New No. 1 and a host of newcomers join the list of top Pacific Northwest tech startups – GeekWire
There is a new number.
Fusion Power Company Helion Power took the top spot in the latest edition of the GeekWire 200, our quarterly ranking of the top privately held tech startups in the Pacific Northwest.
Helion replaces Highspot, which announced a merger with Seismic in a major software deal last month (outgoing companies complete the list). Backed by the likes of SoftBank and Sam Altman, Helion announced two major milestones in February in its quest to produce usable energy through fusion reactions.
The company’s rise to the top of the GeekWire 200 reflects a broader trend in the rankings, as startups building sophisticated hardware across sectors such as space, energy, robotics, and agriculture make up the bulk of the list. It’s a significant change for a region often dominated by enterprise software.
The top 10 include companies such as Agility Robotics, which builds humanoid robots; Brinc, a drone maker serving public safety clients; Stoke Space, a space production company; and Carbon Robotics, which sells weeding equipment to farmers. Seattle VC firm Ascend has dubbed this crop of companies “Cascadian Dynamism.”
The GeekWire 200 is a great resource to help track the region’s emerging companies, as well as established leaders.
The list, which dates back to 2013, includes destination data and planning information to provide a comprehensive overview of the region’s primary location. The GeekWire 200 has long served as a resource for investors, job seekers, service providers, and others tracking the Pacific Northwest tech scene.
Here are 10 new ones.
1
Helion
483
Employees
+29%
1 year growth
2
Chainguard
670
Employees
+ 66%
1 year growth
3
Truveta
418
Employees
+16%
1 year growth
4
359
Employees
+41%
1 year growth
5
iSpot.tv
377
Employees
-15%
1 year growth
6
For a while
433
Employees
+59%
1 year growth
7
Brinc
172
Employees
+34%
1 year growth
8
Stoke Space
361
Employees
+ 49%
1 year growth
9
It responds
717
Employees
+13%
1 year growth
10
278
Employees
+ 33%
1 year growth
The top 10 includes one new member: an infrastructure startup For a whilenow valued at $5 billion after raising a $300 million Series D round last month. Interim revenue has grown more than 380% year-over-year as it helps companies move their AI agents into real-world production.
A few other startups topped the list this quarter:
- Augerthe supply chain software startup that raised 100 million seeds by 2024, continues to hire rapidly – the headcount increased more than 200% year-on-year – and now ranks at No. 41. Auger also announced a partnership with Microsoft on Wednesday.
- Echodynea radar platform company in the Seattle area, announced plans to build a new manufacturing facility in Washington state and move up to No. 54.
- Starfish Space it is now No. 64 after receiving a $54.5 million Space Force contract for a satellite-powered spacecraft.
- AIM smart devices, a private construction startup that recently landed its own government contract, climbed to No. 122.
- Avalanche Powerwhich announced a $29 million round last month to advance its fusion technology, rose to No. 156.
- What Canthe hot Seattle startup behind a landline-style children’s phone, climbed to No. 167 after raising $12 million in December.
There are also a number of newcomers making their debuts on the list, including:
- Tune Therapeutics (No. 140), a Seattle-headquartered biotech company that develops epigenome editing systems.
- Gradial (No. 151), a Seattle-based startup that builds agent marketing tools raised $35 million in December and recently launched a new GEO tool, or Generative Engine Optimization.
- Starcloud (No. 171), a Redmond, Wash.-based company that works on space-based data centers was revealed during Jensen Huang’s keynote at NVIDIA GTC this week.
- Other newcomers include Union.ai; Combine; Obviously AI; empathic; AheadComputing; Cassium; RentSpree; Inflection.io; Dopl Technologies; Loopr; Scala; Elevāt; Certificate; AZX; again MontyCloud.
Notes on GeekWire 200
Our list is not scientific, by any means, and some rankings should be taken with a grain of salt. But it has proven to be a very useful tool. We regularly hear from readers who use the GeekWire 200 to look for jobs, prospect clients, mine potential investments, and get a high-level view of the tech community.
We also use the list as a valuable insight tool, collecting survey data to highlight trends among fast-growing startups.
Standards have changed over time, and last year we made some important changes.
- We look at each company’s workforce growth over the past 12 months, looking at both the percentage increase and the number of jobs added.
- Large companies still gain credit for maintaining scale – a sign of maturity and customer traction. But this has less weight than growth, to help emerging players stand out.
- We include LinkedIn follower statistics as a rough measure of a company’s social traction. To avoid selecting older established firms, we use a curve that favors smaller firms.
- And as in the past, we consider editorial judgment from GeekWire’s news team, based on factors including recent funding and layoffs, as well as our own insights into regional tech startup coverage.
- Companies founded 15 years ago or later are “graduated” from the GeekWire 200, and are not included. We also remove companies due to mergers, acquisitions and private equity deals where they sell a majority of their shares.
To make sure your Pacific Northwest tech startup qualifies for the GeekWire 200, first make sure it’s included in GeekWire’s extensive startup list. If so, there is no need to submit it separately. If your startup isn’t among the companies on that big list, you can submit it for inclusion here, and we’ll crunch the numbers to see if your company makes the next GeekWire 200 update. Email us at [email protected] for any questions.
