239%
350 Facebook Inc - FB Software 226%
354 HubSpot, Inc. - HUBS Software 224%
371 Splunk - SPLK Software 214%
401 Palo Alto Networks - PANWR Software 194%
414 Paycom - PAYC Software 187%
424 ServiceNow, Inc. - NOW Software 183%
427 Arista Networks, Inc. - ANET Software 182%
464 Pluralsight - PS Software 161%
466 Square, Inc. - SQ Software 160%
469 Veeva Systems, Inc. - VEEV Software 159%
473 Abiomed, Inc. - ABMD Medical devices 158%
500 Netwrix Corporation (private) Software 143%
If and when some of those 69% privately held companies go public, they may be excellent candidates for those of us who like rapidly growing, innovative, young (and perhaps riskier) companies. See Deloitte’s website for the entire list. If you don’t like a black website, I recommend scrolling down to the end of the list of 500. Below it on the right you can download the PDF, much easier to read.
Happy hunting.
im