Inner City 100

Every year, the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City identifies, ranks, and spotlights the 100 fastest-growing businesses located in America’s inner cities. These companies are experiencing rapid growth—and making a meaningful impact on their cities and communities.

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The Top Ten

TISSINI

NEW

TISSINI is a for-profit social enterprise that offers low-income U.S. Hispanic immigrant women an opportunity to earn extra income and provide for their families. Through a single-level direct sales model, TISSINI's clients purchase wholesale a variety of fashion and home goods sourced from Latin American partners and sell them for a profit. The business provides a simple and flexible channel for extra income that makes a true difference in these women's lives. The Miami-based company has kept all employees onboard with no layoffs through the COVID-19 pandemic. It also has donated thousands of masks to its clients, as well to local nonprofits that help feed individuals in under-resourced communities.

Ekiben

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In 2014, Steve Chu, Ephrem Abebe, and Nikhil Yesupriya purchased a hotdog cart to start Ekiben, an Asian fusion food stand at a local farmers market. Since then, it has grown to occupy brick-and-mortar spaces in Fell's Point and Hampden, two of Baltimore City's most vibrant neighborhoods. It has also won many awards. In 2017, Travel & Leisure named Ekiben the best place to get a sandwich in Maryland. In 2018, Eater nominated Chu and Abebe as semifinalists for its Young Gun Awards. In 2018, Starchefs named Chu a Rising Star in the DC-Chesapeake region. Despite the fanfare, Ekiben remains a brand with a big social conscience. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, it donated sandwiches to neighboring hospitals and set up shops in community centers throughout the city to distribute its steamed buns. Ekiben also attempts to bridge the socioeconomic disparity in a city deeply divided along economic and racial lines. The Baltimore-based company makes creative, high-quality food and pairs it with world-class service and delivers it in a package that people from all walks of life can afford. Ekiben attributes its success to following one recipe very closely: Create a space for anyone, from any demographic, to try something different.

Office Libations

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Office Libations supplies leading companies an automated white glove service to provide their teams with coffee, snacks, refreshments, event services, and both non-alcoholic and alcoholic beverages. Through proprietary technology, it can accurately predict companies refreshment needs before they run out, leading to a smoothly run refreshment service. Its partnerships with small producers and brands allow its clients to receive new hyper-local products on a regular basis, thereby keeping their refreshment program fresh and always interesting. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Office Libations has pivoted to take care of its clients' employees who are working from home. This new service has helped clients to stay connected with their teams through the delivery of custom snacks, happy hour drinks, and holiday-themed boxes. Early in the pandemic, the Oakland-based launched Snacks4Doctors, a service that provided people a way to nominate hospitals and donate snacks to frontline medical professionals.

STRATIS IoT

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Founded by Felicite Moorman and Ryan Buchert, STRATIS IoT creates smart apartments and intelligent buildings. It is the only platform of its kind built for multi-family and student housing. STRATIS is installed in over 380,000 apartments around the world and now also serves hospitality, retail, small to mid-size commercial, and innovative agriculture. The firm was recently acquired by RealPage, a leading global provider of software and data analytics to the real estate industry, to create CommunityConnect, a one-stop shop for community-wide smart access to buildings and units, smart apartments, and high-speed Wi-Fi. STRATIS employees support and volunteer for a variety of local organizations, including Comcast NBCUniversal LIFT Labs Accelerator, Amplify Philly, Philly Startup Leaders, DreamIt Ventures, and The Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce. Most recently, the STRATIS team raised nearly $30,000 for Coded by Kids and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, STRATIS IoT has focused on allowing self-touring of apartments through a smart lock and simplified management platform. It has also revamped its package management platform to better deal with the "everyday Black Friday" delivery onslaught.

Digital Hyve

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Digital Hyve is a full-service digital marketing company that specializes in search engine optimization and marketing, social media advertising, responsive web design, retargeting, targeted online advertising, and reputation management. The Syracuse-based company was founded in 2014 by a former professional Halo player and digital gamer and a skateboarding former TV executive. Since then, the business has seen over five office changes, 50 new hires, and an impressive 10,183% revenue growth in its first six years. Digital Hyve is active in the Syracuse and Rochester neighborhoods where it is based. Many of its employees serve on local non-profit boards. Every November, Digital Hyve runs a Month of Giving initiative that brings awareness to a select number of organizations in its community.

Nyla Technology Solutions

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Nyla Technology Solutions (NTS) is a woman-owned, HUBZone and 8(a) certified small business that provides full-stack, big-data, cloud-architecture software systems engineering and data science. NTS has principally served as a government contractor with a particular focus on the United States Department of Defense (DOD), where work must be done only on-site at designated locations. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic and employees' desire to work from home, NTS is pivoting to diversify its customer base. NTS is headquartered in the heart of Baltimore and actively hires locally. It also gives all employees eight hours a year to volunteer and raises money for a city public school each year.

Security 101

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Security 101 installs security programs and maintains integrated security systems, including access control, video, intercom, and visitor management components. The Norfolk-based company was founded in 2013 and has grown from a mother and son team to 16 employees. Each year, Security 101 participates in the Gift of Security, where it donates a security camera system to a local non-profit. Previous recipients include ForKids, Habitat for Humanity, and Equi-Kids. It has also worked with the local Second Chances program to hire individuals who were previously incarcerated.

SparkOrange

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SparkOrange is a Salesforce Silver Strategic Implementation Partner, providing precision Salesforce consulting, implementation, integration, development, managed services, and training to clients and partners nationwide. The company was founded in 2013 based on the desire of co-founders, Derek Vargas and Aliza Seeber, to bring a socially-conscious, innovative tech company that could contribute to reviving a depressed—but hopeful—economy of Syracuse, New York. SparkOrange supports the local Syracuse community through its SparkHope Initiatives. They include pairing 20 local frontline workers/organizations with food/gift cards supporting local restaurants, hosting a back-to-school supply drive, and providing donations of personal protective equipment supplies to families in need. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, SparkOrange was committed to ensuring that no personnel would be laid off this year. It pivoted by becoming fully remote and increasing transparency to ensure that employees had visibility into company performance.

Veltrust LLC

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Veltrust is a strategic advisory firm that provides strategic planning, market access, government relations and commercial negotiations worldwide. It builds bridges between countries, where government falls short. It achieves this through a combination of commercial diplomacy, consulting, investment, and advisory for world leaders, governments, and companies in the healthcare, fin-tech, hospitality, energy, blockchain, and agri-tech sectors. The Baltimore-based company has helped local businesses scale by aligning them with international trade and development opportunities. Additionally, it has grown to having clients spanning across five continents and over 25 countries globally. Veltrust works to bring foreign investment into local special economic zones and help foreign businesses hire locally by setting up operations in economically disadvantaged areas. During COVID-19 the pandemic, it has helped state and federal government agencies connect to key supply chains in its networks in Southeast Asia. By providing supplies including masks, test kits, hand sanitizers, and goggles, Veltrust helped alleviate critical shortages of these supplies on the East Coast.

Cloudbakers

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Founded by Mitch Greenwald in 2010, Cloudbakers is a cloud solutions and change management partner specializing in optimizing businesses with the latest cloud technology. It is a Google Cloud Premier Partner and Zoho Premium Partner and has recently expanded into data analytics and machine learning. Cloudbakers has undertaken a number of corporate responsibility initiatives. It supports i.c.stars, working to provide low-income young adults with employment opportunities, and provides quarterly donations to Cara, an organization helping people affected by poverty to get and keep quality jobs. Additionally, through its donation matching program, the Chicago-based company has supported over 53 organizations. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Cloudbakers quickly designed no-cost/low-cost rapid standup packages to help companies get working remotely with Google Cloud and Zoho tools in as little as a week. It offered free weekly office hours with its technical experts to help organizations strategize and navigate the new normal. It also opened up many of its paid resources to help organizations (whether clients or not) speed up adoption or refresh their knowledge of cloud tools that they might not have used as much before the pandemic.