There’s a growing cohort of education tech companies across the Pacific Northwest. A flurry of up-and-coming startups are sprouting up in British Columbia. And while Seattle is an enterprise software town, some of the nation’s leading consumer tech services call the city home.
These are a few patterns and insights gleaned from the latest update to the GeekWire 200, our ranking of the Pacific Northwest’s privately-held tech startups.
The GeekWire 200 is derived from our broader database of Pacific Northwest tech startups, including Washington, Oregon and Idaho, and British Columbia. The rankings are generated from publicly available data, including social media followings, approximate employee counts (via LinkedIn) and inbound web links.
Each month, we update the list and recap the month’s biggest movers and shakers. Here are the biggest trends we’re seeing on the GeekWire 200 this month.
B2B vs. B2C
- More than half of the GeekWire 200 startups sell enterprise software — not a surprise, given the Microsoft roots around Seattle and cloud computing expertise at various companies including Amazon. Seattle is an enterprise tech town.
- However, three of the top five companies — vacation rental hub Vacasa (#2); pet-sitting service Rover (#3); and mobile finance startup Remitly (#4) — sell to consumers.
- Two others among the top 15 — home improvement startup Porch (#12) and used goods marketplace OfferUp (#14) — are also business to consumer companies.
B.C. rising
- General Fusion (#110), Riipen (#164), and CTO.ai (#188) are newcomers on the GeekWire 200 and share something in common: they are all based in Vancouver or other parts of British Columbia.
- The region’s tech ecosystem is growing; Vancouver B.C. was recently named the top city for high-tech job growth in North America by CBRE.
- Seattle-based investment firm Voyager Capital is spending more time in the area, pointing to a bevy of B2B startups and a lack of investment dollars, along with strong public-private partnerships.
Biggest movers
- Salary compensation data platform Payscale moved two spots to No. 8.
- Sales automation startup Outreach (#15), security company ExtraHop (#18), and sales AI startup Highspot (#27) also inched forward among the top 30.
- A bevy of companies — Echodyne (#131), Data Science Dojo (#140), StormX (#146), Knock (#175), Stackline (#184) and Crelate (#185) — moved up by double digits.
Edtech surprise
- The Pacific Northwest is not known broadly as an education technology hub, but there is a rising tide of companies in the region building products and services to help people learn.
- GeekWire 200 edtech companies include Faithlife (#19), DreamBox Learning (#24), creativeLIVE (#42), Thinkific (#58), Coding Dojo (#89), Educative (#97), Skilljar (#107), Lumen Learning (#127), Riipen (#164), and Actively Learn (#200).
- Funding to U.S. edtech startups reached $1.7 billion in 2019, a five-year high according to EdSurge, which pointed to companies offering educational services to employers and employees as one rising trend. Seattle-area tech giants Microsoft and Amazon also have education arms.
About the GeekWire 200
The GeekWire 200 is derived from our broader list of more than 1,300 Pacific Northwest tech startups.
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, startup fundings, and our GeekWork job board.
