Amy Feldman, Susan Adams, Alex Konrad and Chloe Sorvino
Rob Solomon, CEO of GoFundMe / credit: Eric Millette For Forbes
Startups are the spark that lights the engine of the U.S. economy. The most successful of them, companies like Airbnb, Uber, and Snapchat, change the way we live, travel and communicate. For Forbes’ second annual list of next billion-dollar startups, we’ve found 25 companies that are transforming their industries and showing tangible results. They’ve already attracted tens and in some cases hundreds of millions in investment capital while in the midst of explosive growth.
We put together the list with the help of TrueBridge Capital Partners, a nine-year-old venture firm in Chapel Hill, NC, that also collaborates with Forbes on our annual Midas list of the world’s top tech investors. TrueBridge asked 180 venture firms to nominate startups and to encourage their portfolio companies to nominate themselves. It also fielded entries directly, through a link that appeared on its website and on Forbes.com.
To be considered, firms had to give TrueBridge their revenue numbers, their most recent valuations, a list of investors, data on their customers and an outline of their business model and growth trajectory. TrueBridge examined more than 100 companies, then passed a list of 50 to the Entrepreneurs team at Forbes. We did further reporting and analysis, examining companies’ track records, evaluating business plans, and talking to founders, investors, customers and competitors. We also gave TrueBridge an additional 20 companies to evaluate. The list is confined to U.S. startups.
After much winnowing, we think we’ve come up with a fascinating group of companies we’re confident are heading toward billion-dollar status. One of them, personal cause crowdfunder GoFundMe, is well on its way, as we explain in our magazine feature story.
Not surprisingly, many of the companies are straight technology plays, like Fuze, a fast-growing competitor in the “unified communications” market, helping companies consolidate voice, video and digital messaging data in the cloud, and Sisense, which sells big data analytics software to customers like General Electric and Target. Others are using technology to tackle broader challenges, like Boxed, a Costco for millennials that lets customers order bulk-sized packages through its mobile app, and Guardant Health, which sells a two-year-old “liquid biopsy,” a blood test for cancer patients who want to avoid the pain and risk of invasive tumor biopsies.
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