Three Wilmington-based businesses found themselves on the 2014 Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing companies in the U.S., which was released Wednesday. One company, in its first appearance on the annual list, landed at No. 10, the highest spot for any North Carolina company this year.

The local up-and-comers were Go Energies, N2 Publishing and LoadMatch Logistics.
 
Go Energies, a company whose software and hardware helps its fuel industry customers manage their fuel buying, fleet cards, tank sales and site management, logged a three-year growth rate of just over 16,000 percent. The company, founded in 2009, posted revenues of $32.8 million in 2013, compared with just under $204,000 in 2010.
 
Go Energies’ founder and president Phil Dorroll said that the company is a second generation of an earlier business, Go Gas Universal, which he founded in 2004. The first company essentially sold fleet fuel cards to commercial entities and governments, such as municipalities. It had the state of North Carolina fleet fuel contract as well, Dorroll said.
 
When he sold a major portion of Go Gas Universal at the beginning of 2011, Go Energies was already up and running, having created enterprise-grade fuel management software that allowed customers to monitor and manage their fuel supplies electronically. Having a proven team already in place was a critical part of the new company’s success, Dorroll said.
 
“It was like a reorganization. The key thing you need is people,” he said. “I credit a lot of our success to our advance strategic planning, which allowed us to exit one business as we were advancing the other one.”  
 
Dorroll said he grew up in the fuel industry and saw “a lot of problems in the fuel industry I felt we could solve with technology, but our people are the key.”
 
N2 Publishing repeated on the list this year, coming in at 1085 on the list of 5000 fastest-growing U.S. companies. The neighborhoods magazine publisher showed a 410 percent growth over the past three years, with 2013 revenues of $38.6 million, up from revenues of $7.5 million in 2010. N2 was ranked 926th last year, with a three-year growth rate of 474 percent. The company was also on the Inc. list in 2012, ranking 813th, and in 2011, ranking 1130th.
 
The third Wilmington company on the Inc. list was LoadMatch Logistics, which ranked 1897th. The logistics company grew 216 percent over the past three years, going from revenues of $6.7 million in 2010 to $21.2 million in 2013.
 
LoadMatch was included on Inc.’s list for the third time this year. In 2013 it came in at No. 1557, slightly down from its 2012 rank of 1536.