Three Ottawa tech companies have been identified as having a high probability of reaching $1 billion in revenue, according to a ranking by Communitech, a Waterloo-based innovation hub that supports more than 1,200 founders by providing opportunities to access talent, capital and sales.
On Friday, Communitech added 26 Canadian tech firms to its roster of top-performing companies, known as Team True North. The team now consists of 61 companies shown by verified data to have the highest probability of reaching $1 billion in revenue, according to Communitech.
The Ottawa firms added to the list were Ross Video, RVezy, and Solace.
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“We’re thrilled to have identified 26 more world-class tech firms in Canada’s innovation economy to add to our 2022 Team True North roster,” said Chris Albinson, CEO and president of Communitech. “Our tech ecosystem’s ability to weather current economic challenges is due to their impressive growth.”
Last month, Ross Video CEO David Ross told Techopia that, after posting average annual revenue increases of 17 per cent for two decades, his firm is poised to more than double that rate in fiscal 2022, with projected growth of about 35 per cent.
“We can definitely see the path to a billion dollars now,” Ross said. “Nineteen acquisitions and creating a true unicorn internally financed, there’s probably not too many companies like that.”
He added that the video technology company is probably “two or three years away” from an IPO and intends to implement a dual-share structure to ensure its current boss retains firm control.
Late last year, Shawn McAllister, Solace’s chief technology and chief product officer, told Techopia that, as wireless network traffic soared during the pandemic, Solace was revving up its hiring engine to meet surging demand for its hardware and software.
Solace, which helps ensure that data has a smooth path to its final destination, said it planned to boost its global headcount from 400 to more than 500 over the next 12 months as it diversifies beyond its traditional core customer base in the financial services sector.
“The (verticals) that we focused on were big, but now we’ve just seen it explode everywhere,” said McAllister. “Everybody’s got a real-time streaming, a real-time analytics, a real-time connectivity strategy.”
Meanwhile, RVezy told Techopia last spring that business had never been better for the rapidly growing startup.
Michael McNaught, the co-founder of the peer-to-peer rental platform for recreational vehicles, said, “In March (2021), we were seeing numbers that we don’t even see in the summer months.”
McNaught said the firm was on pace to triple its record revenue numbers of 2020 and nearly doubled its headcount to 60. The company expanded to the U.S. and has an inventory of more than 10,000 motorhomes, trailers and camper vans for rent.
The Communitech ranking is based on data from Silicon Valley Bank, analysis by New York-based data science firm Two Sigma, and the model developed by Communitech for measuring growth potential.
With the latest additions, the 61 companies on Team True North had $8.1 billion in combined annual revenue with average annual revenue of $132 million and average year-over-year revenue growth of 198 per cent. The companies employ 37,446 people and have a combined 2,532 open roles, according to Communitech.
