Image credit: Pretty Instant.
We spent all summer gearing up for BostonFest, and just like that, it's over. We love that so many of you came out to The Lawn on D to party with us (and take those quintessentially millennial circle-swing photos).
To quickly recap the event: With Sri and I playing emcee, hundreds of Boston's innovators danced to the Sugarbabies' mix of new and classic tunes, tapped their inner cheerleaders with BarreGroove's Pom Partay and dominated at cornhole and giant Jenga. It was a night to celebrate Beantown's incredible startup community.
But the celebration didn't stop there. We also had a little coronation ceremony for this year's Coolest Companies.
For our eighth annual company culture competition, we let readers pick five “Reader’s Choice” winners; our esteemed judging committee had the privilege of selecting five other winners as well.
Check out the 10 Coolest Companies of 2019 below, listed in alphabetical order with a few bullet points about each one's culture.
America's Test Kitchen
- The company is a quiet culinary and media behemoth, employing about 200 workers in the booming Seaport District.
- Located in the Innovation and Design Building, America's Test Kitchen (ATK) features 15,000 sq. ft. of actual kitchen space—employees there are encouraged to take part in the namesake testing (in this case, tasting). They also get access to what ATK calls the "Take Home Fridge," or the leftovers from the in-house chefs' days' work.
- ATK also has multiple photography and video studios, Cook’s Illustrated and Cook’s Country magazines, two television shows, numerous cookbooks and a YouTube channel. Employees get free copies of the magazines and cookbooks.
- Employees, plus friends and family (!), get free and discounted tickets to ATK's food festivals. I mean, look at this:
Attivio (Reader's Choice)
- It's not just an enviable office. The Boston-based machine learning and AI tech company fosters in-house innovation through company-wide hackathons, professional development stipends and a women's group called ConnectHer.
- How about giving back? Attivio also partners with local STEM youth programs to encourage talent right here at home.
- Now in its 12th year, the company is on extremely solid ground. Its last fundraising round was a $31 million Series E round back in 2016.
- Earlier this month, Attivio partnered with GlideFast Consulting to boost its AI-powered product "Elevate for ServiceNow."
Audley Travel
- Audley's bread and butter is specialized vacations for its customers—but it sends its employees abroad, too. The company offers free three- to six-week trips to places like Japan, South Africa, and even Antarctica.
- Audley is based in the U.K., with its American headquarters in Boston. "Every employee gets a 1 month trip to one of our 80 destinations at least once a year & a trip to England offices, all expenses paid," a spokesperson told us a few years back.
- Earlier this year, the company made a commitment to reduce its single-use plastic footprint. It said it has been working with its suppliers to look at ways to provide customers with quality refillable water bottles, a project that is in the trial stage in Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America, with the goal of extending it into Audley's top 15 destinations throughout the year and then beyond in 2020.
Botkeeper (Reader's Choice)
- At just under four years old, the AI-powered bookkeeping startup is already making waves.
- In November, the company raised an $18 million Series A round. The investment brought the total raised by Botkeeper to $22.5 million.
- Employees reportedly get unlimited paid time off, a 401K plan and several choices for medical, vision and dental insurance.
Cengage
- It may one of America's textbook giants, but Cengage is also, at its heart, an edtech company.
- In the company's brand-new building in the Seaport District, employees have access to a free, 24/7 fitness center, beer on tap, free snacks, sweeping views of the Boston Harbor and a private terrace.
- Benefits include subsidized transportation, tuition reimbursement and 12-week paid parental leave.
- Inside the company, there are several employee resource groups, including Cengage Pride, Women in Tech and Mosaic—the last one for employees of color.
- In May, Cengage announced it would merge with another publishing giant, McGraw-Hill, in an all-stock transaction that would reportedly create the second-largest provider of higher education materials in the country. (Editor's note: Rowan Walrath worked at Cengage, both as an intern and as a freelance editorial assistant, in 2015 and 2016.)
ezCater
- The homegrown unicorn is foodie heaven, with nearly half of its employees coming from the restaurant industry. ezCater serves all its workers catered breakfasts every Monday, catered lunches every Thursday and happy hours every Friday. The office is also stocked with unlimited free snacks and cupcakes.
- As far as perks and benefits go, ezCater offers unlimited vacation and sick days, a flexible remote work policy, subsidized MBTA passes, a 401K match program and stock options.
- It's been a busy year. In March, ezCater acquired catering management startup Monkey Group. In April, it officially became a unicorn—a private company valued at over $1 billion—with $150 million in Series D-1 funding. And just earlier this month, it relocated to Post Office Square and brought on 30 new employees.
Flywire (Reader's Choice)
- For "FlyMates," as Flywire calls its employees, culture is everything. Now about 10 years old, the startup holds an annual scavenger hunt, a summer outing, "hood" nights when employees explore new neighborhoods, Pecha Kucha nights and more.
- The MIT-born digital payments company most recently raised a $100 million Series D round, just over a year ago.
- In February, Flywire tapped former Rapid7 executive Allison MacLeod as EVP of global marketing.
- The company's careers team maintains an Instagram account called "Inside Flywire." Check it out:
https://www.instagram.com/p/B0gNZN1D0AS/
iboss (Reader's Choice)
- The cybersecurity firm only moved to Boston about two years ago, but it's already made this place its home.
- iboss has 23,000 sq. ft. in the Financial District, a headquarters that is "all glass and sunlight," as we wrote after a tour last year. Conference rooms are named after major MBTA stations: Haymarket, Back Bay, Harvard, Davis, Park Street and Downtown Crossing.
- Employees reportedly get access to an onsite gym, free snacks and free lunch.
Indigo Ag
- One of Boston's handful of unicorns, Indigo Ag is working on a couple of moonshot ideas.
- Most recently, it launched its new Terraton Initiative to accelerate carbon sequestration in light of increasing carbon emissions. The project seeks to remove 1 trillion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
- The Terraton Initiative is part of the company’s larger strategy to rein in unsustainable practices in agriculture. In January, Indigo forayed into the agricultural transportation market to bring more underutilized trucks to the market and avoid backhauls.
- The company walks the sustainability walk when it comes to its own employees. It reimburses bicycle maintenance for bike commuters.
- Employees also get free lunch three days a week, parental leave for both birth and adoption, subsidized fitness plans and standing desks upon request.
Piaggio Fast Forward (Reader's Choice)
- This Boston startup is housed within Piaggio, the Italian company behind Vespa motorini and Moto Guzzi motorcycles. And it builds robots.
- Late last year, Piaggio Fast Forward unveiled a new 20,000-sq.-ft. headquarters in Charlestown and said it was looking for more production and assembly space.
- The innovation happening at Piaggio Fast Forward every day is really what makes the company "cool," a nominator wrote in—but perks certainly help boost that culture.
- Piaggio Fast Forward has an open office floor plan to inspire collaboration, community meeting spaces and a fully-stocked kitchen with healthy snacks and meals.
- Outside of the office, employees take day trips to the Arnold Arboretum and local museums, and they get together for summer barbecues, game nights and kickball. Sometimes the trips are a little longer: Recently, Piaggio's employees ran a marathon together in Iceland.
We have two additional winners. These two companies are getting honored for showing the most spirit leading up to BostonFest, and at the big event for bringing their "all."
