What are gazelle companies?

• Gazelle and high-growth companies have two factors in common: high growth in turnover and age.
• The concept was coined by David Birch

The term gazelle was coined by the American economist David Birch, who in the late 1980s also developed the concepts of “elephant company” for large companies and “mouse company” for small local businesses.

Characteristics

Both types of organizations have two factors in common: high growth in turnover and age.

By definition, gazelles are less than 5 years old and high-growth companies are younger than the rest of the companies. On the other hand, both types of companies differ in their main characteristics.

Size, for example, is an element that differentiates them. According to the latest studies, about 44 % of gazelle companies and 29.23 % of high-growth companies are microenterprises.

The sector where the largest number of gazelle and high-growth companies is found is construction and real estate activities. It is also observed that these two categories have a higher rate of companies in technological sectors than the rest of the types of companies.

In terms of location, high-growth and gazelle companies are mainly concentrated in 3 communities: Madrid, Andalusia and Catalonia.

Main data

Both types of companies significantly increased their turnover between 2018 and 2021 with increases of 251.66 TP7T and 139% respectively. On the contrary, the turnover of the companies in the control group decreased by 6,44% during this period.

The turnover of these high-growth and gazelle companies grew continuously between 2018 and 2021. In terms of employment, the high-growth companies created 225,001 jobs and the gazelle companies 18,648, while the comparison group suffered a reduction of 164,676 positions.

In 2021, the average number of employees per company was 64 in high-growth companies and 54 in gazelle companies. Of these, almost 26% of jobs are temporary in high-growth companies and 33,70% in gazelles.

Analyzing companies with a technological activity, we can see that a large proportion of gazelle companies and high-growth companies are dedicated to technology services: 70,49% and 61,66% respectively. Only 34,79% of the comparison companies are found in this category, which, however, represent 57,23% of the activities in technological manufacturing sectors.