Gazelle companies in the Russian economy: Innovation, steady rise, and crisis response

Goal: verification of the most popular hypotheses found in the world academic literature on High Growth Companies (HGCs) using Russian empirical data and statistics. Research methodology: desk research of publications; analysis of statistics from Ruslana, the database of Russian and Ukrainian companies (maintained by Bureau van Dijk — a Moody’s Analytics company) which contains financial indicators, tax reporting data, and other information; analysis of information from the Professional Market and Company Analysis System (SPARK) and Federal Institute of Industrial Property (Rospatent) databases on intellectual property ownership; and review of companies through formal questions in survey interviews. Findings: this study demonstrates the key contribution of the HGCs sector to economic growth: HGCs, which represent 15 % of the total number of companies with revenues and more than 10 employees, generate 60 % of the revenue growth of all Russian companies and employment growth from 1.5 million to 2.5 million in 2017–2020. In the past, 77 % of HGCs grew sporadically, which does not support the hypothesis of unsustainable growth for most HGCs and can be the basis for using the rapid growth criterion for selective government support of business entities. There is evidence that innovative companies have more stable rates of rapid growth over the five-year period prior to this research. Based on the company survey, an assumption is formulated about the high resilience of Russian HGCs to external shocks including pandemic, Russia’s military operations, and sanctions against the country, and the HGCs’ willingness to continue growth despite existing difficulties and risks. Originality and contribution of the authors: for the first time in Russia, this study analyzes the full set of Russian HGCs using a comprehensive statistical database. This allows us to compare HGCs from different industries and identify their industry-specific characteristics. In addition, we identify a group of innovative HGCs and show the characteristics of this type of companies. The materials obtained as a result of the review of companies supplement the results of the analysis of statistical data.