It is with great pleasure that I present the second annual edition of Ottawa's Fastest Growing Companies.

It is our intention with this program to seek out and recognize privately held companies that can demonstrate strong growth while remaining cash-flow positive. After consulting with local accountants, we established somewhat stringent criteria to ensure companies that have made the cut represent the best of what Ottawa has to offer.

To qualify, companies must be headquartered in the National Capital Region or adjacent municipalities and have completed three fiscal years with financials that had been verified by a third-party accountant with either a review engagement or audit.

Provided these criteria were met, we were open to any private company in any industry. Each company was evaluated and ranked based on its percentage revenue growth between the first year and the third year of its most recently completed three-year fiscal period. The company must also have been cash-flow positive in all three years. To ensure we were attracting established companies of substance, we also imposed minimum revenue requirements. In year one of the qualifying period, each company must have had revenues of at least $100,000 and of least $750,000 in year three.

While we agreed not to publish specific financial figures, since such information is confidential for a privately held company, I can say that most of the companies on the list enjoy annual sales in the millions, even tens of millions in a few cases.

Not surprisingly, the majority of our applicants were once again high tech firms, but I was happy to see that this year's list also boasts a gourmet burger chain, a commercial real estate firm, a plastics recycling firm founded by a Cornwall entrepreneur, and a job shop machining company eager to dominate the local market.

Several companies also requalified for this year's list. They are Macadamian Technologies, which held onto third place, The Works Gourmet Burger Bistro, Fidus Systems, and TRM Technologies. In addition, two other companies from last year's list, while not making the Top 10 this year, did requalify. They were Protus IP Solutions, with revenue growth of 57 per cent, and Chipworks, with revenue growth of 14 per cent.

I would also like to welcome as title sponsor for the event labour and employment law firm Emond Harnden.

In this week's issue of the Ottawa Business Journal, we featured a Q&A with the chief executives of the three fastest growing companies, QMR Staffing Solutions, inRound Innovations and Macadamian Technologies, as well as profiles of each of the 10 companies.

Read, enjoy and learn what has allowed these companies to achieve strong and sustainable growth.

Cheers

Leo Valiquette

Editor

THE LIST

(Companies ranked by percentage revenue growth

over three-year period)

1) QMR Staffing Solutions Inc. 1,508%

2) inRound Innovations Inc. 181%

3) Macadamian Technologies Inc. 161%

4) Primecorp Commercial Realty 156%

5) Knor Plast Inc. 145%

6) Halogen Software Inc. 124%

7) Billet Precision Ltd. 103%

8) Fidus Systems Inc. 89%

9) TRM Technologies Inc. 83%

10) The Works Gourmet Burger Bistro 80%