December 26, 2007

Web business in fast lane


AN ONLINE car hire business has become Australia's fastest-growing internet travel company, growing its revenue by 242 per cent in three years.

VroomVroomVroom, founded by brothers Richard and David Eastes in 2001, when the pair were just 22 and 17 respectively, is one of 11 Queensland companies in the 2007 Deloitte Technology Fast 50.

With a staff of just six, the Brisbane-based company has spread its wings with offices in the UK and the US and mown down Victoria's Webjet to become the speediest mover in the online travel space.

Perversely, it is by not trying to grow too fast that VroomVroomVroom has managed to grow so fast, says general manager Richard Eastes.

"I know some of our competitors made that mistake, they tried to grow too quick and it meant they didn't have as good a product in Australia.

"(They) got distracted doing all sorts of other things but we just focused on purely creating the best car rental search we can possibly do."

VroomVroomVroom allows travellers to compare prices and book car rentals online, in turn drawing commissions from Avis, Thrifty, Budget, Europcar and Hertz.

"We have had over a million Australians visit our site this year, which is pretty amazing," Eastes says.

"We get close to 500 bookings a day and all of them are guaranteed cheapest prices."

It is often described as the Wotif of car hire and, coincidentally, VroomVroomVroom came to life as a start-up in an office beside the online accommodation giant in inner Brisbane's Spring Hill six years ago.

It now links to car depots at 240 destinations in Australia and 700 around the world.

This year Queensland companies have nearly doubled their representation in the Deloitte Fast 50, which ranks companies across communications, software, semiconductors, components and electronics, life sciences, internet and computer peripherals.

Topping the local list was Bing Technologies, whose online "snail mail" services have proved a smash with business customers such as Seek.

The Brisbane company, founded by Steve Cranitch in 2001, grew a muscular 436 per cent in three years, placing it at 11th on the national list.

Bing.com takes in customer mail electronically, prints it out and sends it in an envelope into the Australia Post network as regular hard-copy business mail.

It claims to, on average, cut its business clients' mailing costs in half.

Clients also tend to cough up for invoices quicker when they come in hard copy rather than via email, according to its customers.

Cranitch says he is delighted with Bing.com's ranking in the awards as it "acknowledges the organisation's viability in the marketplace".

Private equity group Ramico has a 30 per cent stake in the company, which holds numerous patents on its award-winning software.

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