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August 17, 2021 | Tom Ballard

Chattanooga region places 14 on Inc. 5000 list, Johnson City and Cookeville have one each

Sixteen other area companies, most from Chattanooga, made the latest listing of Inc. magazine’s 5000 fastest growing privately held companies in the U.S.

Announced at 7 a.m. EDT Tuesday morning, the new rankings include 120 companies from across the Volunteer State that made Inc. magazine’s 2021 list. They reported a combined $5.0 billion in revenue, the addition of 10,531 jobs during the year, and a median growth rate of 171 percent.

As noted in today’s feature article in teknovation.biz, Chattanooga accounted for two of the four highest ranked companies from the Volunteer State and showed its strongly emerging logistics sector with a number of ranked companies. They were:

  • FreightWaves, the provider of news and commentary for the transportation and logistics sector, that led the state with a ranking of #85 among the 5,000 companies nationally. It had a reported growth rate of 4,597 percent from 2017 to 2020.
  • Text Request came in at #335 with a growth rate of 1,399 percent. We have posted numerous articles on biz spotlighting the progress of the business texting platform.

Others from the Chattanooga area that made the list were:

  • Network Transport at #619 with a 777 percent increase in three-year revenue. The company provides safe, reliable, and cost-effective supply chain management solutions.
  • Trident Transport at #896. It is a company that specializesin brokering and handling freight and reported 544 percent revenue growth.
  • Steam Logistics ranked #1194 with 405 percent growth. According to its website, the company focuses on the “three most critical areas for most supply chains: international ocean and air freight, domestic truckload and less-than-truckload (LTL), and drayage services.”
  • Reliance Partners at #1559. With 302 percent growth, the firm specializes in providing insurance for the trucking industry.
  • LYNC Logistics, ranked #2324 with 183 percent revenue growth. The company provides truckload, LTL, refrigerated and specialized transportation services using a network of local, regional, and national carriers.
  • MaxTrans Logistics came in at #2587 with 159 percent revenue growth. It describes itself as a “logistics and shipping company with nearly 20,000 carriers that help manage cargo deliveries large and small, simple and complex.”
  • Syssero, which placed #2680 on the listing, is a company focused on helping with implementation of the Workday® suite. It reported 151 percent growth.
  • Conversant Group, with revenue growth of 91 percent, ranked #3672. It is an information technology infrastructure and security consulting company that provides managed services, disaster restoration, information governance, and cybersecurity assessments and solutions.
  • Best Buy Metals is based in Cleveland and provides metal roofing and metal shingles nationwide. It ranked #3763 with a reported 87 percent revenue growth.
  • Saturday Drive, also located in Cleveland, clocked in at #3809 with 85 percent revenue growth as a provider of WordPress services.
  • Skuid, the Chattanooga company that provides a toolkit for creating unique and adopted Salesforce experiences, was ranked #4308 with revenue growth of 66 percent.
  • Thinking Media was the final ranked company from Chattanooga at #4961. It is the creator of eLearning tools and courses. The company reported 40 percent growth over the three years.

Two other companies – one each from Johnson City and Cookeville – made the Inc. 5000 list.

  • Crown Laboratories from the Appalachian Highlands area placed #2035 with revenue growth of 217 percent. The company offers a diverse portfolio of skincare products.
  • Skender-Newton Realty of Cookeville ranked #3794. As the name implies, it is a residential real estate firm that reported 86 percent revenue growth.

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