Estonia, Good for Business, Innovations, Internet, Technology

According to Nortal’s Founder and CEO, Priit Alamäe, the company showed strong results across all home markets in Europe, the U.S. and in the GCC region in 2018 and expect to continue at a similar rate this year. “For accelerating growth in Germany, the Nordics and the U.S. during upcoming years, we recently concluded a 50 mln EUR bond issue,” adds Alamäe.

Among the most important corporate events in 2018, Alamäe lists establishing a subsidiary and building a strong presence in Germany, as well as acquiring U.S. cloud modernization and software development company Dev9, to bolster expansion and complement the offering.

“We made significant investments last year in growing our business in Germany and the U.S.; we estimate these regions, along with the Nordics, will become the largest contributors to the growth of the company in 2019,” says Alamäe.

Following the acquisition of cloud modernization company Dev9 at the end of 2018, Nortal has started to invest in expanding cloud offering in Europe in 2019 by establishing Cloud Centres of Excellence (CCoE) in Vilnius and Helsinki. “With newly established CCoE-s, we are able to bring best-in-class cloud expertise closer to our customers in Europe,” adds Alamäe.

In 2018, the company also grew significantly in headcount, increasing by more than 35% within the last year. “Access to best talent continues to be one of the main challenges in the upcoming years in all of our home markets for all companies in our sector — but we feel we can offer the growth and challenges that top talent are looking for,” says Alamäe.

Due to fast growth in headcount last year and an estimated increase in upcoming years, in 2018 significant investments were made into new offices in Belgrade, Vilnius, Helsinki, Oulu, Stockholm and Seattle.

Among the most important new initiatives started in 2018, Alamäe names breakthroughs in the healthcare sectors in Finland and the UAE, digital transformation projects in Germany, and significant growth in the area of e-commerce both in the Nordics and the U.S.

In Estonia, the company started a major project building a new system for the Estonian Social Insurance Board, the entity responsible for distributing more than 20% of the country’s annual budget each year in pensions and benefits and for building next-generation proactive services for the public.

In 2018, among other successful launches, Nortal completed the largest rollout to date for the Finnish Tax Administration. The rollout included implementing individual income taxation with supporting functionalities that affects all Finnish taxpayers.

In the GCC region last year, the company completed initial milestones in a project for the Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Manpower in Sultanate of Oman, enabling value-added tax collection and automation of immigration processes.

For the purpose of simplifying the Group structure, in June 2019, the company will complete the merging of Nortal Group AS (NG, 100% owner of Nortal AS shares) and Nortal Group Holding AS (NGH, 100% owner of NG shares).

Nortal is a multinational strategic change and technology company. Combining the unique experience of transforming Estonia into a digital leader and creating change in businesses with a strategic approach and data-driven technology, our vision is to build a seamless society. Nortal is present in 10 countries and employs 850 specialists who carry out high-impact projects across Europe, North America and the GCC.