EarthLink Tops L.A. List of Surging Tech Firms

Deloitte & Touche’s annual ranking of the 50 fastest-growing Los Angeles-area technology firms suggests that Tech Coast companies are healthier now than a year ago.

EarthLink Network, the Pasadena-based Internet service provider, topped the 1999 Fast 50 list by recording revenue growth of 158,405% in the last five years, to nearly $176 million in 1998 from $111,000 in 1994. In second place was Xylan Corp., the Calabasas Internet equipment maker whose revenue grew to nearly $348 million in 1998 from $443,000 in 1994, a 78,361% gain.

Those companies are in significantly better shape than the 1998 winners. Santa Monica-based CyberMedia topped the Fast 50 list last year, just after strategic blunders forced its sale to rival Network Associates. Computer-networking firm Osicom Technologies of Santa Monica placed second last year despite losing $16 million that year. Neither firm made the 1999 list.

Deloitte & Touche released the 1999 rankings for technology companies in Los Angeles, Ventura, Santa Barbara, Riverside and San Bernardino counties last week. To make the list this year, a company needed revenue growth of at least 169% in the last five years.