Is there such thing as "The next Silicon Valley?"
Despite the prevalence of emerging startup ecosystems from Singapore to Santiago, and the occasional media article claiming the bubble has burst, entrepreneurs continue to flock here. Could they procure necessary capital elsewhere? Probably. Could they find a higher concentration of like-minded, supportive individuals elsewhere? Probably not.
You would be hard-pressed to find as many tech-savvy individuals who are passionate about thinking outside the box, dreaming big, and disrupting the status quo as in Silicon Valley. As The Harvard Business Review recently noted, the backbone of Silicon Valley's hard-to-replicate culture is an unusual level of grit:
"What stood out for us in these companies is the day-to-day determination to see something through despite near-constant failure. We found people at all levels to be especially levelheaded about failure and comfortable with the inherent messiness of experimentation." - HBR contributors Heitor Martins, Yran Bartolomeu Dias and Somesh Khann
In this article, we'll be highlighting seven Silicon Valley tech startups who are demonstrating the kind of forward thinking and exponential growth that has made Silicon Valley famous.
The Top Silicon Valley Tech Startups to Watch in 2019
1. Nurx
Nurx is improving women's access to birth control through an easy-to-use digital application. This tool gives users the ability to simply request a prescription online. The prescription is then delivered right to their door.
"We realized there were certain things people wanted done in healthcare rather than research them and birth control is certainly one of those," cofounder Han Gangeskar told TechCrunch. "Everyone we spoke with, friends of friends said friends called them with a birth control prescription emergency."
For users with health insurance, birth control is free. Additionally, for those without health insurance, contraceptives start at $15 per month. The application is currently available in more than 15 states. In 2019, Nurx will continue to cause major disruptions in women's health through their first-of-its-kind birth control subscription service.
Founders: Hans Gangeskar and Dr. Edvard Engesaeth
Total Equity Funding: $41.4M
2. Shippo
Shippo allows users to save time and money with a cloud-based shipping software. This easy-to-use tool helps customers get rates, print labels, track packages, and more. Shippo supports more than 35,000 customers including retailers, e-commerce platforms, marketplaces, and logistics providers.
"Shippo’s product is an automated system that companies can implement in order to provide users with a wide variety of shipping options from ecommerce sites," says Blair Hanley Frank, contributor at VentureBeat. "The company is able to set its customers up with easy access to several different shipping providers, rather than requiring firms to implement various systems."
Shippo joins Square, Stripe, Shopify, and others working to revolutionize the shipping industry.
Founders: Laura Behrens and Simon Kreuz
Total Equity Funding: $29.3M
3. Gladly
Gladly enables businesses to create highly-personalized experiences for customers. From retail and hospitality, to travel and finance, Gladly provides a targeted solution to build better connections with customers. With Gladly, connecting customers to the right customer support agent is easy. Moreover, agents have all the tools and information they need to support customers quickly and efficiently.
The San Francisco-based tech startup was incubated by Greylock Partners in 2015. To date, Gladly has raised a total of $63 million and employs more than 50 people.
Founders: Dirk Kessler, Joseph Ansanelli, Michael Wolfe
Total Equity Funding: $63M
4. Biome Makers
Born in Silicon Valley, Biome Makers is a biotech company that specializes in the identification and understanding of the microbiome. The company uses DNA sequencing technologies and proprietary Intelligent Computing systems that allow users to improve agricultural production and quality of their products. Biome Makers impacts the following areas:
- Reducing reliance on chemicals
- Decreasing the impact of diseases
- Making solutions based on microorganisms
Recently, the company was named as one of the Top 10 U.S. Terroirs.
"The company believes that vineyard microorganisms should be put to use to the winemaker’s advantage. The biotechnology startup derives its name from the word, biome: a complex biotic community characterized by distinctive plant and animal species unique to the climate and soil of a region," reports Thomas Pellechia, contributor at Forbes.
Founders: Adrian Ferrero, Alberto Acedo
Total Equity Funding: $2.3M
5. ImpactVision
ImpactVision is on a mission to build a more transparent and secure global food system through "hyperspectral technology." This technology combines the power of digital imaging with a chemical technique called "spectroscopy." Users can simply take a picture of the food and understand its unique composition including nutritional content, freshness levels, proteins, fats, sugar, and moisture levels.
Benefits of the tool include:
- Replaces destructive sampling techniques
- Reduces waste and increases quality
- Integrates in-line production facilities and distribution
- Increases transparency
- Enhances brand value
"What we are doing is providing rapid and non-invasive mechanism to assess food quality during the production process, and in real time," says Abi Ramanan, CEO at ImpactVision.
Founders: Abi Ramanan, Gustav Nipe
Total Equity Funding: $1.4M
6. Ripe.io
Ripe.io uses blockchain technology and the Internet of Things to transform the digital food supply chain. This technology gives users the ability to learn more about the quality of their food, where it was produced, and more. Additionally, farmers can use this technology to automate internal processes and meet market demands around growing high quality and sustainable products. Ripe.io impacts the following areas:
- Supply chain tracking and visibility
- Secure data aggregation and sharing
- Brand quality and trust verification
- Scaleable blockchain, sensor, and Internet of Things integration
Founders: Raja Ramachandran
Total Equity Funding: No Information Available
7. Biomarker Labs
Biomarker provides customers with real-time and data-driven access to health supplements. The company measures users' symptoms, health metrics, and other contextual information to match them with high-quality and beneficial nutritional supplements.
"The sheer number of supplement users with smart phones and wearables around the globe means that we can gather data in bigger numbers than ever. Information can also be collected with far more regularity — hourly or even minute by minute," says Biomarker. "With every new user, Biomarker gets new insights about how people respond to supplements. More users mean more data and more meaningful results. Biomarker is already producing insights and discoveries from millions of data points gathered from thousands of supplement users."
Founders: Garrett Ruhland
Total Equity Funding: No Information Available
Become the Next Startup to Watch
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The Silicon Valley tech startups that generate the most buzz are the ones who create something so useful that people can't imagine how they previously lived without it. And that requires tapping into the right idea, at the right time, with the right people.
At RocketSpace, we provide a tech campus to Silicon Valley and The Bay Area's top tech startups and entrepreneurs. RocketSpace provides Seed to Series C funded tech startups with flexible workspace options, corporate partnership opportunities, advisor introductions, and high caliber networking events designed to accelerate progress. Our model has inspired several success stories over the past six years, in which we have seen a number of “unicorns” raise more than $21 billion in funding.
