A YOUNG Basingstoke software firm - founded only seven years ago - has shot into the top 50 of the UK's fastest-growing technology companies.

iOra, which is based on the Intech business Park in Wade Road, was placed 45th in The Sunday Times Tech Track 100, as its sales surged 113 per cent a year from £225,000 in 2001 to £1million in 2003.

The company was founded by Paddy Falls, John Roper and Brian Collins, who are still directors, and employs around 20 people in Basingstoke and two in the United States where much of its business interests are focused.

iOra is now headed by chief executive Adrian Weekes, who joined in January after spending 25 years working for American technology companies.

His background has seen him work for Apple and then as UK managing director for both Cisco Systems and Dell.

Mr Weekes joined iOra because he wanted to lead a UK technology company that had the potential to grow and create a successful marketplace.

Speaking about the prestigious rating, he said: "We're delighted to be in the top 50. It is a reflection of several years of hard work by the founders and staff.

"For a relatively small UK technology company like us, it is a tribute to the dedication of our people and the strength of the technology we are offering."

iOra made a substantial loss last year - but Mr Weekes said this was a normal pattern for a company in its stage of development and which had its last round of expansion funding three years ago. The company's five-year business plan is for profitability to return next year.

It has two main areas of technology on offer. One is Ipsilon, a programme that is able to identify the mass of data that moves between computers. Its programme means that only new data is sent.

The firm's Web Virtualisation technology is used by the US navy and military on both sides of the Atlantic to gain web-based information offline.

iOra technology is also used by such companies as BT and Cap Gemini to replicate huge volumes of data to remote servers or laptops so that users can access the information as if they were in their offices.

It has particular use for the thousands of field staff and sales forces that large companies employ.

Mr Weekes sees iOra's future continuing with the military and a new growth area is likely to come from Sharepoint portal technology, an area in which it is working with Microsoft.

Another Hampshire company was named the fastest-growing in the South East of England after being placed 14th in The Sunday Times league table.

PIPS Technology is based in Chandler's Ford and has seen sales rise from £387,000 in 2001 to a massive £4.272million last year.

It is an industry leader in the development and manufacture of Automatic Number Plate Recognition systems.

Its broad range of systems provide the next generation of information technology for journey time measurement systems, police, tolling, parking, traffic monitoring and automated site security.

Paul Negus, managing director of PIPS, said: "It has been another fantastic year for the company and we are excited at the phenomenal growth we are experiencing in our chosen markets. The PIPS team is passionate about camera and software technology - we believe that anything is possible."

PIPS customers include Siemens, Serco, Tesco, Hertz, Trafficmaster, the National Assembly of Wales and police forces all over the world.