Inc. 5000 report: Kansas City retailers among metro’s fastest growing companies

Shoppers are buying, spurring retail growth in Kansas City, according to details gleaned from the 2018 Inc. 5000 fastest-growing companies list.

Released Wednesday morning, the report showed a slight dip in performance for Kansas City overall compared to 2017. Three dozen Kansas City-area firms landed on the 2018 Inc. 5000 list, a drop from the 40 companies that earned spots in 2017’s ranking.

Nickel & Suede

Also down is the number of area firms that landed in the top-500 fastest growing firms — from four in 2017 to two in 2018.

Those two firms — Nickel & Suede (No. 127) and Mer-Sea & Co. (No. 279) — are both in retail. Nickel & Suede, a Liberty-based company that creates handmade leather goods, experienced a 3,101 percent growth with $4.1 million in revenue. Mer-Sea & Co., a Lenexa-based provider of clothing and fashion accessories, reported 1,750 percent growth with $6.6 million in revenue.

Homegrown T-shirt powerhouse Charlie Hustle also made the list at No. 988, reporting 497 percent growth with $4.5 million in revenue.

Six fast-growing tech firms also landed in the Inc. 5000, including Procure IT Network, DataLocker, Rx Savings Solutions and others.

Rx Savings Solutions was among Startland’s Top Kansas City Startups to Watch in 2018.

The fastest-growing Kansas City-area company in 2017 — Lever1, which earned the No. 44 spot overall — remained on the Inc. 5000 list but dropped to No. 1907.

Here are the top-10 fastest growing companies in the Kansas City area, according to the Inc. 5000 list.  

Overland Park companies fared well in the report, boasting more than a dozen entries across industries. They included:

• Tickets for Less (No. 1122, 439 percent growth);
• Prism Real Estate Services (No. 1451, 322  percent growth);
• DataLocker (No. 1564, 299 percent growth);
• Rx Savings Solutions (No. 1630, 284 percent growth);
• United States Appraisals (No. 2542, 168 percent growth);
• DEG (No. 3051, 132 percent growth);
• D&L Transport (No. 3133, 126 percent growth);
• Avenue Link (No. 3226, 122 percent growth);
• Go Local Interactive (No. 3365, 115 percent growth);
• Platinum Realty (No. 3419, 112 percent growth);
• Dimensional Innovations (No. 3516, 107 percent growth);
• ProPharma Group (No. 3733, 98 percent growth); and
• Titan Protection and Consulting (No. 4020, 88 percent growth).

Alight Analytics, a marketing analytics technology firm in Kansas City, Missouri, was among those appearing on the list for a third consecutive year, the company said, placing at No. 4,241.

“We’re not standing still — we’re hitting the accelerator,” said Michelle Jacobs, Alight’s president and co-founder.

Check out the full Inc. 5000 list here.