26 Midwest Companies in Top 250 of the Inc. 5000 Fastest Growing 2026

The 2026 Inc. 5000 list of the Fastest Growing Companies in the nation was released last week, with 26 companies from across the Midwest cracking the top 250. The 26 spanned nine states and cover everything from Artificial Intelligence to frozen waffles and even a downhill mountain bike park in the Ozarks.

The annual ranking orders America's fastest-growing private companies by percentage revenue growth between 2022 to 2025. This year's honorees collectively generated more than $385 billion in 2025 revenue, added over 627,000 jobs in three years, and posted a median three-year growth rate of 130%, with every Midwest company covered here growing at least 10x faster than that median.

The list is open to any company that is for-profit and privately held, and this overall showing is also a useful counterpoint to our region's startup and venture capital narrative. Our most recent data shows Midwest startup funding totaled $1.27 billion across 114 deals in Q2 2026, which is a modest share of a record national quarter. The Inc. 5000 looks at revenue only and compared it to our earlier analysis of Inc.'s regional list of fastest-growing Midwest companies.

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Illinois leads the pack, and the region

Illinois placed nine companies in the top 250, more than any other Midwest state — fitting, given the state often leads funding volume as it did in Q2.

At the top sits Loop, a startup which Inc. lists in Chicago, making it the region's highest-ranked company in the No. 10 position with a staggering 14,831% growth. Founded in 2021, the company built an AI-native logistics data platform that now manages more than $25 billion in annual freight and parcel spend, automating the audit and payment work that often still runs on manual processes inside global supply chains. According to their own LinkedIn page, Loop is currently based in San Francisco and has raised $195 million from investors including Valor Equity Partners and J.P. Morgan Growth Equity Partners.

The AI infrastructure story doesn't stop there. Introl, also from Chicago, is at No. 56 overall with 4,791% growth. It was founded by former data center engineer Ryan Puckett in 2021, and deploys and cables the physical GPU clusters powering the AI boom; the company says it has handled installations of up to 100,000 GPUs and fields a global network of contract engineers from its headquarters in the West Loop.

The rest of the Illinois contingent shows a broad range of growth across multiple industries. Jet Freight Services (No. 40, 6,360% growth) is a trucking carrier that posted the Midwest's fourth-best growth rate in the middle of a years-long freight recession. RSD Construction (No. 67, 4,210%) builds commercial spaces for national brands like Crumbl and Kiddie Academy and CXO (No. 84, 3,207%) runs invitation-only summits connecting technology, security, and finance executives. Check out all the Midwest companies in the Top 250 via our table below.

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Ohio: five in top 250 of Inc. 5000, three in healthcare

Ohio landed five companies in the top 250, a counterpoint to the state's venture funding which fell 85% in Q2, even as the national total tripled. No surprise that revenue growth doesn't care about term sheets.

Ivim Health (No. 38, 6,806% growth) of Columbus is the state's highest-ranked company. Founded in 2021 by brothers Anthony and Dr. Taylor Kantor - one from tech, the other a cardiac surgeon - the self-funded telehealth provider has scaled to roughly 100 licensed clinicians treating weight, hormone, and cardiometabolic conditions across all 50 states.

Two other Ohio healthcare companies rank right behind Ivim. Exact Medicare (No. 46, 5,567%) was founded in 2021, and is an independent brokerage helping seniors navigate Medicare enrollment. Encore Wound Care (No. 47, 5,515%) is Cleveland's fastest-growing company and a repeat honoree after ranking No. 32 last year. It sends clinicians into skilled nursing and long-term care facilities to treat wounds at the bedside, growing through new markets and acquisitions.

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Michigan and Minnesota: from visual AI to community solar

Michigan had three companies in the Top 250 of this list, with first in the state being Catapult at No. 125 overall with 2,378% growth. The company supplies independent restaurants with delivery-optimized virtual brands and counts ID Ventures and Detroit Venture Partners as investors. TPC Construction (No. 219, 1,552%) is a design-build remodeler. And Voxel51 (No. 221, 1,550%) is the visual AI company behind the open-source FiftyOne platform. The company is listed by Inc. in Ann Arbor, but has a largely dispersed work force as we detailed in our founder story with Voxel51 co-founder Brian Moore. Voxel51 has raised $45.5 million in funding so far from investors including Bessemer Venture Partners and Drive Capital.

In Minnesota, Enterprise Energy (No. 114, 2,493%) was the top-ranked company among 67 honorees from the Minneapolis–St. Paul metro on the full list. Enterprise Energy is a community solar and battery storage developer riding surging demand for distributed clean energy. 

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Indiana, the Plains, and everywhere in between

S.W.A.N. Virtual Family Office (No. 119, 2,405%) of Evansville led Indiana's 65 honorees, bringing family-office-style tax and wealth planning to high earners and business owners while Indianapolis-based Achieve Behavior Alliance Plus (No. 196, 1,727%), founded by parents of children on the autism spectrum, delivers in-home ABA therapy across the state.

The rest of the Midwest proves fast growing companies can be built almost anywhere. Leadzolo of Grand Forks, North Dakota, is the Midwest's second-fastest growing company overall at No. 32 in the list with a 7,839% growth rate , and sells pay-per-lead services to real estate investors. Forged Authority of Dyersville, Iowa — yes, the Field of Dreams town - was No. 135 in the list with 2,255% growth and pairs contract metal fabrication with its own line of modular truck gear panels. Meanwhile Missouri had two companies with Howler Bike Park in the Ozarks at No. 197 (1,722% growth), and Emporia (No. 233, 1,459%) of Columbia, which builds inventory and point-of-sale software for the resale industry. Strata (No. 250, 1,339%) of Wichita, Kansas rounded out the top 250, delivering engineering and compliance services for salt storage caverns and injection wells — infrastructure work that dates back to 1999 and that's found new momentum in the energy transition.

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Think you can cut it for next year?

To qualify, companies need to be U.S.-based, privately held, independent, and generating at least $100,000 in revenue in 2022 with a minimum of $2 million by 2025. Those parameters are unlikely to change, so take a look at the full ranking at inc.com/inc5000 and keep a note of when and how to submit for 2027.

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