SMU Cox Dallas 100™ announces the No. 1 entrepreneurial company in Dallas Metroplex at 25th anniversary awards banquet

Dallas (SMU) – Online precious metals retailer JM Bullion is the top entrepreneurial company in Dallas in 2015. 

The announcement came Wednesday evening at the 25^th Annual SMU Cox Dallas 100™ Awards Ceremony and Banquet at the Omni Dallas Hotel. JM Bulllion enables investors to purchase bullion that the buyer “can physically hold” as opposed to “owning on paper.” Headquartered in Dallas, which is also home to its contact center, the company offers gold, silver, copper and platinum products with an average inventory in the tens of millions of dollars.

Simon Mak (left), associate director of the Caruth Institute for Entrepreneurship, congratulates this year’s Dallas 100 first place winner, JM Bullion CEO Michael Wittmeyer.

“This year’s winner continues to demonstrate the wide variety of entrepreneurial companies that contribute to the Dallas economy,” said Simon Mak, Ph.D., associate director of the Caruth Institute for Entrepreneurship at SMU Cox. “Twenty-five years ago when the Dallas 100™ came into being, none of us had ever heard of the concept of online retail sales, much less an online company that sells commodities. This just shows how the entrepreneurs who are celebrated at this event have continued to evolve over time to contribute to the thriving Dallas economy.”  

For 25 years, the Caruth Institute has annually ranked the top 100 Dallas entrepreneurial companies based on sales growth and absolute dollar growth over the previous three years. This year’s program examined sales from over 300 companies for 2012 to 2014, the last year for which complete data is available. The winners represent a broad spectrum of Dallas-area businesses—everything from consulting to custom home-builders and a wide variety in between. The top 100 fastest-growing companies were revealed in descending order at the awards ceremony. JM Bullion, which bills itself as the “premiere online bullion dealer in the United States,” had the biggest percentage sales increase and dollar growth for 2012 to 2014, as determined by the calculations of the accounting firm BKD LLP CPAs and Advisors. 

Dallas 100™, co-founded by the Caruth Institute, honors the ingenuity, commitment and perseverance of the fastest-growing privately held entrepreneurial businesses in the Dallas area. According to Caruth Institute data, this year’s winning companies collectively generated $3.6 billion in sales in 2014, and grew at an average annual growth rate of 91 percent per year for each of the last three years.

“The key statistics of the Dallas 100™ are always so impressive year after year,” said Jerry White, the Linda A. and Kenneth R. Morris Endowed Director of the Caruth Institute for Entrepreneurship, who has been at the helm of the event since it began in 1990. “These outstanding companies are one of the main reasons Dallas is such a dynamic city for business. In this, the silver anniversary year of the Dallas100™, it is our privilege to honor the vital contribution of these companies and the entrepreneurial spirit of their founders.”

The Dallas 100™, presented by the Caruth Institute at SMU Cox, was sponsored this year by  Avison Young; BKD LLP; CARR Intellectual Property Law; The CFO Suite; The Dallas Business Journal; Evos Financial; Executive Press; KRLD 1080 News Radio; and Texas Capital Bank. The event recognizes privately held corporations, proprietorships or partnerships headquartered in the Dallas area that often don’t get attention, but which have created jobs and generated wealth for their founders and employees and enhanced the area economy.

Along with JM Bullion, 99 other Dallas-based companies were revealed as SMU Cox Dallas 100™ winners to an audience of about 1,000 guests Wednesday night. The top 10 companies were given special recognition:  No.1) JM Bullion; No.2) Sierra Auto Finance, LLC; No.3) CenseoHealth; No.4) Freedom Powersports, LLC; No.5) Azpen Innovation, Inc; No.6) Think Tech Labs; No.7) Thermi; No.8) JW Logistics, LLC; No.9) Scott + Reid General Contractors; and No.10) Paragon Healthcare, Inc.                       

A complete list of all SMU Cox Dallas 100™ companies for 2015, listed from one to 100, follows: