Chicago boasts 104 companies on this year's Inc. 5000, proving that the Windy City continues to be a hotspot for entrepreneurship. This Midwestern mecca has been the birthplace of countless new businesses through the decades, from Kraft Foods to Crate & Barrel.
Here, we present a list of Chicago's top 10 fastest-growing companies of today, based on rates of revenue growth between fiscal years 2011 and 2014.
10. Montway Auto Transport
CEO: Mike Mihaylov
Inc. 5000 Rank: 429
2014 Revenue: $15.7 million
3-Year Growth Rate: 1,090 percent
Description: Montway Auto Transport is an auto-transport management company that delivers cars across all 50 states for individuals, auto dealerships, auction houses, manufacturers, and corporate customers.
9. Paramount Lodging Advisors
CEOs: Daniel Beider and Sanjeev Misra
Inc. 5000 Rank: 419
2014 Revenue: $2.9 million
3-Year Growth Rate: 1,132 percent
Description: Paramount Lodging Advisors is a national hotel advisory team exclusively committed to the hospitality industry. Its services include hotel brokerage, hotel financing, hotel equity raise, hospitality consulting, and hotel value-enhancement consultancy.
8. Falcon Consulting Group
CEO: Brendan Downing
Inc. 5000 Rank: 316
2014 Revenue: $11.9 million
3-Year Growth Rate: 1,475 percent
Description: Falcon Consulting Group provides comprehensive IT consulting and implementation for a wide range of health care organizations, from children's hospitals to large, multistate integrated delivery networks.
7. CETA
CEO: Michael Fang
Inc. 5000 Rank: 297
2014 Revenue: $2.9 million
3-Year Growth Rate: 1,536 percent
Description: CETA provides health care consulting and software services. Its Xavier software aims to identify and recapture the estimated $3 billion U.S. hospitals and clinics lose annually as a result of having duplicate patient records.
6. CarrierDirect
CEO: Jett McCandless
Inc. 5000 Rank: 261
2014 Revenue: $2.3 million
3-Year Growth Rate: 1,729 percent
Description: CarrierDirect is a consultant for logistics and transport companies that helps them develop and execute new strategies for business enhancement and growth.
5. Insureon
CEO: Ted Devine
Inc. 5000 Rank: 259
2014 Revenue: $17.7 million
3-Year Growth Rate: 1,742 percent
Description: Insureon provides a range of insurance coverage to more than 40,000 small businesses. In addition to offering general liability and professional liability insurance, it provides a variety of educational materials designed to help business owners implement risk-management best practices.
4. Spikeball
CEO: Chris Ruder
Inc. 5000 Rank: 139
2014 Revenue: $3.2 million
3-Year Growth Rate: 2,754 percent
Description: Spikeball sells equipment and apparel for Spikeball, a team sports game that has been described as a cross between volleyball and four square.
3. Sprout Social
CEO: Justyn Howard
Inc. 5000 Rank: 78
2014 Revenue: $15.2 million
3-Year Growth Rate: 3,918 percent
Description: Sprout Social is a social media management platform that enhances communication with customers and makes collaboration among work teams more efficient.
2. Signal
CEO: Mike Sands
Inc. 5000 Rank: 51
2014 Revenue: $17.2 million
3-Year Growth Rate: 5,244 percent
Description: Signal develops software that enables marketers to centralize their data and to distribute it in real time to any measurement, marketing, or media endpoint.
1. ReVamp Electronics
CEO: Anant Handa
Inc. 5000 Rank: 50
2014 Revenue: $8.2 million
3-Year Growth Rate: 5,261 percent
Description: ReVamp Electronics is a wholesale distributor of smartphone and tablet repair parts.