You’ll notice on this list that I didn’t include companies at the stage of a HubSpot, TripAdvisor, iRobot, Rapid7 or DataXu. Intentional! What I did instead is focus on candidates for the next HubSpots et al.—the future big names out of Boston in marketing/sales tech (Localytics, InsightSquared), consumer (Drizly, SimpliSafe) robotics (Rethink Robotics, CyPhy Works), cybersecurity (Cybereason, Digital Guardian), ad tech (Adelphic, Nanigans) and other categories. Each has begun transforming the wider world in their own way. All are contenders to become anchor tech companies in Boston down the road.
I should mention this post only features companies with 50 or more employees (and fewer than 250 employees, as it turns out). I’ve got another post here with my picks for smaller Boston companies to watch.
Here’s my list of 16 Boston tech companies to watch in 2016:
Adelphic
Adelphic, which is focused on offering a far better ROI on mobile advertising, is the smallest of this group, staff-wise—they just hit 51 employees. But that’s come on the back of some big hires, which point to the size of their ad tech opportunity ahead: Recent additions to the Adelphic management team have been poaches from Facebook, Oracle and Yahoo. “All three execs believe in the importance of providing marketers with open and transparent access to audiences and consumers,” Adelphic co-founder Jennifer Lum said in an email. Notable partnerships for Adelphic include Apple and its iAd service. Read more: Adelphic Poaches Execs From 3 Tech Giants
Cybereason
For starters, you should know that this cybersecurity upstart is doing revenue in their first year that they thought would take three years to reach, CEO and co-founder Lior Div told me. Specific figures weren’t disclosed, but the evidence that something big is going on is also in the fundraising Cybereason did this year—a $25 million round in May followed up by another $59 million just five months later. Meanwhile, their staff has quadrupled to 80 from 20 at the start of the year. The short version of how Cybereason has grown so quickly has to do with its ability to answer a key question for any customer, Div said: “Are you under attack right now?” This, Div said, "is something that nobody else can do. Nobody can tell you what’s going on in your environment instantly." Customers include defense giant Lockheed Martin. Read more: Why Hacker-Hunter Cybereason Is Seeing Surging Growth
CyPhy Works
With iRobot co-founder Helen Greiner at the helm, CyPhy is the highest profile drone company in Boston (and not afraid to refer to their products as drones, BTW). CyPhy is developing their flying robots right now for multiple markets, including military and consumer; their first consumer drone—the LVL 1, which is meant to be easier to control than other options on the market—crushed its $250,000 Kickstarter goal by raising $882,000 in June. That drone is expected to debut in early 2016. CyPhy has also recently won FAA approval for its tethered Persistent Aerial Reconnaissance and Communications (PARC) vehicle system. Read more: UPS Is Investing in a Drone Startup, and the Reason Why May Surprise You
Digital Guardian
Here's a major tech turnaround story in the making: Cybersecurity firm Verdasys went from running a flat business a few years ago to 30 percent last year—and they're predicting 50-percent growth this year. Specific figures aren’t being given out, but CEO Ken Levine says they could be a year away from reaching the revenue level that Rapid7 achieved before filing to go public ($77 million). Translation: Digital Guardian is now on track to be an IPO contender before too long (my words, not theirs). Levine, previously a McAfee executive, put it this way in an interview: “We think we have a chance to be one of the bigger players in the cybersecurity community here in Boston.” Read more: This Decade-Old Cybersecurity Firm Is on a Tear After a Big Turnaround
You’ve heard of, and probably even used, this alcohol delivery app. Now the rest of the country, and I guess the world, is next: Drizly just expanded to its 18th metro region (Tampa) and "will look towards international expansion next year," a spokeswoman said in an email (no specifics just yet). Other milestones from this year included signing a deal with MillerCoors—the first time an American brewery has partnered with an e-commerce company to sell beer online—and growth to a staff of 62.
EzCater
GrubHub (or in my case, Foodler) are clearly a phenomenon of the moment for consumers. EzCater looks like it's capturing a good portion of the market on the business catering side, with its nationwide marketplace for online catering orders. They’ve got 43,000 caterers now and 103 people on staff, a spokesperson said—with plans to double that headcount and “rapidly” grow the number of caterers in the next 12 months. Recent hires and funding are also suggestive of a big opportunity at hand here—with additions including CFO Bob Cruickshank, previously CFO at Amazon Robotics, and funding of $28 million in October.
Formlabs
As Startup Institute's Allan Telio recently put it: "I am pretty sure that FormLabs is from the future." The company, a spinout from the MIT Media Lab, has developed 3D printers that are sophisticated, highly compact and comparatively affordable. Formlabs touts their newest 3D printer, the Form 2, as the world's "most advanced desktop 3D printer." The Form 2 as a 40 percent larger build volume and 50 percent more powerful laser than the startup's previous model, meaning it can print larger materials with more intricate details. Formlabs has also crossed the 100-employee mark this year. Read more: Formlabs' New 3D Printer Brings Both Scale & Resolution for a Few More $$
Harmonix
Are you ready to play pretend instruments in virtual reality? Hope so, because “Rock Band” is about to get the VR treatment on Oculus Rift in 2016. It's just the latest sign of a major comeback story at Harmonix, which also just put out Rock Band 4 in October. After layoffs amid a corporate restructuring last year, the game studio has begun adding more employees and has struck partnerships with new game platforms (including VR systems by Sony and Oculus) along with the new Apple TV. The studio's new direction is all about trying out new concepts, and that vision was recently supported by a $16 million fundraise led by Spark Capital and Foundry Group. Read more: How Harmonix Took a Risk and Shifted from Microsoft to Apple
InsightSquared
What you need to know about what InsightSquared offers: Next-gen business intelligence software, now with more than 20,000 users. What you need to know about their growth: The company is now at more than 150 employees—50 of them added this year—and in September the firm relocated from Cambridge to Boston, into an office triple in size at 45,000 square feet. (Don’t worry though, the office theme is still the Wu Tang Clan.)
Localytics
This mobile marketing and analytics specialist raised $35 million in March, reached nearly 250 employees (up from 30 a couple years ago) and is moving to a new HQ in Center Plaza, where they'll be the anchor tenant. “We see this incredible potential to build, right here in Boston, a very large and significant company that transforms the way companies build relationships with their end users,” Localytics CEO and co-founder Raj Aggarwal said in an interview earlier this year. So far, so good on that front.
Nanigans
In the volatile industry that is ad tech, Facebook ads specialist Nanigans has pulled off a transition that’s probably made many of their peers envious: Moving to a business that’s entirely based on subscription software, rather than a combination of software and managed services. Why is that a big deal? Because, as SVP Ben Tregoe told me, the predictability of going all-software is a much more appealing business model, which investors also happen to love (as evidenced by their $24 million round in March from investors including frequent IPO backer Wellington). Nanigans has grown to a staff of 200 this year and also reports that $600 million in annualized ad spend is now managed by in-house marketing teams through its software. Read more: How to Thrive in Facebook’s Sandbox
Co-founded by Jon Hirschtick, who previously founded SolidWorks, Onshape purports to offer the the “future of CAD” (i.e. computer-aided design). But for the 40,000 companies that’ve already started using the product within its first year of being offered, the future is already here, I suppose. The company’s cloud-based CAD software has also gotten the attention of investors, which have sunk $144 million into Onshape since its founding in 2012—including an $80 million round in September led by Andreessen Horowitz.
PillPack
Just a couple years ago, PillPack was a tiny startup in Techstars Boston trying to build a next-gen online pharmacy. Well, they've built it—and they've now got 175 employees and are active in more than 40 states. PillPack ships personalized/pre-sorted medications that customers order online, aiming to make it easier to take your pills at the right times, in the right doses. In June they raised $50 million for expansion, and CB Insights has pegged the company as one of the tech industry's next unicorns.
Placester
Seven months after hauling in $15 million in funding, Placester raised another $27 million last month to accelerate its already fast-growing software business for real estate marketing. Placester co-founder and CEO Matt Barba told me a lot of the new funding will go toward development, including making real estate work better on mobile and in search. The company is already up to a staff of 105 after starting out the year at 43, and expects to add another 20 people before the end of the year. The major impetus for the new round was to keep up the growth pace after inking a major franchise deal with Keller Williams and RE/MAX Integra, two major real estate firms, which brings Placester to 200,000 total customers—or one in five real estate agents in the U.S. We have no plans of slowing down,” Barba said. “We’re seeing a huge influx of demand from these partnerships.”
Rethink Robotics
Remember that report on the next unicorns that was just mentioned? Rethink Robotics was in it, too. Founded by iRobot co-founder Rodney Brooks, inventor of the Roomba, Rethink Robotics is the developer of a growing family of human-like helper robots, including the manufacturing robot Baxter. In March Rethink introduced a new robot, Sawyer, to join its robot line. Sawyer, according to Rethink, is a single-arm robot created to work on machine tending, circuit board testing and other precise tasks “that have historically been impractical to automate with traditional industrial robots.” This year Rethink Robotics also raised a Series D round at $40 million. Investors in the round included Goldman Sachs and Wellington. The vote of confidence suggests that major improvements made to Baxter's software last year are paying off for Rethink, and the company is now in the midst of expanding sales to China. Read more: Can Rodney Brooks Rebuild U.S. Manufacturing by Selling Robots in China?
SimpliSafe
As I wrote recently, it’s a short list of Boston tech companies that have truly penetrated the consumer mainstream today. But SimpliSafe—maker of a self-installable, more-affordable home security system geared for the wireless era—could be the next to pull it off. The company has seen some stunning growth since it took a $57 million funding round from Sequoia Capital in May 2014; the SimpliSafe customer base now numbers 500,000, 5X the amount from when they raised the funding. It suggests that their revenue is way above the $38.5 million they generated in 2013 (a figure that was disclosed for the Inc. 500). Crucial moving forward, co-founder/CEO Chad Laurans told me, will be adding new enhancements—such as tying cameras into the security system. For instance, cameras could be paired with motion sensors, Laurans said, so that a homeowner would get an alert with video of the exact event that triggered a sensor at the door (or the liquor cabinet). Read more: How SimpliSafe Is Becoming a Rare Consumer Tech Winner for Boston
Photo of Helen Greiner by TechCrunch via Creative Commons (CC BY 2.0). Other photos courtesy of the companies.
