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just a bit of good news

This moonshot tech firm isAustralia’s fastest growing company

Fleet SpaceTechnologies, with a compound annual growth rate of 582 per cent over threeyears, is top of the Fast 100 class for 2023.

lavia Tata Nardini, co-founder of Australia’s fastest growingcompany, says its goals are a “moonshot”. She is not being metaphorical.

Fleet Space Technologies has topped TheAustralian Financial Review’s Fast 100 list for 2023, after its satellite-enabled technology for hunting critical minerals was used by the likes of Rio Tinto, Barrick Gold and Core Lithium to complete 150 geological surveys. Its revenue grew at a compound annual rate of 582 per cent over the last three years, to reach $8.9 million.

Yet Fleet Space’s stratospheric growth could go interstellar in2026. That is when, after winning a $4 million grant from the Australian SpaceAgency, it will land one of its sensors on the moon, both to search for waterand to understand the celestial body’s mineral profile for the first time.

Coming in second on this year’s Fast 100 is Cannatrek, a cultivatorand manufacturer of medical cannabis, which grew revenue from $9 million in 2020-21 to $89.6 million last financial year. Cannatrek’s 215 per cent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) does not read as impressively as that of Fleet Space, but the satellite maker started the Fast 100 survey from a much lower base, booking just $195,000 of revenue in 2020-21.

Third on the Fast 100 is Gratifii, an ASX-listed provider of corporate rewards and loyalty programs which grew its top line from $3.1 million in 2020-21 to $29.9 million in 2022-23, equating to a compound annual growth rate of 212 per cent.

Gratifii uses the scale provided by clients like Wesfarmers andRACV to source things like movie tickets and travel experiences at below theirretail price, which according to chief executive and managing director IainDunstan makes for a counter-cyclical growth profile.

“There’s absolutely a correlation between people doing it toughand people looking for discounts,” he says.

The Fast 100 list, presented by Pemba Capital Partners and Gilbert + Tobin, recognises the growth of Australian standalone companies that started trading before July 1, 2018, and recorded at least $5 million of revenue in 2022-23.

The list is ranked by the CAGR of revenue over the previousthree financial years, the majority of which must have been generatedorganically and be from more than one customer. Entrants must providethird-party verification of revenue from an external accountant or auditor.

The Fast 100 has been publishedannually since 1990, first in BRW Magazine and since 2016in The Australian Financial Review. Household names thatstarted out as Fast 100 list members include Atlassian, Booktopia, Boost Juice, Carman’s Fine Foods, Cellarmasters, Grill’d, Herron Pharmaceuticals, Koala Mattress, Kogan.com, Lonely Planet, RedBalloon, Seek, Webjet and Worley.

Maps from space

Arguably the most high-tech company toever top the Fast 100, Fleet Space has six satellites in orbit, sucking up datafrom thousands of sensors spread across mining tenements on five continents.

The sensors track seismic movementsbeneath the ground to create what Nardini calls “Google Maps of thesub-surface” – actionable 3D models, ready in days, which previously tookmining companies many months and hundreds of drill holes to produce. Fleet Spacehas financial backing from Blackbird Ventures and software billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes.