San Diego–based Sun Home Saunas, growing revenue at a clip of 8,821% over the past three years, is the 20th-fastest-growing company in the nation and one of the 672 Inc. 5000 firms in California.
Photo of Sun Home Saunas co-founders Adam Fischer (left) and Tyler Fish courtesy of Sun Home Saunas
They slug it out in politics. Their GDPs are larger than those of many countries. Their annual crops of young athletes are perennially the most coveted by college and professional sports.
Why shouldn’t California and Texas also do battle in the arena of fast-growing companies, with Florida lurking in their rear-view mirrors?
Actually, the battle is mostly for second place: California has 200 more Inc. 5000 companies than Texas, with Florida another 10 behind.
When the Inc. 5000 list of the fastest-growing companies in the United States is published every year, Site Selection takes fast action to analyze something even Inc. does not: Evaluate in cumulative and per-capita terms which states, metros, cities and industry sectors lead the way when measured by number of Inc. 5000 firm headquarters.
Thanks to the data collection, tabulation and calculation work of Director of Programming and Analytics Daniel Boyer, Data Services Manager Karen Medernach, Senior Research Associate Brian Espinoza and Research Associate McKenzie Wright, we kick off this year’s series with a look at state performance. Here are the top 10 by total Inc. 5000 companies, which in turn were determined by percentage revenue growth between 2021 and 2024:
Top States by Number of 2025 Inc. 5000 Firms
| State | No. of Firms | 2024 Rank | 2024 No. of Firms | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | California | 649 | 1 | 672 |
| 2 | Texas | 518 | 2 | 481 |
| 3 | Florida | 451 | 3 | 471 |
| 4 | New York | 340 | 4 | 336 |
| 5 | Virginia | 277 | 5 | 269 |
| 6 | Illinois | 257 | 6 | 247 |
| 7 | Georgia | 239 | 7 | 227 |
| 8 | Pennsylvania | 153 | 8 | 163 |
| 9 | Arizona | 137 | 10 | 137 |
| 10 | Massachusetts | 135 | 9 | 139 |
The findings are nearly a repeat of last year’s top 10, with Arizona and Massachusetts switching places at No. 9 and No. 10. The most notable upward leaper by sheer number is Texas, which this year hosts 37 more Inc. 5000 companies than it did last year. No. 7 Georgia’s total rose by 12, while Illinois now has 10 more firms in the Inc. 5000 club than it did a year ago.
California is home to 13.4% of Inc. 5000 companies. Altogether, the 2,229 firms located in the top five states account for 44.6% of all 5,000.
Five of the 20 fastest-growing firms are based in California, including the nation’s fastest-growing company AKOOL, an AI video generation company based in Palo Alto, and No. 6 company EnergyAid, a solar services firm based in Santa Ana.
The nation’s sixth-fastest-growing company, solar service firm EnergyAid, is based in Santa Ana, California, and has eight offices in California and Arizona, including a new office that opened last year in San Bernardino.
Photo courtesy of EnergyAid
AKOOL’s latest technology turns still images into AI-generated videos. Its three-year growth in revenue? A mere 37,364%. Among its recent innovations is AKOOL Live Suite, a set of tools that enable live avatars, real-time face swap, AI video translation and live AI video generation.
Excuse me, did you say, “live face swap”? Are “Face/Off “and “Mission: Impossible”-style cinematic stunts becoming de rigeur? Indeed, the technology “swaps faces in real time with precision and emotion retention, allowing speakers to represent different identities while maintaining authentic performance.” The company’s promotions call attention to the technology’s ability to change to a “target race” and note that “a CEO can deliver a keynote across regions, with their avatar adapting both language and gestures … Most importantly, AKOOL gives users the option to turn off their camera entirely. With consent, avatars can fully represent them live, easing camera fatigue, anxiety and the burnout that defined the Zoom era.”
While some may define “authentic” differently from others, it’s easy to see how the company last November achieved the milestone of $40 million in invoiced annual recurring revenue.
Image courtesy of AKOOL
Among the suite’s more relatable tools for some is real-time multilingual translation for live conversations with support for more than 150 languages. “Effortlessly localize and globalize your message with native-quality voice output and synced lip movement,” the company promises. And if you want to take it a step further, the company announced in August the debut of holographic avatars for physical environments such as retail, education, live events, museums and corporate settings.
AKOOL also has locations in Seoul, Shanghai, Toronto and Singapore. It’s one of five top 50 Inc. 5000 companies that are focused on AI and data. That fits well with an overall trend revealed this week by CBRE’s newly published Scoring Tech Talent 2025 report.
“Of all the tech talent job postings out there, 20% related to AI, which is double the share we saw during the peak of the hiring boom in 2022,” said Colin Yasukochi, executive director of the CBRE Tech Insights Center, in a webinar I attended yesterday. And yes, the Bay Area is home to a lot of those jobs. “AI companies currently occupy 6 million square feet of a 90-million-square-foot market,” said his colleague Caroline O’Laughlin, with more big deals waiting to be inked over the balance of this year and into 2026.
In New York City, located in the No. 4 state by total Inc. 5000 firms, Sascha Zarba, vice chairman in the Midtown Manhattan office of CBRE and co-founder of CBRE’s Technology & Media Practice Group, said tech companies in the metro-area market had leased 3 million sq. ft. of space by the end of 2024, the highest annual total since 2019. And he presented this stat: “In 2020, AI companies as an overall percentage of pure tech companies was 3%. Today, year-to-date 2025, they make up over 17% of that sector. It’s a staggering increase and speaks to the overall influence AI is having.”
(Watch for more from the CBRE report in an upcoming Site Selection newsletter. Data from the scorecard is also central to the publication’s annual North American Tech Hubs Index, slated to be published in January 2026.)
The highest-ranking Inc. 5000 firm in No. 2 state Texas is a manufacturer: Based in McKinney, Maverick Power, which manufactures power distribution solutions, operates five manufacturing facilities across North Texas and Phoenix (including an R&D HQ in Phoenix) “delivering custom-engineered solutions to critical sectors including data centers, healthcare, industrial, and energy infrastructure,” the company states. The growth achievement follows news in June that Ernst & Young LLP (EY US) had named Tom Currier, the company’s president and CEO, Entrepreneur of the Year 2025 Southwest Award winner.
Nation’s Per-Capital
Viewed through a per-capita lens, the 277 firms in No. 1 state Virginia combine with the 34 firms in the District of Columbia to pack quite a wallop for the nation’s capital region.
Combine those results with Virginia’s No. 5 finish in total number of Inc. 5000 firms, and the commonwealth emerges as an overall champion. Toss in No. 3 Delaware and No. 7 Maryland, and it’s an impressive showing for the Mid-Atlantic.
Top States/Territories by 2025 Inc. 5000 Firms Per Capita
| State/Territory | No. of Firms | Firms/1M Residents | 2024 Rank | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Virginia | 277 | 31.437 | 1 |
| 2 | Delaware | 27 | 25.668 | 9 |
| 3 | Utah | 87 | 24.832 | 2 |
| 4 | Georgia | 239 | 21.376 | 5 |
| 5 | Illinois | 257 | 20.22 | 7 |
| 6 | Maryland | 124 | 19.798 | 12 |
| 7 | Colorado | 117 | 19.639 | 3 |
| 8 | Florida | 451 | 19.296 | 4 |
| 9 | Massachusetts | 135 | 18.918 | 6 |
| 10 | Wyoming | 11 | 18.72 | 8 |
If it were a state, the District of Columbia would be No. 1 in this category, as it’s home to 34 Inc. 5000 firms with a ratio of 48.4 such firms per 1 million residents. The biggest jumps among the top 10 are Delaware shooting to second place from No. 9 last year and Maryland halving its ranking number from No. 12 to No. 6.
The highest-ranking Inc. 5000 firm in the nation’s capital region is No. 34 Artemis ARC, a consultancy based in Alexandria, Virginia, that works with federal agencies in areas ranging from communications to hiring to “improve performance, streamline delivery and strengthen mission execution.”
Commenting on her own company’s performance, Aly Glick, president of Artemis ARC, said of the Inc. 5000 ranking, “This achievement reflects our team’s dedication, our clients’ trust and our shared commitment to delivering mission-driven results. Like many in the federal contracting community, we faced a challenging start to the year as DOGE cuts reshaped the industry landscape. Those changes tested our resilience, but they also sharpened our focus and strengthened our resolve. We are energized by the opportunities ahead and ready to partner with clients to address the nation’s most critical challenges.” — Adam Bruns
Watch this space over the coming weeks for additional Site Selection Snapshots naming and exploring top Inc. 5000 metros, cities and industry sectors. Don’t want to miss the next installment? Sign up for the newsletter here.
