72 startups that will boom in 2020,according to VCsJulie Bort Jan 22, 2020, 6:30 AM

Shutterstock/8zkes

We asked a group of investors at successful venture capital @rmsto name the startups that will boom this year.

Search BI and the web using Microsoft Bing

to name the startups that will boom this year.

Each VC was asked to name two startups: one that they or their@rm invested in, and one where they have no @nancial ties or anyother interest, but believes will do well.

The result is an exciting list of startups to watch in 2020 from thepeople who make their livings watching startups.

Whether you are looking for a hot startup to join as an employeeor looking out for tech trends, this list will serve as an indicationof what Silicon Valley thinks is hot.

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2020 is upon us and one of the best ways to see what the year holds

for the tech industry is to ask the venture capitalists that fund,

advise and hear pitch after pitch from tech startups.

In that spirit, we reached out to a select group of successful venture

capital =rms and asked them name the startups that are poised to

have very good years.

When we spoke to each VC, we set some ground rules for

participation:

B. The VC must tell us about one startup in their portfolio. After all,

they believed in the startup in question enough to fund them.

F. And they must also tell us about one startup where they have no

=nancial ties or any other interest. After all, they can't invest in

every single cool-sounding startup.

The result is a fascinating list of companies to watch, ranging from

tiny, seed stage to under-the-radar growth companies, organized

alphabetically. We've noted each startup's estimated total funding to

date based on the info from deal database Pitchbook. In the event

that we could not determine total funding from Pitchbook, we've

included what funding info we could.

Here are the 72 startups that they named:

1Password: Password management for people andcompanies

Startup: 1Password

VC: Ethan Choi, Accel

Relationship: Investor

Total funding raised: $200 million

What it does: OOers a password manager for consumers and

enterprises.

Why it will boom in 2020: "1Password is seeing explosive traction

in the enterprise because users love the product and bring it into the

workplace, bottoms-up. In just three short years since launching its

enterprise product and with very little marketing and sales,

1Password has built a customer base of over 50,000 enterprise

customers and millions of paid users," Choi says.

Ethan Choi, Accel Accel

Abnormal Security: AI-powered cloud email security

Startup: Abnormal Security

VC: Saam Motamedi, Greylock Partners

Relationship: Investor

Total funding raised: $24 million

Saam Motamedi, Greylock Greylock

What it does: OOers AI-powered cloud email security to stop known

and unknown threats.

Why it will boom in 2020: "According to the FBI, business email

compromise is the No. 1 cyber crime for enterprises," says

Motamedi. "Unlike other enterprise solutions, their technology

models the identity of users, graphs their relationships and analyzes

content to stop attacks that bypass other solutions."

Abstract: Collaboration tools for design teams

Startup: Abstract

VC: Jomayra Herrera, Cowboy Ventures

Relationship: Investor

Total funding raised: $54.25 million

What it does: Provides collaboration and version control for design

teams.

Why it will boom in 2020: "Unlike engineers who have tools like

GitHub to keep track of their work, designers have historically been

left to manually track changes," says Herrera. "Abstract identi=ed

this gap and is quickly becoming the go-to place for design teams

who want to move faster and collaborate better," she says.

Accolade: Understand employee bene@ts

Jomayra Herrera, Cowboy Ventures Cowboy Ventures

Startup: Accolade

VC: Steve Singh, Madrona Venture Group

Relationship: Madrona is an investor in Accolade, via Matt

McIlwain; the CEO of Accolade is Steve Singh's brother.

Total funding raised: $240.34 million

What it does: Software that helps companies and employees

understand, use and manage their healthcare bene=ts.

Why it will boom in 2020: Accolade "radically improves the

capacity to consume the right healthcare services," says Singh.

Concur CEO Steve Singh LinkedIn/Steve Singh

AirGarage: Tech for parking garages

Startup: AirGarge

VC: Shaun Maguire, Sequoia Capital

Relationship: No relation. VC just thinks it's cool.

Total funding raised: $2 million

Shaun Maguire, Sequoia Sequoia

What it does: AirGarage provides tech for parking garage

companies that lets them sell spaces and enforce parking

regulations without an attendant on duty.

Why it will boom in 2020: "Parking makes up a large fraction of

the urban footprint of cities and it's currently ine`ciently utilized,"

says Maguire.

AMP Robotics: Robots for the dirty, unwanted job atrecycling centers

Startup: AMP Robotics

VC: Shaun Maguire, Sequoia Capital

Relationship: Investor

Total funding raised: $22.58 million

What it does: Builds robots for the recycling industry that sorts

through recycling.

Why it will boom in 2020: "AMP Robotics was born from the

insight — all the way back in 2012 — that deep learning will

commoditize computer vision, and computer vision + robotic arms

is the future of automation," says Maguire.

He says recycling was the =rst choice for the company because it

involves "some of the dirtiest and most dangerous jobs" that few

people want to do, creating a labor shortage. "It's also good for the

planet."

Auth0: Handling sign-in security for developers

Shaun Maguire, Sequoia Sequoia

Startup: Auth0

VC: S. Somasegar, Madrona Venture Group

Relationship: No relation. VC just thinks it's cool.

Total funding raised: $213.47 million

What it does: Auth0 provides authentication and authorization

security as a service used by developers for their applications.

Why it will boom in 2020: "Auth0 has built an elegant solution to

S. "Soma" Somasegar Madrona Venture Group

Why it will boom in 2020: "Auth0 has built an elegant solution to

solve this problem for all kinds of developers across all kinds of

applications," says S. Somasegar, adding: "Their developer-=rst and

ease-of-use approach is a work of art."

Benchling: Collaboration for drug researchers

Startup: Benchling

VC: Brian Feinstein, Bessemer Venture Partners

Brian Feinstein, Bessemer Venture Partners Bessemer Venture Partners

Relationship: No relation. VC just thinks it's cool.

Total funding raised: $61.8 million

What it does: Collaboration and data management platform for

drug development.

Why it will boom in 2020: "Benchling is helping researchers at

pharmaceutical companies better collaborate and manage their

research data internally. They are working with some of the largest

biopharma companies in the world," says Feinstein.

Bevi: Make your own Wavored water

Startup: Bevi

VC: Kent Bennett, Bessemer Venture Partners

Relationship: Investor

Total funding raised: $64.03 million

What it does: A smart water machine that pours still, sparkling, and

havored water on demand.

Why it will boom in 2020: "What if MIT geniuses dedicated their

lives to make your o`ce water cooler delightful and cheaper than

existing o`ce beverage solutions? That's Bevi," says Bennett. "The

company is growing incredibly quickly."

Calm: Meditation app moving into mental health

Kent Bennett, Bessemer Venture Partners Bessemer Venture Partners

Startup: Calm

VC: Nicole Quinn, Lightspeed Venture Partners

Relationship: Investor

Total funding raised: $143.63 million

What it does: Calm is a popular meditation app, featuring

partnerships with celebrities including Matthew McConaughey and,

more recently, Lebron James.

Why it will boom in 2020: "Calm now has a full mental health

oOering with meditation, yoga, masterclasses and sleep stories.

Often called 'the Matthew McConaughey app,' and with their latest

LeBron James partnership, Calm has successfully leveraged

Nicole Quinn Lightspeed

LeBron James partnership, Calm has successfully leveraged

celebrities to reach new audiences," says Quinn.

Catch: Bene@t management for the self-employed

Startup: Catch

VC: Evan Moore, Khosla Ventures

Relationship: Investor

Even Moore, Khosla Ventures Even Moore

Total funding raised: $6.22 million

What it does: Catch oOers health insurance, retirement planning,

and tax withholding planning to self-employed workers and those

without employer bene=ts.

Why it will boom in 2020: "It's crazy that bene=ts are still tied to

employment. Catch is the =rst portable bene=ts platform built for

freelancers, contractors, part-time, and other non-traditional

workers, and they've seen signi=cant momentum over the past

year," says Moore.

Clari: Intelligent revenue analysis

Startup: Clari

VCs: S. Somasegar and Steve Singh, Madrona Venture Group

Relationship: Investors

Total funding raised: $121 million

What it does: Ingests data from a company's enterprise apps then

uses AI for revenue analysis and forecasting.

Why it will boom in 2020: "More enterprises are looking to have a

top-level leader who looks holistically at all aspects of revenue

operations," says Somasegar. "Customer traction has set the

foundation for a breakthrough in the next year and beyond.

"I have found that Clari is more accurate that the sales rep, sales

manager, or the VP of Sales in predicting how the business will

perform in the quarter," adds Singh.

Deliverr: Warehousing and delivery service for hire

S. "Soma" Somasegar Madrona Venture Group

Startup: Deliverr

VC: Talia Goldberg, Bessemer Venture Partners

Relationship: No relation. VC just thinks it's cool.

Total funding raised: $70.1 million

What it does: Built a network of warehouses and AI powered

software that allows any ecommerce seller to oOer fast delivery of

items to customers.

Talia Goldberg, Bessemer Venture Partners Bessemer Venture Partners

Why it will boom in 2020: "Deliverr is creating Amazon Prime for

everyone else," says Goldberg, adding that the company has built "a

sophisticated ful=llment network that enables any merchant to

access fast and aOordable two-day shipping."

Divvy: A new way to @nance a home

Startup: Divvy

Nicole Quinn Lightspeed

VC: Nicole Quinn, Lightspeed Venture Partners

Relationship: No relation. VC just thinks it's cool.

Total funding raised: $180 million

What it does: Divvy is a real estate and mortgage company that

buys the home and rents it back to the customer, with a portion of

the monthly rent set aside as a down payment to one day buy the

house themselves.

Why it will boom in 2020: "After a decade long bull market run,

many are priced out of home ownership. Divvy turns your monthly

rent payments into a down payment, allowing home ownership for

those who could not otherwise it," says Quinn.

Doximity: A business social network for medicalprofessionals

Startup: Doximity

VC: Sean Jacobsohn, Norwest Venture Partners

Relationship: No relation. VC just thinks it's cool.

Total funding raised: $81.80 million

What it does: A business and professional social network for

medical professionals which also lets them get continuing

education credits for reading medical journals from their phones.

Why it will boom in 2020: "It now has over 70% of all doctors on

the platform," says Jacobsohn. The company says it has more than 1

million users.

Sean Jacobsohn, Norwest Venture Partners Norwest Venture Partners

DoNotPay: A robot lawyer

Startup: DoNotPay

VC: Evan Moore, Khosla Ventures

Relationship: No relation. VC just thinks it's cool.

Total funding raised: $4.6 million

What it does: OOers a robot lawyer that lets people easily do things

Even Moore, Khosla Ventures Even Moore

like appeal parking tickets or sue companies over =nes and

penalties.

Why it will boom in 2020: "Consumers today want to hold

companies accountable for their practices, and DoNotPay gives

everyone the tools to do so. For example, you can sue Comcast,

recoup hidden bank fees, and =ght parking tickets. I'm particularly

impressed with this team's speed of releasing new products," says

Moore.

Eight Sleep: A bed loaded with sleep technology

Startup: Eight Sleep

VC: Trae Stephens, Founders Fund

Relationship: Investor

Total funding raised: $73.86 million

What it does: Makes a smart mattress loaded with sleep technology

such as dynamic thermal controls, personalized analytics, and sleep

coaching.

Why it will boom in 2020: While direct-to-consumer mattress

companies are in vogue right now, Eight is "tackling core issues

people face with sleep to actually help them improve =tness in this

core area of health. I was a user before I became and investor and

have become a total believer in what they are doing," Stephens says.

Eternal: Avatar social network expected to launch thisyear

Trae Stephens, Founders Fund Founders Fund

Startup: Eternal

VC: Andy Weissman, Union Square Ventures

Relationship: No relation. VC just thinks it's cool.

Total funding raised: $1.1 million, according to an SEC =ling.

What it does: Still in stealth but reportedly building an avatar

game/gaming social network, according to LA TechWatch.

Why it will boom in 2020: Founder Reggie James has somewhat of

a cult following in the LA and New York startup scene for his

newsletter Product Lost, helped by his role at Jump Bikes before it

was acquired by Uber.

Andy Weissman, Union Square Ventures Getty/Jemal Countess

"The founder Reggie writes so eloquently about technology and

humanity that I have to think it will be interesting," Weissman says.

Evervault: Bakes data privacy into apps

Startup: Evervault

VC: Shardul Shah, Index Ventures

Shardul Shah, Index Ventures Index Ventures

Relationship: No relation. VC just thinks it's cool.

Total funding raised: $3.2 million

What it does: Allows developers to integrate data privacy into their

apps using simple developer tools.

Why it will boom in 2020: "Data privacy made simple," says Shah.

"The best chance for private data to be treated with respect is to

make data privacy super simple to implement."

Figma: Collaboration tool for web design teams.

Startup: Figma

VC: Ethan Kurzweil, Bessemer Venture Partners

Relationship: No relation. VC just thinks it's cool.

Total funding raised: $82.87 million

What it does: Figma is a cloud-based collaboration tool for web

design teams.

Why it will boom in 2020: "Figma has become the leading web-

based design tool," Kurzweil says. "Designers can easily collaborate

on designs Google Docs-style, and version control is no longer a

tangle of emails, =le names, and frustration over internal conhicts."

Flyhomes: The realtor that buys the homes and @ndsthe mortgage

Ethan Kurzweil, Bessemer Venture Partners Bessemer Venture Partners

Startup: Flyhomes

VC: Elisa La Cava, Madrona Venture Group

Relationship: No relation. VC just thinks it's cool.

Total funding raised: $158 million

What it does: A real estate agent that helps people buy and sell

homes by oOering =nancially-backed guarantees that lets

homebuyers make a cash oOer, then helps with the =nancing.

Why it will boom in 2020: "I used Flyhomes when I bought my

house," says La Cava. "It is oOering a new kind of =nancial hexibility

for homebuyers that has never been seen before. Flyhomes quickly

made a name for itself with its incredibly successful =rst product –

Elisa La Cava, Madrona Venture Group Madrona Venture Group

made a name for itself with its incredibly successful =rst product –

helping the average Joe make an all-cash oOer by =rst fronting the

cash and then helping 'Joe' secure a traditional mortgage on the

back end."

The company is now expanding into new services and new markets,

La Cava says.

Grafana: Popular open source analytics and monitoringsoftware

Gaurav Gupta, Lightspeed Venture Partners Lightspeed Venture Partners

Startup: Grafana

VC: Gaurav Gupta, Lightspeed Venture Partners

Relationship: Investor

Total funding raised: $25.23 million

What it does: OOers a popular open source analytics and

monitoring software for IT infrastructure.

Why it will boom in 2020: "Walk into any enterprise that needs to

monitor IT infrastructure and applications today, and there's a very

good chance you'll bump into someone using Grafana," says Gupta.

"With over 400,000 active installations and millions of users, it's

arguably the most popular open source project for time series data,

metrics, and monitoring," he says.

HashiCorp: Popular tools for cloud admins and appdevelopers

Startup: HashiCorp

VC: Arif Janmohamed, Lightspeed Venture Partners

Relationship: No relation. VC just thinks it's cool.

Total funding raised: $174.53 million

What it does: OOers a number of popular infrastructure products

that lets enterprise developers ditch legacy applications, move to

the cloud, and build cloud applications.

Why it will boom in 2020: "The HashiCorp product suite for

enterprise infrastructure has gained incredible traction among

developers and helps companies adopt the cloud and build modern

applications," says Janmohamed.

Arif Janmohamed, Lightspeed Venture Partners Lightspeed

Headway: Making mental health services moreaccessible

Startup: Headway

VC: Amit Kumar, Accel

Relationship: Investor.

Amit Kumar, Accel Accel

Total funding raised: $6.29 million

What it does: Headway helps patients =nd mental health therapists

who accept their health insurance.

Why it will boom in 2020: "It's no secret the country is having a

mental health crisis, but what makes it especially painful is that care

is unaOordable for most who suOer from this disease. Headway's

thoughtful approach allows it to help the maximum number of

patients," Kumar says.

Highspot: Sales and marketing software

Startup: Highspot

VC: Tim Porter, Madrona Venture Group

Relationship: Investor

Total funding raised: $212.2 million

What it does: OOers a broad suite of sales and marketing software,

serving a market known as sales enablement.

Why it will boom in 2020: "Their customers love them," says

Porter, adding, "the sales enablement market is hot and companies

have realized they need a system of intelligence to help guide their

salespeople on what to know, say and show to their customer

prospects to maximize sales."

Incredible Health: Job-hunting for nurses

Tim Porter, Madrona Venture Partners Madrona Venture Partners

Startup: Incredible Health

VCs: Jomayra Herrera, Cowboy Ventures and Jana Messerschmidt,

Lightspeed Venture Partners

Relationship: No relation. VCs just think it's cool.

Total funding raised: $17.41 million

What it does: A job-hunting site for nurses.

Why it will boom in 2020: "With the projected shortage in nurses

in the US, Incredible Health plays an important role in ensuring

hospitals are well positioned to =ll job vacancies with high-quality

Jomayra Herrera, Cowboy Ventures Cowboy Ventures

hospitals are well positioned to =ll job vacancies with high-quality

candidates quickly," says Herrera, adding that the company has

helped hospitals reduce average hiring time from 90 days to 30 days.

"2020 may become the year for the unbundling of LinkedIn with

more startups focusing on vertical labor marketplaces," says

Herrera.

Joby Aviation: Electric Wying cars

Byron Deeter, Bessemer Venture Partners Bessemer Venture Partners

Startup: Joby Aviation

VC: Byron Deeter, Bessemer Venture Partners

Relationship: No relation. VC just thinks it's cool.

Total funding raised: $718.3 million

What it does: Developing a new class of electric, personal four-

person aircraft that's like a cross between a helicopter, airplane, and

EV hying car.

Why it will boom in 2020: "Joby is one of the many electric

Vertical Take-oO and Landing (eVTOL) mobility companies aiming

to =nally bring us hying cars," says Deeter. "I'm eager for this entire

class of companies to bring product to market, and =nally make this

Jetson-era dream a reality!"

Beyond developing the vehicle, the whole hying-car industry will

have to build everything from EV charger networks, to AI tools, to

governance for regulators, he notes.

Knotch: Helping assess the e^ectiveness of contentmarketing

Startup: Knotch

VC: Steve Singh, Madrona Venture Group

Relationship: No relation. VC just thinks it's cool.

Total funding raised: $34.28 million

What it does: Helps marketeers measure the eOectiveness of their

ads, including branded content-type advertising.

Why it will boom in 2020: "Great growth, incredible CEO," says

Singh, referring to Anda Gansca, cofounder and CEO of Knotch.

Concur CEO Steve Singh LinkedIn/Steve Singh

LaunchDarkly: Continuous new features launchedsafely

Startup: LaunchDarkly

VC: Amanda Robson, Cowboy Ventures and Ethan Kurzweil,

Bessemer Venture Partners

Amanda Robson, Cowboy Ventures Cowboy Ventures

Relationship: Kurzweil is an investor. Robson has no relationship,

just thinks it's cool.

Total funding raised: $132.84 million

What it does: LaunchDarkly helped pioneer what's known as a

feature management platform, where DevOps teams can quietly test

new features in their live environments before rolling them out to

production environments.

Why it will boom in 2020: "Developers want to spend their time

building new features, not testing for bugs. LaunchDarkly gives

them tools for exactly this," says Robson.

"LaunchDarkly is a feature management platform that has come to

de=ne its market, becoming the de facto standard in deploying

product changes through hags...while also allowing for secondary

use cases including canary testing and A/B testing," says Kurzweil.

Legion: AI-powered help for hourly workforces

Startup: Legion

VC: Sean Jacobsohn, Norwest Venture Partners

Relationship: Investor

Total funding raised: $10.5 million

What it does: AI powered HR tool geared toward companies with

hourly workforces.

Why it will boom in 2020: "Hourly workers are more than half of

the workforce, but until now haven't had access to a workforce

management platform that's cloud-based, mobile-=rst, and AI-

powered," says Jacobsohn.

Sean Jacobsohn, Norwest Venture Partners Norwest Venture Partners

Level: self-funded dental insurance made easy

Startup: Level

VC: Angela Strange, Andreessen Horowitz and Jana Messerschmidt,

Lightspeed Venture Partners

Relationship: Messerschmidt is an investor. Strange has no

relationship, just thinks it's cool.

Angela Strange, Andreessen Horowitz a16z

Total funding raised: $3.8 million

What it does: Helps small- and medium-sized businesses provide

self-funded dental insurance.

Why it will boom in 2020: "Imagine a best-in-class consumer

experience across multiple categories created by a team deep in

insurance, payments and consumer experiences," says Strange.

"Supplemental bene=ts represent a fragmented $240 billion

industry that hasn't changed much in the last two decades," says

Messerschmidt.

Lever: Recruiting software that focuses on people

Startup: Lever

VC: Aileen Lee, Cowboy Ventures

Relationship: No relation. VC just thinks it's cool.

Total funding raised: $72.8 million

What it does: OOers recruiting software that helps companies ease

the hiring process.

Why it will boom in 2020: "Recruiting can be so manual and

require so much time and wasted eOort. Lever streamlines that

process to enable hiring managers focus on people, not process,"

says Lee.

Lee also notes that Lever founder and CEO Sarah Nahm is a leader

in All Raise, a VC networking organization for women, and is

becoming known as a role model in Silicon Valley.

Aileen Lee, Cowboy Ventures International Business Times/Kleiner Perkins Cau8eld & Byers

Lexion: AI-enabled contract management software

Startup: Lexion

VC: Elisa La Cava, Madrona Venture Group

Relationship: Investor

Total funding raised: $4.2 million

What it does: Lexicon oOers AI-enabled contract management

Elisa La Cava, Madrona Venture Group Madrona Venture Group

software that can organize contracts, read them and extract terms.

Why it will boom in 2020: "Lexion is a natural language processing

powerhouse that helps large and mid-size companies understand

the thousands of contracts they have with their vendors and

customers," says La Cava.

Lightstep: Watching apps, @xing problems

Amanda Robson, Cowboy Ventures Cowboy Ventures

Startup: Lightstep

VC: Amanda Robson, Cowboy Ventures

Relationship: Investor

Total funding raised: $70 million

What it does: Helps developers =nd and =x bugs and performance

problems across mobile apps, classic apps and newfangled micro-

services apps.

Why it will boom in 2020: "Software is moving towards more

scalable architectures that use microservices; this new format

requires new management tools such as Lightstep for APM," says

Robson.

Linear: Easy-to-use bug-tracking

Startup: Linear

VC: Stephanie Zhan, partner at Sequoia Capital

Relationship: Investor

Total funding raised: $4.2 million

What it does: OOers an easy-to-use tool for software developers to

track bugs and other issues.

Why it will boom in 2020: "Founders Karri, Jori, and Tuomas have

special empathy for today's builders. They are focused on building a

tool for them, and it's exciting to see the amount of product love

from the community already," says Zhan.

Stephanie Zhan, Sequoia Capital Sequoia

Mahmee: End-to-end care for pregnancy

Startup: Mahmee

VC: Julie Yoo, Andreessen Horowitz

Relationship: No relation. VC just thinks it's cool.

Total funding raised: $4.14 million

What it does: An online service for prenatal and postpartum

Julie Yoo, Andreessen Horowitz Andreessen Horowitz

healthcare that physicians and specialists can use to share patient

info and that mothers can use to track health records.

Why it will boom in 2020: Yoo sees a trend of using technology to

drive down the cost of healthcare, particularly in "sub-populations

of patients who traditionally have represented high-cost, high-

variance care." Mahmee helps one of those groups: "Pregnancy is the

top reason for hospitalization amongst women, and maternity-

related spending has experienced double-digit increases in recent

years," she says.

Materialize: Instant results when sifting Big Data

Startup: Materialize

VC: Saam Motamedi, Greylock Partners

Relationship: No relation. VC just thinks it's cool.

Total funding raised: $8.5 million Series A

What it does: OOers a tool that allows developers to get instant

results from searching big data warehouses, that works with popular

open source big data software.

Why it will boom in 2020: "Traditional data warehousing is a huge

and critical market with customers in every industry. As streaming

and real-time data volumes explode, Materialize is building the =rst

data warehouse for this type of data," says Motamedi.

Meet Cute: RomCom podcasts as a new form of @ction

Saam Motamedi, Greylock Greylock

Startup: Meet Cute

VC: Andy Weissman, Union Square Ventures

Relationship: Investor

Total funding raised: Undisclosed seed investment

What it does: Meet Cute is Weissman's brainchild, launched out of

USV earlier this year and led by former USV analyst Naomi Shah as

CEO and by USV founder Fred Wilson's daughter Emily Wilson.

Meet Cute creates short, 15-minute audio =ction stories in podcast

form, primarily focused on romantic comedies.

Andy Weissman, Union Square Ventures Getty/Jemal Countess

form, primarily focused on romantic comedies.

Why it will boom in 2020: "Because stories centered around

human relationships are wonderful and delightful and =ll us with

hope," Weissman says.

Modern Animal: Tech-enabled vet care for pets

Startup: Modern Animal

Founders Fund VC Scott Nolan Twitter/@ScottNolan

VC: Scott Nolan, Founders Fund

Relationship: Investor

Total funding raised: $13.5 million

What it does: OOers tech-enabled veterinary services on a

subscription basis for an annual membership fee of $100.

Why it will boom in 2020: "Modern Animal is the only company

taking a clean-sheet approach to all of veterinary care, bringing

modern technology and innovations we've seen in human

healthcare to animal healthcare. The co-founders previously ran a

pet health company, Whistle, which was acquired by Mars Petcare in

2016," says Nolan.

Moveworks: AI-powered IT support

Startup: Moveworks

VC: Ted Wang, Cowboy Ventures and Arif Janmohamed, Lightspeed

Venture Partners

Relationship: Janmohamed is an investor. Wang has no

relationship, just thinks it's cool.

Total funding raised: $108.15 million

What it does: OOers AI-enabled, automated IT support.

Why it will boom in 2020: "AI is starting to see mainstream

adoption in the enterprise and Moveworks is a great example of a

company that's found a strong business use case by reducing the

number of IT service tickets," says Wang.

"The Moveworks AI product resolves enterprise users' problems via

chat, instantly and automatically," says Janmohamed. "It's

magical!"

Ted Wang, Cowboy Ventures Cowboy Ventures

Mutiny: Using AI to personalize websites

Startup: Mutiny

VC: Aileen Lee, Cowboy Ventures

Relationship: Investor

Total funding raised: $3.12 million

Aileen Lee, Cowboy Ventures International Business Times/Kleiner Perkins Cau8eld & Byers

What it does: OOers an AI based platform that lets marketers

automatically personalize websites to each visitor, without coding.

Why it will boom in 2020: "It was built by the former head of

marketing at Gusto - born out of a realization that tech could be

built to automate personalization," says Lee, adding that this is an

area of AI in the enterprise that can "provide a direct business ROI."

Neuralink: Elon Musk's big bet on merging brains andcomputers

Startup: Neuralink

VC: Scott Nolan, Founders Fund

Relationship: No relation. VC just thinks it's cool.

Total funding raised: $158 million

What it does: Neuralink is yet another company founded by Elon

Musk, best known as the CEO of Tesla and chief engineer and

founder of SpaceX. It is developing brain-machine interfaces that

can be implanted into the human body.

Why it will boom in 2020: "Neuralink's technology has the best

chance of curing multiple neurological diseases, increasing the

bandwidth between humans and machines, and someday enabling

symbiosis with arti=cial intelligence," Nolan said.

Notion Labs: Productivity apps for the modern era

Founders Fund VC Scott Nolan Twitter/@ScottNolan

Startup: Notion Labs

VC: Andrew Chen, Andreessen Horowitz

Relationship: No relation. VC just thinks it's cool.

Total funding raised: $18.7 million

What it does: OOers a suite of productivity apps for teams or

individuals that includes notes, wikis, collaborative documents, and

task tracking.

Why it will boom in 2020: "Great startups are about great

products, =rst and foremost, and I really admire how the team is

deeply led by design/UX from the very beginning. Notion's app is

simple but powerful, with lots of subtle upgrades from other note-

Andrew Chen, Andreessen Horowitz Andreessen Horowitz

taking and productivity tools," Chen says.

"The product is on a strong trajectory, and if the company succeeds,

it could build this generation's center for all their work. We expect

big things from Notion," he adds.

On Running: Swiss scientists design running shoes

Startup: On Running

Kent Bennett, Bessemer Venture Partners Bessemer Venture Partners

VC: Kent Bennett, Bessemer Venture Partners

Relationship: No relation. VC just thinks it's cool.

Total funding raised: $3.98 million angel round

What it does: A Swiss company that makes high-performance

running shoes.

Why it will boom in 2020: "Swiss engineers designed a sole that

eliminates excess volume – thus they're the lightest and most

comfortable performance running shoe I've ever worn," says

Bennett. "Distinctive enough to be noticed (driving word of mouth)

without looking so weird that you feel like you're in the cast of

Silicon Valley."

OneSignal: Push noti@cations made easy

Startup: OneSignal

VC: Martin Casado, Andreessen Horowitz

Relationship: No relation. VC just thinks it's cool.

Total funding raised: $34.29 million

What it does: OOers a communication service that handles push

noti=cations like mobile alerts, web alerts, emails, and in-app pop-

up messages.

Why it will boom in 2020: "Started from gaming industry and

mobile, the company has expanded to broader market and spanning

across web, email channels," says Casado. "Today OneSignal is used

by 1 million developers and sending billions of messages on a daily

basis."

Martin Casado, Andreessen Horowitz Andreessen Horowitz

Papaya Global: Cross-border payroll

Startup: Papaya Global

VC: Talia Goldberg, Bessemer Venture Partners

Relationship: Investor

Total funding raised: $50.5 million

Talia Goldberg, Bessemer Venture Partners Bessemer Venture Partners

What it does: Manages global payroll, including cross-border

payments for contractors.

Why it will boom in 2020: "Companies need access to the best

talent without being restricted by geography. Papaya makes it easy

for teams to hire, pay, and manage workers across the globe," says

Goldberg.

PatientPing: A way to share medical records

Julie Yoo, Andreessen Horowitz Andreessen Horowitz

Startup: PatientPing

VC: Julie Yoo, Andreessen Horowitz

Relationship: Investor

Total funding raised: $102.95 million

What it does: PatientPing oOers a service that allows all of a

patient's healthcare providers to keep the others updated so the

patient gets better care.

Why it will boom in 2020: "Many health providers still encounter

huge blind spots in knowing what happens to their patients outside

of the four walls of their practice," says Yoo. "As the majority of

reimbursement continues to move towards value-based care

models, where providers assume =nancial risk for high-cost

episodes of care, companies like PatientPing will be necessary to

serve as the connective tissue."

Pilot: A bookkeeping service with real people

Startup: Pilot

VC: Mark Goldberg, Partner at Index Ventures

Relationship: Investor

Total funding raised: $58.3 million

What it does: OOers accounting software and services for startups,

including access to a human account manager.

Why it will boom in 2020: "With a combination of technology and

people, Pilot has created a 10x product and is building a massive

new =ntech platform around it," says Goldberg.

Mark Goldberg, Index Ventures Index Ventures

Preset: Commercial support for Apache Superset

Startup: Preset

VC: Martin Casado, Andreessen Horowitz

Relationship: Investor

Total funding raised: $12.5 million

Martin Casado, Andreessen Horowitz Andreessen Horowitz

What it does: Preset is the company started by the creator of

Apache Superset, a popular open source project for data analytics

and visualization, oOering commercial support for the software.

Why it will boom in 2020: "Superset is one of the most popular

open source projects in the world, and it's growth is buoyed by

raising importance of data in guiding business decisions," says

Casado. Casado sees Superset as a way to bring data analysis to

teams in every part of the company, not just business analyst

specialists.

Productboard: A helper for product teams

Startup: Productboard

VC: Byron Deeter, Bessemer Venture Partners

Relationship: Investor

Total funding raised: $64.7 million

What it does: A cloud-based product management system that

helps product teams prioritize and build the features customers

most want and need.

Why it will boom in 2020: "Companies are increasingly looking to

become product-led, and Productboard is the system of record for

high performing product organizations," said Deeter.

Productiv: Helps CIOs track app usage

Byron Deeter, Bessemer Venture Partners Bessemer Venture Partners

Startup: Productiv

VC: Rama Sekhar, Norwest Venture Partners

Relationship: Investor

Total funding raised: $28 million

What it does: OOers tools that helps CIOs see how employees are

using cloud software, also called software as a service (SaaS).

Why it will boom in 2020: "Productiv is pioneering a new category

called Application Engagement Analytics that enables CIOs to take

complete stock of their SaaS subscriptions, rightsize any license

wastage, and measure the productivity gains being promised by all

Rama Sekhar, Norwest Venture Partners Norwest Venture Partners

wastage, and measure the productivity gains being promised by all

this spending on SaaS," Sekhar says.

It also helps track usage of apps that employees buy themselves and

"CIOs are in dire need of better visibility into all the SaaS apps their

users are buying," he says

Pulse Q&A: A community for tech execs

Startup: Pulse Q&A

Rama Sekhar, Norwest Venture Partners Norwest Venture Partners

VC: Rama Sekhar, Norwest Venture Partners

Relationship: No relation. VC just thinks it's cool.

Total funding raised: $10.81 million

What it does: OOers crowdsourced data and a community for tech

executives that it promises is "a veri=ed, agenda-free network."

Why it will boom in 2020: "CIOs routinely form peer groups to

advise each other on market research and software purchasing

decisions. Pulse Q&A is supercharging these social networks with a

peer-to-peer platform," says Sekhar.

Qonto: Business banking for startups and freelancers

Startup: Qonto

VC: Philippe Botteri, Accel

Relationship: No relation. VC just thinks it's cool.

Total funding raised: $35.8 million

What it does: OOers business bank accounts for freelancers,

startups and small businesses.

Why it will boom in 2020: "Qonto is changing the game by

providing a seamless online experience complemented by a suite of

online services and integrations," says Botteri.

Qualia: Cloud software for real estate transactions

Philippe Botteri, Accel Partners. Accel Partners

Startup: Qualia

VC: Mark Goldberg, Partner at Index Ventures

Relationship: No relation. VC just thinks it's cool.

Total funding raised: $95.18 million

What it does: Cloud software for real estate transactions.

Why it will boom in 2020: "Creating a digital closing process for

real estate transactions is an obvious evolution in an industry that

relies heavily on paper and owine communication," Goldberg says,

Mark Goldberg, Index Ventures Index Ventures

relies heavily on paper and owine communication," Goldberg says,

adding that by becoming "the super-connector" for the industry,

"there's massive potential to expand into new areas."

Rasa: Chatbots made easy

Startup: Rasa

VC: Gaurav Gupta, Lightspeed Venture Partners

Gaurav Gupta, Lightspeed Venture Partners Lightspeed Venture Partners

Relationship: No relation. VC just thinks it's cool.

Total funding raised: $14.22 million

What it does: Open-source AI software that helps developers build

chatbots.

Why it will boom in 2020: "Remember falling in love with the Star

Trek computer on the USS Enterprise? In 2020, natural language

technology =nally catches up with that early '90s vision of humans

conversing with computers," says Gupta.

"In 2019 downloads grew from 300,000 to over 2 million, proof that

developers are hocking to the technology," he says.

Restaurant365: Accounting for restaurant chains

Startup: Restaurant365

VC: Brian Feinstein, Bessemer Venture Partners

Relationship: Investor

Total funding raised: $127.5 million

What it does: Restaurant management accounting software

popular with chains and franchises.

Why it will boom in 2020: "Restaurants have historically been

neglected and underserved by software. With over 1 million

restaurant locations in the US, Restaurant365 is attacking one of the

largest vertical software markets," Feinstein says.

Retool: No-code apps built by regular employees

Brian Feinstein, Bessemer Venture Partners Bessemer Venture Partners

Startup: Retool

VC: Amit Kumar, Accel

Relationship: No relation. VC just thinks it's cool.

Total funding raised: Undisclosed seed round

What it does: Retool allows non-developers to create simple apps

and workhows to be used internally, to manage business processes.

It's part of a growing trend known as low-code/no-code

development.

Amit Kumar, Accel Accel

Why it will boom in 2020: "Companies have limited engineering

bandwidth and often aren't able to invest the appropriate amount of

resources into internal tooling," says Kumar. "Low code/no code

tools like Retool are being rapidly adopted to =ll in the gap."

Shopmonkey: Software for auto mechanics

Startup: Shopmonkey

Nina Achadjian, Index Ventures Index Ventures

VC: Nina Achadjian, Partner at Index Ventures

Relationship: Investor

Total funding raised: $10 million

What it does: Shopmonkey provides software for auto mechanics to

run their businesses.

Why it will boom in 2020: "There are 280 million cars in the US

and there are over 1 million car mechanics. Much of this industry is

dominated by mom-and-pop auto repair shops that have no

software to allow them to communicate with customers, track how

much time it takes technicians to do repairs, order inventory or

process payments," Achadjian says.

Silo: A smarter approach to managing perishable food

Startup: Silo

VC: Mike Duboe, Greylock Partners

Relationship: No relation. VC just thinks it's cool.

Total funding raised: $3 million seed round

What it does: Silo is a wholesale marketplace for growers,

distributors, and retailers of perishable food that helps automate

pricing, orders, payments, and broader logistics.

Why it will boom in 2020: "Produce wholesale is a $150 billion+

market, still handled through paper price sheets and phone calls.

Bringing this online not only saves time & money throughout the

system, but also impacts the massive problem of food waste

(estimated at 30-40% of food supply)," Duboe says.

Mike Duboe, Greylock Partners Greylock Partners

Skilljar: Customer training for happier customers

Startup: Skilljar

VC: Tim Porter, Madrona Venture Group

Relationship: No relation. VC just thinks it's cool.

Total funding raised: $20.12 million plus an undisclosed private

Tim Porter, Madrona Venture Partners Madrona Venture Partners

equity funding

What it does: Skilljar oOers a customer training platform to help

businesses improve customer retention — in other words, tools to

help teach customers how to get the most from your products.

Why it will boom in 2020: "Skilljar provides a vital tool to

customer success teams to eOectively train and delight customers,"

Porter says.

Snyk: Finding security holes in open source projects

Startup: Snyk

VC: Philippe Botteri, Accel

Relationship: Investor

Total funding raised: $229.51 million

What it does: Snyk a security tool for developers that lets them

easily =nd and =x security holes in open source libraries and

containers.

Why it will boom in 2020: "Security needs to shift left to

developers, so that applications are built securely, instead of relying

on audits from security teams. Snyk is at the forefront of this trend

and we see a massive potential," says Botteri.

Solv Health: book appointments at Urgent Care

Philippe Botteri, Accel Partners. Accel Partners

Startup: Solv Health

VC: Nina Achadjian, Partner at Index Ventures and Mike Duboe,

Greylock Partners

Relationship: Greylock is an investor (though James Slavet). Nina

has no relationship, just thinks it's cool.

Total funding raised: $23.05 million

What it does: Allows people to book and pay for same-day

appointments to Urgent Care centers, rather than wait days for their

primary doctor.

Why it will boom in 2020: "While the urgent care market has

reached $18 billion and 7,700 locations, the technology to power

these businesses and connect consumers to care has lagged," says

Nina Achadjian, Index Ventures Index Ventures

these businesses and connect consumers to care has lagged," says

Achadjian.

"Solv's two-sided marketplace is a fundamentally better experience

for =nding care providers, booking appointments, and managing

the entire process," says Duboe.

Substack: Lets writers build a business fromnewsletters

Startup: Substack

VC: Andrew Chen, Andreessen Horowitz

Relationship: Investor

Total funding raised: $21.21 million

What it does: Substack lets writers get paid when people subscribe

to their email newsletters.

Why it will boom in 2020: "The new economy is increasingly =lled

with platforms and tools that let talented people take their skills and

turn that into a living, whether that's as a Twitch streamer, Shopify

store operator, or as a writer on Substack. There are already dozens

of writers on Substack earning six-=gure incomes doing what they

love," says Chen.

This model "could provide a new, complementary industry to ad-

supported media/journalism," he says.

SVT Robotics: Software that connects to any robot

Andrew Chen, Andreessen Horowitz Andreessen Horowitz

Startup: SVT Robotics

VC: Ted Wang, Cowboy Ventures

Relationship: Investor

Total funding raised: Undisclosed seed round

What it does: OOers a software service that connects any enterprise

software system to any robot.

Why it will boom in 2020: "Robots have =nally become

commercially viable, however, each robot provider has their own set

Ted Wang, Cowboy Ventures Cowboy Ventures

of standards and capabilities creating a barrier to end user

adoption," says Wang, adding that this service "provides a bridge"

that will help companies adopt robots faster.

Tally: An app for building healthy @nances

Startup: Tally

VC: Angela Strange, Andreessen Horowitz

Angela Strange, Andreessen Horowitz a16z

Relationship: Investor

Total funding raised: $92 million

What it does: A credit management service that helps people pay

their credit cards on time, increase savings and develop good

=nancial habits.

Why it will boom in 2020: "There's more than $1 trillion of credit

card debt in America. A large percent should be paid of faster and

re=nanced but the system is still too complicated," says

Strange."Tally will automate your =nancial life, starting with credit

card debt. It's like Google Maps, but for your =nances."

Tatari: Data-driven TV advertising

Startup: Tatari

VC: Parker Barrile, Norwest Venture Partners

Relationship: No relation. VC just thinks it's cool.

Total funding raised: Undisclosed seed round

What it does: Tatari oOers data to measure the eOectiveness of TV

marketing campaigns.

Why it will boom in 2020: "TV still commands $70 billion per year

in ad spend. Tatari is making that spend more transparent, more

data-driven, and more eOective," says Barrile.

Transmit Security: Lets developers add biometrics tomobile apps

Parker Barrile, Norwest Venture Partners Norwest Venture Partners

Startup: Transmit Security

VC: Shardul Shah, Index Ventures

Relationship: No relation. VC just thinks it's cool.

Total funding raised: $40 million

What it does: Lets devopers add biometrics such as eye, =ngerprint

or facial scans to their mobile apps.

Why it will boom in 2020: "The founders Mickey [Boodaei] and

Rakesh [Loonkar] have been working on a bold vision for the past

=ve years to transform how businesses can deliver safe customer

Shardul Shah, Index Ventures Index Ventures

=ve years to transform how businesses can deliver safe customer

experiences. That vision will come to fruition this year," says Shah.

Verkada: Smart security cameras for companies

Startup: Verkada

VC: Trae Stephens, Founders Fund

Relationship: No relation. VC just thinks it's cool.

Trae Stephens, Founders Fund Founders Fund

Total funding raised: $69.8 million

What it does: Verkada is building smart, internet-connected

building security cameras for the enterprise.

Why it will boom in 2020: "There has historically been a big gap

between what has been available for the consumer with

Nest/Ring/et cetera, and the clunky enterprise camera systems that

businesses use. Verkada has closed that gap and delivered feature-

rich cameras with an elegant user interface," says Stephens.

Voxel51: AI computer vision for scanning video

Startup: Voxel51

VC: GV general partner Karim Faris

Relationship: No relation. VC just thinks it's cool.

Total funding raised: $2 million

What it does: Video analytics software that uses AI to analyze raw

video footage and images into actionable intelligence.

Why it will boom in 2020: "Helps you unlock the value in video.

Voxel51 has built impressive computer vision algorithms able to cost

eOectively classify objects in video at scale," says Faris.

WebWow: Lets non-programmers build sophisticatedwebsites

GV

Startup: Webhow

VC: Stephanie Zhan, Partner, Sequoia Capital

Relationship: No relation. VC just thinks it's cool.

Total funding raised: $73.5 million

What it does: OOers visual software that makes it easy to build a

website with no coding required.

Why it will boom in 2020: "Webhow is de=ning a new category

around visual development and what I love most about that is that it

enables anyone of any skill or background to build beautiful

websites using simple yet powerful tools," says Zhan.

Stephanie Zhan, Sequoia Capital Sequoia

Wyze: A^ordable smart home products

Startup: Wyze

VC: Parker Barrile, Norwest Venture Partners

Relationship: Investor

Total funding raised: $21.3 million

Parker Barrile, Norwest Venture Partners Norwest Venture Partners

What it does: AOordable smart home products.

Why it will boom in 2020: "Most American homes are still analog,

with mechanical locks, plastic light switches, no in-home cameras,

etc. That's starting to change at a very rapid pace, " he said adding

that Wyze is as gaining a solid reputation as "the most aOordable"

among popular smart home brands.

Zapier: Link your web apps together to make themmore powerful

Startup: Zapier

VC: Ethan Choi, Accel

Relationship: No relation. VC just thinks it's cool.

Total funding raised: $2.56 million

What it does: Zapier allows anyone to easily connects apps

together to automate sharing data between apps. The company is

also known for growing to 300 employees with only one small round

of funding.

Why it will boom in 2020: "The number of [cloud] apps we use

everyday has exploded," says Choi, and "Zapier is enabling an era of

the "citizen developer" by making it super easy for anyone to

connect apps and create workhow automations without needing to

know how to code."

Ethan Choi, Accel Accel

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