2 to 5 Festest growing companies

2. Green Mountain Coffee Roasters
Rank: 2 (Previous rank: 11)
CEO: Lawrence J. Blanford
Address: 33 Coffee Ln.
Waterbury, VT 05676-8900
Forget about coffee by the pot. Green Mountain is buzzing along by convincing a growing number of java heads to fuel their habit one "K-Cup" at a time. The makers of Keurig single-serving brewing systems, which have become fixtures in offices and hotel rooms, Green Mountain shipped 1.6 billion K-Cups in 2009, a 63% surge from the prior year.

The Vermont-based company has pushed westward in the last two years by swallowing up Tully's, a Seattle-based roaster popular in supermarkets and southern Californian roaster Diedrich Coffee. It's still a long way from Starbucks, but at $1 billion-plus in revenues, Green Mountain has delivered a jolt to the coffee business.


3. Ebix
Ebix
Rank: 3 (Previous rank: 4)
CEO: Robin Raina
Address: 5 Concourse Pkwy.
Atlanta, GA 30328-7104
This IT consulting and outsourcing concern serves more than 100 insurance industry clients in some 50 countries. Areas of expertise include running online exchanges for insurance policies and annuities, claims processing and building custom software solutions. How fast is Ebix growing? The company posted $12.4 million in profits for the first quarter of this year -- roughly what it earned in all of 2007.

Last year, Ebix acquired three companies, including software firm E-Z Data, which has expanded business opportunities in Asia, Africa and Latin America. That's not it for Ebix's global ambitions: It plans to open new insurance exchanges -- its main source of revenue -- in Brazil, Russia, India, and China.

Rank: 4 (Previous rank: N.A.)
CEO: Marc Benioff
Address: 1 Market Plz.
San Francisco, CA 94105-1004
Salesforce.com's brash CEO, Marc Benioff, has long been an acolyte of so-called cloud-computing, the practice of renting, in this case, enterprise software over the Internet. Salesforce.com's cloud-offerings include all-in-one applications to manage sales and customer service. Its Sales Cloud 2 and Service Cloud 2 products allow clients to access account information, troubleshoot service requests, and collaborate with other members of the team in real time through one platform. Because the software is web-based, the data is also accessible at home or via a smartphone.

One of Salesforce's newest features, Chatter, is a Web2.0 application modeled in part after Facebook, one of its new customers. Last year, the IT firm signed up 17,100 new customers to its line of subscription-based services, a 19% lift

5. KapStone Paper and Packaging
KapStone Paper and Packaging
Rank: 5 (Previous rank: N.A.)
CEO: Roger Warren Stone
Address: 1101 Skokie Blvd.
Northbrook, IL 60062-4124
KapStone produces more than 300 types of kraft paper, used to make fast food carry-out bags, grocery sacks, folding cartons, gift baskets, and even floors. The paper and packaging powerhouse boosted its client list from 100 to 400-plus companies with the 2008 acquisition of the kraft division of giant MeadWestvaco. (It had previously purchased the kraft group from International Paper.)

KapStone temporarily cut salaries and benefits in early 2009, as the poor economy depressed prices and demand for its industrial paper. But as demand picked up, the company raised prices and wrapped up a 26% sales gains for the year.