Starting Your StartUp Career: The Rocket Ship Startup List

Graduating students hungry to dive into the startup community around the world (aka StartUpLand) often struggle to select the right, specific opportunity where they can productively start their career.

Each spring, I provide a comprehensive list of exciting, growing, hiring startups that are worthy of consideration as places to start or continue a career in StartUpLand. The criteria for being on the list is subjective but is a mix of fundraising (typically > $20m in the most recent round), scale (typically > 100 employees), momentum (typically growing users or revenue > 50%) and hiring (typically growing headcount > 20%, including a number of entry-level positions that would be a fit for recent college or business school graduates).

Before we get into the companies themselves, I suggest checking out two of my posts where I give some more detailed advice on how to select the right company for you and position yourself to secure a job:

• Getting Your First Startup Job
• Are You Suited For A StartUp?

Once you have reviewed this framework for deciding what you’re looking for, below you will find a list of over 600 companies to research and approach.

As usual, the list is compiled and organized based on location. Like David Brooks, I believe in selecting a particular community to invest in and contribute to as a member of the ecosystem.

I received fantastic input from angels, entrepreneurs, lawyers and VCs across the world, helping me pressure test and compile this list (note: Flybridge portfolio companies are in blue). This year, I added companies from India and China with the help of a number of friends from those communities — a nod to the growing global importance of those two startup ecosystems. I’d also point folks to Stanford’s Andy Rachleff’s terrific list, which he publishes each fall with a similar theme.

I’m sure I made many mistakes and omissions, which are all my own. Special thanks to my Flybridge teammate and MIT Sloan intern Caroline Constable, who methodically crushed this year’s list and Harvard computer science intern Raymond Wang, who provided awesome analytical, programmatic firepower.

As always, feedback welcome!

East Coast

West Coast

International

• ATL: Bitpay, CallRail, FullStory, Kabbage, MailChimp, Pindrop, SalesLoft, Terminus
• CHI: AvantCredit, bloXroute, Civis Analytics, Fooda, FourKites, Kin Insurance, Project 44, ShopRunner, Sprout Social, Tempus
• CO: Boom Supersonic, Cloud Elements, CyberGRX, FullContact, GoSpotCheck, Ibotta, JumpCloud, LogRhythm, Quantum Metric, Red Canary, TeamSnap, Welltok
• DC: MapBox, Optoro, Sonatype, Vox Media, WeddingWire
• SEA: Apptio, Convoy, DefinedCrowd, ExtraHop, Knock, OfferUp, Outreach, Porch, Rover.com, Textio
• UT: Avetta, BambooHR, Canopy Tax, Fortem Technologies, Health Catalyst, HireVue, InsideSales.com, Lucid Software, ObservePoint, Podium, Qualtrics, Solutionreach, Via, Workfront