DataArt: 2022 revenue up 30% y-o-y, despite challenging year

DataArt, a global software engineering firm with offices in Cyprus, has reported $378m in preliminary revenue for 2022 and announced a successful year, highlighting the current strengths of the business across clients, partners, and employees.

After exiting Russia in 2022, DataArt established a presence in six new countries: Brazil, Colombia, Cyprus, Latvia, Romania, and Serbia. And its relocation to Cyprus back in May last year couldn’t have been smoother and something the Head of DataArt Cyprus, Ilya Aristov, would definitely recommend: “We feel very taken care of!” he told CBN in a recent interview.

For the last five years, DataArt’s compound annual growth rate (CAGR) was 25%, illustrating consistent and sustainable growth. Over the past year, the company added more than 70 new client relationships with over $50m in new business.

Commenting on the “outstanding 2022 year-end results” in an open letter to his team, DataArt CEO Eugene Goland said revenue had increased almost 30% year over year. “This growth can be attributed to a 23% rise in spending from our existing clients and the addition of 70 new accounts. The number of clients contributing over a million dollars in annual revenue also increased, growing from 73 in 2021 to 90 in 2022. As always, this growth has been almost entirely organic,” he said.

DataArt was listed on the “Inc. 5000” ranking of the fastest-growing private US companies for the 11th time in 2022, while it also made its first appearance on the Financial Times 2023 list of America’s 500 Fastest-Growing Companies.

“Revenue growth, however, tells only part of the story,” said Goland. “The past year has been characterised by expansion and diversification. We exited Russia and established a presence in six new countries: Brazil, Colombia, Cyprus, Latvia, Romania, and Serbia. We acquired Lola Tech, hired over 1,700 new professionals, and secured a $75 million growth investment from FTV Capital. We also opened new development centers in nine cities: Belgrade, Cluj-Napoca, Krakow, Lodz, Nicosia, Riga, Tbilisi, Varna, and Warsaw.”

But, as he points out, to fully appreciate these achievements, it is necessary to consider the context.

“In 2021, the software services industry experienced an unprecedented surge in demand driven by COVID-19 lockdowns and accelerated digital transformation across various sectors. DataArt’s revenue grew 60% that year,” said Goland.

Topping 2021 with another year-over-year increase in the face of slowing economic growth and the normalisation of software demand would have been challenging in an ordinary year, he added.

“But, as we all know, 2022 was anything but ordinary. Russia, which was home to a significant portion of our staff, did the unthinkable and invaded Ukraine, home to an even larger portion of our staff. We found ourselves having to close our Russian operations, support and secure our operations in Ukraine, and manage nearly two thousand staff relocations, all while sustaining our service levels and quality.”

And so he concluded, “To an outsider, our 2022 revenue growth might appear as simply a continuation of our 26% CAGR over the past ten years. But, to me, it reflects the extraordinary performance of our team in exceptionally difficult circumstances”.