The Largest Tech Companies in Arizona

Key Points

• The largest publicly traded tech company in Arizona is Insight Enterprises, at 43 billion.
• The largest tech company in Arizona by revenue is Insight Enterprises, at 9.8 billion.
• The largest tech company in Arizona by employee count is Amkor Technology, at 30,400.

Arizona is home to thriving cities, gorgeous landscapes, and the world-famous Grand Canyon. It’s also home to several successful private and public tech companies. From Google and Apple to Airbnb and Uber, Arizona is a great location for both mature companies as well as tech startups. With manageable taxes and beautiful weather, Arizona is attracting businesses as well as the employees needed to keep them running.

The Largest Tech Companies by Revenue

The Largest Tech Companies By Employee Count

The Largest Publicly Traded Tech Companies

Which Tech Companies were Founded in Arizona?

Amkor Technology

Amkor is a public company located in Tempe. James J. Kim is the executive chairman and oversees over 30,000 employees. With over $6 billion in revenue, Amkor Technology is a leading provider of semiconductor packaging and test services to semiconductor companies and electronics OEMS. Amkor’s customer base includes many of the world’s leading semiconductor companies and a growing number of emerging technology companies. Amkor offers advanced semiconductor packaging and test services that help customers accelerate their time to market.

History of Amkor Technology

Amkor Technology is a semiconductor company based in Chandler, Arizona. The Tempe-based tech firm was founded in 1968 as a subsidiary of Motorola. In 1997, it was spun off as an independent company and went public on the NASDAQ exchange in 1998. In 2005, it acquired two major semiconductor companies. These included Singapore-based STATS ChipPAC Ltd. and Korean-based Anam Semiconductor Inc., making it one of the top three global providers of outsourced semiconductor packaging services. The company established itself as a leader in chip packaging and assembly. It has more than 12,000 employees and operates facilities worldwide. In 2017, it had a revenue of $3 billion. Its most recent revenue was over $6 billion.

Founding of Amkor Technology

In the early 1980s, when semiconductor manufacturers were struggling to meet the demand for the products and needed a new way of building chip components, a group of engineers at Texas Instruments (TI) came up with a revolutionary idea.

The engineers, led by TI’s vice president of manufacturing, watched the company grow from less than 20 employees to more than 1,200 during the 1960s. They knew that to continue growing, TI would need to find another way to make its chips. The engineers decided to build their own “fab” – short for “fabrication plant” – where chips could be built in large quantities.

When the team presented their plan to TI’s management, they were told the idea was too risky and that there wasn’t enough money in the budget. So, they did something that no one else in the company had done before: they quit their jobs and went out on their own.

They began working out of an old schoolhouse north of Dallas in Richardson, Texas. They called themselves Amkor Technology Inc., which stands for American Micro-circuit Company (the original name of TI). A year later, they moved into a building in downtown Dallas and started making chips.

GoDaddy

GoDaddy is the world’s largest domain registrar, with millions of domain names that it manages. The company is publicly traded, and at the end of 2021, it served over 20 million customers. With close to $4 billion in revenue, the company is thriving under the leadership of CEO Aman Bhutani. GoDaddy was the world’s largest web host in 2018, according to market shares. They had more than 62 million registered domains at the time.

History of GoDaddy

GoDaddy was started in 1997 in the United States by Bob Parsons, a serial entrepreneur. He had previously sold two other companies before launching Big Daddy in 1997, which changed its name to GoDaddy Group Inc. in 1999. Its first headquarters was in Scottsdale, Arizona.

By 2001, Parsons had funded GoDaddy entirely on his own through cash flow from his other businesses and had sold $7 million worth of domains. He wanted to expand his business but needed an investor and found one in the form of Ted Leonis from AOL. With Leonis on board, Parsons was able to raise some additional capital for his company. After several years of growth and expansion, including multiple acquisitions of smaller companies like Outright and Locu, GoDaddy went public in 2015 at $20 a share.

Today, the GoDaddy Group has grown beyond just domain names to include dozens of individual web products and services for small businesses and entrepreneurs. But the success hasn’t been without controversy. While Parsons was CEO from 1997 to 2011, he received both praise and criticism relating to his business practices as well as his personal life.

Founding of GoDaddy

After attending college at Brigham Young University and studying computer science, Bob Parsons moved to Scottsdale and worked for IBM as a software engineer. He says he got his entrepreneurial spirit from his mother, who started a catering business in high school. In 1997, Parsons left IBM to become an internet entrepreneur with three friends. The group formed several companies before becoming the founders of GoDaddy, which officially launched in 1999.

The company was originally called Jomax Technologies. Looking for a catchier name, an employee suggested Big Daddy after the movie starring Adam Sandler. This domain, however, was already taken. Parsons suggested GoDaddy instead, and Jomax Technologies was officially named GoDaddy in February 2006.

What are the Biggest Tech Companies Located in Arizona?

The criteria used to determine the biggest tech companies are primarily by revenue.

Insight Enterprises

Insight Enterprises, Inc. is the largest provider of information technology (IT) solutions to businesses in Arizona. The company provides a broad range of IT solutions, such as managed and professional services, cloud solutions, systems integration and consulting, security solutions, and telecommunications. Insight Enterprises is a public company based in Tempe, with Timothy Crown serving as independent chairman.

Insight had previously focused on providing technology and services for the telecommunications industry. Still, as VoIP and cloud infrastructure grew in popularity, it made sense for the company to evolve with the times. In 2013, Insight Enterprises purchased a building at 100 N. First St. in Phoenix’s Warehouse District, an area already home to many tech businesses. This move enabled it to expand its product offerings and its workforce.

History of Insight Enterprises

Insight Enterprises, Inc. has been providing technology solutions to businesses of all sizes since 1988. The company was founded by two brothers, Eric and Tim Crown, who wanted to bring their passion for service and dedication to excellence to a broader audience.

Insight is considered one of the industry’s most innovative providers of information technology (IT) infrastructure solutions. Since 1988, the company has provided business solutions that enable clients to achieve business success. Insight Enterprises is an award-winning global provider of IT solutions, equipment, and support services. The company provides millions of dollars in end-user technology solutions annually, servicing more than 60,000 resellers and hundreds of thousands of customers worldwide. 

Their products include hard drives, storage, and software solutions. They also provide computer systems, servers, notebooks, printers, LCD projectors, IT security hardware and software solutions, wireless devices, wireless access points (WAPs) and digital video recorders (DVRs), and software products for network management. Insight also provides comprehensive logistics services through its extensive distributor channel network throughout North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Latin America. 

Founding of Insight Enterprises

When Tim Crown founded Insight Enterprises in 1988, he had a simple mission: to help businesses use technology to solve problems. That’s not much different than their mission today. What has changed is the scale of work, the current market, and the breadth of solutions the company offers.

Insight Enterprises grew quickly, adding consulting services and then computer equipment sales. It was among the first companies to sell PCs online – they did it before Amazon was around. But the biggest growth happened when they began to sell IT infrastructure products such as servers and storage products.

Today, Insight has over 11,000 employees worldwide who provide technical expertise to thousands of clients across the globe. In 2018 alone, they helped businesses manage $11 billion worth of IT infrastructure and software purchases through their services. This meant that computers could get twice as powerful for half the price roughly every two years. Since then, this prediction has held true.

Microchip Technology Inc. (MCHP)

Microchip Technology Inc.(MCHP) has its headquarters in Chandler, Arizona and manufactures integrated circuits and semiconductors for a diverse range of applications. The company’s products are used in systems and equipment for automotive, industrial, consumer, computing, communications, healthcare, aerospace and defense, and transportation markets. The company operates in two operating segments: Microcontroller and Analog. MCHP employs approximately 21,000 employees, with Stephen Sanghi as executive chairman.

History of Microchip Technology Inc.

Microchip Technology has seen considerable growth in recent years. The company has been on a steady incline since its IPO in 1990, but it took more than two decades to achieve a $1 billion market capitalization.  

Founding of Microchip Technology Inc.

The history of this company began in the year 1969 when Dr. Robert Noyce and Jay Last created a company called Integrated Circuits International (ICI). This company was later renamed Intel Corporation in the year 1971. During that same year, three former employees of Intel created a new company called Microchip Technology Inc. This included Mike James, John Carey, and Jack Gifford. In 1982, Mike James left Microchip Technology Inc. to join National Semiconductor. During this time, Jack Gifford also left to join LSI Logic Corp. Both companies became competitors for Microchip Technology Inc. Today, Microchip Technology Inc. is one of the largest microcontroller manufacturers globally.

Limelight Networks

Limelight Networks is a public tech company in Tempe with Robert Lyons as the current CEO. They are an American content delivery network (CDN) and cloud service provider. The company was founded in 2001, has its headquarters in Tempe, Arizona, and has offices worldwide. Limelight was the first company to offer a commercial CDN service.

Limelight provides web content and software delivery services and on-demand streaming of audio/video programming. It also offers infrastructure services such as cloud computing, application hosting, and cloud storage services. The company’s services are used by over 1,500 organizations, including major media companies such as Disney, Netflix, ESPN, and Twitter. Several government agencies use Limelight’s services created by their software developers.

History of Limelight Networks

Limelight Networks was started in 2001 by Michael Gordon, Hari Ravichandran, and Bill Rinehart. All three were former employees of Digital Island who decided to strike out on their own and create a new business. The original plan for the company was to take advantage of the opportunities provided by peer-to-peer technology. 

The company’s first product was the Limelight P2P Orchestrator, which allowed users to share files and store them on their computers instead of using servers located in other places around the world. This technology helped to make video distribution much easier and more efficient.

The company quickly expanded and started offering other products, including one designed specifically for video delivery over the internet. This was an essential step forward because it allowed people to watch videos online without worrying about bandwidth issues or slow connections. In October 2017, Limelight Networks was recognized on Streaming Media’s List of 100 Companies that Matter Most in Online Video.

Founding of Limelight Networks

Limelight Networks was founded in 2001 by a group of serial entrepreneurs who saw an opportunity to build a technology company whose sole purpose would be to advance state-of-the-art internet bandwidth. The founders believed there was great value in moving people onto a new generation of networking infrastructure, which would offer more speed, greater reliability, and new capabilities such as video on demand.

Toward that end, Limelight built some of the internet’s highest-performance network infrastructure and designed it so service providers could deliver their services to their customers with exceptional quality and low cost.

Although Limelight has faced challenges over the years (including a technology bubble and market shifts), it has managed to adapt while continuing to focus on its core mission: building high-performance networks with reliable and secure operations and delivering those networks at low cost so service providers can make their services available to end-users at compelling prices.

What are the Largest Private Tech Companies in Arizona?

WebPT

Arizona’s largest private tech company is WebPT, a physical therapy software company started by Brad Jannenga and Heidi Jannenga in 2005. WebPT has 518 employees and a revenue of approximately $146 million. The company is located in Phoenix, and the current CEO is Bob Morris.

History of WebPT 

WebPT was started in June 2008 by Heidi Jannenga and Brad Jannenga. After spending years working as a physical therapy professional, Heidi identified an opportunity to improve the business of healthcare through technology. However, she soon realized that the existing software platforms available at the time were cumbersome, expensive, and didn’t address her needs – so she decided to build her own. Her husband, Brad, shared her vision. Both had experience with software development and decided to unite their passion for technology and healthcare by creating WebPT.

In June 2008, Heidi and Brad officially launched WebPT from a spare bedroom in their Phoenix home with one employee. This was WebPT’s first customer service representative. In October 2008, WebPT moved out of their home and into office space in Scottsdale. A year later, the company added its first software engineer, and shortly after that, it expanded its office space to accommodate its growing team.

Founding of WebPT

WebPT initially began in 2007 when Heidi Jannenga had a dream to build a leading web-based practice management solution for physical therapists. She and her co-founder consulted with some industry experts and then got to work. The idea behind WebPT was to create a website that offered physical therapy information, community, and resources. All of these services would be housed under one digital roof. WebPT has since exploded into a multi-million dollar company, offering cutting-edge technology in clinics and at home.

DDC-I

DDC-I is a leading software and professional services supplier for mission and safety-critical applications. With a heritage of more than 30 years, DDC-I provides software development tools, real-time operating systems, software integration and management tools embedded in hypervisors and development, and run-time environments for C, C++, and Ada application development. DDC-I offers comprehensive solutions for safety-critical applications in the aerospace, defense, medical and industrial markets. They are a private company located in Phoenix.

History of DDC-I

DDC-I was started in 1982 by two former Honeywell executives. Bill Neifert and Don Riley were determined to give the embedded software community a better alternative to VxWorks. While VxWorks was a significant step forward for the industry at the time, it lacked the reliability and safety features that customers required for their critical systems.

DDC-I’s founders saw an opportunity to provide a more appropriate choice for mission, and safety-critical applications, particularly in the aerospace and defense market. They envisioned a customizable, extensible, portable, scalable, and reliable solution.

From its inception, DDC-I has focused on delivering real-time operating systems (RTOSs) and development tools to help system designers meet their cost, performance, and schedule goals. Their goal is to provide customers with products that are easy to use, customize and integrate into their systems while also providing excellent technical support.

Founding of DDC-1

DDC International A/S originated in the Dansk Datamatik Center, a Danish software research and development organization founded in 1979 to demonstrate the importance of formal methods in the design and development of software. It created a compiler system for the Ada programming language, among other projects. Ada was a challenging language to implement, and early compilers were often disappointed. The DDC compiler’s design was solid, and it passed the United States Department of Defense-sponsored Ada Compiler Validation Capability (ACVC) tests on a VAX/VMS system in September 1984. As a result, it was the first Ada compiler in Europe that met this standard

The success of the Ada project led to the formation in 1985 of a separate company that was to commercialize the Ada compiler system. DDC-I primarily focused on sales, customer support, and engineering consulting activities in the United States.

What are the Largest Publicly Traded Tech Companies in Arizona?

The largest publicly traded tech companies in Arizona are Insight, Microchip, GoDaddy, and Amkor.

What are the Forgotten Tech Companies in Arizona?

Infusionsoft

Infusionsoft is a sales and marketing automation tool used by small business owners to sell more and grow their businesses. Tailored to fit almost any business model, Infusionsoft empowers users with the ability to create customized workflows, email marketing campaigns, landing pages, website forms, and mobile apps.

History of Infusionsoft

Infusionsoft started as a company called Aulx Software, founded in 2001. The founders were brothers Eric and Scott Martineau. In 2010, the company was renamed Infusionsoft. This was in response to the company changing directions, from selling customer relationship management (CRM) software to marketing automation software.

Today, the focus is on small businesses. Infusionsoft is one of the leading email marketing software providers for small companies. In 2012, Infusionsoft raised $54 million in funding from Goldman Sachs and several other investors. In 2014, the company launched Infusionsoft by Keap, a new pricing model offering different levels of service and support to customers depending on their needs. 

Founding of Infusionsoft

In the beginning, Infusionsoft’s key focus was to be a sales platform for small companies. They were founded by two tech entrepreneurs who had trouble finding a sales and marketing solution to help their business.

Infusionsoft started as an email marketing platform and grew into what it is today: a sales and marketing platform that helps small businesses achieve their goals. Today they are still focused on small businesses. They have developed a full-fledged CRM system that works seamlessly with other eCommerce platforms, accounting software, and other apps designed to help small companies thrive. Today, Infusionsoft is used by more than 100,000 small businesses in over 100 countries worldwide.

The company became known as Keap in January 2019.

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