Monarc Global is Australia’s fastest-growing tech company

With growth of 6,331 percent over the past three years, Brisbane-based aviation industry pricing software company Monarc Global has been named as the Australian winner of Deloitte’s annual Technology Fast 50 for 2021.

Now into its 21st year, the awards measure revenue growth over a three-year period for Australian-owned and headquartered tech companies in a number of sectors, with a minimum income of $8 million over the period.

Founded in 2017 by Royce Crown and Monica Zagrodny – the latter who also picked up the Female Leadership award – Monarc Global supplies aircraft operators with accurate, real-time automated pricing capability through its Travech platform, which takes in factors such as fuel stops, weather predictors, routing, and aircraft performance data among other inputs. Customers can then complete their booking via the operator’s website or through nominated partners.

The runners up in the overall category this year were retail media platform CitrusAd, which was co-founded by former Crows player Brad Moran and sold to Publicis for over $200 million last year, and ‘nuclear medicine’ company Telix Pharmaceuticals.

Luxury fashion retail platform Cettire was the highest-growth company for entrants generating $50 million in 2021, while online home loan company Athena was the ‘Rising Star’, having a shorter period of operations.

As a breakdown of state and sector, NSW was home to almost half of the entrants in claiming 24 spots, followed by Victoria with 14 and Queensland which had seven, including half of the top ten and three of the top four. Overall, those operating in the online/direct to consumer segment accounted for 30 percent, software and fintech 16 percent apiece, digital/media 14 percent, with communications and health-tech each adding 12 percent.

Sydney-based Deloitte Partner Josh Tanchel, who leads the Technology Fast 50 program, noted that 2021 was a record-breaking year for growth and nominations, with the list’s cut-off rising above 300 percent – more than double the year prior. Altogether, fourteen companies achieved growth in excess of 1,000 percent, with the average jumping from 435 percent in 2020 to 936 percent last year. First-time also out-placed repeat entrants four to one.

Tanchel described the rocketing figures as another pointer to how quickly companies are scaling thanks to the power of technology. “In an industry deeply impacted by the pandemic, overall winner Monarc Global has shown how innovation and technology can fast-track growth. Yet again, the Technology Fast 50 is a strong indicator of where Australia’s technology sector is now, where it’s heading, and the businesses that are taking us there.”

Monarc will now be hoping to emulate a roll-call of recent Australian business success stories which have previously topped the Technology Fast 50 list, including Afterpay – sold last year for a record-breaking US$29 billion – and Atlassian, which had a market cap at times last year pushing above $US115 billion.

Other well-known former winners include Seek, Realestate.com.au, RSVP, Red Balloon, Webjet, NextDC, Menulog, Dodo, and Vinomofo.