HTML View

Who was eligible? Companies headquartered in the seven-county area of Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry and Will in Illinois and Lake County in Indiana, with 2016 revenue of at least $15 million. In the interest of finding continuously growing companies, qualifying applicants had to have revenue growth from 2015-16 and no more than one year of declining revenue at any point from 2011-15. All in all, we vetted 111 applications to find this year's Fast 50. How did we keep it fair? Sales for 2011 and 2016 were validated with documentation from each applicant. Publicly traded companies were checked against filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and privately held companies provided audited financial statements, tax returns or other formal documentation. The five-year growth percentage was calculated using the full revenue figures, and those figures were used to break ties. In cases where a company's inception date was in 2011, we prorated that year's revenue to fairly measure growth among the other firms. Employee numbers refer to full-time staff as of Dec. 31. Crain's worked with the Chicago office of Plante & Moran to assist in verifying the financial documents provided by applicants. Plante & Moran is not liable for any information published; Crain's editorial staff is responsible for determining the contents of this ranking. Published: June 22, 2017. Lead photo: Manuel Martinez. Research: Madeline Scott. Research director: Sabrina Gasulla. Design and web development: Jason McGregor and Lana Gwinn. Copy editors: Valentina Djeljosevic, Danielle Narcissé. Editor: Cassie Walker Burke. See profiles and more at www.chicagobusiness.com/fast50.