American Forbes presented the annual ranking of the fastest-growing startups, which can soon be estimated at $1 billion and become “unicorns.” Forbes directly interviewed more than 100 startups. The final list contains 25 startups in alphabetical order, which, in their opinion, have the greatest chance of reaching an estimate of $1 billion.
Acorns
CEO: Noah Kerner
Founders: Jeff Krattenden, Walter Krattenden
Attracted investment: $257 million
2019 revenue: $50 million
Leading investors: Bain Capital, e.ventures, Greycroft, NBCUniversal, PayPal, TPG Capital
Walter Krattenden, who previously managed the investment division of E-Trade financial corporation, and his son Jeff founded the fintech startup Acorns in 2012. Their idea was to round off the “change” from purchases that customers make using debit and credit cards and automatically invest these amounts in the stock market.
Algolia
CEO: Bernadette Nixon
Founders: Nicolas Desssany, Julien Lemoine
Attracted investment: $184 million
2019 revenue: $50 million
Leading investors: Accel, Alven, SaaStr Fund, Salesforce Ventures
Are you looking for online classes on Coursera or checking on the NPR website for your favorite broadcast? You may not be aware of this, but you are using Algolia software. These sites, along with Twitch, Under Armor, and Slack, are among the 9,000 customers that Algolia helps create a site search and, consequently, increase online audience engagement and revenue.
Andela
CEO: Jeremy Johnson
Founders: Ainoluva Aboyedzhi, Ian Carnevale, Nadayyar Enegesi, Jeremy Johnson, Bryce Nkengsa, Christina Sass
Attracted investment: $181 million
2019 revenue: $50 million
Leading investors: Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, CRE Venture Capital, Generation Investment Management, Spark Capital
From its headquarters in New York, Andela works to fill the shortage with IT professionals in the US: the company seeks and trains software developers in Africa, and then arranges for remote work for companies such as Microsoft, Facebook, and Google.
Benchling
CEO: Sajit Vikramasekara
Founders: Ashu Singal, Sajjit Wikramasekara
Attracted investment: $114 million
2019 revenue: $21 million
Leading investors: Alkeon, Andreessen Horowitz, Benchmark, Menlo Ventures, Thrive Capital, Y Combinator
Vikramasekara studied at MIT when he came up with the idea of creating a cloud designer called Crispr, which would help scientists in their work.
Capsule
CEO: Eric Kinarivala
Founder: Eric Kinarivala
Attracted investment: $270 million
2019 revenue: $100 million
Leading investors: Glade Brook Capital, TCV, Thrive Capital
Five years ago, Kinarivala spent almost an hour at the local Duane Reade pharmacy to buy medicine for sinusitis. When his turn finally came, it turned out that the drug was not available. This experience prompted the entrepreneur to create a company Capsule in New York, which offers to buy medicines through the application or SMS and receive a free courier home delivery within two hours.
Coalition
CEO: Joshua Motta
Founders: John Hering, Joshua Motta
Attracted investment: $125 million
2019 revenue: $27 million
Leading investors: Hillhouse Capital, Ribbit Capital, Valor Equity Partners, Vy Capital
Coalition insurance firm specializes in cybersecurity and helps companies recover up to $15 million in damages resulting from hacker attacks, extortion, fraud, and security vulnerabilities.
Cockroach labs
CEO: Spencer Kimball
Founders: Ben Darnell, Spencer Kimball, Peter Mattis
Attracted investment: $195 million
2019 revenue: $5 million
Leading investors: Altimeter, Benchmark, GV, Index Ventures, Redpoint
As you know, cockroaches are extremely tenacious. A 46-year-old entrepreneur Spencer Kimbal liked that thought and founded Cockroach Labs startup. According to him, companies that use their cloud-based relational databases are more stable and protected from power outages or system errors.
Expanse
CEO: Tim Junio
Founders: Tim Junio, Matt Craning, Sean Maguire
Attracted investment: $136 million
2019 revenue: $30 million
Leading investors: Founders Fund, IVP, New Enterprise Associates, TPG Capital
Today, a startup in San Francisco offers customers like CVS and PayPal an overview of their digital assets, such as domains, IP addresses, and cloud infrastructure, which allows them to monitor vulnerabilities and identify potential cyberattacks.
Fivetran
CEO: George Fraser
Founders: Taylor Brown, George Fraser
Attracted investment: $60 million
2019 revenue: $15 million
Leading investors: Andreessen Horowitz, CEAS, Matrix Partners, Y Combinator
When the founders of Fivetran Fraser and Brown launched an automated data integration company in 2012, they did not see much interest from investors. However, over time, the value of data integration has become apparent. To date, the company has created more than 130 automatic “connectors” with data sources, including Salesforce, Oracle, and Dropbox.
Gong
CEO: Amit Bendov
Founders: Amit Bendov, Eilon Reshef
Attracted investment: $133 million
2019 revenue: $30 million
Leading investors: Battery Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners, Sequoia
Gong software automatically processes and scans all user communications with customers: emails, calls, or video chats – to identify who can already try to offer a more expensive tariff, and who is about to refuse the company’s services.
Homebound
CEO: Nikki Pechet
Founders: Jack Abraham, Nikki Bakes
Attracted investment: $53 million
2019 revenue: $10 million
Leading investors: Atomic, Fifth Wall
When California’s winemaking areas were devastated by fires in 2017, entrepreneurs Abraham and Pechet set up Homebound in nearby Santa Rosa to help other homeowners rebuild. The startup helped organize every step: from obtaining a building permit and submitting an application to an insurance company to design and construction.
Ironclad
CEO: Jason Boemig
Founders: Jason Boemig, Kai GoGwilt
Attracted investment: $ 84 million
2019 revenue: $ 10 million
Leading investors: Accel, Sequoia, Y Combinator
“Contracts are business atoms, but they are slow, inefficient, and boring,” Ironclad co-founder Jason Boemig says. This is where the Ironclad comes in. San Francisco-based startup software allows companies to easily process, edit, mail out contracts, and link to them.
Lyra health
CEO: David Ebersman
Founders: Dena Bravata, David Ebersman, Bob Kocher, Brian Roberts
Attracted investment: $176 million
2019 revenue: $50 million
Leading investors: Glynn Capital, Greylock Partners, IVP, Meritech Capital, Tenaya Capital, Venrock
Every year, approximately 50 million Americans suffer from mental health problems. The main difficulty is not in treatment but in access to help. 50-year-old Ebersman in 2014 left the post of financial director of Facebook to deal with this problem. Lyra’s solution is to help companies provide employees with psychological help.
Mirror
CEO: Brynn Putnam
Founder: Brynn Putnam
Attracted investment: $72 million
2019 revenue: $45 million
Leading investors: Lerer Hippeau, Point72 Ventures, Spark Capital
This startup sells tech mirrors for $1,495 to help create a home gym. After the purchase, customers pay another $39 per month for access to an unlimited library of various exercise groups — from cardio and weight training to yoga.
Moveworks
CEO: Bhavin Shah
Founders: Zhang Chen, Vaibhav Nivargi, Bhavin Shah, Varun Sing
Attracted investment: $105 million
Estimated revenue for 2019: $10 million
Leading investors: Bain Capital, Iconiq Capital, Kleiner Perkins, Lightspeed
With the help of artificial intelligence, the company automates IT support using natural language processing so that tasks like unlocking accounts or adding colleagues to an email newsletter are solved automatically, and without the participation of a live IT specialist.
Rippling
CEO: Parker Conrad
Founders: Parker Conrad, Prasanna Sankar
Attracted investment: $100 million
Estimated revenue for 2019: $10 million
Leading investors: Initialized Capital, Kleiner Perkins, Y Combinator
Startup software allows you to manage salaries, bonuses, equipment, and applications of employees. So, the process of hiring new employees goes smoothly.
Shipwell
CEO: Greg Price
Founders: Gregory Price, Jason Traff
Attracted investment: $47 million
Estimated revenue for 2019: $30 million
Leading investors: Fifth Wall, First Round Capital, Georgian Partners
With artificial intelligence and machine learning, Shipwell, based in Austin, Texas, offers cargo tracking and analytics to help increase efficiency and save millions of customers like Premier Packaging and Crystal Geyser.
Signal sciences
CEO: Andrew Peterson
Founders: Nick Galbraith, Zane Lackey, Andrew Peterson
Attracted investment: $62 million
Estimated revenue for 2019: $30 million
Leading investors: Charles River Ventures, Harrison Metal, Index Ventures, Lead Edge Capital, OATV
The founders of Signal Sciences met as developers at Etsy, where they worked on a cyber defense system for an electronic trading platform. In the process, they realized that they were tackling the most pressing security issue. In 2014, they launched their startup in San Francisco, which protects company web applications from cyberattacks.
SmartRent
CEO: Lucas Haldeman
Founder: Lucas Haldeman
Attracted investment: $102 million
Estimated revenue for 2019: $35 million
Leading investors: Bain Capital, RET Ventures, Spark Capital
SmartRent from Scottsdale, Arizona, turns smart home technologies, such as smart locks and thermostats, into multifunctional devices.
Solugen
CEO: Gaurab Chakrabarti
Founders: Gaurab Chakrabarti, Sean Hunt
Attracted investment: $80 million
Estimated revenue for 2019: $12 million
Leading investors: Founders Fund, Y Combinator
Chakrabarti and Hunt (both 31 years old) have developed bacterial strains with an edited genome and enzymes that convert corn sugar into chemicals commonly obtained by processing oil. Now a Houston-based company can biologically produce sanitizer ingredients and clean wastewater.
Superhuman
CEO: Rahul Vohra
Founders: Conrad Irwin, Vivek Soder, Rahul Vohra
Attracted investment: $51 million
Estimated revenue for 2019: $20 million
Leading investors: Andreessen Horowitz, First Round
The startup Superhuman claims that it helps Gmail and iPhone users to parse mail twice as fast in the quest for “zero inboxes”: a mailbox where there are no messages requiring a response.
Tally
CEO: Jason Brown
Founders: Jason Brown, Jasper Platz
Attracted investment: $92 million
Estimated revenue for 2019: $20 million
Leading investors: Andreessen Horowitz, Cowboy Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, Shasta Ventures
A 40-year-old serial entrepreneur Jason Brown, from his youth, was thinking about how to help people cope with debts. Therefore, in 2015, together with 40-year-old Platz, he founded Tally, an application that helps users automate the payment of credit card debts.
Tray.io
CEO: Richard Waldron
Founders: Dominic Lewis, Alistair Russell, Richard Waldron
Attracted investment: $109 million
Estimated revenue for 2019: $15 million
Leading investors: GGV Capital, Meritech Capital, Mosaic Ventures, Spark Capital, True Ventures
Tray’s workflow automation tools help companies solve tasks such as generating marketing leads and processing payments.
Trusted Health
CEO: Lenny Slivinsky
Founders: Matt Pierce, Lenny Slivinsky
Attracted investment: $25 million
Estimated revenue for 2019: $28 million
Leading investors: Craft Ventures, Felicis Ventures, Founder Collective
Trusted Health helps job-seeking nurses get in touch with the hospitals that need them.
Weave
CEO: Brandon Rodman
Founders: Clint Berry, Brandon Rodman, Jared Rodman
Attracted investment: $152 million
Estimated revenue for 2019: $50 million
Leading investors: A.Capital Ventures, Catalyst Investors, Crosslink Capital, Lead Edge Capital, Tiger Global Management
Back in 2008, Brandon Rodman founded his first company, Recall Solutions, to help dentists record patients by phone. He soon realized that the text could be more effective.