August 15, 2019
Acton skate-sharpening company tops Inc. 5000 for New England
Russ Layton is the founder of Acton-based Sparx Hockey, Inc.
By Grant Welker
An Acton maker of ice skate sharpening equipment is the fastest-growing private company in New England on Inc. magazine's new ranking.
Sparx Hockey, which hit the market in 2016, has quickly spread in the hockey world, selling to 25 of the National Hockey League's 31 teams, including the Boston Bruins, as well as minor league and collegiate teams. Players today will often switch skate blades multiple times a game, requiring quick and consistent blade-sharpening, a need Sparx has filled.
"It just went from team to team to team, very virally," CEO and founder Russ Layton said of the company's growth.
Sparx grew by 4,916% in the last three years, with 2018 revenue of $8 million, according to Inc., a business publication with an annual list of America's fastest-growing private companies with at least $2 million in revenue, known as the Inc. 5000. Sparx was tops in New England and 56th nationally. It landed eighth nationally among consumer products and services.
"We couldn't believe it when we saw it," Layton said of the company's place on the Inc. list.
Definitive Healthcare, a Framingham health information services company, was 17th in Massachusetts and 1,020 nationally. Sustainable Comfort, a Worcester construction consultant, was 19th in the state and 1,061 nationally.
Sparx has sold more than 15,000 stake-sharpening sets, nearly all in consumer's homes, and nearly all online. The company sells in only a few physical locations, including at the New England Sports Center, a multi-rink facility in Marlborough.
Sparx sells to the premiere Russian hockey league and is eyeing potential growth in China as the country ramps up youth hockey participation ahead of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. As youth hockey has spread in popularity to the South and West from hotbeds in the Northeast and Midwest, Sparx has followed there as well, particularly in the Dallas and Southern California regions.
The company is focusing in the shorter term on traditional hockey areas in the United States and Canada, including preliminary plans for a distribution facility in Canada.
Layton, who grew up in New Jersey, tried unsuccessfully to join the Northeastern University hockey team, and then played in graduate school. His career took him from engineering to mergers and acquisitions, and he eventually made a move into something to combine his love of hockey, an entrepreneurial mindset and skills as an engineer. He saw an opportunity to provide equipment not easily available in any retail store, and to fill an unavoidable need of sharpening skates every so often, especially at the professional level.
Layton and two other engineers took a year or two to come up with the skate-sharpening equipment before launching the Sparx. Many of the company's 25 employees play hockey themselves, or have a player in the family.
"I knew it was going to be a lot of work," Layton said.
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