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List of "rocket ship" startups. Looking for the next big thing.
"Get on a rocket ship. When companies are growing quickly and they are having a lot of impact, careers take care of themselves. And when companies aren’t growing quickly or their missions don’t matter as much, that’s when stagnation and politics come in. If you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship, don’t ask what seat. Just get on." — Sheryl Sandberg and Eric Schmidt
This list was based on www.breakoutlist.com. Check them out!
| Company | Industry | Location | Stage | Size | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vicarious | AI | San Francisco | Raised $40 M in series B (Mar '14) from Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Vinod Khosla and Ashton Kutcher. Raised additional investment (Apr '14) from Jeff Bezos, Yahoo's Jerry Yang, Skype's Janus Friis and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff. | 10 (Apr '14) | They are using the theorized computational principles of the brain to build software that can think and learn like a human. |
| Tesla | Automotive | Palo Alto | Released Model D, the dual-motor car (Oct '14). Working on "solid metal snake" charger | 6000 (Sep '14) | Designs, manufactures and sells electric vehicles, such as the Tesla Roadster, the first fully electric sports car. |
| uBeam | Energy | Los Angeles | Total funding of $13.2 Million in 4 Rounds from 16 Investors. Most Recent Funding: $10 Million Series A on October 30, 2014 | 1-10 (Nov '14. From Crunchbase) | A wireless power startup that transmits power over-the-air to charge electronic devices. |
| Magic Leap | VR | Palo Alto | Raised $542 million in second-round financing from an unparalleled lineup of bigfoot investors led by Google (Oct '14) | 101 - 250 (Nov '14. From Linkedin) | It's time to bring magic back into the world. Launching the future of computing |
| Palantir | Data analytics and Consulting | Palo Alto | The company has been doubling its revenue every year. It was estimated that the company would likely close almost $1 billion in contracts in 2014. (Nov'14) | 1200 (Dec '13) | Builds software that connects data, technologies, humans and environments. |
| SpaceX | Aerospace | Hawthorne, CA | In the early stages of developing advanced micro-satellites operating in large formations for Internet access. Official announcement in 2 to 3 months. (Nov '14) | 4000 (Oct '14) | They make rockets. |
| Soylent | Food | Los Angeles | Raised funds in excess of US$3,500,000 through crowdfunding and $2.3 Million in 3 rounds from 5 investors (including YC) for additional research and modification of the formula. The first shipments of US orders began in the first week of May 2014. (Nov' 14) | 1-10 (Nov '14. from Linkedin) | Soylent is a food product (classified as a food, not a supplement, by the FDA) designed for use as a staple meal by all adults. Each serving of Soylent provides maximum nutrition with minimum effort. |
| Company | Industry | Location | Stage | Size | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Magic Leap | - | - | - | - | - |
| uBeam | - | - | - | - | - |
| Yik Yak | - | - | It was valued for $400M in its last round. | - | - |
| Product Hunt | - | - | - | - | - |
| Homejoy | - | - | - | - | - |
| RobinHood | - | - | - | - | - |
| Whatsgoodly | - | - | Growing on campus. In general, it's an idea that can become very popular, but can also be a fad. It's worth to keep an eye open for them. | - | - |
| Company | Industry | Location | Stage | Size | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Snapchat | Social | Los Angeles | Currently working on its ad strategy. Rolled out its ads in Oct '14. Valution of $10 billion valuation. (Nov' 14) | 35 (Feb '14) | Photo messaging application |
| Yik Yak | Social/Anonymous | Atlanta, GA | Extremely popular at Stanford. Growing fast in colleges. A little over two months after the initial $1.5 million, Yik Yak secured $10 million from its previous investors, along with Renren Lianhe Holdings, and Tim Draper. (Nov '14) | 15 (Nov' 14) | Allows people to anonymously create and view posts within a 1.5 mile radius depending on how many other users are nearby. |
| Social / Image-sharing | San Francisco | Pinterest generates its first revenue this year, when it begins charging advertisers to promote their wares to the site's millions of hobbyists, vacation planners, and do-it-yourselfers. Ads on the site could generate as much as $500 million in 2016, estimates Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Securities. (Jan '14) | 300+ (Nov '14) | Web and mobile application company that offers a visual discovery, collection, sharing, and storage tool. |
| Company | Industry | Location | Stage | Size | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Airbnb | Accomodation and Travel | San Francisco | Released a glossy new print quarterly called Pineapple this month. (Nov '14) | 1001-5000 employees (Nov '14. From Linkedin) | A trusted community marketplace for people to list, discover, and book unique accommodations around the world |
| News / Social | San Francisco | Yishan Wong (former CEO) resigned from reddit after a disagreement with the board regarding the new office's location (Nov '14). Raised $50M on a $500M valuation in a series B led by Sam Altman (Sep '14). | 51 (Jul '14) | Entertainment, social networking service and news website where registered community members can submit content, such as text posts or direct links. | |
| Product Hunt | Curated Web | San Francisco | Growing fast and getting a lot of attention. Total funding received was $7.5 M in 4 rounds from 18 investors. Most recent funding was $440 K debt financing (Oct '14) | Surfaces the best new products, every day. It's a place for product-loving enthusiasts to share and geek out about the latest mobile apps, websites, hardware projects, and tech creations. | |
| Teespring | Custom Apparel / Crowdfunding | Providence, RI | News: 1 out of 75 americans bought a product from them in 2014. They say they're minting new millionaires selling their T-shirts. Just raised $35M in series B led by Khosla, with Keith Rabois (Khosla partner) joining the board. (Nov '14) | ~70 (Nov '14) | A crowdfunding platform for custom apparel. |
| DoorDash | Food delivery | Palo Alto | Raised $17.3M from Sequoia to expand its service. (May '14) | 12 (Mar '14) | Enables delivery in areas where it was not previously available. The company's mission is to empower small business owners to offer delivery in an affordable and convenient way. |
| Stripe | Payment | San Francisco | In March 2014, announced that Stripe would support Bitcoin transactions. Also announced plans to process payments via Automated Clearing House, which would allow merchants to set up payments against a customer's bank account in the United States (Jan '14). In Oct '14, Stripe became one of the payment providers whose SDKs support Apple Pay integration in iOS apps. | 153 (Aug '14) | Provides a way for individuals and businesses to accept payments over the Internet. |
| Homejoy | Home cleaning / home services | San Francisco | It’s hoping to expand into several other verticals. Adora said the company would continue to test out other services in its different markets. (Oct '14) | 130 (Nov '14) | On-demand home services |
| Zenefits | Human resources | San Francisco | Despite its impressive growth, scaling the company is going to be a huge challenge. IVP labeled it the “fastest-growing software-as-a-service company we’ve ever seen.” $66.5 Million Series B (Jun '14). | 300 (Nov '14) | Gives you, your managers, and your employees a single place to manage all your HR — payroll, benefits, compliance, and more — all online, in one beautiful dashboard. |
| Instacart | Grocery delivery / logistics | San Francisco | Very impressive list of investors, signaling presumably very impressive traction. Great product | 40 (Nov '14) | Online grocery shopping |
| Clever | Education | San Francisco | Impressive list of investors includes YC, Sequoia, Google Ventures. | 11-50 (Nov '14. From Linkedin) | The Clever technology does two things: 1) Clever extracts student data from legacy data systems inside of schools. 2) Clever makes the data available to developers via a modern REST API. |
| Company | Industry | Location | Stage | Size | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tinder | Online Dating | Los Angeles | There have been some changes in leadership amidst accusations of sexism -- the CEO Sean Rad will be replaced, but stays on the board (Nov '14). As of April 2014, Tinder was rumored to have more than 10 million active daily users. | 33 (Aug '14) | Matchmaking mobile app, which connects with users' Facebook profiles to provide pictures and ages for other users to view. |
| Snapchat | - | - | - | - | - |
| Uber | Ridesharing | San Francisco | Despite what Glassdoor seems to indicate, Uber’s engineers absolutely love working there. Insane traction, as you probably know | Ridesharing service through mobile apps. | |
| Airbnb | - | - | - | - | - |
| Company | Description |
|---|---|
| Flipkart | Started by selling books online, but has morphed into a broad online marketplace where thousands of third-party merchants sell electronics, clothes and other items to more than 20 million registered users. It is India’s largest e-commerce marketplace by sales transacted. Latest Valuation - 10 Billion USD |
| Snapdeal | Snapdeal.com is an online marketplace, headquartered in New Delhi, India.Snapdeal has grown to become the largest online marketplace in India by products offered offering an assortment of 4 million+ products across diverse categories from over 20,000 sellers. Raised $627 million from SoftBank Internet in October |
| Company | Description |
|---|---|
| EasyTaxi | Taxi App. Far more popular than Uber in Brazil, even in big cities, because Uber is still considerably more expensive than Taxi and people don't trust Uber. The four latest series of investment took Easy Taxi to over $77 million in backing. |
| Company | Industry | Location | Stage | Size |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Uber | Ridesharing | San Francisco | - | |
| Stripe | Payments | San Francisco | 153 (Aug '14) | |
| Airbnb | Accomodation and Travel | San Francisco | 1001-5000 employees (Nov '14. From Linkedin) | |
| Dropbox | File sharing / Cloud storage | San Francisco | 552 (Jan '14) | |
| Social / Image-sharing | San Francisco | - | - | |
| Box | Enterprise Software / Cloud Storage | Los Altos | Box inched a bit closer to going public Monday, announcing a $150 million cash injection and updating its S-1 documents to show 2014 growth. (Jul '14) | 750 (Mar '13) |
| Zenefits | ||||
| Instacart | ||||
| Homejoy | Home cleaning / home services | San Francisco | - | 130 (Nov '14) |
| Teespring | Custom Apparel / Crowdfunding | Providence, RI | ~70 (Nov '14) | |
| Optimizely | ||||
| Coinbase | ||||
| Weebly | ||||
| Crowdtilt | ||||
| Pebble | Wearables |
| Company | Description |
|---|---|
| Boxed | Offering free delivery on bulk goods, Boxed puts Costco on your smartphone. Despite the logistical challenges and slim profit margins of storing and shipping products, the New York-based company has grown from two states to 48 in the last quarter. Founded by former Zynga employee Chieh Huang in June, Boxed raised $1.1 million seed round in August from the likes of Bessemer Venture Partners, ENIAC Ventures and Social Starts. Average order sizes are a little over $100, though the repeat purchases on three months worth of toilet paper are less frequent than popping to your local store. They face competition from shipping behemoth Amazon, but Boxed is winning the iPhone wallets of young urban professionals looking to save money and time without becoming a member -- or opening a browser. |
| Blue Apron | One of several dinner kit deliveries, Brooklyn-based Blue Apron beat out competitors Plated and HelloFresh to become the largest U.S.-operating service of its kind this year. Former venture capitalist Matt Salzberg cofounded Blue Apron with e-commerce veteran Ilia Papas and expert chef Matthew Wadiak to help educate Americans by delivering unusual ingredients with easy-to-follow recipes straight to your door. At just $9.99 a meal with no subscription fee, Blue Apron is the cheapest in the market and currently delivers to 80% of the U.S. population. Founded in August 2012, it’s backed by $8 million from former Seamless and Facebook executives. Delivering 60,000 meals in July, Blue Apron expanded to serve up 100,000 in August and is now dishing out 300,000 meals a month, on course for 2013 revenue exceeding $10 million, FORBES estimates. |
| Coinbase | San Francisco-based Coinbase has become the most widely-used way to buy and transfer the online currency in the U.S. It’s also the most funded Bitcoin startup, with $31 million in the physical bank since raising a $25 million Series B led by Andreessen Horowitz in December. It now helps over 17,000 merchants including OkCupid and Reddit to accept payment in Bitcoin. Launched in 2012, by May this year Coinbase had just 115,000 users – now, that's over 660,000. Though the company will not share how much Bitcoin it is currently processing, in April Coinbase ran $15 million worth of transactions. With Bitcoin now four times the value, Coinbase's 1% cut per transfer is looking more and more appealing to investors. |
| Estimize | Providing crowdsourced earnings estimates for stocks, Estimize is an unsexy-sounding disruptor to financial services. Users enter earnings estimates which are added to overall estimates and can be tracked against other users, essentially making trading social. With 3,000 contributing analysts and 15,000 community members, Estimize predictions are more accurate than Wall Street's 69% of the time. Founded by former traders Leigh Drogen and Matthew Jording in 2011, last year it raised $1.2 million to grow operations. Bloomberg took notice: this year it entered a licensing agreement with Bloomberg LP to feature the company’s data on Bloomberg's 300,000 terminals. |
| FlightCar | As the sharing economy expands, FlightCar’s ingenius take on it – park your car at the airport and FlightCar will rent it out while you're gone – is already gaining traction in Boston, L.A. and San Francisco. Founded in 2012, FlightCar started operating in 2013, raising over $6 million to do so. All rentals are insured for up to $1 million, and users receive free airport packing and a car wash. If the vehicle is rented, the owner makes money. San Francisco airport has filed a lawsuit against the peer-to-peer car-sharing startup, claiming FlightCar needs to pay the same fees as conventional car-rental giants. Founders Rujul Zaparde and Kevin Petrovic are undettered: so far, they have had over 4,000 rentals to date, and over 3,700 cars dropped off. Currently operational in three cities, the Y Combinator graduate plans to expand services next year. Not on the cards, however, is college - the 19 year old middle-school-friends-turned-founders have put off higher education to work on the company. |
| Hired | Hired is upending human resources with its specialized curation of tech talent. With demand for engineers and designers on the up, Hired says it has become the largest professional matchmaker in Silicon Valley and is now finding employees for 720 companies including Twitter, Lyft and Pinterest. Every month it vets thousands of applicants before deciding the best 5% to work with. Once a candidate picks a job, the new employee receives a check from Hired for upwards of $3,000 - and a bottle of Dom Perignon. For every successful placement, Hired charges the company either a 15% fee of the employee's first year wage or 1% of the annual salary every month for 24 months. With salaries averaging at $128,000, the latter option nets Hired a healthy amount, but also means if the employee quits, Hired stops getting paid. Cofounder Matt Mickiewicz, who launched freelance marketplace 99Designs, says that won't be a problem - Hired only works with companies whose funding and focus on expansion makes them desirable workplaces. Launched by Douglas Feirsten, Allan Grant and Mickiewicz in 2012, Hired had just 265 companies on board at the start of 2013 when it raised $2.7 million. Now with 30 employees and offices in San Francisco and New York, Hired is profitable. |
| Homejoy | House cleaning startup Homejoy mops homes for $20 an hour. It may not sound glamorous, but if Homejoy's booming business is anything to go plenty of Americans don't want to get their hands dirty: Homejoy currently offers cut-cost cleaning in 31 cities. All cleanings are bonded and insured, with Homejoy offering a complimentary re-clean if customers aren’t happy. It pays its cleaners around $15 an hour, making profit margins slim, but wages fair. Since closing a $38 million funding round in December, led by Google Ventures, Redpoint Ventures and PayPal cofounder Max Levchin, Homejoy has raised just under $40 million – a tidy sum for a year-old company. Brother and sister team Adora and Aaron Cheung plan to make Homejoy the go-to service for home maintenance needs and intend to scale in a big way come the new year. |
| Sonoma Cider | Rather than bootstrapping, this hard cider company has been run with a tech startup's aggressive emphasis on growth. Founded by Robert Cordtz, David Cordtz and Fred Einstein, Sonoma Cider has been able to leverage $2 million in venture capital and crowdfunding via CircleUp to get on the market less than a year after founding. As the hard cider market doubles thanks to rising popularity among those who can't drink beer, the Headsburg, California-based company is on track to ship 10,000 cases this year. With 2013 revenue at $300,000 as the first bottles hit shelves just before Thanksgiving, the company has a projected 2014 revenue of $2.3 million. |
| WillCall | WillCall is taking concert tickets mobile. Founded in 2010, this year WillCall really got off the ground, raising $1.2 million from the likes of SV Angel and Napster founder/Spotify investor Sean Parker. Currently offering listings for San Francisco and New York, WillCall will continue to expand next year as cofounder Donnie Dinch hopes to turn it into a logistics solutions company for the $24 billion live music industry. Early adopters seem keen - in 2013 more than 1.7 million list spots at SXSW were reserved through WillCall. Though the app is attractive, its margins are slim: it must split meagre transaction fees with venues and promotors. |