8 Italian companies in the ‘Fast 500’ ranking by Deloitte

Itailan excellence acknowledged

Caffeina is the highest ranking among Italian companies (position 111 in the report): this young media company was born in Parma in 2011 and it currently has offices in Milan and Rome and a workforce of 80 highly skilled professionals, working for some of the biggest brands in the Country. Second among the Italian companies ranked in the report is Afinna One, a tech company specialising in wholesale and retail premium VoIP A-Z termination services. In third position we find Filoblu, an innovative company whose mission it is to teach other companies how to build successful e-commerce sites. Other Italian companies featuring among the top 500 identified by Deloitte are active in the fields of email marketing, communication and software development.

Room for improvement

While these top achievers in Italy have much to be proud of, with the top one ranking in the first 25% of all EMEA companies in the report, there’s no denying that there is room for improvement. The program is dominated by France (ranking first for number of companies featured) and the number one company is British. The current economic situation, however, offers plenty of hope for Italian tech companies, operating in what has been dubbed the Italian Silicon Valley. Several factors are contributing to this growth. On one hand, more and more international players are choosing to invest in Italy, particularly in the northern regions of the Country, boosting the growth of the overall Italian industrial ecosystem. On the other, local venture capitals are emerging and a growing number of accelerators and incubators are enabling promising startup companies to scale up and research new technologies, innovate processes and conquer international markets. To international investors, Italy is no longer just an amazing destination for incentive travel and an exporter of fashion and good food, but a leading hub of innovation and manufacturing.

Measuring growth

Ranking of any kind is a complex matter, because the parameters we choose to measure the object of our analysis are liable to shift, depending on our perspective. And while Italy might still be lagging behind in sheer numbers of rapidly growing companies – if compared to the rest of the 18 EMEA Countries that are part of this study – its growth is impressive if assessed geographically. Certain specific regions of Italy, like Emilia Romagna, have been leading the Country’s growth at double the average national rate, jumping from a contraction of the regional economy by 2.8% during the 2012 crisis to a 1.9% growth by 2016 (source: Financial Times). The recipe for Italian excellence, judging by the different sets of data these different studies have yielded, is a balanced mix of technological innovation and traditional expertise.