Defining exactly what constitutes a startup can be a challenge, especially for digital scribes like us. Is it a pre-revenue company? A firm that has yet to go public? A venture-backed company? Well, whatever it is, Zillow.com no longer apparently qualifies. At least that’s the word from Marcelo Calbucci, keeper of the Seattle Startup Index.
In the latest edition of the Index, Calbucci removed the Seattle online real estate company. Why?
Well, for one thing, they’ve just gotten too big, he says. Also, he says they’ve been talking to investment bankers about going public.
“I think we can safely say they are not a startup anymore,” Calbucci tells GeekWire.
Zillow is a big company. It has raised $87 million to date, and just this week confirmed that it plans to relocate its offices to the 29th, 30th and 31st floor of the Russell Investments Center offices in downtown Seattle.
Calbucci routinely removes companies from the list, primarily because they’ve been acquired. (Recent examples include Gist and GlobalScholar).
But removing a company just because it got too big is a first.
Asked what the difference is between Zillow and Cheezburger Network — the comedy network which holds the first place title on the list — Calbucci notes that Cheezburger hasn’t reached quite the same amount of success yet.
“Until you’ve proven yourself, you are still a startup,” he says.
Cheezburger actually is bigger than Zillow in terms of online traffic — one of the measures of the index. And the company was operating profitably, at least up until the time when it raised a whopping $30 million in venture capital earlier this year.
Zillow employs more people at the moment at about 200, but Cheezburger is growing fast especially after the fresh round of capital.
We could sit here and debate what does or does not make a startup all day. But it’s nice outside and there certainly are better things to do with the sun finally shining.
Anyway, here’s a look at some of the top names on the revised index.
