Germany home to 19% of Europe's fastest-growing companies: study

(LONDON) - Germany has the most fast-growing companies in Europe, with a total of 191 companies, followed by Italy (190) and the UK (173), a study of the fastest-growing companies in Europe and the US found Tuesday.

The study was conducted by Merchant Machine to find the top locations and industries for fast-growing companies. It also looks into metrics such as growth per employee, projected industry growth and companies with female CEOs.

The top 3 countries accounting for the most fastest-growing companies are:

• USA – home to 360 (26.5%) of the 1,360 companies. Software company Niantic is their fastest-growing company, with an absolute growth rate of 180,307%.
• Germany – ranks 2nd and is home to 191 (14%) of the fastest-growing companies. Germany's fastest-growing company is industrial equipment supplier Farmermobil, which has an absolute growth rate of 6,056%
• Italy – ranks 3rd just behind Germany with 190 (14%) companies. Their fastest-growing company is e-commerce site is the female-run Mamma 2.0 which has an absolute growth rate of 7,110%

Technology ranks as the top industry accounting for the most fastest-growing companies in the list (1,360 analysed). The technology industry accounts for 289 (21.3%) of the fastest-growing companies in the study, with 188 of these being in Europe and 101 companies in the US.

Support services is the 2nd biggest industry in the study and accounts for a total of 123 (9%) companies, with 91 in Europe and 32 in the US.This was closely followed by the construction industry with 88 (6.5%) companies in total – 74 in Europe and 14 in the US. Merchant Machine analysed the projected industry growth by employment between 2018 and 2024 to find the top 10 industries leading the way in the UK and the US.

The UK's accommodation and food industry is expected to have the highest growth rate (8.2%) followed by tech & IT (8.1%) and construction (6.8%).

In the US, the top 3 industries with the highest projected growth between 2018 and 2028 are health care and social (17%), educational services (12.7%) and construction (11.1%).

The numbers show that, in general, there's a higher projected employment growth in the US than the UK. The highest growth projected in the US sits at 17% for health care and social versus 8.2% for the accommodation and food industry in the UK.

There is a big difference in the projected employment growth in the health & social sector, which ranks 1st in the US (17%) and 10th in the UK (3.1%). However, the data also shows that construction has the same ranking across both the UK and the US (3rd place), as does the professional services industry which ranks 5th for employment growth.

To find out more about the top companies, countries and industries generating the most growth in Europe and the US, see the full study.