THE 2023 DISRUPTOR 50 LIST IS HERE
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OUR ANNUAL LOOK AT STARTUPS TAKING ON THE MARKET’S BIGGEST COMPANIES
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In the eleventh annual Disruptor 50 list, CNBC highlights private companies that are chasing some of the market’s biggest opportunities, and growing despite a tough capital markets environment and slowing economy.
At least 35 are unicorns, with valuations of $1 billion or more – 12 are valued at over $10 billion. As many of the highest-flying start-ups have seen valuations pressured, this year’s list also identified many younger firms testing novel ideas earlier in their fundraising trajectories.
Many of the Disruptor 50 companies have a social or environmental purpose that is core to their business model, including climate change, sustainable development, health care, financial inequities, and an inefficient global supply chain. Thirteen of this year’s Disruptors have a female founder. Fourteen feature CEOs from racial and ethnic minorities.
The 50 companies selected using the proprietary Disruptor 50 methodology have raised over $54 billion in venture capital, according to PitchBook and company data, at an implied Disruptor 50 valuation of more than $362 billion.
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OPENAI TOPS THE 11TH ANNUAL LIST
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Since launching ChatGPT in November, OpenAI has quickly become a household name. Its generative AI chatbot ChatGPT can converse on almost anything and has become a viral sensation.
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A BETTER SILICON VALLEY BANKER
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Fintech startup Brex was already a high flier, growing by 200% last year with more than 200,000 customers from startups to enterprises. Providing a way for fast-growing innovators to access credit, it has been known as an edgy competitor to 40-year-old Silicon Valley Bank. Now following the collapse of SVB, Brex has gained billions of dollars in deposits from thousands of ex-SVB clients.
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A NEW FACE ON GRAPHIC DESIGN
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This past year saw Canva take a major step in broadening out its product features to a platform of visual communications in text, visuals and productivity tools across websites, whiteboards, documents and developer marketplaces. This worksuite has put Canva more directly in competition with offerings by Microsoft and Google in addition to design heavyweight rival Adobe.
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THE FIRST 3D-PRINTED ROCKET TAKES OFF
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Relativity Space is transforming the market with automated aerospace manufacturing that integrates intelligent robotics, algorithms, machine learning and 3D printing of rocket parts that can be reused. It’s continuing a series of tests of its 3D-printed rockets at prices for commercial missions that are far less than the launch cost of NASA’s Space Shuttle in 1981.
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NEXT-LEVEL CLOUD SECURITY
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From Tel Aviv comes hyper-growth startup Wiz and its trailblazing path to $100 million in revenue within 18 months. Wiz is a security management service that is designed to recognize and deal with cyber risks quickly and easily, and is creating an emerging category of cloud-based cybersecurity. Backing the company are several top-tier VCs: lead investor Lightspeed Venture Partners along with Index Ventures, Sequoia Capital and Greenoaks Capital Partners.
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A typical pharmacy order involves coordination with the customer, the doctor prescribing the order, and an insurance company. Plenty of mishaps can happen along the way — prescriptions don’t get called in, the pharmacy is out of stock of something or awaiting authorization from the insurance company, or the insurance company doesn’t cover the brand of medication the doctor prescribed. Alto Pharmacy aims to change all that by updating the prescription process with a digital platform, making it easier, faster and cheaper for people to get their prescriptions.
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No. 7: Anduril Industries
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Throughout 2022, defense technology specialist Anduril Industries supplied drones, artificial intelligence software and training to help the Ukrainian Armed Forces conduct surveillance and reconnaissance missions. Providing resources for the war effort was a boost for the defense contracting startup that set out to make the U.S. military more high tech.
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EXTENDING ITS CLIMATE TENTACLES
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The future looks bright for fast-expanding climate tech innovator Octopus Energy Group, which picked up $600 million from Al Gore’s investment firm in 2021 plus $550 million more last year from additional investors as the push for green energy accelerates. The clean energy utility is on a fast track to supply green power to 100 million energy accounts worldwide by 2027.
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IMPROVING LINKS IN THE COLD CHAIN
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Lineage Logistics is on a mission to make the food supply chain more efficient – in particular, the cold-chain storage industry. Since opening its first frozen food warehouse in 2008, the Michigan-based company has grown to over 430 locations across 20 countries, offering a global network of temperature-controlled cold-storage facilities for foods more likely to quickly expire (including meat, dairy, baked goods and produce) and become food waste.
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THE LOGISTICS INDUSTRY’S CLOUD GIANT
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Founded in 2013 by Ryan Petersen to try to better manage the flow of goods that get put on cargo ships, planes, trucks, and railroads and then transported all over the world, Flexport moved freight forwarding and brokerage services into the cloud alongside deeper data analysis. That approach at the right moment helped Flexport quickly become one of the hottest startups, raising $935 million in a Series E funding round that valued it at $8 billion in February 2022, nearly triple its last reported valuation in 2019.
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All private, independently owned startup companies founded after Jan. 1, 2008, were eligible to be nominated for the Disruptor 50 list. Companies nominated were required to submit a detailed analysis, including key quantitative and qualitative information.
Quantitative metrics included company-submitted data on workforce size and diversity, scalability, and sales and user growth. Some of this information has been kept off the record and was used for scoring purposes only. CNBC also brought in data from a pair of outside partners — PitchBook, which provided data on fundraising, implied valuations and investor quality; and IBISWorld, whose database of industry reports we use to compare the companies based on the industries they are attempting to disrupt.
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