Two Chattanooga companies among fastest-growing U.S. tech firms

Two local technology companies that delivered big growth from 2017 to 2020 have made the Deloitte Fast 500 list for the first time, and are among just six Tennessee technology companies on the ranking this year.

Text Request, which builds text messaging software for small businesses, is on the list for the first time at No. 108 with 1,355% growth. FreightWaves, a provider of supply chain and logistics data, news and information, debuted on the list at No. 210, with 651% growth.

"It's definitely motivating and something everyone can really rally around day-to-day," said Text Request CEO Brian Elrod.

Though FreightWaves is both a media company and a software company, the Deloitte list is technology-specific and only looks at the software side of the business, said CEO Craig Fuller. The pandemic gutted the company's live events business in 2020, but raised the profile of the logistics and supply chain FreightWaves provides, he said.

"In '21 we've seen a huge amount of tailwind coming from the supply chain side," he said, noting that this list only measures growth through 2020.

Staff photo by Tim Barber/ Freightwaves CEO Craig Fuller stands in Freight Alley, the downstairs portion of the 405 Chestnut St. headquarters.

In August, both companies were also listed for the first time on the Inc. 5000 list of the country's fastest growing companies in any sector. FreightWaves came in at No. 85, while Text Request was at No. 335. Eleven other Chattanooga companies also made that list, with rankings ranging from 619 to 4,961.

Inclusion on the Deloitte list feels like a more substantial accomplishment than the Inc. list, in part because the Deloitte list puts the Chattanooga-based businesses in the same company as massive technology firms including Uber and Lyft, Fuller said.

"We're talking about very large scale, tier-one tech companies," Fuller said.

Founded in 2016, FreightWaves has gone almost fully remote in the last year, with a core team of about 20 people who produce a daily newscast in the downtown Chattanooga office and another 150 employees in Chattanooga and beyond.

Text Request, founded in 2014, has about 30 employees and moved in May into a new downtown headquarters on Market Street. As big as the last few years have been for Text Request, Elrod said he sees even bigger things ahead.

Their largest competitor, Zipwhip, has a new owner that decided to jettison its texting communication business, which means 20,000 potential clients will be looking for the services Text Request provides. The technical teams are building out Text Request integrations with Zipwhip to entice those clients, Elrod said.

In addition, the business is launching a text-to-pay service in December that allows businesses to send bills and collect payments over text.

The pandemic had boosted their business as much of the world has gone remote, Elrod said.

"Definitely people are asking for touchless communications, but, frankly, we didn't know that as it all started and we were all sent home," Elrod said. "We were very nervous like everyone else."

Contact Mary Fortune at mfortune@timesfreepress.com. Follow her on Twitter at @maryfortune.