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Check out BostInno's 20 startups to watch in 2020 here.
At BostInno, we have had a very busy 2018. Having our pulse on Boston's thriving innovation may not be easy, but indeed—it's a lot of fun.
Amidst the hustle and bustle that is reporting on the local ecosystem, we run across stories of all kinds: News about mega funding rounds, major exits, significant mergers and acquisitions and startups emerging from stealth. These stories help us piece together our ideas about what companies are poised for a big 2019.
In addition to our insights, we reached out to investors, other entrepreneurs, startup mentors and accelerators to identify companies that should be under your spotlight for the year ahead.
For 'Startups to Watch' in the years past, we've focused on startups scored major funding beyond a Series A or B. This year, we are mostly going small -- looking at companies that are still in the seed stage or just emerged out of stealth. We are trying to identify startups that are likely to see a major funding round or have significant plans for the coming year.
Meet and get the inside scoop from the Boston startups making big moves in 2019. RSVP to BostInno’s Startups to Watch event on February 7. http://bit.ly/BostInnoS2WWeWork
Let's get to it, shall we? Read more about the 19 Startups to Watch in 2019 by clicking on the company logo.
Algorand
Blockchain startups are having a moment and Algorand is one of them. Launched by MIT computer science professor and Turing award-winning cryptographer, Silvio Micali, the company claims its one-of-a-kind technology promises to solve the blockchain trilemma of scalability, security and decentralization. Its latest round of $62 million came from a consortium of over 30 global investors from Asia, South America, and Silicon Valley with participation from existing investors including Union Square Ventures and Pillar VC. It made some key hires that are well-known names in the Boston business community: Steve Kokinos, co-founder and Chairman at Fuze, as the CEO and W. Sean Ford, co-founder of uPromise and former CMO of LogMeIn, as COO.
Alpha Vantage
Not many startups selected for Silicon Valley-based Y Combinator would come back home after completing the well-known acceleration program. But Alpha Vantage, the only Harvard Business School-born startup in this summer’s Y Combinator cohort, decided not to leave his hometown Boston. Launched by MIT-trained computer scientist Steve Zheng and fellow Harvard MBA graduate Olivier Porté, Alpha Vantage provides API access to financial market data. The tool, which enables developers to create digital assets such as iOS and Android apps and assist investors with trading decisions, had more than 300 million requests on a daily basis.
Analytical Space
Cambridge-based Analytical Space, a satellite communications services startup, had a special 2018. The company will remember the year its first shoebox-sized satellite started orbiting the Earth. It was deployed from the International Space Station in July and is described as the first step in the company’s mission to build the “Cisco of space.” Founders Dan Nevius and Justin Oliveira, both Harvard Business School graduates, have previously worked at the White House’s Office of Management and Budget.
Armored Things
Imagine Fenway Park and its thousands of square feet to monitor to keep the area secure. Armored Things’s software connects data from video cameras and other on-site sources to help security officers spot patterns in crowd behavior that are consistent with incidents, with the ultimate goal of predicting attacks. Founded in December 2016 by Julie Johnson and Charles Curran, the cyber-physical security startup is gearing up for its pilots in 2019 and raised $5.5 million in a seed round of financing in the summer. Its team of 16 includes two Carbon Black veterans.
Commonwealth Fusion Systems
There is a reason why nuclear-fusion startups are heating up and drawing attention as well as big bucks from the likes of Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson. That reason is clean energy. And one such company is Commonwealth Fusion Systems. Founded in 2017, Cambridge-based Commonwealth Fusion Systems raised $64 million this June with Breakthrough Ventures as one of its investors, the fund led by billionaires like Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Richard Branson and Mukesh Ambani. We are watching CFS as it promises to bring fusion power to market in 15 years.
coUrbanize
Crystal City in Virginia landed one half of Amazon’s HQ2—and guess who was already working with one of the biggest developers in Crystal City to shape Amazon’s second headquarters? Boston-based coUrbanize, a technology platform that allows developers to gather feedback from community members via text, social media and comments posted in online forums. Launched in 2013, coUrbanize is led by Founder and CEO Karin Brandt and raised a total of $1.7 million through Techstars Boston and other investors.
DUST Identity
You know when you meet someone new, ask what he or she does and your instant reaction is “Oh, that’s cool”? That’s how we feel about DUST Identity, a startup that emerged from stealth in November with $2.3 million in seed funding led by Kleiner Perkins—the backer of Amazon, Google and Spotify, just to name a few. The company is the maker of a diamond-based authentication system for supply chains that could potentially make RFID tags (which identify items through smart barcodes based on radio frequency technology) obsolete. In other words, DUST utilizes a coating of tiny diamonds to create a unique, invisible fingerprint on any item with the goal of improving tracking systems. Now that’s cool.
Eager Labs
A veteran of more than a half dozen startups, Sean Lindsay is the serial founder and board member of Talla who has been quietly building Eager Labs. An experienced CTO, he held top technical roles at companies such as Tapjoy and Viximo. Funded by Flybridge Capital Partners, seed-stage Eager Labs provides an all-in-one platform for talent engagement, assessment and improvement for scaling companies, including tools to help managers organize and execute effective 1:1s and facilitate 360 assessments.
Endeavor Robotics
Chelmsford-based Endeavor Robotics recently revealed the design of its ‘Scorpion Robot,’ that it developed for the U.S. Army’s Common Robotic System-Individual (CRS-I) program. Endeavor Robotics split from iRobot and was sold to private equity firm Arlington Capital Partners in 2016 for $45 million. Endeavor’s clientele includes U.S. Department of Defense is foreign militaries, including the U.K. and Germany, law enforcement agencies and groups that respond to natural disasters. The company claims to be the world's largest provider of tactical unmanned ground vehicles, delivering more than 6,500 robots to customers in over 55 countries.
Ginkgo Bioworks
Founded in 2009 by MIT scientists, Ginkgo Bioworks was genetically programming microbes to make rose oil from yeast two years ago. Today, the company is valued at a billion dollars, its latest mission is to help the US government fight biological threats. How exactly? The company is developing algorithms that will screen DNA sequences and determine if they could be pathogenic or toxic to humans or animals. These algorithms can also predict the function of unknown sequences, and assign a threat level based on the potential for harm. Ginkgo is also working with aerospace and defense giant Northrop Grumman to detect potential bio error as well as bioterror incidents by analyzing DNA sequencing of agents.
Infinite Cooling
Winning the $100K Diamond prize at MassChallenge: Check. Winning the MIT $100K Launch competition: Check. Winning the Rice Business Plan Competition among 42 competitors: Check. Get selected for Forbes "30 Under 30" for 2019: Check. If the MIT-born system that captures and recycles vaporized water from thermoelectric power plants is not one of Boston’s startups to watch, we don’t know what that is! The clean energy startup co-founded by Karim Khalil, Kripa Varanasi and Maher Damak is in the process of closing its seed round.
Inrupt
If Tim Berners-Lee gets involved, we’re going to watch closely. In September, the Mass. resident and father of the World Wide Web unveiled Inrupt, a startup that plans to “unlock the true promise of the web by decentralizing the power that’s currently centralized in the hands of a few,” like corporations like Google and Facebook. The primary backer of Inrupt is one of Boston's newest early-stage investment firms—Glasswing Ventures, which closed its first fund worth $112 million in July and said it plans to focus on artificial intelligence technology. Inrupt currently has about 20 workers.
LearnLux
Marc Benioff likes Boston-based LearnLux. A lot. Earlier this year, Mr. Salesforce wrote co-founder Rebecca Liebman a check for $200,000 on the spot; she had just won a SXSW pitch competition in front of a panel that included Ashton Kutcher. Later this year, LearnLux closed a $2 million seed round from Kutcher’s investment firm Sound Ventures, Underscore VC, former Wealthfront CEO Adam Nash—and Benioff, of course. LearnLux is an online tool that teaches the basics of personal finance to people who never had formal education on the subject. The startup was founded by Rebecca and her brother, Michael Liebman, in 2015.
Lightmatter
“Accelerating artificial intelligence with light” is the mission of Lightmatter, the winner of the $100K Entrepreneurship Competition in 2017 — an annual contest that gives away $100,000 to the grand prize winner. Led by CEO Nick Harris, the company raised $11 million in a Series A round led by Boston venture firms Matrix Partners and Spark Capital this year. The company makes optical chips that can perform calculations at the speed of light, leaving transistors in the dust. But the race is not without competition: another MIT-born startup, Lightelligence, is working on something really similar. Whoever comes first, will have to succeed at the speed of light.
Lola
Lola is on our list of startups to watch in 2019. And here’s why: Mike Volpe, who is often described as the best marketer in Boston, took over as its CEO this year. The company also expanded its office space. It also recently signed a partnership with American Express Global Business Travel, under which American Express GBT will resell Lola’s travel management software to its own customers, a big, important leap into corporate travel.
Novopyxis
Who wants to get their hands on a biotech startup that promises to overcome challenges in both drug design and delivery? Many people, especially after realizing that Novopyxis is developing a painless, contact-free and portable device designed to increase the penetration of topical treatments in the skin (think of it as a hand-held aerosol device). Moreover, the team of MIT-trained scientists uses mathematics and machine learning to predict protein structure of uncrystallized targets and design peptide agonists. Novopyxis is supported by various organizations including NASA, the Veteran’s Association and Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
Randori
Launched by Brian Hazzard, one of the first employees at cybersecurity startup Carbon Black and David Wolpoff, former Red Team lead at Kyrus Technology, Randori emerged out of stealth mode in October with $9.75 million in seed funding led by Accomplice Ventures, with participation from .406 Ventures and Legion Capital. The startup that claims to be the ‘industry’s first nation-state caliber attack platform,’ developing an attack platform that will launch ‘real attacks’ on companies, emulating advanced hacks and threats companies face.
Spyce
Who doesn’t want to keep an eye on a kitchen run by robots? We certainly do. Spyce Kitchen, the robotic kitchen launched by four MIT grads in late 2015 raised $21 million in a series A round this September from industry bigwigs like Collaborative Fund and Maveron, with additional participation from existing investor Khosla Ventures. Collaborative Fund has also invested in companies like Lyft and Sweetgreen. Spyce serves bowls starting at $7.50 and with this fresh infusion of cash, the company plans to open new branches on the East Coast and further develop their robotic culinary platform.
Superpedestrian
As far as transportation and robotics go, Superpedestrian has both. Its chief product, the Copenhagen Wheel, developed at the MIT Senseable City lab is a rear wheel electric bicycle system that transforms the bike into a smart electric hybrid/pedelec. Superpedestrian recently announced that it will foray into building electric scooters to supply a fleet to operators such as Bird and Lime.
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