Silicon Valley Staffing Group, based in Emeryville, California, has been named as one of America’s entrepreneurial growth leaders by Inc magazine, which today released its annual ranking of the Inc 500, the nation’s fastest-growing private companies.
Starting in 1982, the Inc 500 ranks the nation’s leading entrepreneurial firms according to sales growth over the previous five years. Former Inc 500 companies that have gone on to become household names include Microsoft, Timberland, Domino’s Pizza and Patagonia. This year’s Inc 500 set a record in terms of both collective sales and growth rates, racking up a collective total of $12.5 billion in sales and an average 5-year growth rate of almost 2,000 percent.
Silicon Valley Staffing Group achieved some 7,384 percent growth in the past five years, with sales growing from $208,000 in 1996 to $15,567,000 in 2000. Silicon Valley Staffing Group is a full service staffing company that focuses on both temporary and direct placements in the administrative, light industrial, financial, and technology sectors.
It is exciting and gratifying to be included in Inc Magazine’s extremely prestigious ranking, said Eugene Lupario CEO. It shows the spectacular results that may be achieved through focus and teamwork. We could not have been successful without the incredible team that we have here.
California is once again home to the greatest number of Inc 500 businesses this year (59), followed by New York (33). Massachusetts and Texas tied for third place, each having 29 ranked companies, followed by Virginia (27) and Florida (26). New York City, meanwhile is the metro area with the greatest number of Inc 500 companies, with 39 located there, followed by Washington DC (31), Boston (30), San Francisco (26) and Chicago (24).
Among the key trends: Inc 500 enterprises are dramatically larger than they were 10 years ago, with an average of 160 employees, compared with just 61 employees on average in 1991. In existence an average of eight years, 56 percent were started at home, approximately 63 percent of which had five or less employees when they moved from home. About 50 percent were started with an investment of $20,000 or less, and 15 percent were started with less than $1,000. The companies as a group generated a total of 80,188 jobs and some 76 percent of Inc 500 companies were profitable in 2000.
Reflecting the technology boom in the past five years, the largest percentage (38%) of Inc 500 companies were in computer software and services, followed by diversified services, such as human resources and advertising, (21%). Telecommunications was a distant third with 5 percent.
The Inc 500 gives America a window on the future which companies will be the Microsoft’s and Timberlands of tomorrow, said George Gendron, Inc editor-in-chief. The economy may have slowed, but entrepreneurial enterprises have always been, and will continue to be, the nation’s foremost engine of growth and job creation.
To be eligible for this year’s Inc 500, companies had to be independent and privately held through 2000, have at least $200,000 in sales in the base year of 1996, and their 2000 sales had to have exceeded 1999 sales. Holding companies, regulated banks and utilities are not eligible. Inc verifies all information using tax forms and financial statements from certified public accountants and by conducting interviews with company officials.
Founded in 1979, Boston-based Inc magazine was acquired last year by G+J USA, one of America’s largest magazine publishers and is part of the company’s newly-formed Business Innovator Group. G+J USA also publishes Fast Company, Rosie, Child, Family Circle, Fitness, Homestyle, Parents, and YM. The company is 25.1 percent owned by the Jahr Group and 74.9 percent owned by Bertelsmann AG, the largest privately held and the fifth largest media company in the world with revenues at $16 billion.