Key Points
- The largest publicly traded tech company in Arkansas is LiveRamp Holdings Inc, founded in Conway.
- The largest tech company by revenue is Protech Solutions, at 69 million.
- The largest tech company by employee count is also Protech Solutions, with 98 employees.
Arkansas isn’t exactly the first state that comes to mind when thinking of places with a lot of tech companies or tech startups. However, a strong tech startup ecosystem has slowly taken over, which makes the state well-known for tech-based innovation and its commitment to stressing computer science in the classroom. Because of this, Arkansas has established local companies that are flourishing in tech industries, as well as providing resources that are designed to assist entrepreneurs. The following are the largest tech companies in Arkansas.
The Largest Tech Companies by Revenue
| Company | Location | Revenue |
|---|---|---|
| Protech Solutions | Little Rock | $69.91 million |
| Apptegy | Little Rock | $42 million |
| Shiloh Technologies | Rogers | $5.05 million |
| Access Control Devices | Benton | $5 million |
The Largest Tech Companies by Employee Count
| Company | Location | Employee Count |
|---|---|---|
| Protech Solutions | Little Rock | 98 |
| Apptegy | Little Rock | 50 |
| Shiloh Technologies | Rogers | 25 |
| Access Control Devices | Benton | 8 |
The Largest Publicly Traded Tech Companies
| Company | Location | Market Cap |
|---|---|---|
| LiveRamp Holdings Inc. | Founded in Conway, Arkansas (headquarters now in San Francisco) | $1.83 billion |
Which Companies Were Founded in Arkansas?
GENESIS Technology Incubator
GENESIS Technology Incubator is a technology company that is based in the Arkansas Research and Technology Park in Fayetteville, Arkansas. This tech company provides different services to qualifying technology entrepreneurs who wish to base most of their operations during some critical stages of a company, like early-stage development. GENESIS Technology Incubator is a small company with less than $500,000 in revenue. The company has a track record of assisting in launching firms that are successful and have had a lasting positive impact, mostly on the economy of Northwest Arkansas. GENESIS has an important role in advancing the state into the 21st Century.
Since its inception, GENESIS has helped several tech entrepreneurs increase their firms regarding economic viability. Offering support to young firms, allows GENESIS to act as a catalyst for increasing the number of knowledge-based jobs in Arkansas and strengthening the economy of the state and region. The company was founded in 1986. Robert Friedman is the current director.
LiveRamp Holdings Inc.
©Piotr Swat/Shutterstock.com
LiveRamp now has its headquarters in San Francisco but was founded in Conway, Arkansas. LiveRamp has 1,400 employees and a total revenue of $506,107. Most of the top tech companies in Arkansas are private. LiveRamp, however, is a public tech company.
What are the Biggest Tech Companies Located in Arkansas?
The biggest tech companies are primarily determined by revenue and the number of employees. The following are some of the biggest tech companies in Arkansas, the founders, and the products they make.
Protech Solutions
Protech Solutions, located in Little Rock, is one of the largest tech companies in Arkansas. They have a revenue of nearly 70 million and employ 98 employees. Founded in 1995, the current CEO is Satish Garimalla. They provide services such as big data solutions, document management workflow solutions, legacy application transformation, and payment processing systems.
Their software developers have also created Enterprise Portals that have the ability to connect stakeholders. Their customer service portals enable customers to interact easily with business representatives. Their orchestrated services help integrate information from multiple systems. These integrated data solutions include a real-time process that reduces outdated records, incomplete names, and duplicate addresses. Besides these services, Protech Solutions also offers social networking applications and responsive web design with secure mobile applications.
Shiloh Technologies
The founder and CEO, Britt Fogg, launched Fogg Business Solutions in 1992. By 2004, this tech startup was working with approximately 100 retailers. These included Target, Home Depot, Office Depot, Menards, Lowes, Staples, Nordstrom, and many others. By 2008, the company had changed its name to Shiloh Technologies to reflect the company’s continuing growth.
Their software developers have created solutions for data intelligence for companies, products, and brands. They had built Data Services that work with the Microsoft Azure Platform. The benefits of their ShilohNEXT Data Service include agility with Azure, open API, integration with legacy systems, integration with a variety of BI tools, and security and disaster recovery.
Access Control Devices
©Ground Picture/Shutterstock.com
Access Control Devices (ACDI) is primarily engaged in the manufacturing of automatic vending machines as well as coin-operated mechanisms for different machines. They provide solutions for a variety of industries, including healthcare, education, real estate, and legal services.
A few of the products they provide include industry-leading hardware and software. This includes analytics software, fleet management solutions, coin-op payment hardware, proximity card reader hardware, and paper cut management software.
What are the Largest Private Companies in Arkansas?
Apptegy
Apptegy was started in April 2015 by Jeston George. This was a private education-technology company based in Little Rock, Arkansas. George was able to secure in-state venture capital to help launch his new company.
The primary reason for starting this tech company was that he wanted to be aware of his nephew’s school program well in advance so he could have time to plan everything. He realized that almost all local schools had no centralized tool that would share information with the families of students. George invented the Apptegy software product to fill this gap. It was called Thrillshare. This allowed students to enter their stories, media, and news into a single platform, which later shared content to all the linked tools such as SMS, websites, social media accounts, and voice calls.
What are the Largest Publicly Traded Companies in Arkansas?
LiveRamp Holdings Inc.
This company was formerly called Acxiom Corporation. LiveRamp Holdings, Inc. is a San Francisco-based tech company that is based on SaS (software as a service) that provides a platform for data connectivity whose services are data onboarding. This is the online transfer of offline data for marketing purposes.
History of LiveRamp
LiveRamp is a tech company that started in 1969 and was originally called Demographics, Inc. Charles D. Ward started the company in Conway, Arkansas. The company began by manufacturing mailing lists by using payroll and phone book processing.
In 1980, Demographics, Inc. rebranded and was named Conway Communications Exchange. In 1983, it merged as CCX Network, Inc. and was successful in its first public offering. In 1988, they changed again, this time to Acxiom Corporation.
In November 1997, Acxiom inherited Buckley Dement, a service provider of professional medical lists and healthcare fulfillment. In May 1998, the company announced that it was acquiring one of its main competitors, May & Speh.
After it was criticized by Wired Magazine back in 2003 for only acquiring third-party consumers, it acquired some parts of Claritas in 2004, which was a European data provider. In 2005, the company acquired Digital Impact for $140 million and incorporated most of its online and digital services into its business. It became a nominee in 2005 for the Big Brothers Awards for the position of Worst Corporate Invader for its tradition of data brokering.
Founding of LiveRamp
Acxiom, which is currently known as LiveRamp, was founded in Arkansas in 1969 by Charles D. Ward. Up until 2018, Acxiom was the owner of one of the world’s largest commercial databases.
Due to the company’s avoiding attention from the public, the data brokerage industry and Acxiom were under intense investigation after the scandal of Cambridge Analytica. New privacy laws in California and Europe have changed the industry dramatically.
Acxiom decided to sell its brand name and databases for a total of $2.3 billion, rebranding the company to LiveRamp and becoming a data exchange standard within some of the large data markets.
Today, the main product for LiveRamp is IdentityLink. This allows different companies that own data to be able to use some of their algorithms to match different identifiers for any individual of their own, as well as improve third-party data.
What are the Forgotten Tech Companies in Arkansas?
There isn’t any information available regarding forgotten tech companies in Arkansas. This is probably because it is a state dominated by tech startup companies in the tech industry. As a result, Arkansas may not have forgotten companies but rather growing tech companies.
“Interested in learning more about the largest tech companies in the United States? Check out our full list HERE!“
NEXT UP…
- Largest Tech Companies in Michigan
- IBM: Complete Guide — History, Products, Founding, and More
- Our Complete Guide to PayPal: Company History and More!
The image featured at the top of this post is ©ADAMIKO/Shutterstock.com.
