71 Baltimore-area companies made this year’s Inc. 5000

Inc. 5000 unveiled its 2020 list of the fastest-growing privately owned companies in the nation this week, and the Baltimore area is on the rise, as 71 local companies made the list compared to 57 last year.

Hunt a Killer is number six on the list. Founded by Ryan Hogan and Derrick Smith, the Baltimore-based company ships murder mysteries straight to your home. The founders attribute their secret sauce to the authenticity of the product.

“Instead of reading a book or going to the movie theater or watching a television show, this is immersive entertainment that you can touch, feel, and smell,” Hogan told Baltimore magazine in 2018. “People are having a lot of fun. … As long as we’re accomplishing that, everything else will fall into place.”

Last year it was Towson-based Confidio that topped the list among locals at #81. This year, the pharmacy consulting firm rings in at #452.

There were plenty of other familiar faces this time around. Locust Point’s Mindgrub Technologies (#3,813), for instance, is a repeat honoree; we recently covered how designers and developers from the team donated time to build the Maryland Business Relief Wizard helping businesses determine whether they’re eligible for COVID-19 relief programs. And local companies Edwards Performance Solutions (#4,624) and Audacious Inquiry (#4,931) have been showing growth and making Inc. 5000’s list for a decade.

In a press release, Audacious Inquiry CEO Chris Brandt thanked his team and “the importance of — and demand for — connected care” for the continued growth. In April, the Baltimore health IT company launched a new open source project to galvanize data sharing across the agencies seeking to treat and stop the spread of COVID-19.

Here are a few more familiar faces that made the list this year:

• Index Analytics (#1,403)
• Motifworks (#1,491)
• Sonatype (#2,098)
• Alderson Loop (#3,450)
• Webmechanix (#3,512)
• CadmiumCD (#4,194)

Donte Kirby is a 2020-2022 corps member for Report for America, an initiative of The Groundtruth Project that pairs young journalists with local newsrooms. This position is supported by the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation.