Top 10 Fastest-Growing Tech Companies - America's Fastest-Growing Tech Companies
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.America's Fastest-Growing Tech Companies
Every year Forbes ranks the fastest-growing technology companies. We use the following criteria to rank our list: Companies need to have minimum sales of $25 million and a sales growth of at least 10% over the latest 12 months. Also, median three- to five-year earnings-per-share growth estimates needed to be in double-digit territory. Finally, companies were ranked on their five-year annualized sales growth, which can be no less than 10%. Here are the top 10 companies in the Forbes Fast Tech 25 list.
No. 1: First Solar
Founded in 1999, First Solar has been a leading manufacturer of the thin film solar panels used to convert sunlight into electricity. The company was the first to bring manufacturing costs below $1 per watt, which puts the price of solar energy in line with conventionally produced power
No. 2: Neutral Tandem
Chicago-based Neutral Tandem is a telecommunications company that offers voice, data and video services. Tandem switches allow wireless, wired, cable and broadband providers to exchange traffic among their networks. The company works with most major wireless, cable and broadband carriers in the U.S.
No. 3: Riverbed Technology
The company's motto, "Think fast," succinctly describes its role in the computer communications business. Through its Steelhead-branded appliances and embedded Riverbed Optimization System (RiOS) software, the company is able to improve the speed with which business customers can access data and applications across wide area networks (WANs). Not anchored by wires, Riverbed also offers customers cloud computing for commercial enterprise and the government.
No. 4: Illumina
Illumina develops and makes equipment and software for genetic analysis, such as DNA sequencing and gene expression. Scientists at universities, government agencies and pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies use Illumina's equipment for disease research, drug development and the development of clinical tests.
No. 4: Illumina
Illumina develops and makes equipment and software for genetic analysis, such as DNA sequencing and gene expression. Scientists at universities, government agencies and pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies use Illumina's equipment for disease research, drug development and the development of clinical tests.
No. 5: Cavium Networks
Cavium Networks supplies integrated semiconductor products for use with intelligent networking, communications, storage, video and security applications. Its products are found in a variety of networking equipment, such as routers, switches, 3G access and aggregation devices and servers.
No. 6: ViroPharma
ViroPharma is a pharmaceutical company that develops drugs for diseases which have few treatment options for patients. The company currently offers two products; Vanocin, an antibiotic used when other antibiotics have failed, and Cinryze, a treatment for the autosomal disease Hereditary Angioedema.
No. 7: Rackspace Hosting
Rackspace Hosting offers Web-hosting services to businesses of all sizes around the world. In addition to hosting, the company has divisions devoted to cloud computing and e-mail & apps.
No. 8: Salesforce.com
Salesforce.com is an enterprise cloud computing company focused on business software. Headquartered in San Francisco, the company is known for its customer relationship management (known as CRM) products. These help businesses manage and organize their relationships with customers and clients.
No. 9: Celgene
Celgene is a biopharmaceutical company that engages in the discovery and development of therapies for cancer and immunological diseases. One notable product is Thalomid (Thalidomide), a drug that was linked decades ago to birth defects, but which is now used for the treatment of an inflammatory complication of leprosy. Thalomid received Food and Drug Administration approval in May 2006 for use in the treatment of newly diagnosed multiple myeloma.
No. 10: SolarWinds
SolarWinds has nothing to do with the growing alternate energy industry. Instead, the company concerns itself with network, applications and storage management software. Customers can download software that will help maintain and monitor their IT networks.
Technology
America's 25 Fastest-Growing Tech Companies
John J. Ray, 02.16.11, 06:00 PM ESTThe 25 Fastest Growing Technology Companies in the U.S.
Every annual release of Forbes' 25 Fastest Growing Technology Companies in America includes a revisit of the prior year's list to see how it performed against the market. While the pace may have slowed, the stock market recovery continued. From March 12, 2010, through Feb. 2, 2011, companies on the Nasdaq 100 Technology Sector Index were up 27%; companies on the S&P 500 lagged far behind, but still registered a 13% increase. Our fast-growing techs crushed both indexes, gaining 44% overall, or 34% excluding acquisitions.
Our record of besting the broader market remains intact for the eighth consecutive year.
Last year's Fast Tech class has been a good hunting ground for acquisition targets. Hewlett-Packard ( HPQ - news - people ) snapped up security software firm ArcSight ( ARST - news -people ) and enterprise-level utility storage company 3Par during a 2010 buying spree. In a highly publicized bidding war, HP and Dell( DELL - news - people ) drove 3Par's price up 235% to $32.98 by late September, resulting in the largest increase of all 25 companies. ArcSight increased 62% over the same time span. Credit card and payment company Visa made the third acquisition from our list when it bought electronic payment processorCyberSource ( CYBS - news - people ) (up 38%) for $2 billion in cash last July.
Shares of Riverbed Technology ( RVBD - news - people ), which optimizes IT network and application performance, made the largest advance of the non-acquired businesses, increasing 156% to $35.65. The company also offers cloud computing services, something it has in common with trailing top performers Fortinet, up 139%, and Salesforce, up 78%.
Only seven stocks lost ground. NCI, an IT service provider for the federal government, was the worst offering on the fastest-growing tech list decreasing 28% over our tracking period. The biotechnology sector was the thread linking four underperformers, including Myriad Genetics( MYGN - news - people ) and Gilead Sciences ( GILD - news - people ), down 19% and 17%, respectively.
To find the current crop of fastest-growing techs, we combed over 5,000 technology companies, looking for minimum sales of $25 million and sales growth of at least 10% over the latest 12 months. We also required median long-term (three-to-five year) earnings-per-share growth estimates to be greater than 10%. Finally, we ranked companies on their five-year sales growth, which needed to be in double-digit territory for each year.
Our filtering criteria did not end there. Using detailed scoring data from Audit Integrity, a global governance ratings and research firm (now part of GovernanceMetrics International) we disqualified companies with significant legal concerns, or possible accounting or governance issues. There were more subjective barriers to consider as well, including, but not limited to, information from analysts' reports and other third-party sources.
The 2010 Fast Tech class had the lowest year-to-year turnover since the inception of the list in 2003. Only six companies fell off to make room for new blood, and one of them is not a true newcomer. CommVault Systems ( CVLT - news - people ) qualified for the 2008 and 2009 rankings, but failed to do so last year.
The five new names are probably not ones that the average investor knows, but perhaps should; four debuted in the top 10. The Chicago-based Neutral Tandem placed second overall with a sales growth rate of 100% every year for the past five years. The company enables broadband providers to exchange data between their respective networks. ViroPharma (VPHM - news - people ), the pharmaceutical developer of Cinryze and the antibiotic Vanocin, is sixth, having maintained a sales growth rate of 55% over the same time period.
Rackspace Hosting, (No. 7, 51% sales growth), SolarWinds (No. 10, 43% sales growth) an IT company that has little to do with renewable energy, and Cubist Pharmaceuticals ( CBST -news - people ) (No. 14, 41% sales growth), round out the freshmen.
2010 Forbes Fast Tech List
