Sassy Jones, owned by Charis Jones, was the highest-ranking company in the Richmond area on Inc. Magazine’s list of Inc. Magazine’s 5,000 Fastest Growing Private Companies. (BizSense file)
The Richmond area has improved its position on a list of the fastest growing private companies in the country.
Forty-four local businesses were featured in Inc. Magazine’s annual Inc. 5000 rankings published this week, based on revenue growth over the past three calendar years. That’s 41 local businesses on last year’s list.
Richmond-based retail brand Sassy Jones once again led all regional competitors, ranking 24th on this year’s list with growth of 12,736 percent. The company shot up the rankings from last year when it was 75th, growing 4,516 percent.
Sassy Jones’ leadership was unavailable for comment on Tuesday.
The rest of the regional crop included everything from veterinarians to vape shops in Richmond, Henrico, Chesterfield, Colonial Heights, and elsewhere.
VetEvolve, a veterinary company, ranked 2,264 on the list with growth of 188 percent over three years.
The company was founded in 2014 by Paul habenicht and Nick Lodestro. This is the first time the company has received this kind of national attention.
“We grew from the start,” says habenicht. “We started from scratch and grew to over $ 30 million in sales. We enjoyed rapid growth. “
Have not said that part of the company’s success is taking care of its employees and focusing heavily on payroll and inventory management, and making sure everything is handled properly.
“Growth is a by-product of our approach. We are a people business; We have vendors who talk to customers and have a very tough eight hour day. Being a vet is difficult. We have to support them, and if we enable them to do their job, the business will grow, ”he said
Vape Guys, a manufacturer and distributor of vape and CBD products from Colonial Heights, has made it onto the Inc. list for at least the third year in a row. This year, it ranked 4,065 with 75 percent growth, after 1,252 in 2020 and 518 in 2019.
Yan Gleyzer, owner of Vape Guys, said growth has slowed due to the pandemic.
“We lost many of our accounts that were completely closed. Our exports used to go to countries like Iceland, South Africa and Israel and these countries have been hit by COVID and locked with no imports or exports. Without COVID we would have increased by at least 200 percent, “he said.
The years leading up to the pandemic were fueled by attempts to attract customers and keep product movement going, as well as acquisitions.
“My sales team and I have been to trade fairs all over the world to acquire new customers. We grew quickly through customer service and product fulfillment, ”said Gleyzer.
But in the last few months since the reopening began, Gleyzer said growth is on another fast path with sales increasing 100 percent per month. He said the company is well on its way to doubling last year’s sales this year.
He said the COVID-era problem of finding employees is also starting to fade.
“Now we can finally recruit more and more people. We hired 15 more people just to keep up with demand, ”he said.
From here, Gleyzer said, they aim for further growth of 100 to 200 percent per year. It recently acquired another company in Texas and is expanding its network in Dallas.
“We hope to continue expanding and be a leading distributor in the country,” he said.
Outside of Richmond, 310 Virginia-based companies were on this year’s list. At the top was Olympic Media, an Arlington-based company that reported growth of 20,330 percent.
Outside the Commonwealth, the fastest growing company in the country was California-based human resources company Human Bees, which grew 48,345 percent.
For the full Inc. 5000 ranking, click here. and see below for the list of Richmond companies.
| company | Inc. 5000 ranking | Growth percentage |
| Naughty Jones | 24 | 12,736 |
| CLOTH & PAPER | 242 | 1,858 |
| Dobrin properties | 453 | 1,073 |
| Spinnaker Advisory Group | 519 | 941 |
| Terazo | 579 | 838 |
| Blue ocean brain | 1,057 | 458 |
| Team Keeley | 1,095 | 445 |
| Old Dominion mechanics | 1,246 | 386 |
| Executive placements | 1,375 | 345 |
| Forsyte IT solutions | 1,455 | 325 |
| Practice Actions | 1,762 | 259 |
| Continue irrigation franchise | 1,802 | 252 |
| main square | 1,817 | 250 |
| United Real Estate Richmond | 1,832 | 248 |
| VetEvolve | 2,264 | 188 |
| Paymerang | 2,373 | 178 |
| Elite Force Holdings | 2,465 | 170 |
| Oakhill Investments | 2,482 | 169 |
| Speed RVA | 2,514 | 167 |
| Genesis consulting partner | 2,550 | 163 |
| Brandito | 2,662 | 153 |
| The Hilb Group | 2,721 | 148 |
| Cava company | 2,786 | 143 |
| Keep current affairs | 2,806 | 142 |
| Simple thread | 2,825 | 141 |
| Turn away | 2,861 | 138 |
| ProfitOptics | 3,080 | 123 |
| Lingo staff | 3,426 | 102 |
| NetSearch Direct | 3,629 | 93 |
| The Jenny Maraghy team | 3,758 | 87 |
| 37. Parallel properties | 3,844 | 83 |
| AIS network | 3,877 | 82 |
| All points broadband | 4,009 | 77 |
| Vape guys | 4,065 | 75 |
| Employment drive | 4,227 | 69 |
| Colab multimedia | 4,466 | 60 |
| Assura | 4,486 | 60 |
| Dominion Payroll | 4,509 | 59 |
| DJB Hospitality / Sedona Taphouse Restaurants | 4,570 | 57 |
| NDSE | 4,595 | 56 |
| Timmons group | 4,696 | 52 |
| Management of the channel chapter | 4,723 | 51 |
| CapTech advice | 4,766 | 48 |
| Solvaries | 4,957 | 40 |