10 Tech Startups Poised for growth in 2020

Every year, thousands of startups sign up to start their new venture. Since demand is steadily rising for big data, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and IoT, new and old companies are capitalizing on it and introducing their own solutions in these areas.

Enterprise software spending is predicted to rise by almost 11% this year, hitting the $507 Billion mark! Not only this, but 20.4 billion objects will be connected to the internet by 2020 and the number is set to keep on rising. Looking at these statistics, why wouldn’t there be a rise in tech startups?

With so many tech startups hitting the market every month, competing for awareness, investors, and growth, let’s see which ones made it to our list. 

The Startup Culture of 2020

When we think about startup culture, we think about a cozy, nurturing workspace where everybody is growing, late-night sittings, in-house games and snacks, and other perks like that. But let’s go deeper.

We’ll not talk about the work environment of startup companies, we’ll talk about the startup culture from a higher viewpoint, see how startups culture, in general, has evolved.

It’s no secret that the frequency of new startups is increasing year by year, and so has their funding. The average Series A in 2010 was $4.9 million. By 2017, it reached $12.1 million. This proves how startups are expanding and gaining trust to perform well.

To minimize their costs, startups turn to freelancers for any work that could be done remotely. Websites like Upwork, Fiverr, and Freelancer are their go-to’s. In fact, freelancing is so popular in the US, that about 35% of workers comprise freelancers!

If they don’t higher freelancers, then almost 66% of small businesses hire other small companies to outsource their work.

In order to make their companies sustainable, startups presell their product before it even comes out. It’s reported that companies that do so, close 40 to 50% more leads and retain 80 to 90% more customers. So not only are they earning before the release of their products, but they also feel secure in knowing that it’s meeting consumer demand. 

Top 10 Tech Startups for 2020

1. Snowflake

In the latest round held in Feb 2020, Snowflake raised $479 million led by Dragoneer investments group and Salesforce venture, bring the company to a jaw-dropping worth of $12.7 billion!

Frank Slootman claims to have built the first-ever relational data warehouse for cloud-based platforms. By executing this, they provided something unique to their audience- Real-Time data analytics.

Since data analytics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning are gold mines right now, it’s no wonder the company was able to grow so fast in just 5 years!

It’s one of the few startups who have earned themselves the Unicorn badge, and with the latest funding round, Snowflake is on the road to becoming one of the most valuable tech companies in the world. 

2. Tidelift

Open-Source software is great and all, but since it’s free, they lack the proper maintenance because maintenance requires cash, and open-source software is free! To eliminate this deadlock, Donald Ficher, CEO and co-founder of Tidelift,  came up with a solution to monetize this type of software.

This startup works with the creators of this software in direct collaboration, by paying them a salary each month so maintenance is done on a regular basis to keep the software up-to-date and high-quality.

It offers its service to organizations at a mere $1500 for 25 developers, hence saving them from the trouble of buying expensive software, as well as solving their problem of running into bugs and rough patches of the free software they are already using.

Tidelift has accumulated funding of $40 million so far from companies like General Catalyst and Foundry group.

3. Funnel

CEO and founder, Fredrick Skantz tells Techcrunch that, “Automating the collection and preparation of the data has proven to be a very hard thing to do right and we wanted to make sure we were the best at this which we now confidently can say we are as we hear that again and again from customers.”

And sure enough, this SaaS startup integrates more than 500 data sources to provide relevant and valuable insights to its customers. It gathers all the data at one platform, making it very easy to extract information for marketing and advertising purposes. They offer their services starting at $399 a month.

With their latest funding round in January 2020, Funnel is now a $47 million company, backed up by 6 investors.

4. Cohesity

There are many things that landed Cohesity on this list. For instance, it has won the NorthFace Scoreboard Award for excellence in customer service for two years in a row!

“My vision has always been to provide enterprises with cloud-like simplicity for their many fragmented applications and data – backup, test and development, analytics, and more,” said Cohesity CEO and Founder Mohit Aron.

This startup offers an efficient yet cheap solution to store secondary data with simple and rapid recovery options, a service that many have found very useful!

Adding one more success to its list, Cohesity has raised almost $410 million to date, making it one of the most funded startups!

5. GitLab

GitLab is an opensource repository for managing, tracking and collaborating code for developers. It handovers complete control to its users, so they can decide if their repositories are public or private.

CEO and co-founder, Sid Sijbrandij, announced that the service would go public on 18th November 2020.

GitLab provides it’s services in 4 different packages priced at $0, $4, $19, and $99. It starts with basic features and kicks it up a notch as it jumps from package to package.

The startup recently raised $268 million led by existing investors Goldman Sachs and Iconiq Capital, valuing the company at a staggering $2.75 Billion!

6. Afresh

When Matt Schwartz, founder, and CEO of Afresh, started noticing the food waste that resulted from overstocking, he decided to use AI to get rid of the problem.

This startup uses smart AI algorithms to optimize grocery stocks so they can minimize food wastage. By analyzing and predicting the trends grocery stores go through, it comes up with an optimized quantity for stocks so that nothing goes to waste.

It has already signed up deals with billion-dollar grocery chains. Some of the partners even reported that Afresh’s algorithm helped them cut back on cost as well as wastage.

7. Understory

understory is a weather infrastructure and analytics company which tracks 125,000 data point per second through its weather sensors. It tracks things like precipitation, wind, temperature, air pressure and humidity.

“Our commitment to disrupt outdated methods for dynamic weather analysis is the primary focus for this next stage of growth,” said Alex Kubicek, Co-founder, and CEO of Understory.

In 2019, the company partnered with an insurance firm, MSI GuaranteedWeather. Through the data Understory will collect, the insurance company will resolve hail-related claims for car damage, making the payouts faster and more accurate.

The latest funding round led by True Venture, brings the startup’s total funding to $22.25 million.

8. Movandi

When 5G technology was introduced in 2019, experts believed that it will not be accessible to low-density areas because of its infrastructure. But CEO and co-founders, Maryam Rofougaran and Reza Rofougaran aimed to eliminate this problem by introducing their own technology, Movandi.

Movandi introduces a technology that will broaden the reach of the 5G network. The technology can even work around obstacles like high-rise buildings, to keep the signal strength strong.

The startup is already in talks with major wireless providers and has raised $30 million to date.

9. Petal

Jason Gross, CEO of Petal, came up with the idea of a unique credit card, which determines if you’re ready for one based on your income and bank statements. The feature that sets it apart from other credit cards is that Petal is more geared towards young people.

The company doesn’t charge fees, not even for missed payments, and also offers cash-back rewards- Just what youngsters need. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have a good credit score, or other reasons most credit card companies reject applications for.

The company has raised a total of $46.6 million for its new venture.

10. Confluent

Confluent was founded by the creator of Apache Kafka, Jay Kreps, an open-source software. The startup is a commercial version of it and is much lighter and easier to use than Kafka.

Confluent makes it easy for developers to stream data in large volumes and extract metrics from it for statistics and analysis.

It raised $125 million in its last round in 2019, bumping up the total funding to $205 million.

Conclusion

What did you think of the top startups leading the market right now? From weather infrastructure to artificial intelligence, the tech industry is spreading its roots in every direction!

We’re excited to see what these companies come up with next, which one- if any- will be the next Unicorn, and how their products will revolutionalize their respective industries!

These startups are all set and geared up for the race to success- a race where there is no finish line.