Spokane tech firms honored

Two area high-tech companies landed among the top 15 in the annual Deloitte Fast 50 ranking of fastest-growing businesses in the Pacific Northwest.

Liberty Lake-based ISR Inc. came in ninth in the new survey. The company, which develops high-end cooling systems for electronics, reported sales growth of 618 percent over the past five years.

Spokane Valley-based World Wide Packets, Inc. ranked 11th on the list, which only tracks companies in Oregon, Washington and Idaho. World Wide Packets reported growth of 550 percent between 2001 and 2005. The firm makes broadband networking devices for computer systems.

The rankings are produced by Deloitte & Touche USA LLP, an accounting and consulting firm.

A third local company, Liberty Lake-based Itron, Inc., was 29th on the new list. It reported five-year growth of 145 percent.

To qualify, companies must have had operating revenues of at least $50,000 in 2001 and $5 million in 2005, be headquartered in North America, and be a company owning proprietary technology or proprietary intellectual property that contributes to a significant portion of the company’s operating revenues.

Nine of the top 10 for the current Deloitte list are based in Washington. The top 10 are:

The InSitu Group, Inc., of Bingen, Wash.; Seattle Genetics, Inc., Bothell; WhitePages.Com, Inc., of Seattle; Global Market Insite, Inc., of Mercer Island; SAFLINK Corp., Kirkland; Attenex Corp., Seattle; MILA, Inc., Mountlake Terrace; HouseValues, Inc., Kirkland; ISR Inc., Liberty Lake; Digimarc Corp., Beaverton, Ore.

The only Idaho firm on the Top 50 list was AMIS Holdings, Inc., of Pocatello. It ranked 45th.

Insitu Group, which develops unmanned aircraft, led the list with 9,140 percent revenue growth, according to a Deloitte press release. The regional average for all 50 companies on the list came to 607 percent.