The Branham Group, an Ottawa-based industry analyst and strategic advisory firm, has released its list of Canada’s top 25 up-and-coming companies.
The list recognizes promising young companies based on creativity and innovation and is part of Branham300, an initiative that ranks Canadian tech companies in a variety of categories, such as top 250 Canadian ICT companies, and top 10 mobile tech companies.
“The companies that comprise the Branham300 have a lot of reasons to be proud.”
– Wayne Gudbranson
Moncton-based Alongside, an online hiring platform that aims to create meaningful connections between employers and job seekers, took the top spot on the Branham Group’s list of top 25 up-and-coming Canadian companies. Alongside, formerly known as Qimple, raised $498,150 from the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency last year, and was the first-ever company from Atlantic Canada to be selected in the 500 Startups accelerator.
“We are excited to be selected as one of the Top 25 Canadian Up and Coming Companies,” said Yves Boudreau, co-founder and CEO of Alongside. “It’s great to be recognized and I am extremely proud of the hard work and dedication from my amazing team.”
The Branham Group’s list also included Toronto-based Blue J Legal, which recently received an undisclosed investment from Mistral Venture Partners II; and Vancouver-based Grow Financial, which raised $10.2 million in August 2015, and partnered with Celero to offer FinTech solutions to credit unions across Canada in October 2016.
For Branham300, which has been tracking Canadian tech companies for 24 years, the Branham Group also released a list of the top 250 Canadian ICT companies. The list features huge tech darlings like Shopify, which recently launched Shopify Pay; and OpenText, which acquired Dell’s enterprise content division (EDC) for $1.6 billion in September.
The Branham Group said that Canada’s top 250 tech companies grew their revenue in 2016 by 9.6 percent for total earnings of $105.3 billion, with 54 percent of companies achieving double or triple-digit growth.
“The companies that comprise the Branham300 have a lot of reasons to be proud,” said Wayne Gudbranson, CEO of Branham Group. “I am again impressed by the performance of Canada’s technology community. The sector has set another revenue record, as measured by our Top 250 ranking of Canadian companies, and the younger companies that comprise our Top 25 Up and Coming list show great promise and will help build our innovation economy.”