Welcome to The Irish Times Tech 50.

The Irish Times has partnered with YouNoodle, a Silicon Valley firm that tracks the progress of start-up companies globally, to produce a league table of Irish technology firms. The Irish Times Tech 50 ranks Irish technology and web companies according to their valuation and how likely they are succeed. In this instance success is measured as being acquired or carrying out an initial public offering on a recognised stock exchange.

Data is compiled on each company on the ranking relating to factors such as employment numbers, funding, traffic to their web site and media coverage. YouNoodle than applies its sophisticated algorithms to this data to come up with a score out of 100 which is positively correlated with the company's valuation.

Companies that achieve a rank of 0-15 are just starting out. Those ranked 30-60 are experiencing growth in revenues, funding and traffic, while those that achieve 90 or above are likely candidates for an acquisition or flotation.

The data on this page will be updated weekly and is based on YouNoodle’s monitoring of over 200,000 news stories a day which are fed into its database.

The Tech 50 ranks companies incorporated on the island of Ireland within the last ten years. The list does not include companies that have floated on a recognised stock exchange or have been acquired by a larger industry player.

If you feel your company should be included or have feedback on the rankings, please contact our assistant business editor, John Collins (jcollins@irishtimes.com)