Startups Worth Watching

“There are no bad ideas. There are only early ideas.” – Marc Andreessen

“What about Yo?” – Me

This is a list of startups with enormous potential that I considered worth watching over the years.
Some of them have been acquired. Others have had hugely successful IPOs.

(keep track of their progress via this Twitter list)

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010


Toucan
https://jointoucan.com

Focus:
Languages

HQ:
United States

Founded:
2019

Added:
2022

Founders:
Taylor Nieman
Shaun Merritt

Brandon Dietz

From Crunchbase:

Toucan is a new, immersive way to learn a new language while going about your day. Learning a new language is challenging, fun, and rewarding. It also takes time, practice, and dedication. And let’s face it, finding a few minutes to study or do flashcards can feel impossible some days. So Toucan helps you learn a new language by immersing you in it while you browse the web. When you visit a webpage, Toucan quickly translates a set of words and phrases into the language you’re trying to learn. So you’ll increase your vocabulary by seeing translated words within the context of a language you already know.

Synthesis
https://www.synthesis.com

Focus:
Education

HQ:
United States

Founded:
2020

Added:
2022

Founders:
Chrisman Frank
Joshua Dahn


From Crunchbase:

Synthesis School is an online enrichment program for ages 8 to 14 with a mission to nurture future innovators. -- Six years ago, Elon Musk asked me to start an experimental school with him at SpaceX. The goal was to develop students who are enthralled by complexity and solving for the unknown. Synthesis is the most innovative learning experience from that school. It is designed to cultivate student voice, strategic thinking, and collaborative problem solving. I believe Synthesis builds these skills like no other education experience. Until recently, Synthesis was only available to a handful of SpaceX families. Today, our community is worldwide and growing quickly. Excited for you to be a part of it.

Stability AI
https://stability.ai

Focus:
Artificial Intelligence

HQ:
United Kingdom

Founded:
2019

Added:
2022

Founders:
Emad Mostaque


From Crunchbase:

AI by the people, for the people. Designing and implementing solutions using collective intelligence and augmented technology

General Fusion
https://generalfusion.com

Focus:
Fusion Power

HQ:
Canada

Founded:
2002

Added:
2021

Founders:
Michel Laberge


From Crunchbase:

General Fusion develops utility-scale fusion power using a new, patent-pending concept based on recent developments in Magnetized Target Fusion (MTF). MTF has been relatively unexplored by the fusion community since the 1970s, but if proven it would provide a practical near-term path to fusion energy. It is the goal of General Fusion to demonstrate and commercialize this new clean, safe, and economical concept by the end of the decade.

Pipe
https://www.pipe.com/

Focus:
Trading Platform

HQ:
United States

Founded:
2019

Added:
2021

Founders:
Harry Hurst
Josh Mangel

Zain Allarakhia

From Crunchbase:

Pipe operates a global trading platform for recurring revenue streams, connecting companies to institutional investors to trade in real-time. It makes recurring revenue streams tradable for their annual value offering more cash flow for scaling companies.

Redefine Meat
https://www.redefinemeat.com/

Focus:
3D Printed Food

HQ:
Israel

Founded:
2018

Added:
2021

Founders:
Adam Lahav
Eshchar Ben-Shitrit


From Crunchbase:

Redefine Meat uses 3D printing technology, meat digital modeling, and food formulations to produce animal-free meat. Redefine Meat technology produces animal-free meat with the same appearance, texture, and flavor of animal meat, from natural and sustainable ingredients. Their technology combines proprietary 3D meat modeling, food formulations, and food printing technology to deliver a new category of complex-matrix “meat” in a cost-effective and scalable way.

Hugging Face
https://huggingface.co

Focus:
Artificial Intelligence

HQ:
United States

Founded:
2016

Added:
2021

Founders:
Clement Delangue
Julien Chaumond

Thomas Wolf

From Crunchbase:

Hugging Face is an open-source provider of natural language processing (NLP) technologies.

Sourcegraph
https://sourcegraph.com/

Focus:
Search Engine

HQ:
United States

Founded:
2013

Added:
2021

Founders:
Beyang Liu
Quinn Slack


From Crunchbase:

Sourcegraph provides universal code search for developers and companies so they can innovate faster and manage billions of lines of code.

Fig
https://fig.io

Focus:
Command prompt platform

HQ:
United States

Founded:
2020

Added:
2021

Founders:
Matt Schrage
Brendan Falk


From Crunchbase:

Fig makes the terminal more accessible to beginners, more efficient for advanced engineers, and more collaborative for teams. It is building an app store ecosystem for the terminal. Its first app is autocomplete.

JustWatch
https://justwatch.com/

Focus:
TV Streaming

HQ:
Germany

Founded:
2014

Added:
2021

Founders:
David Croyé


From Crunchbase:

JustWatch is a new streaming search engine - to help you find out where to watch movies legally. What’s new on Netflix, Hulu or iTunes? Where to watch your this movie you’ve been talking about? On JustWatch you can find all that in one app. To make the experience even more worthwhile, you can customize your individual settings and use easy and intuitive filters for providers like Google Play and Amazon Prime, many different genres or release year. Their goal is to connect movie fans with their favourite content worldwide. JustWatch is starting out as a webapp optimized for tablets and smartphones. However, it works on laptops and computers too. For users, this service is completely free. Their business model is to help movie studios advertise to the right audience. Therefore they are building a fully integrated adtech stack to be able to target those fans. Their goal is to make movie marketing a lot more efficient for advertisers and a lot less annoying and more valuable for users.

Loopring
https://loopring.org

Focus:
web3

HQ:
China

Founded:
2017

Added:
2021

Exit:
ICO (2018)

Founders:
Daniel Wang
Jay Zhou


From Crunchbase:

Loopring is an opened source protocol based on smart contracts for decentralized exchanges on the Ethereum blockchain. Loopring allows for multiple exchanges to mix and match orders, off-chain order-matching and on-chain transaction clearing and payment. The company provides traders, participants, and institutions with a decentralized, automated trade execution system that intelligently implements their trades across the world’s crypto exchanges, shielding them from counterparty risk and reducing their trading costs.

Repl.it
https://repl.it/

Focus:
Developer Tools

HQ:
United States

Founded:
2016

Added:
2020

Founders:
Amjad Masad
Haya Odeh


From Crunchbase:

Repl.it lets you start coding in your favorite programming language in 2 seconds; it lets you build and deploy apps right from your browser. The founders wanted to build something to solve their own problem -- back in school they were tired of setting up their development environment on every machine they wanted to code on, and they dreamed of a world where you could just open a tab in the browser and start working. They built Repl.it to give developers access to simple, powerful tools and a community of hackers, aspiring programmers and teachers. They make it possible to learn, practice and build, all in the same place.

Hypothes.is
https://web.hypothes.is/

Focus:
Knowledge Sharing

HQ:
United States

Founded:
2011

Added:
2020

Founders:
Dan Whaley


From Crunchbase:

Hypothes.is thinks simple tools can help us all improve the quality of information on the Internet and in the greater world around us. They are building an open platform for the collaborative evaluation of knowledge. It leverages sentence-level critique to enable discussion or note-taking on top of news, blogs, scientific articles, books, terms of service, ballot initiatives, legislation, regulations and more. They build software, push for standards and interoperability and foster community. They are a non-profit organization, funded through the generosity of the Knight, Mellon, Shuttleworth, Sloan and Helmsley Foundations– and through the support of hundreds of individuals like yourself that want to see this idea come to fruition. Their efforts are based on the Annotator project, which they are principal contributors to, and annotation standards for digital documents being developed by the W3C Web Annotation Working Group. They are partnering broadly with developers, publishers, academic institutions, researchers, and individuals to develop a platform for the next generation of read-write Web applications.

Virtuix
https://virtuix.com

Focus:
Virtual Reality

HQ:
United States

Founded:
2013

Added:
2020

Founders:
Jan Goetgeluk


From Crunchbase:

Virtuix is a developer of a virtual reality platform that enables players to walk and run in 360 degrees in virtual reality. Its Virtuix Omni is the first virtual reality interface for moving freely and naturally in VR games and applications. Virtuix was founded in April 2013 and was one of the pioneers of the recent wave of VR innovation. Virtuix sells Omni systems to enterprise customers and location-based entertainment venues through the company’s global distribution network. Virtuix has shipped more than 3,500 Omni systems to date, and distributors have installed Omnis in over 500 commercial venues in 45 countries, making the Omni the most widely distributed VR hardware besides headsets.

Wikifactory
https://wikifactory.com

Focus:
Collaborative Product Development

HQ:
United Kingdom

Founded:
2016

Added:
2020

Founders:
Christina Rebel
Maximilian Kampik

Nicolai Peitersen

Tom Salfield

From Crunchbase:

Wikifactory is the place where great ideas become even better products. We’ve embedded an agile hardware product development Workspace within a very different type of social platform. One dedicated to productivity. We’re over 70,000 members from 190 countries, and we’re growing fast. Our Community of product designers, engineers and enterprises comes together to design, prototype and manufacture hardware products in more agile ways. At Wikifactory we make the tools to do this, and we make them available to everyone.

Tempo
https://www.tempo.fit

Focus:
Home Fitness

HQ:
United States

Founded:
2015

Added:
2020

Founders:
Joshua Augustin
Moawia Eldeeb


From Crunchbase:

Tempo designs and develops a home fitness platform with a personal guidance to help users in their training sessions. It features live elite trainers who can help users when they make mistakes. It has built in three-dimensional sensors that tracks form, counts reps, and recommends weights. It helps users to improve in real-time. Powered by 3D motion sensors and AI, it analyzes 25 of the body’s essential joints as users work out and gives an understood form feedback.

Cerebras Systems
https://cerebras.net/

Focus:
Artificial Intelligence Hardware

HQ:
United States

Founded:
2016

Added:
2020

Founders:
Andrew Feldman
Jean-Philippe Fricker

Michael James

Sean Lie

From Crunchbase:

Cerebras Systems is a stealth mode startup backed by premier venture capitalists and the industry’s most successful technologists. They are serially successful entrepreneurs dedicated to solving problems others are afraid to tackle. They value integrity, passion, real world problem solving ability, and a sense of humor.

Liteboxer
http://liteboxer.com/

Focus:
Home Fitness

HQ:
United States

Founded:
2017

Added:
2020

Founders:
Jeffrey Morin


From Crunchbase:

Liteboxer is a consumer electronics company providing a smart fitness platform. The company combines rhythm technology with workouts from trainers and brings fitness to home. It is an exercise machine as well as a music game.

Koyeb
https://www.koyeb.com/

Focus:
Cloud API Brokerage

HQ:
France

Founded:
2019

Added:
2020

Founders:
Bastien Chatelard
Edouard Bonlieu

Yann Léger

From Crunchbase:

Koyeb is a pioneer in smart storage solutions for the cloud-native era. Koyeb Storage is the industry-first Cloud Platform dedicated to data management and optimisation across multiple Cloud Service Providers. Koyeb Storage removes vendor lock-in with seamless migration between CSPs and provides a single point of management for multi-cloud environments. With advanced features such as smart data tiering and cloud replication, Koyeb Storage dynamically moves your data across several CSPs to maximise availability while optimising your cost.

Atom Finance
https://atom.finance/

Focus:
Investment Research

HQ:
United States

Founded:
2018

Added:
2020

Founders:
Eric Shoykhet


From Crunchbase:

Atom is the modern financial knowledge platform. Our mission is to democratize access to high-quality investment research resources.

Finnhub
https://finnhub.io/

Focus:
Finance APIs

HQ:
United States

Founded:
2019

Added:
2020

Founders:
Spencer Sands


From Crunchbase:

With the sole mission of democratizing financial data, we are proud to offer a FREE realtime API for stocks, forex and cryptocurrency. With this API, you can access realtime market data from stock exchanges, 10 forex brokers, and 15+ crypto exchanges. We also provide institutional-grade alternative and fundamental data for global companies through our stock API. We make use of state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms to collect, clean, and standardize data across global markets.

Fletch
https://fletch.ai/

Focus:
Data Search Engine

HQ:
United States

Founded:
2019

Added:
2020

Founders:
Grant Wernick
Jacob Perkins


From Crunchbase:

Fletch provides ready-to-use analytics organized in different solution sets that are approachable, easy to understand, and actionable on day one. We’re getting rid of the shitwork by automatically connecting and maintaining your data feeds so that leaders, business operators, the data-obsessed, the technical person, and the non-technical person canget right to results. Our vision is to eliminate the busywork and we are starting by helping you quickly gain visibility into your environment and know where you stand when it comes to your risk posture, compliance frameworks, workforce risk behavior, and major threats emerging every day in the news. How it works: ✓ Select a solution set (ex. monitoring user behavior to mitigate intellectual property loss) ✓ Connect your data (ex. G Suite, Salesforce, MS 365, Okta, and more) ✓ Within 24 hours, Fletch indexes, normalizes, triangulates, and runs your data through vetted triggers ✓ Surface insights you need to run your business with more visibility and peace of mind

Salto
https://salto.io/

Focus:
Application Automation

HQ:
Israel

Founded:
2019

Added:
2020

Founders:
Benny Schnaider
Gil Hoffer

Rami Tamir

From Crunchbase:

Salto is the leading solution for business application configuration. By adapting and applying software development concepts and best practices to the business operations world, Salto provides an Open Source and an Enterprise SaaS product that re-imagines multi-application configuration in the modern company. Salto's solution automatically extracts the configurations of different business applications - including Salesforce, NetSuite and HubSpot - and translates them to a new declarative representation called NaCl (“Not Another Configuration Language”). Using NaCl with Git, all applications’ configurations can be collaboratively edited and deployed back to the live business applications, or to a staging environment for testing. With Salto, configuration changes to multiple business applications can be easily tested, tracked or even rolled back if needed.

Hello Robot
https://hello-robot.com/

Focus:
Home Robot

HQ:
United States

Founded:
2017

Added:
2020

Founders:
Aaron Edsinger
Charlie Kemp


From Crunchbase:

Hello Robot builds robots that help people live better lives. Hello Robot was founded with a sense of purpose. In the future, we believe mobile manipulators will enhance the lives of older adults, people with disabilities, and caregivers. We are working to build a bridge to this future

Vivaldi
https://www.vivaldi.com

Focus:
Web Browser

HQ:
Norway

Founded:
2014

Added:
2019

Founders:
Jon S. von Tetzchner
Tatsuki Tomita


From Crunchbase:

Vivaldi develop the popular Vivaldi web browser, a highly customisable browser for power users and people who want more out of their web experience.

MasterClass
https://www.masterclass.com

Focus:
Online Learning

HQ:
United States

Founded:
2012

Added:
2019

Founders:
Aaron Rasmussen
David Rogier


From Crunchbase:

Founded in 2015, MasterClass is the platform that makes it possible for anyone to learn from the best. With MasterClass, step into Anna Wintour’s office, Timbaland’s recording studio, and Neil Gaiman’s writing retreat. Improve your serve with Serena Williams, perfect your pitch with Shonda Rhimes, and leave the atmosphere with Chris Hadfield. Hundreds of video lessons from 85+ of today’s most brilliant minds are available anytime, anywhere with the All-Access Pass ($180 per year)

Zoox
https://www.zoox.com/

Focus:
Robotaxi

HQ:
United States

Founded:
2014

Added:
2019

Exit:
Acquired (2020, Amazon, $1.2B)

Founders:
Jesse Levinson
Tim Kentley Klay


From Crunchbase:

Operating at the intersection of design, computer science, and electro-mechanical engineering, Zoox is a multidisciplinary team working to imagine and build an advanced mobility experience that will support the future needs of urban mobility for both people and the environment.

StuffThatWorks
https://www.stuffthatworks.health/

Focus:
Crowdsourced Health Diagnosis

HQ:
Israel

Founded:
2018

Added:
2019

Founders:
Yael Elish
Ron Held

Yossi Synett

From Crunchbase:

StuffThatWorks helps people learn which treatments work best for their condition using smart, AI-based crowdsourcing.

Algorithmia
https://www.algorithmia.com

Focus:
MLOps

HQ:
United States

Founded:
2014

Added:
2017

Exit:
Acquired (2021)

Founders:
Diego Oppenheimer
Kenny Daniel


From Crunchbase:

Algorithmia is a machine learning model deployment and management solution that automates the MLOps for an organization, giving leverage back to data scientists and developers. It powers mission-critical workloads for its enterprise customers and hosts the largest public marketplace for algorithms.

North
https://www.bynorth.com

Focus:
Wearables

HQ:
Canada

Founded:
2012

Added:
2017

Exit:
Acquired (2019, Google, $180M)

Founders:
Aaron Grant
Matthew Bailey

Stephen Lake

From Crunchbase:

North, formerly Thalmic Labs, builds a technology that is human centric and believes that people and technology goes hand in hand. The company thus is building technologies discreetly built into fundamental parts of our lives that already exist. With over 400 people spanning four offices across North America, it is a crew of futurists, engineers,and designers and are always looking to add more innovators to the team.

what3words
https://what3words.com

Focus:
Mapping

HQ:
United States

Founded:
2013

Added:
2017

Founders:
Chris Sheldrick
Jack Waley-Cohen

Mohan Ganesalingam

From Crunchbase:

what3words is the simplest way to talk about location. It has divided the world into a grid of 3m x 3m squares, each with a unique address made from 3 words. Now people can refer to any precise location – a delivery entrance, a picnic spot or a drone landing point – using three simple words. what3words is helping improve businesses around the world, and paving the way for social and economic progress in developing nations. It can be used via the free mobile app or online map. what3words can also be built into any other app, platform or website, with just a few lines of code.

Kernel
https://kernel.co/

Focus:
Neural Interfaces

HQ:
United States

Founded:
2016

Added:
2017

Founders:
Bryan Johnson


From Crunchbase:

Kernel is a neuroscience company that specializes in developing brain-recording technologies. Its custom-built, non-invasive brain interface acquires neural signals similar in quality to fMRI, MEG & ECoG, as easy to use as EEG.

Token
https://tokenring.com

Focus:
Wearables

HQ:
United States

Founded:
2014

Added:
2017

Founders:
Melanie Shapiro
Steve Shapiro


From Crunchbase:

Tokenize develops Token, a biometric-based wearable ring that can make payments, power up a computer, and part doors. The ring is integrated with MasterCard, Microsoft, Visa, HID, FitPay and the FIDO Alliance. Token uses a combination of fingerprinting (there’s a fingerprint sensor at the base of the ring) and an optical proximity sensor to ensure that a user’s credentials can’t be accessed by a third party. Using an app (available for iOS and Android), Tokenites can pair the ring and their biometric information with anything from their credit cards to their car keys.

Descript
https://www.descript.com/

Focus:
Audio/Video Editing

HQ:
United States

Founded:
2017

Added:
2017

Founders:
Andrew Mason


From Crunchbase:

Descript is an audio word processing platform that enables editor and producers to edit sound files while a writer would edit its lyrics. It offers anyone editing audio files, whether podcasters, journalists, or musicians, the ability to edit single-track audio clips as easily as they would edit words in a word processing document. Descript is powered by Google Speech, ensuring clients to get state-of-the-art transcription accuracy. Audio is synced to text, so the users can always hear the sound beneath the words - and search audio by searching text.

From Crunchbase:

Neuralink is developing the capabilities of the brain through technological augmentation. A "neural lace” would be surgically connected to a human brain and allow a user to interact with a computer without the bandwidth challenges that come with current input methods, including keyboards, mice and trackpads. Neuralink will explore how brain interfaces might alleviate the symptoms of dangerous and chronic medical conditions.

Readwise
https://readwise.io

Focus:
Information Sharing

HQ:
United States

Founded:
2017

Added:
2017

Founders:
Daniel Doyon
Michelle Pokrass

Tristan Homsi

From Crunchbase:

Readwise makes it easy to revisit and learn from your ebook & article highlights.

Mojo Vision
https://www.mojo.vision/

Focus:
Wearables

HQ:
United States

Founded:
2015

Added:
2017

Founders:
Drew Perkins
Michael Wiemer


From Crunchbase:

Mojo Vision is a developer of augmented reality products and platforms intended to invent the future of computing. The company has developed a smart contact lens with a built-in display that gives timely information without interrupting the focus and delivers immediate, powerful, and relevant information without the intrusions of today's mobile devices, enabling users to connect with others at a glance, anytime, anywhere handsfree.

Pymetrics
https://pymetrics.com/

Focus:
Job Market

HQ:
United States

Founded:
2011

Added:
2017

Founders:
Frida E. Polli
Julie Yoo


From Crunchbase:

Pymetrics develops neuroscience-based assessment and prediction technology to transform the way companies hire, retain, and develop their employees. It offers cognitive and emotional assessment solutions; and a personalized and dynamic recommendation engine for recruiting/hiring, retaining, and developing talent.

Numenta
https://numenta.com/

Focus:
Artificial Intelligence

HQ:
United States

Founded:
2005

Added:
2017

Founders:
Jeff Hawkins
Dileep George

Donna Dubinsky

From Crunchbase:

We are a team of scientists and engineers applying neuroscience principles to machine intelligence research. Our neuroscience research code is publicly disclosed and available in open source. Numenta has developed a major theory of intelligence and how the brain works called The Thousand Brains Theory of Intelligence, and we’re now exploring how to incorporate key principles of the theory to the field of machine intelligence.

Zipline
https://flyzipline.com

Focus:
Drone delivery

HQ:
United States

Founded:
2014

Added:
2017

Founders:
Keller Rinaudo
Keenan Wyrobek

Will Hetzler

From Crunchbase:

Zipline is a California-based automated logistics company that designs, manufactures, and operates drones to deliver vital medical products. Zipline's mission is to provide every human on Earth with instant access to vital medical supplies. In 2014, Zipline was created to deliver medicine to those who need it most. Since then, the company has built the world's fastest and most reliable delivery drone, the world's largest autonomous logistics network, and a truly amazing team. Zipline designs and tests its technology in Half Moon Bay, California. The company assembles the drones and the technology that powers its distribution centers in South San Francisco. Zipline performs extensive flight testing in Davis, California, and operates distribution centers around the planet with teams of local operators.

Wire
https://wire.com

Focus:
Communication

HQ:
Switzerland

Founded:
2012

Added:
2016

Founders:
Alan Duric
Janus Friis

Jonathan Christensen

Priidu Zilmer

From Crunchbase:

Wire™ is the most secure collaboration platform. We are transforming the way businesses communicate in the same way and speed that our founders disrupted telephony with Skype. Wire™ is consistently delivering groundbreaking first - from our unique “message fortress” architecture to encrypted video conferences and guest rooms - our customers rely on Wire to be at the forefront of secure, private yet sleek collaboration.

Grammarly
https://www.grammarly.com

Focus:
Productivity

HQ:
United States

Founded:
2009

Added:
2016

Founders:
Alex Shevchenko
Dmytro Lider

Max Lytvyn

From Crunchbase:

Grammarly’s digital writing assistant helps 30 million people write more clearly and effectively every day. Grammarly works to empower users whenever and wherever they communicate, building a product that scales through multiple platforms and devices. Across offices in San Francisco, New York, Kyiv, and Vancouver, Grammarly’s values-driven team supports its expanding user base and continues to develop its writing assistant into a truly comprehensive communication partner. With integrity and innovation, Grammarly strives to help all the world’s two billion English speakers feel heard and understood.

Snyk
https://snyk.io/

Focus:
Code Vulnerability Scanning

HQ:
United Kingdom

Founded:
2015

Added:
2016

Founders:
Assaf Hefetz
Danny Grander

Guy Podjarny

From Crunchbase:

Snyk helps software-driven organizations find and fix vulnerabilities in open source dependencies and container images. The company is a developer-first security company that helps organizations use open-source code and stay secure. The startup provides a tool that is used by developers to scan their code for vulnerable open-source components. Most enterprise applications incorporate open-source components and consequently are vulnerable to any security exploits that may be hiding in those files. Snyk’s tool flags exploits and gives developers tips on how to fix them. Developers can plug the tool into the existing code editors in which they write their applications and receive alerts about security issues directly inside the interface. The vulnerability alerts that Snyk generates are drawn from an internal database of software security flaws.

Impossible Foods
http://impossiblefoods.com/

Focus:
Plant-Based Meat

HQ:
United States

Founded:
2011

Added:
2016

Founders:
Monte Casino
Patrick Brown


From Crunchbase:

Impossible Foods is a company developing plant-based substitutes for meat, dairy, and fish products. It selects specific proteins and nutrients from greens, seeds, and grains to recreate the experience of meats and dairy products. Founded by Patrick Brown and Monte Casino in 2011, Impossible Foods is headquartered in Redwood City, California.

Robinhood
https://www.robinhood.com

Focus:
Stock Brokerage

HQ:
United States

Founded:
2013

Added:
2015

Founders:
Baiju Bhatt
Vlad Tenev


From Crunchbase:

Robinhood is a stock brokerage that allows customers to buy and sell stocks, options, ETFs, and cryptocurrencies with zero commission. The startup offers equity, cryptocurrency, and options trading, as well as cash management accounts. It also provides a stock brokerage platform that democratizes access to the financial markets and aims to make people comfortable storing money and trading stocks using its application.

Grafana Labs
https://grafana.com

Focus:
Infrastructure Monitoring

HQ:
United States

Founded:
2014

Added:
2015

Founders:
Anthony Woods
Raj Dutt

Torkel Ödegaard

From Crunchbase:

Grafana Labs supports organizations’ monitoring, visualization and observability goals through an open and composable platform built around Grafana, the open source software for beautiful monitoring and metric analytics and visualization.

Comma
https://comma.ai

Focus:
Self-Driving

HQ:
United States

Founded:
2015

Added:
2015

Founders:
George Hotz


From Crunchbase:

Comma is a self-driving car kit founded by George Hotz to show that making driverless vehicles could done relatively cheaply using off-the-shelf components and existing vehicles. It has open-sourced a dataset of 7.25 hours of highway driving.

Citymapper
https://citymapper.com/london

Focus:
Transportation

HQ:
United Kingdom

Founded:
2011

Added:
2015

Founders:
Azmat Yusuf


From Crunchbase:

Citymapper is a transport app for cities. Citymapper uses the power of mobile and open transport data to help humans survive and master them. Citymapper builds mobile apps and routing and develops (transport) data about cities, everywhere in the world where it can make a difference. Citymapper has a small dedicated team, with HQ in London, andsome based around the cities of the world. The team has backgrounds in transport, Google, startups, apps, design, investing and academia.

Zapier
https://zapier.com

Focus:
Process Automation

HQ:
United States

Founded:
2011

Added:
2014

Founders:
Bryan Helmig
Mike Knoop

Wade Foster

From Crunchbase:

Zapier helps anyone to automate the most tedious parts of a day to day job. The company believes that there are jobs that a computer is best at doing and that there are jobs that a human is best at doing. Zapier wants to empower businesses everywhere to create processes and systems that let computers do what they are best at doing and let humans do what they are best at doing.

Netskope
https://www.netskope.com

Focus:
Secure Web Gateway

HQ:
United States

Founded:
2012

Added:
2013

Founders:
Krishna Narayanaswamy
Ravi Ithal

Sanjay Beri

From Crunchbase:

Netskope is a software company that helps organizations understand online activities, protect data, stop threats, and respond to incidents. The company provides context-aware governance of all cloud usage in the enterprise in real-time, whether accessed from the corporate network, remote, or from a mobile device. It also helps companies protect data and protect against threats in cloud applications, cloud infrastructure, and the web. Netskope patented Cloud XD technology eliminates blind spots by going deeper than any other security provider to quickly target and control activities across thousands of cloud services and millions of websites. It offers different deployment options for traffic steering for analysis and policy control. The company can enforce policies including data loss prevention (DLP), access control, anti-malware, encryption, and incident management services on the cloud and web traffic it inspects.

Hashicorp
https://www.hashicorp.com

Focus:
Infrastructure Automation

HQ:
United States

Founded:
2012

Added:
2012

Exit:
IPO (2021, $15.24B)

Founders:
Armon Dadgar
Mitchell Hashimoto


From Crunchbase:

HashiCorp is an open-source software company based in San Francisco, California. HashiCorp provides open source tools and commercial products that enable developers, operators, and security professionals to provide secure and run distributed application infrastructure.

App Annie
https://www.appannie.com

Focus:
Analytics

HQ:
United States

Founded:
2010

Added:
2010

Founders:
Bertrand Schmitt
Bjorn Stabell


From Crunchbase:

App Annie is a decision­-making platform for the mobile app economy. App Annie combines the analytics of one’s own apps with a granular understanding of the competition and market to provide a unique 360­-degree view of one’s mobile business.The App Annie platform is relied upon by over 90 percent of the top 100 publishers and more than 700,000 apps. Customers of App Annie's Intelligence product include the likes of Electronic Arts, Google, LinkedIn, Line, Microsoft, Nexon, Nestle, Samsung, Tencent, Bandai Namco, and Universal Studios. The company has tracked over 83 billion downloads and more than US $25 billion in gross revenues to date, the industry leader by far.