Companies in Indianapolis: 51,076 businesses, three hospital systems on top and two giants in revenue

This page is for anyone looking for, vetting or selling to companies in Indianapolis: job seekers, people choosing a supplier, life sciences and logistics partners, and B2B sellers deciding where in Central Indiana to focus. It covers the largest employers, the public companies based here, how many businesses there are and what they do, and the Indiana records for checking a company.

The largest employers in Indianapolis

The Indianapolis Public Transportation Corporation (IndyGo), a component unit of the consolidated City of Indianapolis-Marion County, publishes a principal employers schedule in its 2025 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report, using largest-employer data from the Indy Partnership, the region's economic development organization:

The ten employ 120,953 people, 28.86% of total city employment on the schedule's measure (against 20.78% for the 2016 top ten). Read the counts with care: Ascension St. Vincent shows exactly the same 17,398 in both years, which suggests a figure that hasn't been refreshed, and the schedule spells Elevance as "Elevane." Marsh Supermarkets, sixth in 2016, is gone from the list, and Peyton Manning Children's Hospital and the IU School of Medicine no longer appear as separate entries.

Lilly is the only company in the top five, and the three health systems alone employ 59,855 people, almost half of the ten's total.

Public companies headquartered in Indianapolis

Ranked by revenue in each company's latest 10-K, among SEC-registered listed companies whose 10-K cover gives a principal executive office in the metro:

The 15 reported $310.40 billion. Elevance's figure is total revenues, including investment income; its operating revenue was $197.58 billion, of which $164.64 billion was premiums. The two banks' figures are net interest income plus noninterest income, not interest income. Republic Airways Holdings files under the SEC registration that Mesa Air Group used before the two combined. EIDP, the Corteva subsidiary formerly registered as E. I. du Pont de Nemours, also files from Indianapolis but is consolidated into Corteva.

Carmel, in Hamilton County, has four of the 15. Cummins, often listed among Indiana's largest companies, is in Columbus, Indiana, outside this metro.

How many businesses are in Indianapolis

County Business Patterns (CBP) for the Indianapolis-Carmel-Greenwood, IN Metro Area (CBSA 26900), all sectors, 2023:

By size, 42,036 establishments have 1 to 19 employees, 7,443 have 20 to 99 and 1,597 have 100 or more, including 64 with 1,000 or more. Boone County's workplaces average 21.9 employees against Hamilton's 15.8. CBP counts locations with paid employees, excludes the self-employed and government, and measures employment in the pay period including March 12, 2023.

What Indianapolis businesses do

Average pay is our calculation. Two clusters stand out. Life sciences: just five pharmaceutical preparation plants employ 5,150 people, an average of 1,030 each, and all pharmaceutical manufacturing employs 7,509 at 13 establishments. Logistics: couriers and express delivery employ 17,207 at 96 establishments, four with 1,000 or more, and FedEx is eighth on the employer list. For the drug makers, see pharmaceutical companies in Indianapolis.

How to check an Indianapolis company

Prospecting Indianapolis insurance agencies

Central Indiana has an insurance cluster beyond the carriers: 994 insurance agencies and brokerages (NAICS 524210), most of them small and independent.

Illustrative example. The company, prices and results are fictional; the counts are from CBP 2023.

Monon Data (monondata.example) sells software that pre-fills commercial insurance applications and compares carrier quotes.

• Insurance agencies with 5 to 49 employees: 144 + 44 + 22 = 210.
• It assumes half write enough commercial lines to care: about 105.
• Winning 12 at $14,000 a year is $168,000.

The buyer is the agency principal or the commercial lines manager, and the moment is renewal season, when account managers spend days re-keying the same applications for several carriers. Sorting the 210 by how much commercial business each writes is the account research that Bebop does before you call.

Subject: Re-keying applications at [Agency]

Hi [first name],

At most agencies your size, account managers spend renewal season typing the same commercial application into four carrier portals.

We pre-fill applications from your management system and return the carriers' quotes side by side, so a renewal that took a day takes an hour. Could I show you one of your own renewals run through it?

[Your name], Monon Data

Next step: see the state as a whole in companies in Indiana.