Orange County’s fastest-growing private companies combined for a sales rise of nearly 40% in the past two years to $29 billion, according to this week’s Business Journal list.
The list, our fifth annual, ranks 100 businesses by revenue growth for the 12 months through June from the same period in 2009.
In company count and growth rates, this year’s list shows signs of a return to business-as-usual for entrepreneurial OC companies even as they operate in the shadow of the recent recession and amid fears of another.
Last year’s list only included 69 businesses, below our typical count. Finding companies that grew just 6% or more from 2008 to 2010—the time frame for last year’s list, and also the heart of the last downturn—was a challenge.
Pickings weren’t as slim this time around. To make this week’s list, companies’ two-year growth had to exceed 11% (see criteria, page 50).
Making it past that cut-off point wasn’t much of a challenge for many on this week’s list. Nearly a third of the companies saw 100% growth or more from two years ago. Twelve companies had growth that exceeded 300%.
The overall 40% growth seen in this week’s list is well in excess of the 23% rise among the companies listed a year ago. This year’s growth rate also compares favorably with the first three years of the list, which ranged from 34% to 50%.
There are 38 companies on this week’s list that were also on last year’s list.
The list is tech-heavy. About a quarter of the companies are technology-focused, including a variety of software designers, chipmakers, information technology service providers and telecommunication firms.
Medical device makers and other healthcare-related companies make up about 10% of the entries, as do non-mortgage-related financial services firms, as well as marketing companies.
Mortgage and real estate companies, among the fastest-growing segments of Orange County’s economy before the recession, only have a handful of entries on this week’s list.
As in prior years, this week’s list includes a mix of larger companies that are well established, along with smaller companies that are more apt to post big revenue gains on a percentage basis.
Five companies on the list had more than $1 billion in revenues last year. They combined to account for about 75% of the total.
Fountain Valley-based Kingston Technology Co.—OC’s largest private company by revenue last year—ranked No. 44 on this week’s list, with nearly 63% sales growth to $6.5 billion.
Nineteen companies on the list had between $100 million and $1 billion in sales last year, while 36 earned between $10 million and $100 million.
Prominent midtier names on the list include Anaheim-based self-serve restaurant chain Yogurtland Inc., which was estimated to have $86 million in revenues last year, up from $29 million two years ago. The 197% rate of growth placed the five-year-old company—which likes to say it grew up during the recession—in the No. 18 spot.
Double Vision
Also on the fast-growth path is Incipio Technologies Inc. (No. 12, 326% growth), along with Sena Cases (No. 11, 387% growth; see related story, page 34). Both are based in Irvine and design, make and sell phone cases.
Prominent gains also were seen by Costa Mesa-based digital marketing company ymarketing LLC. The 15-person company had about $27.3 million in revenue, claiming the No. 1 spot on the list with a growth rate of roughly 2000% (see story, page 32).
Those firms stand alongside some smaller businesses that also showed impressive growth rates.
The No. 3 company is Irvine-based BookPal LLC, a five-person bulk book reseller that had $3.4 million in revenue, up nearly 1000% from 2009.
No. 10 is Purple Platypus, a Santa Ana-based distributor of 3-D printers that counts seven employees and saw 392% growth over the past two years. It had sales of about $2.3 million last year, one of 39 companies on the list with less than $10 million in revenue.
Fun Mix
The mix of large and smaller companies make the list what it is—a fun look at fast-growing, entrepreneurial companies, many of which have found sometimes unconventional niches.
Irvine counts the largest base of companies on this week’s list, with 34 representatives. Newport Beach has the next most, with 10 companies based there.
Five companies on the list employ more than 1,000 people.
The parent company of Newport Beach-based Pacific Life Insurance Co. (No. 83) is the largest employer on the list with about 1,900 local employees.
There are 22 companies on the list with 100 to 1,000 employees. Another 61 companies employ 10 to 99 employees, and 12 companies on the list have less than 10 employees.
Fewer than 10 companies on the list count women as one of their top two executives.
Download the 2011 OC’s FASTEST GROWING PRIVATE COS list (pdf)
About the Fastest-Growing List
The fastest-growing private companies list includes OC-based businesses owned by individuals, groups of people, families, venture capitalists, private equity firms or other investors.
Publicly traded companies and subsidiaries weren’t considered. Neither were locally owned and run offices of national firms.
Companies had to have sales of at least $300,000 for the 12 months through June 2009 to be considered. This year’s list required companies to show at least 11% growth in revenue for the 12 months through June of this year compared to the same period two years ago.
The measurement skips a middle 12-month period through June 2010, in part to reflect the staying power of companies on the list. The companies on this year’s list, for example, all had to come through the recent recession to post impressive gains.
The Business Journal solicited entries for the list through its paper and website. More than half of the companies on the list submitted revenue numbers for consideration.
The rest we culled from our other relevant lists—private companies, minority-owned businesses, women-owned businesses and others.
Figures for some companies are Business Journal estimates.
Like all our lists, fastest-growing private companies is a work in progress. We’ve surely missed some undiscovered companies that would make our list.
Companies interested in being considered for next year’s list can contact Business Journal Research Director Emily Weisburg at (949) 833-8373, ext. 224, or by email at weisburg@ocbj.com.
—Mark Mueller
