The University’s 100 fastest growing businesses, including Tin Roof Brewing Company, Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers and Investar Bank, gathered under one roof Thursday at L’Auberge Casino Hotel for the sixth annual LSU 100 event.
LSU 100 is an event that recognizes the 100 fastest-growing Tiger-owned businesses. Every year, LSU 100 gives out the Summit Award to the company that generated the highest revenue amount during the award period. The event also recognizes the fastest-growing company and the winners of the 2016 Venture Challenge.
The 2016 Summit Award recipient was Bridger Logistics, LLC. Julio Rios, president and CEO of Bridger Logistics, is a graduate of the LSU College of Science.
Recruiting Source International was announced as the fastest growing company of the year, according to a news release. Bianca McWilliams Jackson, a chemical engineering graduate of the LSU College of Science, serves as the company’s Chief Operating Officer.
Brothers Reed and Riley Stephens, the winners of the 2016 Venture Challenge, were recognized for having the fastest-growing undergraduate-owned business. Reed and Riley, a junior and freshman respectively, are the founders of Ambici, a product design company that sells luxury wooden watches.
The brothers said their idea was born out of a passion for both fine watches and wooden craftsmanship, according to the company’s website. Reed said the brothers’ time at the University is proving to be a huge part of creating and running the business.
“We use the tools that I learned in Engineering classes, particularly CM 1020,” Reed said. “I use the program SolidWorks all the time for any type of design or anything like that. That’s how we communicate with our manufacturers, that’s how we communicate with any type of a buyer, that’s how we show proof of design, all these types of things. Learning that program was pretty instrumental to making our products and communicating with overseas manufacturers.”
Riley said he has been learning coding in his computer science classes. With his knowledge, he can “do things on our website where I have to go in and actually edit HTML code, and try to change things up for us.” Other programs, such as the LSU Student Incubator, have helped the Stephens brothers propel their business to where it is today.
“I’ve been taking a ton of business classes,” Reed said. “Some of those introduced us to the Student Incubator. They’ve helped out tremendously, and they’ve done a lot of things to help us with our business. Participating in the Venture Challenge forced us to create a working business model and get everything straight.”
Out of the 100 companies, 44 of them were founded within the last 10 years. The newest companies were founded as recently as 2011. Nine of the 100 companies have been awarded at all six events.

Gallery • 12 Photos

Jordan Marcell

Staff members monitor the distribution of Tiger Leader name tags on Oct. 13, 2016 before the sixth annual LSU 100 event at the L'Auberge Casino Hotel of Baton Rouge.