The Innovate!100 list of outstanding and fast-moving start-up companies from around the world has been announced. The list was developed after more than 30 Innovate! Pitch Slam events were held on five continents over the past 10 months as part of the Innovate! 2010 program. Dublin’s Pitch Slam took place March 8.

Getting onto the list was an achievement in itself and ranking was determined by a combination of the company’s G/SCORE assessment which measures a company/product by assessing overall concept, market opportunity, competitive risk, product development, business development, team, and business model, and by measuring the company’s stage and pace of growth, and business potential.

Eight Pitch Slams were held in the US and US companies took 4 of the top ten rankings and 23 out of 100 places. The top five companies/countries were: 1 Anboto Group, Spain; 2 Artesian Solutions, United Kingdom; 3 RedOxygen, Australia; 4 NUMENUS GmbH Germany; 5 ividence, France / United States.

Ireland had three companies in the top 100 – Event Elephant (43), Sonru.com (46) and (at 98 position) getitkeepit.

Punching well above its weight is Estonia (population 1.5 million / occupied by the Soviet Union until 1991) with six outstanding and fast-moving start-up companies in the top 100, including the highly ranked Now!Innovations in thirteenth position.

The full list is available here: http://bit.ly/gaPQSp

The Innovate!100 list isn’t fully impartial (for example judges are drawn from sponsors companies), it is certainly not definitive (Pitch Slams didn’t take place everywhere in the world) and it is heavily biased towards web/software/ITC companies/products. But it is a useful gauge and a stimulus … can we get an Irish company into the top 20 in 2011?