iute Group achieved a high ranking in the Financial Times Growth Champions list

Estonian fintech company iute Group has earned a prominent place in the influential Financial Times list, which ranks the fastest-growing companies in Europe over the past decade.

The European Long-Term Growth Champions list, compiled by Financial Times and Statista, includes 300 companies with the highest annual growth rates over a 10-year period, spanning the post-global financial crisis era, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the years of the Ukraine conflict.

Among the featured companies are the e-commerce platform Zalando (with €10 billion in revenue in 2023), meal kit provider HelloFresh (€8 billion in revenue), and music streaming service Spotify (€13 billion in revenue). In 2013, the median revenue of companies in this list was around €2 million, which has risen to €29 million by 2023.

According to Tarmo Sild, CEO of iute Group, the fintech ranked 49th among 300 companies. Over the past decade, iute has evolved into a banking group and continues on its growth trajectory. “Our mission at iute is to strengthen our customers in the Balkans financially and digitally. If we succeed in this, we will sustain our growth in the coming years. We currently operate in five countries with three revenue-generating value chains, focusing specifically on these countries and chains. There is significant potential for further developments here,” Sild explained.

From Latvia, the Financial Times’ Growth Champions list includes the fintech and insurance services company Eleving Group, recently listed on the stock exchange and familiar to Estonians, which secured the 41st position. Representing Lithuania, LT Metal Partners, a company in the steel wholesale sector, holds the 82nd position in the ranking.

Germany has the most companies among the decade’s top growers, with 74 entries in the list. Following Germany are Italy with 55 companies and the United Kingdom with 48. The most represented sectors are IT and software, followed by construction and engineering, and then logistics and transportation.

Based on the methodology developed by the Financial Times and German data platform Statista, the ranking includes companies with a revenue of at least €100,000 in 2013 and at least €10 million in 2023. Additionally, companies must be headquartered in Europe, and their growth should have been primarily organic. Entry into the ranking required the submission of accurate and validated data, which Statista reviewed and verified. A complex compound growth formula was used to calculate growth rates, enabling a reliable comparison of the companies.

The European Long-Term Growth Champions ranking is based on the revenue growth of companies over a ten-year period (2013–2023).