A developer of business-intelligence software is moving here from Lund, Sweden, as part of its venture-capital-financed growth plan.

QlikTech International AB will move its international headquarters and the headquarters of its U.S. subsidiary, which is based in Raleigh, N.C., into the Radnor Financial Center later this month. The move initially will bring 25 of QlikTech's 200 employees here, but Rick Pitts, the CEO of its U.S. subsidiary, expects that number to grow to 50.

QlikTech expects to be generating revenue at an annual rate of more than $50 million this year and wants to reach twice that pace by the end of next year.

To help it meet that goal, QlikTech obtained $12.5 million in venture capital in November 2004 from Jerusalem Venture Partners, which has offices in Jerusalem, New York, London, Tokyo and Shanghai; and Accel Partners, which has offices in Silicon Valley and London.

That led to the decision to move the headquarters to the United States. "The American marketplace, of course, represents the largest opportunity, the biggest green field for QlikTech," Pitts said.

The company decided to settle in Radnor because it has time differences of only five or six hours from Europe; it's close to the homes of Pitts and two QlikTech board members; Philadelphia and New York have active chapters of the Swedish American Chamber of Commerce; and there are a lot of information-technology and life-sciences companies nearby.

QlikTech has some sizable local customers, such as Campbell Soup Co., AstraZeneca PLC and Pfizer Inc. Its main target consists of so-called middle-market companies, which have annual revenue from $100 million to $1 billion. It has more than 2,850 customers in 58 countries and is adding them at a pace of five a day, making it the fastest-growing business-intelligence software company, according to IDC, a telecommunications and information-technology research and analysis firm.

Business intelligence, or BI, software allows users to get multiple views of their organization's data so they can make better decisions. The global licensing market for it will hit $2.5 billion this year, says IT research firm Gartner Inc. Include maintenance and systems-integration revenue, and the total BI market could be as high as $7 billion, by some estimates.

There are three groups of BI companies, according to Kurt Schlegel, a research director with Gartner's business-intelligence group.

The most prominent consists of fairly sizable companies that specialize in BI software. It includes Cognos Inc., Business Objects SA, and Hyperion Solutions Corp., all of which posted at least $700 million in revenue in their last fiscal year.

The second group consists of giant software companies, such as SAP AG, Microsoft Corp. and Oracle Corp., that are getting into the BI space.

The third group consists of BI innovators, such as QlikTech, which is among the largest in it.

QlikTech was founded by two Swedish engineers who worked for a packaging company. Designing packages entails considering many factors that interact in multiple ways, so the engineers developed software that allowed them to do that. They realized it could be used to analyze business data, too, and got funding from a Swedish venture-capital firm called Industrifonden to develop a company around it.

About 10 years ago, QlikTech launched a QlikView software version that ran on PCs, and the company started to grow. In 2004, it decided to take that growth to another level and got Bank of America Corp. to help it line up venture funding.

Prior to joining QlikTech, Pitts had two stints with SAP's American subsidiary, which is in Newtown Square. In the latter, he was vice president of small and midsize business channel sales for the company.

QlikTech's board of directors includes former SAP America Inc. CEO Paul Wahl and Alex Ott. A partner with Jerusalem Venture Partners, Ott formerly worked with SAP, where he hired Pitts.

Ott urged Pitts to take a look at QlikTech and Pitts liked what he saw, joining the company in January 2005.

At the time, QlikTech's U.S. subsidiary had 17 people; that's now up to 40. It has expanded its New York office, opened offices in Chicago and Houston and plans to open an office in the San Francisco Bay Area in the second quarter of this year.

Internationally, since Pitts joined the company, QlikTech has bought a 17-person unit in the United Kingdom, doubled the size of its German subsidiary to 30 and opened units in Holland and Finland.

In all, QlikTech added 120 people last year.