Five in-state firms, led by Boulder’s PopSockets, are among the top 100

Inc. magazine this week published its annual rankings of the fastest-growing private companies in America. It’s called the Inc. 5,000, and 136 Colorado firms made the list. Of the 136 state companies, five made the top 100.

Boulder company PopSockets, which makes a popular smartphone accessory, was No. 2 on the list with three-year growth of 71,424 percent. Its revenue in 2017 was $169 million.

University of Colorado Boulder philosophy professor David Barnett founded the company.

“I started with the dream of seeing my invention on a peg at a retail store so that I could say to my friends, ‘Hey, you know, I invented that,’ and now it’s blown up into a surreal phenomenon with sales of tens of millions of units around the world,” Barnett said in a statement published in the Daily Camera of Boulder.

The other four in-state businesses that made the top 100 were No. 4 Velocity Global, business products and services, Denver, 39,817 percent growth, $49.2 million in revenue; No. 48 Mindful Health, health, Evergreen, 5,463 percent, $19.7 million; No. 68 Pax8, software, Greenwood Village, 4,393 percent, $11 million; and No. 83 AdCellerant, advertising and marketing, Denver, 3,945 percent, $8.9 million.

The companies on the Inc. list had collective revenue of $206.2 billion in 2017, up significantly from $79.8 billion in 2014.

For the record, Wisconsin-based shipping software firm SwanLeap was first on the list with three-year growth of 75,661 percent and $99 million in revenue.