Estonia’s best companies of 2023 named

The win­ners of Es­to­nia’s largest busi­ness com­pe­ti­tion, Best Es­ton­ian Com­pa­nies 2023, were an­nounced today by the Es­ton­ian Em­ploy­ers’ Con­fed­er­a­tion, Es­ton­ian Cham­ber of Com­merce & In­dus­try and Enterprise Estonia. The nom­i­nees will bat­tle for the Com­pany of the Year title on No­vem­ber 4 at the gala, which will also be broad­casted on ETV.

The Best Es­ton­ian Com­pa­nies is Es­to­nia’s largest and longest-run­ning en­tre­pre­neur­ship com­pe­ti­tion, dat­ing back to 1996. Established under the lead­er­ship of Pres­i­dent Lennart Meri as Entrepreneurship Award, it has awarded best investors and industry leaders ever since.

For this year’s nominations, Enterprise Estonia, together with The Es­ton­ian Em­ploy­ers’ Con­fed­er­a­tion selected the best in six cat­e­gories and the Cham­ber of Com­merce and In­dus­try in three cat­e­gories.

Sigrid Harjo, a member of Enterprise Estonia’s management board, announced that the category winners’ competition will culminate in one company being crowned on November 4. She added that the competition is tight, showcasing the diversity of the business sector. Harjo expressed her appreciation for all the companies, saying, “Sin­cere thanks to the teams of all com­pa­nies – your im­pact on de­vel­op­ing our so­ci­ety is in­valu­able, and the suc­cess achieved in the com­pe­ti­tion is just a frac­tion of the recog­ni­tion you re­ally de­serve.”

From investors to industrial disruptors

The For­eign In­vestor of the year 2023 is FLIR Sys­tems, the Es­ton­ian branch of the in­ter­na­tional Teledyne Technologies group, which de­vel­ops and man­u­fac­tures in­frared de­vices in Tallinn. For many years, FLIR Systems Estonia has led Estonia’s electronics industry by specialising in precise manufacturing and R&D. Established in the early 2000s, FLIR transitioned from component assembly to camera production under the leadership of Tiit Tallo. The company’s efficiency-driven approach allows it to remain cost-competitive among many international divisions and continue to thrive in the Estonian business environment. Their cut­ting-edge de­signs, work with uni­ver­si­ties and con­tri­bu­tion to the progress of Es­ton­ian en­gi­neer­ing have been rec­og­nised and ad­mired by the judges.

The Ex­porter of the Year 2023 is Silen, which produces award-win­ning quiet rooms used by global top play­ers such as Spo­tify, Ama­zon and Volk­swa­gen. The jury highly ap­pre­ci­ated their swift ex­pan­sion to for­eign mar­kets, com­pre­hen­sive and con­tin­u­ous prod­uct de­vel­op­ment and strong brand­ing.

In­no­va­tor of the year 2023 is Icosagen Cell Fac­tory, which focuses on de­vel­op­ing and com­mer­cial­ising cell-de­rived bio­phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals and is prepar­ing to launch a new pro­duc­tion fa­cil­ity in Tartu. Icosagen’s powerful team, in­ter­na­tional-cal­i­bre research and de­vel­op­ment part­ner­ships earned high praise from the jury.

The sus­tain­able com­pany of the year 2023 is A. Le Coq. The company boasts the broadest prod­uct port­fo­lio in the Baltic Sea region bev­er­age in­dus­try. The jury praised its ded­i­ca­tion to sus­tain­abil­ity and so­cial re­spon­si­bil­ity.

The tourism pro­moter of the year 2023 is HMP Ho­tels, which op­er­ates the Radis­son Col­lec­tion hotel. The jury highly ap­pre­ci­ated that a thorough ren­o­va­tion of the hotel that was un­der­taken dur­ing the pan­demic. This pro­ject set a new qual­ity stan­dard for the in­dus­try and at­tracted in­ter­na­tional busi­ness tourists to Es­to­nia.

Fam­ily Busi­ness of the Year 2023 is MRPEasy, which builds AI-pow­ered MRP sys­tems for small man­u­fac­tur­ers. The jury noted the com­pany’s im­pres­sive growth rate, global reach, and suc­cess­ful blend­ing of gen­er­a­tional knowledge among fam­ily mem­bers.

The most com­pet­i­tive in­dus­trial com­pany of the year is Er­ic­s­son Eesti. Er­ic­s­son is an in­ter­na­tional net­work and telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions com­pany, whose Es­ton­ian branch de­vel­ops and pro­duces com­mu­ni­ca­tion net­work base sta­tions and cre­ates in­no­v­a­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion soft­ware so­lu­tions. More than 1,800 people work in the Es­ton­ian unit, nearly a third of whom are in­volved in research and de­vel­op­ment ac­tiv­i­ties. Er­ic­s­son also plans to es­tab­lish a new tech­nol­ogy hub in Es­to­nia. The fa­cil­ity, val­ued at approximately €155M, will serve as a key cen­tre for Er­ic­s­son’s smart man­u­fac­tur­ing op­er­a­tions in Eu­rope.

The most com­pet­i­tive trad­ing com­pany of the year is Orlen Eesti. Founded over a century and a half ago in Cen­tral Eu­rope, Orlen is now the largest fuel com­pany in the region. Since 2003, its Es­ton­ian unit began fo­cus­ing pri­mar­ily on fuel whole­sale and now reigns as the largest fuel sup­plier in the coun­try.

The most com­pet­i­tive ser­vice com­pany of the year is Ad­mi­ral Mar­kets. It is one of the most in­ter­na­tional fi­nan­cial tech­nol­ogy com­pa­nies in Es­to­nia, which op­er­ates under the Ad­mi­rals brand and of­fers a plat­form for cur­rency and met­als trad­ing and in­vest­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties. Head­quar­tered in Es­to­nia, Ad­mi­rals has phys­i­cal of­fices in 18 coun­tries and clients in 150 coun­tries, being rep­re­sented on all con­ti­nents.

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