March Madness isn’t just about bracket pools, wild upsets and the Boss Button. It’s also a busy time for startups, if the GeekWire 200 list of privately-held Pacific Northwest startups is any indication.
A whopping 14 companies made double-digit moves up the charts this week, as local startups continue to hire and grow. What would that be in March Madness terms, Fabulous 14? Funded 14?
The top five remained static again this month with DocuSign at the top, followed by Redfin, Avalara, Blue Origin and Puppet. Bellevue, Wash.-based project management company Smartsheet continued its quest toward the top five, moving up another spot to number seven on the list.
Click for the full March update to the GeekWire 200 and continue reading for highlights.
Zipwhip continues to show that the cavalcade of messaging programs hasn’t killed off SMS yet. The Seattle startup landed a $9 million funding round late last year, and the business text messaging volume facilitated on its platform was up 300 percent year-over-year at the time. Those moves are paying off as Zipwhip rose eight spots to number 52 on the GeekWire 200 this month.
Zipwhip’s technology lets companies text their customers from the web, desktop computers and smartphones, working across the U.S. wireless carriers. Founded in 2007, the company originally targeted consumers and set out to be the “Facebook of text messaging.” But it pivoted around 2013, taking a different approach by enabling hundreds of millions of landlines to receive and send text messages for the first time. This allowed companies to text with their customers from landline phones and toll-free numbers.
Socedo, which helps companies target sales leads from social media activity, saw its revenue triple in 2016, and its stock rise in the GeekWire 200 this month, up 14 spots to number 136.
Socedo employs 25 people, nearly double from this time last year, and just this week the company announced it has raised $1 million in funding. Total funding for the 4-year-old company, and 2013 graduate of the Microsoft Windows Azure accelerator, is $2.5 million.
The company will use the cash infusion to continue hiring, and is also expanding its platform to help marketers not only find new leads through social media activity, but revive existing ones, too.
Jobaline, a bilingual marketplace for hourly jobs, also rose 14 spots on the list to remain one spot behind Socedo at 137. Last month, the company secured $3.5 million in new funding, which it is planning to use to “step on the gas,” said Jobaline’s new CEO Doug Johnson, who took the job in September. That means expanding the startup’s customer base and platform, and growing the team by 25 percent in 2017.
The platform is designed to help employers find qualified hourly workers for roles like dishwashing, landscaping, and construction. Candidates can enter information over the phone or via text message and the data is presented to employers in a web interface.
Here are some of the other big movers in March:
- Cloudability, up 14 spots to number 79
- LoginRadius, up 15 spots to number 86
- Qorus, up 10 spots to number 113
- Cozy, up 27 spots to number 115
- PicoBrew, up 23 spots to number 117
- ComputeNext, up 18 spots to number 138
- Killer Infographics, up 22 spots to number 151
- Hubb, up 15 spots to number 156
- Moxi Works, up 10 spots to number 171
- Dolly, up 11 spots to number 172
- Audiosocket up 14 spots to number 185
Six startups made their debut on the GeekWire 200 in March. They are: Transform, Inc., Outdoor Project, Survey Analytics, Omni212, Imprev and OneEnergy Renewables.
The GeekWire 200 — sponsored by our partners at EY — is derived from our broader list of more than 900 Pacific Northwest tech startups. The list is designed to provide a better understanding of the startup landscape in the Northwest. The ranking is generated from publicly available data, including social media followings, approximate employee counts and inbound web links.
To make sure your startup is eligible for inclusion in the GeekWire 200, first make sure it’s included in the broader Startup List. If so, there’s no need to submit it separately for the GeekWire 200. If your Pacific Northwest startup isn’t among the companies on that larger list, you can submit it for inclusion here, and our algorithm will crunch the numbers to see if your company makes next month’s GeekWire 200. (Please, no service providers, marketing agencies, etc.)
Thanks to everyone for checking out this month’s ranking. And, just a reminder, if you value resources like these, be sure to check out our list and map of out-of-town tech companies with Seattle engineering outposts as well as our list of startup incubators, co-working spaces and accelerators in the region, and our GeekWork job board.
