Maybe Portland is the next big tech hub.
Uprise Partners, which received the Propel Ignition 2025 Business of the Year Award on Jan. 16 at Cellars at Allagash Brewing, was the nation’s second fastest growing IT services company last year out of a field of 35,000 peers.
Chief Executive Officer Malinda Gagnon describes Uprise Partners, a 2017 startup with an office on Commercial Street in Portland, as the complete picture for what you need for IT to make a business run smoothly.
“Technology actually doesn’t matter unless it does something — help a person do their job more easily or to help a business be more sustainable or to grow,” she said. “That’s what the team at Uprise does.”
In August 2024, Uprise Partners was ranked No. 2 on the CRN Fast Growth 150 list, an industry benchmark that ranks solution providers with gross annual sales of at least $1 million by their two-year growth rate.
Malinda Gagnon grew up in Bethel and is a former strategist for Google. Her husband, Chief Technology Officer Brian Gagnon, grew up in Rumford and was a global architect at VMware. This couple is both deeply rooted in Maine and in Fortune 500 tech companies.
“We’re committed to growing our team in Maine as much as we possibly can, even though our customers are all over the United States and now across the globe,” she said.
Uprise Partners has about 30 employees, one-third of whom are based in Maine. The company’s dedication to hiring young professionals and developing their careers was a key reason for Propel, the next generation leaders organization within the Portland Regional Chamber of Commerce, to select the tech company as Business of the Year.
In addition, three individuals were honored with 2025 Ignition Awards:
• Young Professional of the Year Samuel Murray, 26, who oversees the ticket sales strategy for the Maine Mariners, the professional hockey team based at Cross Insurance Arena in Portland.
• Entrepreneur of the Year Becky McKinnell, founder and CEO of award-winning digital agency iBec Creative and founder and designer of Wildwood Oyster Co., a made-in-Maine leather handbag company inspired by coastal living.
• Community Leader of the Year Genius Black (also known as Jerry Edwards), digital media coordinator for Maine Humanities Council, host of the “Maine’s Black Future” podcast, a political analyst for News Center Maine and author of “7 Genius Grant Writing Secrets.”
The Center for Grieving Children, which provides free peer support to families dealing with loss, was named Nonprofit of the Year.
“In Maine, 1 in 10 children will experience the death of a parent or sibling by the time they reach 18 years old,” said Executive Director Gretchen Johnson. “Grief can cause lots of long-term impediments to mental health wellness and overall success. But the good news is that grief can be managed and processed through connection, through conversing and communicating with people you trust.”
Amy Paradysz is a freelance writer and photographer from Scarborough. She can be reached at amyparadysz@gmail.com.
