The winners of the tech industry 2020

Who are the fastest-growing tech companies in Germany? The management consultancy Deloitte has selected the winners from 2020. We present the top 10.

Since 2011, Deloitte has been awarding companies across Germany whose average percentage revenue growth over the last four years has increased the most - i.e. mainly the period before the pandemic. The current ranking can be found here .

The winner is the start-up Kolibri

from Berlin, which develops smartphone games. Still in 2019, the founders said in an interview that they do not want to sell. Four years after founding, they gave 75 percent to video game developer Ubisoft this year. The remaining 25 percent, still owned by the founders, is also expected to go to Ubisoft in the next few years. There are no details on the purchase price. Profitable was the start-up always, per day they turned over 100,000 euros in 2019, half of it profit. Kolibri never had to raise venture capital. Back in 2018, the company was ranked first among rising tech companies by Deloitte. Today, it is also ranked first with a revenue growth of 12,310.45 percent.

The clear winner of the pandemic is online learning platforms: For example, quofox

achieved a growth of 5,998.79 percent, placing it second in the ranking. The Berlin-based start-up was founded in 2015, and its AI-supported training offerings are aimed primarily at companies. Its customers include Daimler and ATOS. Currently, quofox covers 9,500 training topics. According to its own information, the company has 100 customers and made a turnover of five million euros in 2019. In April, quofox successfully closed a financing round with existing and new investors, there are no details about the amount.

Third place goes to FinTech Spotcap with a growth rate of 2,770.88 percent. The start-up was only admitted to the banking association as an associate member in November, making it the 27th FinTech to cooperate with the association. The start-up was founded in 2014 by Jens Woloszczak, among others Rocket Internet is involved. Spotcap originally granted loans of up to 100,000 euros to small and medium-sized companies that had no success with banks. A total of 100 million euros flowed into Spotcap, but the business model has changed today: "We noticed that large banks and financial companies were interested in our software," founder Jens Woloszczak tells FinanceForward

. With its help, credit processes can be organized automatically. Customers today include Cembra Money Bank from Switzerland and Bawag from Austria. Spotcap has sold its credit businesses over the years, most recently its Dutch division to Finnish credit company Ferratum in October.

Monthly sales at start-up Grover

grew an average of 6.5 percent from January to August. A successful year gives the electrical appliance rental company fourth place in the ranking, with a revenue growth rate of 2,269.10 percent. In 2015, Grover was founded in Berlin, and since 2019, the company has also been present on the Austrian market, and this year ventured into the Netherlands. At the start-up, an e-scooter, VR glasses or the TV can be rented for four, six or twelve months - a sustainable alternative to buying new. Grover has 2,000 different devices on offer. By November, the company had already made 50 million euros in annual sales.

Customized glasses from a 3D printer - startup YouMawo

makes it possible. An infrared scanner accurately captures the face of the customer and so a custom-made pair of glasses produced. Cost: almost 500 euros. The whole thing is partly done directly at selected opticians, but there are also standard models. Deloitte has calculated a growth rate of 1,875.00 percent, which puts the Constance-based company in fifth place. In 2016, the four founders came up with the idea on a backpacking trip; one year later, the start-up had already sold 20,000 pairs of glasses to its customers. YouMawo is now represented in 20 countries and has 44 employees. Production takes place in Germany. The founders made the financial start themselves and took 75,000 euros in hand, then everything could be financed by continuous cash flow without loans.

With a revenue growth of 1,789.35 percent, UpReach

ranks sixth. The startup has brought back the photo booth from the old days by using augmented reality to allow businesses to integrate their own brand into the photos and videos via building blocks. In total, the start-up boasts over 600 customers, including Deutsche Post, Porsche and Microsoft. UpReach now employs 25 people and has an annual turnover of two million. It is fully self-financed and is 100 percent owned by the four founders. Since the offer was mainly used at events, a new approach was needed in Corona times: UpReach brought its offer into the virtual and now offers an interactive photo platform, for example for digital Christmas parties. And it has big plans: "We want to establish augmented reality as a central advertising format for the experience economy and breathe new life into channels that were thought dead, such as outdoor advertising, newspaper ads and product packaging in the eCommerce age," says founder Marius Hepp

Ever spot those little red e-scooters in big cities? The rental scooter concept is catching on: Seventh place goes to Electric Mobility Concepts, which established the emmy

brand. The sales growth amounts to 1,709.80 percent. This year, emmy received a double-digit million amount in a financing round, led by the investment company Bonventure from Munich. This is to expand its market leadership in the rented e-scooter sector. Still, Corona did not leave the company unscathed and it suffered usage losses of 80 percent. Emmy was founded in 2015, starting with 150 scooters in Berlin. Today, 2,000 scooters are on the road at five locations in Germany. The start-up employs 150 people and has gained over 300,000 customers.

When people often search for "dog" in connection with "cleaning paws" but find nothing, the Hamburg-based start-up Vivere

is on the spot. And produces a suitable product within weeks. All products are manufactured sustainably and without animal testing. Most of the products are sold directly to the end customer. The three founders have now built up 55 brands with over 700 products, and they also work with external partners. This puts the start-up in eighth place at Deloitte, with a sales growth of 1,370.91 percent. Vivere were founded in 2017 and handle all processes themselves: from the analysis of data on platforms such as Google and Amazon, to development by chemists, cosmetic scientists and pharmacists, to production, distribution and marketing. Almost all products are sold through Amazon.

Digital and automated billing, thus saving costs and controlling everything centrally and flexibly: The software start-up Nitrobox

offers this and ranks ninth in the Deloitte ranking with a revenue growth of 1,284.06 percent. Nitrobox was founded in 2016 and now has customers in 70 countries, with teams based in Hamburg, Stuttgart and Krakow. With a single-digit million sum from a 2020 financing round, the start-up not only wants to expand its position in Germany, but also use it to prepare for its entry into the American market. Investors are the fund NeueCapital Partners from Silicon Valley and Porsche Ventures.

For Holidu

, the holiday home search engine, the year was an up and down: When the lockdown came, the requests collapsed to almost zero, when travel was allowed again, demand rose rapidly. The financial injection of four million from Kees Koolen, the former CEO of Booking.com, also helped. He is convinced: "The Covid 19 pandemic has reshuffled the cards in the travel industry, and Holidu is one of the clear winners in the market." Just last year, Holidu secured 40 million in a Series C funding round. Holidu is based in Munich and employs over 200 people. It landed in tenth place in the rankings with revenue growth of 1,214.19 percent.