100 Hot Stocks You've Never Heard Of

From the Inc. 5,000: A look at the 100 fastest-growing companies that say they're planning to go public.

Looking for a hot stock? How about a company whose revenues have shot from $455,000 to $68 million in three years? Or from $209,000 to $24 million in three years? Or $662,000 to $40 million in three years? You don't see revenue growth like that very often from companies trading on a stock market. And in fact these companies are not publicly traded -- at least not yet. The companies are Cedar Point Communications, Genoptix Medical Laboratory, and Santur, and they are ranked No. 2, 4, and 12, respectively, on this year's Inc. 5,000, Inc.'s list of the fastest-growing privately held companies in the U.S. But all three of these companies say they intend to go public -- so you may want to keep an eye on them. Genoptix, in fact, has already filed for an IPO.

For more than 25 years, the Inc. 500 has been the home of future household names. Microsoft made the list in 1984 at No. 80, when the world learned that the company's revenue had grown 1,969% between 1979 and 1983. Microsoft made the list again in 1985 and then went public in March of 1986. Now it's got a market cap of $277 billion, and its annual revenue has gone from $50 million when it made the Inc. list to $51 billion last year. Oracle made the list from 1983 through 1985, and Gateway made number one or number two from 1991 through 1993.

And now there are more companies than ever to track, because this year Inc. expanded the list from the Inc. 500 to the Inc. 5,000. You can see the top 100 companies on the list that say they intend to go public at www.inc.com/inc5000/2007/lists/top100-Inc5000-ipos.html. To learn more about the Inc. 5,000 in general, visit www.inc5000.com.

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