The 100 fastest-growing tech SMBs in Q1 2026

Methodology

We started with US tech companies between 5-200 employees in the SMBs.com directory, then filtered on three growth signals from public sources:

• LinkedIn employee count growth > 50% trailing 6 months
• Hiring 5+ open roles as of June 2026
• Visible traction signal — recent funding (Crunchbase), press, customer logos, or revenue benchmarks (where available)

Final list of 100 is hand-curated from ~700 candidates. We weighted toward business-software, vertical SaaS, AI tools, and developer infrastructure — the highest-velocity segments in 2026.

Why we're not publishing the full list publicly

Out of respect for the companies on it (and to keep the data fresh), the full ranked list is delivered as a one-time CSV bundle to paid data customers at $49. Includes company name, website, employee count, growth %, funding stage, and top decision-maker contacts.

What the pattern data shows

A few patterns from the 100:

• AI infrastructure (vector DBs, eval tools, orchestration) — 18 companies
• Vertical SaaS (specifically for trades, healthcare, legal, real estate) — 23 companies
• Developer tooling (devops, observability, internal tools) — 14 companies
• Compliance + security (SOC 2 automation, GRC) — 9 companies
• Sales + revenue tooling (RevOps, BI for revenue teams) — 11 companies
• Other (everything from logistics SaaS to climate tech) — 25 companies

What this tells you about where to look

If you're looking for fast-growing SMBs to sell into, partner with, or invest in: AI infrastructure and vertical SaaS are doing the most hiring. AI infrastructure spending is being funded; vertical SaaS is being funded by real revenue.

Browse our directory by industry to find similar companies: IT & services, security, fintech.