It was a big month for video games on the GeekWire 200, our monthly startup index tracking the Seattle region’s technology companies.
Exhibit A: Bungie, which unveiled its new game “Destiny” in February, saw its Twitter follower count increase by more than 15,000 people, to 156,000 followers, and also saw a big jump in its Facebook following. One of the company’s tweets, announcing the new game, was retweeted more than 1,140 times.
Bungie, which has been independent since spinning out of Microsoft several years ago, rose 5 places to the #13 spot on the GeekWire 200, right behind Avalara, the tax software company.
Wait a second: How can we compare the former Halo maker to an enterprise technology startup?
If you’re just tuning in, the GeekWire 200 is our effort to provide a broad snapshot of the Seattle startup community. It uses publicly available data — including social media followings, approximate employee counts and inbound web links — to generate a ranking of 200 top companies from our broader list of more than 700 Seattle-area tech startups.
It’s not a scientific exercise, but it does provide interesting insights. For example, many of the companies toward the top of the index are candidates for public offerings, and others are likely buyout candidates.
One new feature this month: Arrows indicating upward movement by companies on the list, to help track movement.
Game company Big Fish remains at the top of the GeekWire 200 for the fourth straight month. Elsewhere in the top 10, data visualization software company Tableau rose one spot, to #2, and traffic technology company Inrix rose one spot to #6. Intelius was up one place, breaking into the top 10.
Analytics company SimplyMeasured rose 17 places, to #68. Other big movers included FlowPlay, the parent company of the OurWorld online gaming service and social network for teens, which rose 28 spots to #58; and U4iA, the video-game company that released its “Offensive Combat” game on Facebook in January, which rose 33 spots to #103.
For further insights into the GeekWire 200, we’ve also been using analytical tools from Seattle-area startup RivalIQ. For example, check out this interesting Rival IQ chart showing the companies on the index whose tweets were retweeted the most over the past 30 days.
Some important background: The GeekWire 200 is calculated using an algorithm that takes into account public data including employee numbers, social media stats and inbound links to each company’s website. The companies on the GeekWire 200 are drawn from our much larger GeekWire Startup List, a directory of more than 700 tech-oriented startups in the region.
The index also offers the ability to sort by industry category, company type and data set — helping you figure out which cloud computing company in the region has the most employees, for example, or which business-to-business software company has the most Twitter followers.
To make sure your startup is eligible for inclusion in the GeekWire 200, first make sure it’s included in the Startup List. If so, there’s no need to submit it separately for the GeekWire 200. If your Seattle-area startup isn’t among the companies on that larger list, you can submit it for inclusion here, and our algorithm will also crunch the numbers to see if your company makes next month’s GeekWire 200.
Check out the full GeekWire 200 index here.
