VCJ 20 Most Promising Startups – The Full List
Due to popular demand, we’re making the full list of winners of the VCJ 20 Most Promising Startups available. See my original post for the genesis of the project and how we chose the winners.
Venture Capital Journal subscribers can read in-depth profiles of all the winners here.
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And now—drum roll, please—here are the top 20 most promising startups that raised seed or venture funding in 2009, as chosen by the writers and editors of Venture Capital Journal.
(CORRECTION: Pixazza was backed by Google Ventures, not Google. Correction made to table. -L.A.)
| VCJ 20: MOST PROMISING STARTUPS | ||||
| Rank | Company | Description | Amount Raised | Select Investors |
| 1 | Cloudera Inc. | Provides services and support for Hadoop. | $11M | Accel Partners and Greylock Partners |
| 2 | Pixazza Inc. | Develops an e-commerce enabling platform for online photos. | $5.75M | August Capital, CMEA Ventures, Foundation Capital and Google Google Ventures |
| 3* | On-Q-ity Inc. | Develops diagnostic tools for the treatment of cancer patients at various stages of the treatment cycle. | $26M | Atlas Venture, Bessemer Venture Partners, Mohr Davidow Ventures, Northgate Capital Group and Physic Ventures |
| 3* | Organic Motion Inc. | Provides computer vision and marker-less motion capture systems. | $8.3M | The Foundry Group |
| 5* | General Fusion Inc. | Attempting to create a fusion-powered electrical generator. | $22M | Braemar Energy Ventures, Chrysalix Energy, Entrepreneurs Fund Management, GrowthWorks Capital, Sustainable Development Technology Canada |
| 5* | Motally Inc. | Monitors and provides analytics for mobile Internet traffic. | $1M | Ron Conway, BlueRun Ventures |
| 7 | Heartland Robotics Inc. | Makes robots to do manual labor. | $12M | Bezos Expeditions, Charles River Ventures |
| 8* | Tonchidot Corp. | Provides an augmented-reality service for smartphones. | $4M | DCM |
| 8* | Zendesk Inc. | Makes SaaS help desk systems. | $6M | Benchmark Capital, Charles River Ventures |
| 10* | DNP Green Technology Inc. | Makes green chemicals, such as biologically based succinic acid. | $12M | Sofinnova Partners, Mitsui & Co. Venture Partners, Samsung Ventures Investment Corp., the Clifton Group and AquaRIMCO |
| 10* | SustainX Inc. | Operates a compressed-air energy storage company. | $4M | Polaris Venture Partners, Rockport Capital Partners |
| 10* | bit.ly Inc. | Operates a URL shortening website. | $2M | O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, Social Leverage and The Accelerator Group |
| 10* | EnglishCentral Inc. | Provides Web-based conversational English language learning. | $3.5M | Atlas Venture and Google Ventures |
| 14* | BioMarker Strategies LLC | Developing live-tumor-cell biomarker testing system to improve the treatment of cancer. | $1.7M | Abell Foundation Inc. |
| 14* | Capital Schools Inc. | Specializes in the education of children with autism. | $1.2M | Novak Biddle Venture Partners |
| 14* | Immunet Corp. | Developing security applications for Facebook. | $2M | Altos Ventures, TechOperators |
| 14* | Ksplice Inc. | Offers technology to install software updates on Linux servers without need for a reboot. | $500K | None |
| 14* | Nuveta Inc. | Develops applications to improve in-vitro fertilization success rates. | $800K | Vivo Ventures |
| 14* | Stemgent Inc. | Provides stem cell research technology and reagents to stem cell scientists. | $14M | Healthcare Ventures and Morgenthaler Ventures |
| 20 | EnergyHub Inc. | Makes energy management tools to reduce energy consumption of homeowners. | $3M | .406 Ventures and Physic Ventures |
| * Tied | ||||
| Source: Thomson Reuters and VCJ reporting | ||||
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Lawrence Aragon said on March 30, 2010
I forgot to mention that we’re going to do this same list again later this year. Any particular startups we should keep on our radar? Give us a name and a one-sentence reason for why they’re promising. The only hitch is that the company must have received seed capital or Series A funding THIS year. We’re not interested in established companies on their Series C round. –Larry
Lawrence Aragon
Editor-in-Chief
Venture Capital Journal
[email protected]