On Wednesday morning, Inc. Magazine put out its annual Inc. 5000 list of America’s fastest growing private companies, with Chicago tech companies making quite the showing.
A tradition since 1982, the ranking has seen brands like Pandora, Zipcar and Zappos.com land on its list in previous years. This year’s ranking, which is based on a company’s revenue growth rate over the past three years, saw Los Angeles-based box subscription service Loot Crate land the number one spot.
The Inc. 500 list, which is published in full in the publication's print magazine, includes a total of seven Chicagoland digital tech companies. Payment processing solutions provider C&H Financial Services came in 21st place with a three-year growth rate of a whopping 8,053 percent, and recruitment software maker Hireology clocked in at 94th. Hireology, which raised a $12 million Series C in June, saw revenue growth of 3,386 percent over the past three years.
Another Chicago-based payment solutions provider, Payline Data, came in 208th with a revenue growth of 1,866 percent. That is particularly exceptional considering the fact that Payline has turned its back on the VC funding fueling the growth of so many other companies.
E-commerce sensations Shop Melee and Spikeball came in 231st and 289th place. The latter gained notoriety last summer by appearing on ABC startup reality show Shark Tank with a demo of its foursquare-meets-volleyball lawn game, for which it received a $500,000 investment from FUBU-founder Daymond John.
Cross-channel marketing startup Signal occupies the 379th spot on the list with revenue growth of over 1,000 percent over the past three years. Notably, the company raised a $30 million Series E this summer to expand its global operations, so we can surely expect the company to make a repeat appearance next year. And rounding out Chicago’s Inc. 500 companies was OppLoans, an online personal loans provider, in 445h place.
Drawing on the information garnered in the research done for its Inc. 5000 list, the publication also published a ranking of the country’s top 10 startup cities. That ranking put Chicago in fourth place, behind New York City, Los Angeles and Atlanta.
Notably, a number of Chicago tech companies ranked high in the Inc. 5000 but just shy of the 500 list. Healthcare information provider ContextMedia came in 504th place with an impressive three-year growth of 751 percent, and advertising platform provider Home Run Media came in 525th. Brand loyalty solutions provider edo Interactive occupies the list’s 569th place, and the viral content gurus at Dose took 599th place.
Image via Shutterstock.
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