Akamai Technologies (AKAM)
Rank: 1
Employees: 1,058
Headquarters: Cambridge, MA
Sector(s): Business Services
Why it's hot: How big is online video and music? Big enough to catapult Akamai to the top spot. Internet traffic is surging, and companies like Apple and MTV Networks rely on the content delivery company's technology to get the digital goods to their customers.
iMergent (IIG)
Rank: 2
Employees: 303
Headquarters: Orem, UT
Sector(s): Business Services
Why it's hot: Mom-and-pop businesses are increasingly moving online, and iMergent's training programs help them set up shop on the Web. Taking its workshops abroad has helped drive new growth. Financial restatements have added to revenue gains.
Palomar Medical Technologies (PMTI)
Rank: 3 (Previous rank: 6)
Employees: 225
Headquarters: Burlington, MA
Sector(s): Medical
Why it's hot: These days even 20-somethings are opting for a nip and a tuck. That's spiked demand for Palomar's six-figure gear, which uses lasers and light pulses to tighten skin, vaporize blemishes, and remove unsightly body hair.
InterDigital Communications (IDCC)
Rank: 4
Employees: 340
Headquarters: King of Prussia, PA
Sector(s): Software
Why it's hot: Mobile devices are hot, but InterDigital's wireless software patents are hotter. More than half of the company's 2006 revenue came from an intellectual property settlement with Nokia. Now it has Samsung in the crosshairs.
CyberSource (CYBS)
Rank: 5
Employees: 247
Headquarters: Mountain View, CA
Sector(s): Business Services
Why it's hot: Online fraud has become a growth industry, to the tune of $3 billion a year. That's meant big bucks for CyberSource, with companies like Google and Yahoo using its secure payment services to protect themselves and their customers.
Perficient (PRFT)
Rank: 6
Employees: 774
Headquarters: Austin, TX
Sector(s): Business Services
Why it's hot: CTOs are opening up their wallets again -- and hiring IT consultancies to tell them what to buy. This one went on a spending spree itself, snapping up independent consulting firms like iPath and Vivare to fuel its growth in 2006.
Lam Research (LRCX)
Rank: 7 (Previous rank: 21)
Employees: 2,616
Headquarters: Fremont, CA
Sector(s): Electronics
Why it's hot: Tiny circuits are big business. Consumer electronics giants Toshiba and Samsung are buying Lam's machines, which can etch circuits as fine as 45 nanometers across for flash memory chips used in mobile phones, iPods, and other gadgets.
Ceradyne (CRDN)
Rank: 8 (Previous rank: 12)
Employees: 2,205
Headquarters: Costa Mesa, CA
Sector(s): Manufacturing, Military
Why it's hot: As the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq drag on, orders from the Pentagon are up for Ceradyne's ceramic armor -- lighter than steel, more durable than plastic -- to protect soldiers, helicopters, and other military vehicles.
F5 Networks (FFIV)
Rank: 9 (Previous rank: 18)
Employees: 1,159
Headquarters: Seattle, WA
Sector(s): Electronics
Why it's hot: Business applications are moving from the PC to the Web, and that means more and more companies are depending on F5's appliances to smooth the transition online by balancing Internet traffic on their corporate servers.
Armor Holdings (AH)
Rank: 10 (Previous rank: 47)
Employees: 8,150
Headquarters: Jacksonville, FL
Sector(s): Manufacturing, Military
Why it's hot: Its labs design high-strength fibers, lightweight ceramics, and bulletproof polymers for tougher helmets and vehicles. Government spending on new military vehicles beefed up business, as did the purchase of manufacturer Stewart & Stevenson.
InVentiv Health (VTIV)
Rank: 11
Employees: 5,200
Headquarters: Somerset, NJ
Sector(s): Medical
Why it's hot: Helping drug companies with things like staffing, running clinical trials, and managing sales data added more than $200 million to InVentiv's revenue last year.
Apple (AAPL)
Rank: 12 (Previous rank: 3)
Employees: 21,500
Headquarters: Cupertino, CA
Sector(s): Electronics
Why it's hot: Apple followed its blockbuster iPod line with the Intel-powered MacBook, whose Windows compatibility revived Apple's laptop sales. Next up: the iPhone.
ValueClick (VCLK)
Rank: 13 (Previous rank: 5)
Employees: 1,072
Headquarters: Westlake Village, CA
Sector(s): Business Services
Why it's hot: The online ad network's sites had 132 million unique visitors last year in the United States alone. Its acquisition of Shopping.net and Fastclick bulked up revenue.
Varian Semiconductor (VSEA)
Rank: 14 (Previous rank: 44)
Employees: 1,627
Headquarters: Gloucester, MA
Sector(s): Electronics
Why it's hot: The semiconductor equipment maker uses an ion-blasting technology that's increasingly popular with chipmakers. Sales were strong worldwide.
LifeCell (LIFC)
Rank: 15 (Previous rank: 8)
Employees: 335
Headquarters: Branchburg, NJ
Sector(s): Medical
Why it's hot: Revenue from its AlloDerm product -- modified human tissue used to reconstruct breasts and repair hernias -- jumped 62 percent in 2006.
Cognizant Technology Solutions (CTSH)
Rank: 16 (Previous rank: 28)
Employees: 38,800
Headquarters: Teaneck, NJ
Sector(s): Business Services
Why it's hot: Cognizant handles complex IT tasks like setting up data warehouses. Meanwhile, a growing cadre of India-based programmers is helping to drive revenue.
Itron (ITRI)
Rank: 17 (Previous rank: 97)
Employees: 2,400
Headquarters: Liberty Lake, WA
Sector(s): Electronics
Why it's hot: As utilities build smart grids to cut power usage, they're relying on Itron and its wireless smart meters to collect and analyze gas and electricity data.
Digital River (DRIV)
Rank: 18 (Previous rank: 83)
Employees: 1,086
Headquarters: Eden Prairie, MN
Sector(s): Business Services
Why it's hot: With consumers increasingly downloading antiviral software, Digital River ensures that programs stream smoothly and securely for companies like McAfee.
Hologic (HOLX)
Rank: 19 (Previous rank: 19)
Employees: 1,617
Headquarters: Bedford, MA
Sector(s): Medical
Why it's hot: Its medical-imaging equipment scans for breast cancer and osteoporosis. An aging population and the need to replace obsolete machines are driving growth.
Cymer (CYMI)
Rank: 20
Employees: 975
Headquarters: San Diego, CA
Sector(s): Electronics
Why it's hot: Cymer's light-source products are used in lasers that etch patterns onto semiconductors. Customers like Canon and Nikon increased their orders last year.
MKS Instruments (MKSI)
Rank: 21
Employees: 2,960
Headquarters: Wilmington, MA
Sector(s): Electronics
Why it's hot: Its products, which control gases and static in manufacturing, are used by makers of everything from chips and flat-panel displays to DVDs and solar panels.
Ansoft (ANST)
Rank: 22 (Previous rank: 29)
Employees: 302
Headquarters: Pittsburgh, PA
Sector(s): Software
Why it's hot: Ansoft's software helps automate repetitive aspects of designing computer chips, cell phones, and networking equipment -- all growing industries.
Rochester Medical (ROCM)
Rank: 23
Employees: 213
Headquarters: Stewartville, MN
Sector(s): Medical
Why it's hot: Hospitals rely on its catheters, and Rochester added incontinence products. It also scored $39 million in legal settlements involving anti-infective catheters.
American Science & Engineering (ASEI)
Rank: 24
Employees: 283
Headquarters: Billerica, MA
Sector(s): Electronics
Why it's hot: The company's scanners can detect a bomb in a suitcase or an illegal immigrant in a truck. These days governments are willing to pay big bucks for both.
American Science & Engineering (ASEI)
Rank: 24
Employees: 283
Headquarters: Billerica, MA
Sector(s): Electronics
Why it's hot: The company's scanners can detect a bomb in a suitcase or an illegal immigrant in a truck. These days governments are willing to pay big bucks for both.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
15 companies that will change the world
Blinkx
CEO: Suranga Chandratillake
Disruption: Web video search and ad insertion
Disrupted: Search engines and the TV ad business
The fastest growing segment of Internet advertising is video, and Blinkx's video search engine aims to capitalize on the trend. Blinkx indexes more than 14 million hours of video available on the Web, using software that turns speech into text and counts how many times a given word pops up in a video. That allows the company to target ads to video content, putting it a step ahead of big challengers like Google and Yahoo.
Raydiance
CEO: Barry Schuler
Disruption: Lasers that cut without heating surrounding material
Disrupted: The entire laser industry -- medicine, aerospace, and beyond
Raydiance's ultrashort pulse laser is more accurate than the standard fare in the industry, and when properly tuned, it can blast away at anything from a hunk of steel to a single cancer cell. Though researchers have been using USP lasers since 1989, they've been unmanageably large and notoriously difficult to operate - but Raydiance has managed to shrink its product down to the size of a microwave.
Expensr
CEO: Reman Child and Shawn Gupta (founders)
Disruption: Simple, straightforward financial planning
Disrupted: Today, makers of personal finance software. Tomorrow, the credit industry
Combine the utility of software like Quicken with the social power of Web 2.0, and you have Expensr - a free online service that tracks your budget and spending habits, then shows you how you're doing compared to your peers. "That's the idea behind the social network," says co-founder Shawn Gupta, "to help you do better by making you aware of what other people like you are doing."
Zipcar
CEO: Scott Griffith
Disruption: Self-serve hourly car rental in urban neighborhoods
Disrupted: Car dealers and traditional rental agencies
There are no service clerks, no paper contracts, no lines. With Zipcar, you pay a $50 annual membership, then go online to see what cars are available near you. When you get to the car, swipe your wireless ID card to get in, and the keys are inside. You pay a usage fee that runs $8 to $15 per hour. Zipcar is profitable in cities where it has been operating more than two years, including Boston, New York, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., and it's ahead of competitors like Flexcar and City CarShare.
MFG.com
CEO: Mitch Free
Disruption: An online exchange for the manufacturing industry
Disrupted: Manufacturers' reps, parts brokers, and trading houses
MFG.com is rapidly becoming the eBay of manufacturing. In the past 12 months, $2 billion worth of gears, molds and machined parts were sourced and traded on the site. To participate, sellers pay an annual fee of $6,000 on average, and buyers pay nothing. Buyers describe the part they want and submit digital renderings, and industrial suppliers bid for the business. The site is on track to make $25 million in revenue, and book its first profit, this year.
Virgin Charter
CEO: Scott Duffy
Disruption: Online reservations for the budding air-taxi business
Disrupted: Commercial airlines
Air taxis - tiny, short-hop planes that are so affordable that business fliers can charter them whenever they want - are taking off. Virgin Charter, majority-owned by Richard Branson, aims to be the Expedia for this new market. By creating a portal that connects travelers to charter operators, most of whom are mom-and-pop shops, the company plans to bring more revenue into the industry, reduce the cost of operating air charter services, and waste less jet fuel.
PatientsLikeMe
CEO: Ben Heywood (President)
Disruption: An online community where patients discuss and track medical conditions
Disrupted: The health-care industry, medical research
There's plenty of basic data about diseases on the Internet, but there are few central repositories for firsthand accounts about what living with those diseases was like. PatientsLikeMe consolidates such personal accounts and helps patients track their progress. The deep and engaged community has only a few thousand members, but is already a boon to medical researchers; access to such communities of patients is a fast bypass around restrictive privacy rules.
Bloom Energy
CEO: K.R. Sridhar
Disruption: Energy generators in homes and businesses
Disrupted: Electric utilities
The company's vision is to use solid-oxide fuel cells to allow homes to generate their own electricity. The fuel cells would use (but not burn) hydrocarbon fuel, and produce just half the carbon dioxide that today's power plants do. One fuel cell should be enough to serve a home; homes could sell excess power back to the grid. Bloom Energy's biggest hurdle is cost. It needs to get the price of its machines below $10,000 apiece.
Vanu
CEO: Vanu Bose
Disruption: Software that allows mobile networks to accommodate devices with different standards
Disrupted: Wireless network providers and equipment makers
As any frustrated U.S. cell phone switcher knows, one carrier's phones often won't work on another carrier's network. That's because some use different wireless standards - the two dominant ones are GSM and CDMA. Vanu Bose, son of the audio equipment inventor, is selling equipment that could change all that. Vanu's software-defined radio uses Linux servers to help tear down the communication barriers.
Zink
CEO: Wendy Caswell
Disruption: Inkless printing
Disrupted: Desktop printers, ink cartridge resellers, and photo services
Hate dealing with empty printer cartridges? You're the customer Zink is after. The Polaroid spinoff's special paper is embedded with dye crystals, so it can create color photos without the ink. As a result, its printers can be small enough to fit in your pocket. This holiday season, Zink's partners will begin selling the printers, including one that will be embedded in a digital camera.
A123 Systems
The leading battery technology - lithium-ion - has not changed in a decade. A123 holds patents for smaller, lighter lithium-ions with significantly longer lives. A123 batteries are installed in hybrid buses worldwide and will enter consumer hybrids in 2010.
Renewable Energy Group
Biodiesel delivers around 50 percent more miles per gallon than ethanol. REG, an offshoot of an Iowa farm co-op, makes biodiesel from soybeans. It has 40 percent of the market and a distribution deal with Safeway.
Desktop Factory
The cost of rapid prototyping machines is already plummeting. Now San Francisco startup Desktop Factory is set to bring out a $5,000 3-D printer, undercutting competitors by 75 percent.
Cree
Sure, compact fluorescent lightbulbs are energy savers, but they also contain mercury. Cree is the leading maker of light-emitting diodes, which are less hazardous and even more energy-efficient. Toronto and Raleigh, N.C., are already installing Cree LEDs in streetlamps and parking garages.
One laptop per child
It isn't just Third World kids who will benefit now that Nicholas Negroponte's venture is producing its $176 laptops. The machine's innovations, such as Wi-Fi mesh networks and a power system that consumes 90 percent less electricity than standard laptops, could affect the rest of the industry.
CEO: Suranga Chandratillake
Disruption: Web video search and ad insertion
Disrupted: Search engines and the TV ad business
The fastest growing segment of Internet advertising is video, and Blinkx's video search engine aims to capitalize on the trend. Blinkx indexes more than 14 million hours of video available on the Web, using software that turns speech into text and counts how many times a given word pops up in a video. That allows the company to target ads to video content, putting it a step ahead of big challengers like Google and Yahoo.
Raydiance
CEO: Barry Schuler
Disruption: Lasers that cut without heating surrounding material
Disrupted: The entire laser industry -- medicine, aerospace, and beyond
Raydiance's ultrashort pulse laser is more accurate than the standard fare in the industry, and when properly tuned, it can blast away at anything from a hunk of steel to a single cancer cell. Though researchers have been using USP lasers since 1989, they've been unmanageably large and notoriously difficult to operate - but Raydiance has managed to shrink its product down to the size of a microwave.
Expensr
CEO: Reman Child and Shawn Gupta (founders)
Disruption: Simple, straightforward financial planning
Disrupted: Today, makers of personal finance software. Tomorrow, the credit industry
Combine the utility of software like Quicken with the social power of Web 2.0, and you have Expensr - a free online service that tracks your budget and spending habits, then shows you how you're doing compared to your peers. "That's the idea behind the social network," says co-founder Shawn Gupta, "to help you do better by making you aware of what other people like you are doing."
Zipcar
CEO: Scott Griffith
Disruption: Self-serve hourly car rental in urban neighborhoods
Disrupted: Car dealers and traditional rental agencies
There are no service clerks, no paper contracts, no lines. With Zipcar, you pay a $50 annual membership, then go online to see what cars are available near you. When you get to the car, swipe your wireless ID card to get in, and the keys are inside. You pay a usage fee that runs $8 to $15 per hour. Zipcar is profitable in cities where it has been operating more than two years, including Boston, New York, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., and it's ahead of competitors like Flexcar and City CarShare.
MFG.com
CEO: Mitch Free
Disruption: An online exchange for the manufacturing industry
Disrupted: Manufacturers' reps, parts brokers, and trading houses
MFG.com is rapidly becoming the eBay of manufacturing. In the past 12 months, $2 billion worth of gears, molds and machined parts were sourced and traded on the site. To participate, sellers pay an annual fee of $6,000 on average, and buyers pay nothing. Buyers describe the part they want and submit digital renderings, and industrial suppliers bid for the business. The site is on track to make $25 million in revenue, and book its first profit, this year.
Virgin Charter
CEO: Scott Duffy
Disruption: Online reservations for the budding air-taxi business
Disrupted: Commercial airlines
Air taxis - tiny, short-hop planes that are so affordable that business fliers can charter them whenever they want - are taking off. Virgin Charter, majority-owned by Richard Branson, aims to be the Expedia for this new market. By creating a portal that connects travelers to charter operators, most of whom are mom-and-pop shops, the company plans to bring more revenue into the industry, reduce the cost of operating air charter services, and waste less jet fuel.
PatientsLikeMe
CEO: Ben Heywood (President)
Disruption: An online community where patients discuss and track medical conditions
Disrupted: The health-care industry, medical research
There's plenty of basic data about diseases on the Internet, but there are few central repositories for firsthand accounts about what living with those diseases was like. PatientsLikeMe consolidates such personal accounts and helps patients track their progress. The deep and engaged community has only a few thousand members, but is already a boon to medical researchers; access to such communities of patients is a fast bypass around restrictive privacy rules.
Bloom Energy
CEO: K.R. Sridhar
Disruption: Energy generators in homes and businesses
Disrupted: Electric utilities
The company's vision is to use solid-oxide fuel cells to allow homes to generate their own electricity. The fuel cells would use (but not burn) hydrocarbon fuel, and produce just half the carbon dioxide that today's power plants do. One fuel cell should be enough to serve a home; homes could sell excess power back to the grid. Bloom Energy's biggest hurdle is cost. It needs to get the price of its machines below $10,000 apiece.
Vanu
CEO: Vanu Bose
Disruption: Software that allows mobile networks to accommodate devices with different standards
Disrupted: Wireless network providers and equipment makers
As any frustrated U.S. cell phone switcher knows, one carrier's phones often won't work on another carrier's network. That's because some use different wireless standards - the two dominant ones are GSM and CDMA. Vanu Bose, son of the audio equipment inventor, is selling equipment that could change all that. Vanu's software-defined radio uses Linux servers to help tear down the communication barriers.
Zink
CEO: Wendy Caswell
Disruption: Inkless printing
Disrupted: Desktop printers, ink cartridge resellers, and photo services
Hate dealing with empty printer cartridges? You're the customer Zink is after. The Polaroid spinoff's special paper is embedded with dye crystals, so it can create color photos without the ink. As a result, its printers can be small enough to fit in your pocket. This holiday season, Zink's partners will begin selling the printers, including one that will be embedded in a digital camera.
A123 Systems
The leading battery technology - lithium-ion - has not changed in a decade. A123 holds patents for smaller, lighter lithium-ions with significantly longer lives. A123 batteries are installed in hybrid buses worldwide and will enter consumer hybrids in 2010.
Renewable Energy Group
Biodiesel delivers around 50 percent more miles per gallon than ethanol. REG, an offshoot of an Iowa farm co-op, makes biodiesel from soybeans. It has 40 percent of the market and a distribution deal with Safeway.
Desktop Factory
The cost of rapid prototyping machines is already plummeting. Now San Francisco startup Desktop Factory is set to bring out a $5,000 3-D printer, undercutting competitors by 75 percent.
Cree
Sure, compact fluorescent lightbulbs are energy savers, but they also contain mercury. Cree is the leading maker of light-emitting diodes, which are less hazardous and even more energy-efficient. Toronto and Raleigh, N.C., are already installing Cree LEDs in streetlamps and parking garages.
One laptop per child
It isn't just Third World kids who will benefit now that Nicholas Negroponte's venture is producing its $176 laptops. The machine's innovations, such as Wi-Fi mesh networks and a power system that consumes 90 percent less electricity than standard laptops, could affect the rest of the industry.
Startups To Watch
www.stumbleupon.com
Launched in 2002 by three 20-somethings in a Calgary, Alberta, apartment, StumbleUpon now has 2 million registered users drawn by its knack for finding websites that match their interests and those of others with similar tastes as they "stumble" around the Net.
Co-founder Garrett Camp (shown right), who totes around a mid-'80s Nikon F3 (yes, with actual film), came up with the idea as he was working on a master's in software engineering.
Frustrated as he tried to indulge his hobby online - "There wasn't a good way to find the best photo sites," Camp says - he tapped his own background in clustering technology. With coding help from Justin LaFrance and Geoff Smith, he created an early version of StumbleUpon. Having nailed the photo problem, the team quickly saw how the technology could click with all sorts of media.
In the same way that it matches users with like-minded websites, StumbleUpon's technology also pairs online ads with targeted demographics and interests. Now StumbleUpon is attempting to do the same for online video and video advertising. In December the startup launched StumbleVideo, a service that offers the closest thing to channelsurfing that you'll find on the Web.
Tell us what you think about StumbleUpon's model: Is it the next MySpace?
Funding: $1.5 million (Ron Conway, Mitch Kapor, Josh Kopelman, Brad O'Neill, Ram Shriram)
Headquarters: San Francisco
Employees: 12
Founded: 2001
Business model: Advertising, subscriptions
Bragging rights: Cash flow positive
Next up: New features like content controls and mobile video recommendations
Contact: Partners@stumbleupon.com
www.slide.com
Slide has developed customizable and easily assembled slide shows of photos that can be embedded in a blog or a MySpace page, sent out in an RSS feed, and streamed to a desktop as a screensaver.
Funding: Not disclosed (Peter Thiel, Vinod Khosla, others)
Founder & CEO: Max Levchin (shown right)
Headquarters: San Francisco
Employees: 45
Founded: 2004
Business model: Advertising, subscription
Bragging rights: Actor Jamie Foxx and Playboy founder Hugh Hefner use Slide on their MySpace pages.
Next up: Doubling staff in 2007; expanding into Asia; adding mobile phone features
Contact: Partners@slide.com
www.bebo.com
Bebo has built a social network, more than 30 million members strong, that keeps users' pages private but still allows them to share things like video and drawings made on an online whiteboard.
Founders: Michael Birch (also CEO), Xochi Birch (shown right)
Headquarters: San Francisco
Employees: 28
Founded: 2005
Business model: Advertising
Bragging rights: Profitable; advertisers include Disney, Alltel, Dawn and AOL)
Next up: Promoting new Bebo Authors channel (launched Feb. 22); hiring in-house sales team
Contact: Partnerships@bebo.com
www.meebo.com
Meebo lets users manage multiple instant-messaging services from one site. Meebo's killer app is a widget that places an IM window on your blog or webpage.
Funding: $12.5 million (Draper Fisher, Jurvetson, Sequoia Capital)
Founders: Sandy Jen, Seth Sternberg (also CEO), Elaine Wherry (shown right)
Employees: 12
Business model: Advertising
Bragging rights:: 5.3 million unique instant messenger IDs per month
Next up: Doubling staff in 2007
Contact: Daniel Bernstein, Danny@meebo.com
www.wikia.com
Wikia operates a hosting service for ad-supported community sites that use the same software and collaborative content model that made Wikipedia a Web phenomenon.
Launched in 2004, Wikia communities range from fans of 24 to politics junkies. Wikia is also working on an open-source, user-generated search engine.
Funding: $4 million (Amazon.com, Marc Andreessen, Bessemer Venture Partners, others)
Founders: Angela Beesley, Jimmy Wales (shown right)
Headquarters: San Mateo, Calif.
Employees: 33
Founded: 2004
Business model: Advertising
Bragging rights: 500,000 articles in 45 languages
Next up: Hiring; expanding into Japan; adding more languages; developing open-source search engine
Contact: Angie Shelton, angie@wikia.com
www.joost.com
Forget the three-minute video blog. The 30-minute, broadcast-quality Web 2.0 TV show is coming in all its full-screen glory. And if serial disrupters Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom have their way, neither television nor the Internet will be the same.
The duo behind peer-to-peer services Kazaa and Skype will officially launch Joost this spring, aiming to merge the best of TV with the best of the Net.
The service provides more of a television-style experience than current online video sites, with channels you can flip through randomly or program yourself. Viewers can also share playlists of their favorite shows with friends or chat with them online while watching the same program.
Joost will be free, supported by highly targeted ads based on people's actual watching habits, their friends' viewing patterns, and information they volunteer. Ad revenue will be split between Joost and the content owners.
Joost can offload much of the heavy bandwidth and storage costs borne by Web video companies like YouTube because the service is a partial peer-to-peer system, with content distributed among viewers' computers. And to reassure Hollywood moguls who watched the music industry get burned by Kazaa's legions of illegal file sharers, all Joost video is streamed and encrypted.
Tell us what you think about Joost: Will the Skype founders beat YouTube?
Funding: Not disclosed
Founders: Janus Friis, Niklas Zennstrom (shown above)
Headquarters: Luxembourg
Employees: 100
Founded: 2006
Business model: Advertising
Bragging rights: 40,000 beta testers; just beat rival YouTube by signing major content deal with Viacom; other content providers include National Geographic, Warner Music Group, and Dutch TV production company Endemol
Next up: Striking more content deals
Contact: Newyork@joost.com
www.dabble.com
Dabble has designed a tool for organizing videos into playlists of favorites. Users share them across the network, so, say, food lovers can dabble in one another's video collections.
Funding: $750,000 (Hank Barry, Evan Williams, others)
Founder & CEO: Mary Hodder (shown right)
Headquarters: Berkeley, Calif.
Employees: 11
Founded: 2005
Business model: Advertising
Bragging rights: 12,000 registered users to date; partnerships with MySpace, YouTube, Grouper, Brightcove
Next up: Hiring; a groups feature for users with similar interests to share video
Contact: Partners@dabble.com
www.metacafe.com
Metacafe's service ranks uploaded videos by popularity and feedback from a community of 17 million monthly visitors - and pays the creators for the success of their work. The auteurs get $100 after 20,000 viewings and $5 for every 1,000 subsequent views. Since September, Metacafe has paid a total of $250,000 to 200 contributors.
Funding: $20 million (Accel Partners, Benchmark Capital)
CEO: Erick Hachenburg (shown right)
Headquarters: Palo Alto, Calif.
Employees: 65
Founded: 2003
Business model: Advertising
Bragging rights: 17 million monthly users; revenues doubling each quarter
Next up: Hiring 100 employees in 2007; partnering with movie studios, record labels and producers
Contact: Business@metacafe.com
www.revision3.com
Revision 3 is a production studio for geek-oriented online shows. Started by Digg founder Kevin Rose and its CEO, Jay Adelson, Revision3 sells sponsorships to companies like Go Daddy, Microsoft, and Sony for as much as $10,000 per episode.
Funding: $1 Million (Adelson, Marc Andreessen, Ron Conway, others)
Cofounder & CEO: Jay Adelson (shown right)
Headquarters: San Francisco
Employees: 7
Founded: 2005
Business model: Advertising
Bragging rights: 1.5 million monthly viewers; advertisers include Sony, IBM and Go Daddy
Next up: Launching up to 4 new shows
Contact: Info@revision3.com
www.blip.tv
Blip.tv has built a platform for syndicating serialized online shows such as Starring Amanda Congdon and TreeHugger TV. Blip provides producers with software, ads, and distribution to websites and blogs. A deal is already signed with Web TV service Akimbo, which lets producers send their videos to TV sets.
Funding: Not disclosed (Ron Conway, Mark Gerson, Ken Lerer, Peter Thiel)
Cofounders: Dina Kaplan, Mike Hudack (also CEO; shown right with Kaplan)
Headquarters: New York City
Employees: 12
Founded: 2005
Business model: Licensing, advertising
Bragging rights: 45,000 content creators; key advertisers include Dove, Paltalk; licensors include CNN, Oxygen TV
Next up: Doubling staff in 2007
Contact: Mike Hudack, mike@blip.tv
www.fon.com
In the freewheeling wireless era, the PC is in your pocket and the network is in the air. No surprise, then, that gadgets from Apple's iPhone to a SanDisk MP3 player are being built with Wi-Fi inside.
But finding a Wi-Fi signal when you need one can be a problem - and a big opportunity for Fon, a Spanish company that's building a global community of hotspots one router at a time.
The idea for Fon hit founder Martin Varsavsky in late 2005 while he was strolling through Paris with his PDA in search of a signal. Companies like T-Mobile were spending millions of dollars to build hotspot networks and charging dearly for access.
Varsavsky, however, saw the potential for a worldwide Wi-Fi network in the home broadband connections already in place. All that was needed was a service to tie them together.
Here's how it works: Fon sells a $30 wireless router to consumers. They hook it up, register their node, and agree to share their broadband with other "Foneros" for free. Those who want to charge outsiders for access can do so, and Fon gets a cut. Likewise, if someone wants to pay $2 or $3 to use the Fon network for a day, Fon takes a share of that revenue. Just over a year old, Fon's network boasts more than 70,000 hotspots. Initially focused on Europe and Asia, Fon plans a big push in the United States in the coming months.
Tell us what you think about Fon: Is the company a Web 2.0 winner?
Funding: $22 million (Google, Index Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Skype)
Founder: Martin Varsavsky (shown above)
Headquarters: Madrid, Spain
Employees: 90
Founded: 2006
Business model: Subscription, router sales
Bragging rights: 400,000 users (including 40,000 Americans added since October); signed as-yet unannounced deal with first major U.S. broadband service provider
Next up: In deal talks with U.S. cellular service provider
Contact: Faisal Galaria, fonus@fon.com
www.loopt.com
Loopt offers around-the-clock friend tracking. Cell-phone customers are using Loopt to let their buddies see their locations. It's already a hit with some 100,000 Boost Mobile subscribers who want to know not just what their posse is up to but where it's at.
Funding: $5 million (New Enterprise Associates, Sequoia Capital)
Founder & CEO: Sam Altman (shown right)
Headquarters: Palo Alto, Calif.
Employees: 18
Founded: 2005
Business model: Advertising, subscription
Bragging rights: Partnership with Sprint
Next up: Signing up sponsors; in talks with second U.S. carrier
Contact: Bizdev@loopt.com
www.getmobio.com
Mobio offers mobile-phone mashups and widgets that figure out where you are and serve up on-the-go services like movie listings. Other widgets will book a cab or a seat at a restaurant.
Funding: $9 million (InterWest)
Founder & CEO: Ramneek Bhasin (shown right)
Headquarters: Cupertino, Calif.
Employees: 40
Founded: 2005
Business model: Advertising
Bragging rights: Sprint and Cingular customers will be able to download widgets to their phones this spring; working with OpenTable, an online restaurant reservation service.
Next up: Service launches Feb. 26
Contact: Info@getmobio.com
www.tinypictures.us
It's Flickr on the fly. Tiny's Radar service lets you snap photos with cell phones and send them to friends, who can both access and comment on the shots. Radar will be a built-in application on some devices made by Danger, creator of T-Mobile's Sidekick.
Funding: $2.8 million (Mohr Davidow Ventures)
Founder & CEO: John Poisson (shown right)
Headquarters: San Francisco
Employees: 12
Founded: 2005
Business model: Sales of downloadable client, advertising
Bragging rights: 55 percent monthly user growth; 500,000 videos and pictures swapped on network per month; SunCom Wireless plans to distribute Radar
Next up: To have 1 million users by year-end; sign up more carriers; add premium subscription service
Contact: Amanda Krantz, amanda@tinypictures.us
www.soonr.com
Access your home or office PC from your mobile phone. SoonR allows you to use your phone to pull up and search data on your desktop - everything from Word docs to Photoshop files.
Funding: $6 million (Clearstone Venture Partners, Intel Capital)
Cofounder & CEO: Martin Frid-Nielsen (shown right)
Headquarters: Campbell, Calif.
Employees: 30
Founded: 2005
Business model: Subscriptions
Bragging rights: Approx. 250,000 users; partnerships with Swisscom, WebEx
Next up: Premium services
Contact: Abbe Patterson, abbe@soonr.com
www.turn.com
Led by former AltaVista CEO Jim Barnett, Turn.com is offering online advertisers something many have craved for years: precise, automated ad targeting combined with a system that requires them to pay only for specific desired results.
Call it pay-per-play.
To get started, advertisers first enter the prices they're willing to pay for various results - $5 for a sales lead, say, or $50 to $60 for a completed transaction. Next, they upload their text-or graphics-based display ads. Turn's software then analyzes the ads using more than 60 variables - including content, brand strength, and keywords - and determines the right publishers to serve up the ads. Turn splits the revenue (70-30, on average) with the publisher.
Since launching in beta in November, the company has signed up more than 1,000 advertisers and cranked more than 5 million ads through its analysis engine.
Twenty-five publishers are giving the system a tryout, according to Barnett, including a few large news sites and a big social network (which he declines to name).
As for competitive threats, Google has been rumored to be working on its own version of the pay-per-play model. But Barnett says the $16 billion-a-year online ad industry is growing so fast that he doesn't worry about Turn's ability to carve out a lucrative niche: "These days marketers need to use all the targeting approaches they can find."
Tell us what you think: Will Turn's pay-per-play model succeed?
Funding: $17.5 million (Norwest Venture Partners, Shasta Ventures, Trident Capital)
Cofounders: Jim Barrett (also CEO), John Ellis (shown above)
Headquarters: San Mateo, Calif.
Employees: 26
Founded: 2005
Business model: Advertising
Bragging rights: 25 million unique viewers to date; 1,000 advertisers; 20 publishers
Next up: Signing more publishers
Contact: Business2@turn.com
www.adify.com
Adify is an online marketplace for highly targeted ads. Businesses can sell ad space directly to advertisers; advertisers can target specific market niches while Adify handles the back-office work.
Funding: $8 million (Venrock Associates)
Cofounder & CEO: Larry Braitman (shown right)
Headquarters: San Bruno, Calif.
Employees: 40
Founded: 2005
Business model: Advertising
Bragging rights: 4,000 publishers have signed up, including The Washington Post; revenues doubling quarter-over-quarter
Next up: Signing more publishers
Contact: 877-462-3439
www.admob.com
AdMob offers a place to buy ads for delivery to cell phones. That market is set to explode, and AdMob - which says it has sent out nearly a billion ads in less than a year - is poised to become its middleman of choice.
Funding: $4 million (Sequoia Capital)
Founder & CEO: Omar Hamoui (shown right)
Headquarters: San Mateo, Calif.
Employees: 22
Founded: 2006
Business model: Advertising
Bragging rights: 800 publishers, 250 advertisers
Next up: Technology to deliver interactive ads to mobile phones
Contact: Info@admob.com
www.spotrunner.com
SpotRunner is a one-stop online shop for low-cost 30-second TV ads. Local businesses can browse a library of premade spots and personalize them for airing in their local markets.
Funding: $60 million (CBS, Interpublic Group, WPP)
Cofounders: Nick Grouf (also CEO), David Waxman (shown right)
Headquarters: Los Angeles
Employees: 150
Founded: 2004
Business model: Advertising
Bragging rights: Clients include Century 21, Coldwell Banker, Mozilla, and Warner Independent Pictures; partners include The Interpublic Group of Companies, WPP, CBS
Next up: Extending the model to other media besides TV, possibly radio and the Internet
Contact: 877-287-2793
www.vitrue.com
ViTrue's platform lets corporate customers solicit, edit, and upload user-generated videos that promote their products. With companies like General Motors tapping the YouTube generation to virally market their wares, ViTrue is in a sweet spot.
Funding: $5 million (Comcast, Ron Conway, General Catalyst Partners, Turner Broadcasting)
Founder & CEO: Reggie Bradford (shown right)
Headquarters: Atlanta, Ga.
Employees: 38
Founded: 2006
Business model: Advertising
Bragging rights: 100,000 site users; site on VH1.com
Next up: Developing new sites for youth-oriented media clients
Contact: Maria Sanzone, Maria@vitrue.com
www.successfactors.com
Editor's Note: In its March 2007 issue, Business 2.0 claimed that privately held startup SuccessFactors was profitable, with an estimated $100 million in revenue, based on reports from venture capitalists. However, on July 20, 2007, SuccessFactors announced that it had filed a registration statement for a proposed public offering, citing revenue of $32.6 million and a loss of $32 million for 2006. The number of shares to be offered and the price range for the offering were not indicated. The financial figures disclosed in the filing are inconsistent with those reported in our story.
Even the corporate world is catching on to the promise of Web 2.0 technologies. After all, why can't enterprise apps be as easy to use as the latest Google mashup?
They can. And when they actually work, watch out. SuccessFactors, a profitable five-year-old startup in San Mateo, Calif., takes in an estimated $100 million in annual revenue by selling a suite of simple Web-based tools that automate important but previously paper-driven management chores - performance reviews, succession planning, and compensation.
Ultimately the service helps to match employee skills with company objectives. North Carolina-based Quintiles, a pharmaceutical services firm with 17,000 employees, deployed SuccessFactors last year to better pair worker aptitudes with jobs; its annual employee churn rate subsequently fell by nearly a third.
CEO Lars Dalgaard claims that SuccessFactors has some 2 million users and more than doubled sales last year. Its customers, which pay an annual fee of $50 per user, range from small tech companies to corporate giants like ConAgra Foods. That kind of growth has not gone unnoticed among investment bankers, prompting talk of an IPO this year.
Tell us what you think of SuccessFactors: Has the company created the ideal corporate tool?
Funding: $45 million (Canaan Partners, Cardinal Venture Capital, Emergence Capital, others)
Founder & CEO: Lars Dalgaard (shown above)
Headquarters: San Mateo, Calif.
Employees: Approx. 400
Founded: 2001
Business model: Subscriptions
Bragging rights: 1,200 customers, including Wachovia, MasterCard, and Kimberly-Clark; 2 million users
Next up: Expanding into Asia and Europe; developing web services tailored to specific industries, such as health care and retail
Contact: Info@successfactors.com
www.janrain.com
JanRain has developed a single sign-on service for multiple passwords that lets people hop freely from site to site. Business demand for JanRain's services is expected to grow as Web 2.0 entertainment and social-networking sites proliferate.
Funding: $1 million (founders)
Cofounder & CEO: Scott Kveton (shown right)
Headquarters: Portland, Ore.
Employees: 11
Founded: 2006
Business model: Advertising, subscriptions
Bragging rights: 50,000 users (nearly double the number in December)
Next up: Partnerships with bigger websites; new product rollout by summer
Contact: Scott Kveton, Kveton@janrain.com
www.logoworks.com
Logoworks automates the design of logos, business cards, and stationery. Proprietary software helps Logoworks streamline the process and charge less than old-line competitors.
Funding: $16.8 million (Benchmark Capital, Highway 12, Shasta Ventures)
Founder: Morgan Lynch (shown near right)
CEO: Paul Brockbank (shown far right)
Headquarters: Lindon, Utah
Employees: 120
Founded: 2001
Business model: Fee-for-service
Bragging rights: 65,000 customers to date, including Toyota and Pfizer
Next up: Selling services to small businesses through big box retailers
Contact: Info@logoworks.com
www.reardencommerce.com
Rearden Commerce sells a Web-based "virtual personal assistant" application that smoothly integrates hotel and flight reservations, meetings, and other events into your daily agenda. Some 150 companies and 500,000 employees use Rearden's software.
Funding: $100 million (American Express, Foundation Capital, Vinod Khosla, Burt McMurtry, Oak Investment Partners)
Founder & CEO: Patrick Grady (shown right)
Headquarters: Foster City, Calif.
Employees: 155
Founded: 2000
Business model: Subscriptions
Bragging rights: Approx. 200 customers; new partnership with American Express
Next up: Expanding into the mobile market
Contact: 877-778-2763
www.simulscribe.com
Finally, an effective way to convert voice-mail into scannable text. SimulScribe transcribes voice-mail messages and shoots them to your mobile device as text or e-mail messages. Targeting corporate customers, SimulScribe will integrate the service into company voicemail systems.
Funding: $5 million (Tom Iovino, Claude and Jan Nahum)
Founder & CEO: James Siminoff (shown right)
Headquarters: New York City
Employees: 8
Founded: 2003
Business model: Subscriptions
Bragging rights: 5,000 users
Next up: Deal with major national carrier to be announced in April
Contact: Business2@simulscribe.com
Launched in 2002 by three 20-somethings in a Calgary, Alberta, apartment, StumbleUpon now has 2 million registered users drawn by its knack for finding websites that match their interests and those of others with similar tastes as they "stumble" around the Net.
Co-founder Garrett Camp (shown right), who totes around a mid-'80s Nikon F3 (yes, with actual film), came up with the idea as he was working on a master's in software engineering.
Frustrated as he tried to indulge his hobby online - "There wasn't a good way to find the best photo sites," Camp says - he tapped his own background in clustering technology. With coding help from Justin LaFrance and Geoff Smith, he created an early version of StumbleUpon. Having nailed the photo problem, the team quickly saw how the technology could click with all sorts of media.
In the same way that it matches users with like-minded websites, StumbleUpon's technology also pairs online ads with targeted demographics and interests. Now StumbleUpon is attempting to do the same for online video and video advertising. In December the startup launched StumbleVideo, a service that offers the closest thing to channelsurfing that you'll find on the Web.
Tell us what you think about StumbleUpon's model: Is it the next MySpace?
Funding: $1.5 million (Ron Conway, Mitch Kapor, Josh Kopelman, Brad O'Neill, Ram Shriram)
Headquarters: San Francisco
Employees: 12
Founded: 2001
Business model: Advertising, subscriptions
Bragging rights: Cash flow positive
Next up: New features like content controls and mobile video recommendations
Contact: Partners@stumbleupon.com
www.slide.com
Slide has developed customizable and easily assembled slide shows of photos that can be embedded in a blog or a MySpace page, sent out in an RSS feed, and streamed to a desktop as a screensaver.
Funding: Not disclosed (Peter Thiel, Vinod Khosla, others)
Founder & CEO: Max Levchin (shown right)
Headquarters: San Francisco
Employees: 45
Founded: 2004
Business model: Advertising, subscription
Bragging rights: Actor Jamie Foxx and Playboy founder Hugh Hefner use Slide on their MySpace pages.
Next up: Doubling staff in 2007; expanding into Asia; adding mobile phone features
Contact: Partners@slide.com
www.bebo.com
Bebo has built a social network, more than 30 million members strong, that keeps users' pages private but still allows them to share things like video and drawings made on an online whiteboard.
Founders: Michael Birch (also CEO), Xochi Birch (shown right)
Headquarters: San Francisco
Employees: 28
Founded: 2005
Business model: Advertising
Bragging rights: Profitable; advertisers include Disney, Alltel, Dawn and AOL)
Next up: Promoting new Bebo Authors channel (launched Feb. 22); hiring in-house sales team
Contact: Partnerships@bebo.com
www.meebo.com
Meebo lets users manage multiple instant-messaging services from one site. Meebo's killer app is a widget that places an IM window on your blog or webpage.
Funding: $12.5 million (Draper Fisher, Jurvetson, Sequoia Capital)
Founders: Sandy Jen, Seth Sternberg (also CEO), Elaine Wherry (shown right)
Employees: 12
Business model: Advertising
Bragging rights:: 5.3 million unique instant messenger IDs per month
Next up: Doubling staff in 2007
Contact: Daniel Bernstein, Danny@meebo.com
www.wikia.com
Wikia operates a hosting service for ad-supported community sites that use the same software and collaborative content model that made Wikipedia a Web phenomenon.
Launched in 2004, Wikia communities range from fans of 24 to politics junkies. Wikia is also working on an open-source, user-generated search engine.
Funding: $4 million (Amazon.com, Marc Andreessen, Bessemer Venture Partners, others)
Founders: Angela Beesley, Jimmy Wales (shown right)
Headquarters: San Mateo, Calif.
Employees: 33
Founded: 2004
Business model: Advertising
Bragging rights: 500,000 articles in 45 languages
Next up: Hiring; expanding into Japan; adding more languages; developing open-source search engine
Contact: Angie Shelton, angie@wikia.com
www.joost.com
Forget the three-minute video blog. The 30-minute, broadcast-quality Web 2.0 TV show is coming in all its full-screen glory. And if serial disrupters Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom have their way, neither television nor the Internet will be the same.
The duo behind peer-to-peer services Kazaa and Skype will officially launch Joost this spring, aiming to merge the best of TV with the best of the Net.
The service provides more of a television-style experience than current online video sites, with channels you can flip through randomly or program yourself. Viewers can also share playlists of their favorite shows with friends or chat with them online while watching the same program.
Joost will be free, supported by highly targeted ads based on people's actual watching habits, their friends' viewing patterns, and information they volunteer. Ad revenue will be split between Joost and the content owners.
Joost can offload much of the heavy bandwidth and storage costs borne by Web video companies like YouTube because the service is a partial peer-to-peer system, with content distributed among viewers' computers. And to reassure Hollywood moguls who watched the music industry get burned by Kazaa's legions of illegal file sharers, all Joost video is streamed and encrypted.
Tell us what you think about Joost: Will the Skype founders beat YouTube?
Funding: Not disclosed
Founders: Janus Friis, Niklas Zennstrom (shown above)
Headquarters: Luxembourg
Employees: 100
Founded: 2006
Business model: Advertising
Bragging rights: 40,000 beta testers; just beat rival YouTube by signing major content deal with Viacom; other content providers include National Geographic, Warner Music Group, and Dutch TV production company Endemol
Next up: Striking more content deals
Contact: Newyork@joost.com
www.dabble.com
Dabble has designed a tool for organizing videos into playlists of favorites. Users share them across the network, so, say, food lovers can dabble in one another's video collections.
Funding: $750,000 (Hank Barry, Evan Williams, others)
Founder & CEO: Mary Hodder (shown right)
Headquarters: Berkeley, Calif.
Employees: 11
Founded: 2005
Business model: Advertising
Bragging rights: 12,000 registered users to date; partnerships with MySpace, YouTube, Grouper, Brightcove
Next up: Hiring; a groups feature for users with similar interests to share video
Contact: Partners@dabble.com
www.metacafe.com
Metacafe's service ranks uploaded videos by popularity and feedback from a community of 17 million monthly visitors - and pays the creators for the success of their work. The auteurs get $100 after 20,000 viewings and $5 for every 1,000 subsequent views. Since September, Metacafe has paid a total of $250,000 to 200 contributors.
Funding: $20 million (Accel Partners, Benchmark Capital)
CEO: Erick Hachenburg (shown right)
Headquarters: Palo Alto, Calif.
Employees: 65
Founded: 2003
Business model: Advertising
Bragging rights: 17 million monthly users; revenues doubling each quarter
Next up: Hiring 100 employees in 2007; partnering with movie studios, record labels and producers
Contact: Business@metacafe.com
www.revision3.com
Revision 3 is a production studio for geek-oriented online shows. Started by Digg founder Kevin Rose and its CEO, Jay Adelson, Revision3 sells sponsorships to companies like Go Daddy, Microsoft, and Sony for as much as $10,000 per episode.
Funding: $1 Million (Adelson, Marc Andreessen, Ron Conway, others)
Cofounder & CEO: Jay Adelson (shown right)
Headquarters: San Francisco
Employees: 7
Founded: 2005
Business model: Advertising
Bragging rights: 1.5 million monthly viewers; advertisers include Sony, IBM and Go Daddy
Next up: Launching up to 4 new shows
Contact: Info@revision3.com
www.blip.tv
Blip.tv has built a platform for syndicating serialized online shows such as Starring Amanda Congdon and TreeHugger TV. Blip provides producers with software, ads, and distribution to websites and blogs. A deal is already signed with Web TV service Akimbo, which lets producers send their videos to TV sets.
Funding: Not disclosed (Ron Conway, Mark Gerson, Ken Lerer, Peter Thiel)
Cofounders: Dina Kaplan, Mike Hudack (also CEO; shown right with Kaplan)
Headquarters: New York City
Employees: 12
Founded: 2005
Business model: Licensing, advertising
Bragging rights: 45,000 content creators; key advertisers include Dove, Paltalk; licensors include CNN, Oxygen TV
Next up: Doubling staff in 2007
Contact: Mike Hudack, mike@blip.tv
www.fon.com
In the freewheeling wireless era, the PC is in your pocket and the network is in the air. No surprise, then, that gadgets from Apple's iPhone to a SanDisk MP3 player are being built with Wi-Fi inside.
But finding a Wi-Fi signal when you need one can be a problem - and a big opportunity for Fon, a Spanish company that's building a global community of hotspots one router at a time.
The idea for Fon hit founder Martin Varsavsky in late 2005 while he was strolling through Paris with his PDA in search of a signal. Companies like T-Mobile were spending millions of dollars to build hotspot networks and charging dearly for access.
Varsavsky, however, saw the potential for a worldwide Wi-Fi network in the home broadband connections already in place. All that was needed was a service to tie them together.
Here's how it works: Fon sells a $30 wireless router to consumers. They hook it up, register their node, and agree to share their broadband with other "Foneros" for free. Those who want to charge outsiders for access can do so, and Fon gets a cut. Likewise, if someone wants to pay $2 or $3 to use the Fon network for a day, Fon takes a share of that revenue. Just over a year old, Fon's network boasts more than 70,000 hotspots. Initially focused on Europe and Asia, Fon plans a big push in the United States in the coming months.
Tell us what you think about Fon: Is the company a Web 2.0 winner?
Funding: $22 million (Google, Index Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Skype)
Founder: Martin Varsavsky (shown above)
Headquarters: Madrid, Spain
Employees: 90
Founded: 2006
Business model: Subscription, router sales
Bragging rights: 400,000 users (including 40,000 Americans added since October); signed as-yet unannounced deal with first major U.S. broadband service provider
Next up: In deal talks with U.S. cellular service provider
Contact: Faisal Galaria, fonus@fon.com
www.loopt.com
Loopt offers around-the-clock friend tracking. Cell-phone customers are using Loopt to let their buddies see their locations. It's already a hit with some 100,000 Boost Mobile subscribers who want to know not just what their posse is up to but where it's at.
Funding: $5 million (New Enterprise Associates, Sequoia Capital)
Founder & CEO: Sam Altman (shown right)
Headquarters: Palo Alto, Calif.
Employees: 18
Founded: 2005
Business model: Advertising, subscription
Bragging rights: Partnership with Sprint
Next up: Signing up sponsors; in talks with second U.S. carrier
Contact: Bizdev@loopt.com
www.getmobio.com
Mobio offers mobile-phone mashups and widgets that figure out where you are and serve up on-the-go services like movie listings. Other widgets will book a cab or a seat at a restaurant.
Funding: $9 million (InterWest)
Founder & CEO: Ramneek Bhasin (shown right)
Headquarters: Cupertino, Calif.
Employees: 40
Founded: 2005
Business model: Advertising
Bragging rights: Sprint and Cingular customers will be able to download widgets to their phones this spring; working with OpenTable, an online restaurant reservation service.
Next up: Service launches Feb. 26
Contact: Info@getmobio.com
www.tinypictures.us
It's Flickr on the fly. Tiny's Radar service lets you snap photos with cell phones and send them to friends, who can both access and comment on the shots. Radar will be a built-in application on some devices made by Danger, creator of T-Mobile's Sidekick.
Funding: $2.8 million (Mohr Davidow Ventures)
Founder & CEO: John Poisson (shown right)
Headquarters: San Francisco
Employees: 12
Founded: 2005
Business model: Sales of downloadable client, advertising
Bragging rights: 55 percent monthly user growth; 500,000 videos and pictures swapped on network per month; SunCom Wireless plans to distribute Radar
Next up: To have 1 million users by year-end; sign up more carriers; add premium subscription service
Contact: Amanda Krantz, amanda@tinypictures.us
www.soonr.com
Access your home or office PC from your mobile phone. SoonR allows you to use your phone to pull up and search data on your desktop - everything from Word docs to Photoshop files.
Funding: $6 million (Clearstone Venture Partners, Intel Capital)
Cofounder & CEO: Martin Frid-Nielsen (shown right)
Headquarters: Campbell, Calif.
Employees: 30
Founded: 2005
Business model: Subscriptions
Bragging rights: Approx. 250,000 users; partnerships with Swisscom, WebEx
Next up: Premium services
Contact: Abbe Patterson, abbe@soonr.com
www.turn.com
Led by former AltaVista CEO Jim Barnett, Turn.com is offering online advertisers something many have craved for years: precise, automated ad targeting combined with a system that requires them to pay only for specific desired results.
Call it pay-per-play.
To get started, advertisers first enter the prices they're willing to pay for various results - $5 for a sales lead, say, or $50 to $60 for a completed transaction. Next, they upload their text-or graphics-based display ads. Turn's software then analyzes the ads using more than 60 variables - including content, brand strength, and keywords - and determines the right publishers to serve up the ads. Turn splits the revenue (70-30, on average) with the publisher.
Since launching in beta in November, the company has signed up more than 1,000 advertisers and cranked more than 5 million ads through its analysis engine.
Twenty-five publishers are giving the system a tryout, according to Barnett, including a few large news sites and a big social network (which he declines to name).
As for competitive threats, Google has been rumored to be working on its own version of the pay-per-play model. But Barnett says the $16 billion-a-year online ad industry is growing so fast that he doesn't worry about Turn's ability to carve out a lucrative niche: "These days marketers need to use all the targeting approaches they can find."
Tell us what you think: Will Turn's pay-per-play model succeed?
Funding: $17.5 million (Norwest Venture Partners, Shasta Ventures, Trident Capital)
Cofounders: Jim Barrett (also CEO), John Ellis (shown above)
Headquarters: San Mateo, Calif.
Employees: 26
Founded: 2005
Business model: Advertising
Bragging rights: 25 million unique viewers to date; 1,000 advertisers; 20 publishers
Next up: Signing more publishers
Contact: Business2@turn.com
www.adify.com
Adify is an online marketplace for highly targeted ads. Businesses can sell ad space directly to advertisers; advertisers can target specific market niches while Adify handles the back-office work.
Funding: $8 million (Venrock Associates)
Cofounder & CEO: Larry Braitman (shown right)
Headquarters: San Bruno, Calif.
Employees: 40
Founded: 2005
Business model: Advertising
Bragging rights: 4,000 publishers have signed up, including The Washington Post; revenues doubling quarter-over-quarter
Next up: Signing more publishers
Contact: 877-462-3439
www.admob.com
AdMob offers a place to buy ads for delivery to cell phones. That market is set to explode, and AdMob - which says it has sent out nearly a billion ads in less than a year - is poised to become its middleman of choice.
Funding: $4 million (Sequoia Capital)
Founder & CEO: Omar Hamoui (shown right)
Headquarters: San Mateo, Calif.
Employees: 22
Founded: 2006
Business model: Advertising
Bragging rights: 800 publishers, 250 advertisers
Next up: Technology to deliver interactive ads to mobile phones
Contact: Info@admob.com
www.spotrunner.com
SpotRunner is a one-stop online shop for low-cost 30-second TV ads. Local businesses can browse a library of premade spots and personalize them for airing in their local markets.
Funding: $60 million (CBS, Interpublic Group, WPP)
Cofounders: Nick Grouf (also CEO), David Waxman (shown right)
Headquarters: Los Angeles
Employees: 150
Founded: 2004
Business model: Advertising
Bragging rights: Clients include Century 21, Coldwell Banker, Mozilla, and Warner Independent Pictures; partners include The Interpublic Group of Companies, WPP, CBS
Next up: Extending the model to other media besides TV, possibly radio and the Internet
Contact: 877-287-2793
www.vitrue.com
ViTrue's platform lets corporate customers solicit, edit, and upload user-generated videos that promote their products. With companies like General Motors tapping the YouTube generation to virally market their wares, ViTrue is in a sweet spot.
Funding: $5 million (Comcast, Ron Conway, General Catalyst Partners, Turner Broadcasting)
Founder & CEO: Reggie Bradford (shown right)
Headquarters: Atlanta, Ga.
Employees: 38
Founded: 2006
Business model: Advertising
Bragging rights: 100,000 site users; site on VH1.com
Next up: Developing new sites for youth-oriented media clients
Contact: Maria Sanzone, Maria@vitrue.com
www.successfactors.com
Editor's Note: In its March 2007 issue, Business 2.0 claimed that privately held startup SuccessFactors was profitable, with an estimated $100 million in revenue, based on reports from venture capitalists. However, on July 20, 2007, SuccessFactors announced that it had filed a registration statement for a proposed public offering, citing revenue of $32.6 million and a loss of $32 million for 2006. The number of shares to be offered and the price range for the offering were not indicated. The financial figures disclosed in the filing are inconsistent with those reported in our story.
Even the corporate world is catching on to the promise of Web 2.0 technologies. After all, why can't enterprise apps be as easy to use as the latest Google mashup?
They can. And when they actually work, watch out. SuccessFactors, a profitable five-year-old startup in San Mateo, Calif., takes in an estimated $100 million in annual revenue by selling a suite of simple Web-based tools that automate important but previously paper-driven management chores - performance reviews, succession planning, and compensation.
Ultimately the service helps to match employee skills with company objectives. North Carolina-based Quintiles, a pharmaceutical services firm with 17,000 employees, deployed SuccessFactors last year to better pair worker aptitudes with jobs; its annual employee churn rate subsequently fell by nearly a third.
CEO Lars Dalgaard claims that SuccessFactors has some 2 million users and more than doubled sales last year. Its customers, which pay an annual fee of $50 per user, range from small tech companies to corporate giants like ConAgra Foods. That kind of growth has not gone unnoticed among investment bankers, prompting talk of an IPO this year.
Tell us what you think of SuccessFactors: Has the company created the ideal corporate tool?
Funding: $45 million (Canaan Partners, Cardinal Venture Capital, Emergence Capital, others)
Founder & CEO: Lars Dalgaard (shown above)
Headquarters: San Mateo, Calif.
Employees: Approx. 400
Founded: 2001
Business model: Subscriptions
Bragging rights: 1,200 customers, including Wachovia, MasterCard, and Kimberly-Clark; 2 million users
Next up: Expanding into Asia and Europe; developing web services tailored to specific industries, such as health care and retail
Contact: Info@successfactors.com
www.janrain.com
JanRain has developed a single sign-on service for multiple passwords that lets people hop freely from site to site. Business demand for JanRain's services is expected to grow as Web 2.0 entertainment and social-networking sites proliferate.
Funding: $1 million (founders)
Cofounder & CEO: Scott Kveton (shown right)
Headquarters: Portland, Ore.
Employees: 11
Founded: 2006
Business model: Advertising, subscriptions
Bragging rights: 50,000 users (nearly double the number in December)
Next up: Partnerships with bigger websites; new product rollout by summer
Contact: Scott Kveton, Kveton@janrain.com
www.logoworks.com
Logoworks automates the design of logos, business cards, and stationery. Proprietary software helps Logoworks streamline the process and charge less than old-line competitors.
Funding: $16.8 million (Benchmark Capital, Highway 12, Shasta Ventures)
Founder: Morgan Lynch (shown near right)
CEO: Paul Brockbank (shown far right)
Headquarters: Lindon, Utah
Employees: 120
Founded: 2001
Business model: Fee-for-service
Bragging rights: 65,000 customers to date, including Toyota and Pfizer
Next up: Selling services to small businesses through big box retailers
Contact: Info@logoworks.com
www.reardencommerce.com
Rearden Commerce sells a Web-based "virtual personal assistant" application that smoothly integrates hotel and flight reservations, meetings, and other events into your daily agenda. Some 150 companies and 500,000 employees use Rearden's software.
Funding: $100 million (American Express, Foundation Capital, Vinod Khosla, Burt McMurtry, Oak Investment Partners)
Founder & CEO: Patrick Grady (shown right)
Headquarters: Foster City, Calif.
Employees: 155
Founded: 2000
Business model: Subscriptions
Bragging rights: Approx. 200 customers; new partnership with American Express
Next up: Expanding into the mobile market
Contact: 877-778-2763
www.simulscribe.com
Finally, an effective way to convert voice-mail into scannable text. SimulScribe transcribes voice-mail messages and shoots them to your mobile device as text or e-mail messages. Targeting corporate customers, SimulScribe will integrate the service into company voicemail systems.
Funding: $5 million (Tom Iovino, Claude and Jan Nahum)
Founder & CEO: James Siminoff (shown right)
Headquarters: New York City
Employees: 8
Founded: 2003
Business model: Subscriptions
Bragging rights: 5,000 users
Next up: Deal with major national carrier to be announced in April
Contact: Business2@simulscribe.com
Friday, January 4, 2008
Who is our CEO, Atıf ÜNALDI?
Setting up the BBS system enabling the communication of two persons over
telephone lines when he was a student at the Physics Department at the
Bosphorus University, Atıf Unaldı established the first Internet connection
in Turkey. He achieved a "first of its kind" type project again in Turkey
by making an Internet and information program at Radio D (Radio Club) named
"Farenin Kuyrugu" (The Tail of the Mouse) between 1992-1994. In 1994, he
prepared, presented and produced a nightly live show,"RadyoNet", appearing
five weekdays on Kanal D. This was the first program consisted of live
computer pictures from beginning to end. Atıf Unaldı was the General
Director of the first Internet server in Turkey, Anadolu.Net, between
1994-1996. Being the supervisor of the World Air Games I in 1996 and 1997,
he registered the sportsmen into the games over the Internet and Intranet.
In 1998, he also became the Internet supervisor of the Sabah Group, and
worked as a consultant in the project to sell Sabah Kitapları (Sabah Books)
over the Internet. In the same year, he continued to write at his column
(Yeni Ufuklar-New Horizons) in the .Net magazine, which was a publication of
the Milliyet Group.
In 1999, he was appointed as the webmaster in Ihlas.Net, and he also
designed and administered it. In the very same year, he wrote at a column in
an IT magazine, Pcweek of the Sabah Group. In the meantime, founding a
web-design company, Artmedya, Unaldı prepared an Internet magazine talk show
program for BRT, GeceNet, which he presented with Romina Ozipekci. Later,
continuing to write in his column in the magazine, Canteen of the Aksam
Group, Atıf Unaldı gave web-design lectures in the Ceramic Department of the
IU. Leaving his position in Canteen upon the establishment of the
Interporbil Group, Unaldı has been a columnist in the economy magazine,
EkoTimes. At the moment, Atıf Unaldı is the columnist in the Computerlife
magazine. He has been also a columnist in Finansal Forum newspaper every
Wednesday. Being the brand consultant of Buybye.com, Unaldi produced and
presented a programme, TRON, in Technology Channel. As of December 2004,
becoming the IT Director of Star Media Group, Unaldi carried out the
editorship of STARTEK supplement of Star newspaper. Currently being the
Internet Director of Kanal D and Star Tv, Unaldi also produces the
Technorock programme in Rock Fm.
Being one of the founders of the group called Sitebuilders supported by
Microsoft, Unaldı has been organising conferences, seminars and panels
concerning "Web-design", "mobile Internet", "e-trade" and
"advertisement in the Internet" with the group. The group has been
successfully providing the persons and organisations with its free
educational studies.
Published Books
2006 Netizen ( Internet Dictionary )
The contests he participated as a juryman:
2002 - Altın Örümcek Web Contest
2003 - Altın Örümcek Web Contest
2004 - Grafi2000 Flash Animation Contest
2004 - Altın Örümcek Web Contest
2005 - Altın Örümcek Web Contest
2006 - Web Marketing Assotion - Web Awards
His published articles:
The Structuring of the Internet in the Information Society of Turkey, Yeni
Turkiye Dergisi (The New Turkey Magazine), March 1998
Web-design criteria, Yıldız Technical University Publication, 1994
Conferences, Seminars and Professional Activites:
1999 - Informing the sitebuilders and e-trade and web-design seminars in
Microsoft headquarters (Istanbul)
1999 - Web-design, e-trade, Media Technologies seminars within
Microsoft (Ankara, Istanbul, Izmir, Konya, Antalya)
2000 - e-trade seminars within Kosgeb (Ankara)
2000 - e-trade seminars in the Fatih University (Ankara)
2000 - The Bilgi University Internet seminars (Speakers: Microsoft Turkey
General Director Sureyya Ciliv, Atıf Unaldı)
2000 - Within the framework of the IT 2000 activities, e-trade and web
design seminars (Istanbul)
2003 - PRCI Turkiye (Istanbul)
2003 - Wireless Forum ( İstanbul)
2003 - ODTU ( Ankara )
2003 - Mobiliz.biz ( İstanbul )
2004 - PRCI ( İstanbul)
The softwares he translated:
1996 - Windows Commander
2000 - Babylon Internet Dictionary
2002 - Sitepublisher
Softwares:
1992 - The installation of two radio automation systems (Radyo Kulup and
Radyo C) (1995)
1994 - The software of two computer programs (Crossword and Puzzle) which
were played with the participation of the television audience at Kanal 6
television.
1996 - The Turkish version of a program called Windows Commander
1998 - A computer software enabling the automation of the TV advertisement
department
The organisations he is the member of:
WSP (Web Standards Project) A global organisation
Sitebuilders Microsoft
ASP Guilt A world organisation
Isoc (Internet Society) A world organisation
Mobiliz.biz Mobile Advertising Platform
CehTURK
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