The past year hasn’t been an easy one for startups, with substantial financial headwinds forcing many to alter course, enact layoffs or close up shop altogether. A number, however, persevered in the face of challenges to emerge primed for takeoff in 2024.
That’s the case for the 10 companies on PHL Inno’s 2024 Startups to Watch list.
Each of these firms came through a turbulent year and, like those that survived nationwide, are all the stronger for it.
Given the difficult year, our list is a bit shorter than in the past. While the group of startups may be smaller, it is full of bright spots, with each company representing glimmers of hope for the year ahead.
These companies defied the odds and despite the sharp downturn in fundraising, many were able to pull in financial backing last year which they plan to use as a springboard for growth in 2024.
Among our Startups to Watch this year are firms looking to expand business, launch new partnerships and raise additional investments.
Now in its third year, the Startups to Watch list features companies selected by the PHL Inno editorial board as the firms we think are poised to make the greatest waves in the coming months. In selecting the companies, we took into consideration funding raised in the last two years and recent growth, as well as future growth projections and fundraising plans, while keeping the economic climate of the past year in mind.
This year’s list is a mix of early and growth-stage startups hailing from a range of industries and sectors, from climate tech to fashion to beverages to life sciences.
In the profiles below, see what makes them stand out and why we think they’re poised for big things in 2024.
Baleena
Founded: 2022
Founders: Sarah Beth Gleeson, Shoshana Weintraub and Julia Yan
Headquarters: Philadelphia
Founded by a trio of University of Pennsylvania alums, Baleena has a filtration device designed to capture microplastics and microfibers that are shed during the wash cycle of clothes and linens. The goal is to cut down on the number of tiny pieces of plastic that end up in waterways and often harm marine wildlife. Left unchecked, those same pieces of plastic can find their way into the seafood humans eat, further underscoring the need for a solution.
Based out of Pennovation Works in the Grays Ferry neighborhood, in 2023 Baleena raised about $500,000 in pre-seed money from gener8tor, the 776 Fellowship Foundation, and Samsung’s Climate & Circularity Tech Challenge. It also received $100,000 by winning the Penn President’s Sustainability Prize.
The funding is going toward de-risking and further developing its patent-pending product and securing letters of intent from distribution partners in Philadelphia and Seattle. The company’s founders, who all graduated from Penn in 2022, are also working on pilot opportunities with commercial partners like chemical company Henkel, outdoor apparel brand Arc’teryx and appliance maker Whirlpool. That will build off of past collaborations with brands like Patagonia and Ocean Wise Labs.
In late November, Gleeson, Weintraub and Yan were also named to the Forbes 30 under 30 list for 2024 in the energy category.
BlueWhale Bio
Founded: 2022
Founders: Dr. Carl June and James Riley
Headquarters: Philadelphia
Founded by immunotherapy pioneers Dr. Carl June and James Riley, BlueWhale Bio Inc. came out of stealth mode in September with $18 million in funding. The University of Pennsylvania spinout has a technology platform designed to address and overcome bottlenecks in the cell and gene therapy manufacturing process.
June and Riley co-invented the technology, which they say could bring the benefits of cell therapy to more patients faster and at lower costs.
Cell and gene therapies often treat rare diseases that have small patient populations and come at a high expense. As effective as they’ve proven in many cases, access to the novel treatments can be a challenge, something the startup is working to address.
June and Riley are serving as consultants in BlueWhale Bio and hold equity in the company, which is helmed by CEO Peter Keller, the previous head of Boston-based Monopteros Therapeutics. The company is hiring scientists and process development technicians.
Penn granted an option to BlueWhale to enter into a licensing agreement for rights to certain intellectual property owned by the university.
BlueWhale is the latest in a long line of startups for June, a winner of the 2024 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences.
Carbon Reform
Founded: 2020
Founders: Nick Martin and Jo Norris
Headquarters: Philadelphia
In just its third year in existence, Carbon Reform is already making inroads with its mission to democratize access to carbon capture technology. Led by two University of Delaware graduates who were both named to the 2023 Forbes 30 under 30 list, the company over the summer moved into a new 5,000-square-foot office on North Broad Street in Philadelphia, relocating from its previous home in Wilmington as it continues to grow.
The move came on the heels of Carbon Reform raising a $3 million seed round in late 2022. Following that raise, this past November the company secured an additional $1 million in funding, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Carbon Reform is known for its devices that retrofit onto existing HVAC systems to capture carbon and then store it in mineral form. The technology lowers a building’s carbon footprint, decreases energy costs and purifies and improves air quality.
Its recent fundraise wasn’t the only big move for the environmental startup this fall. In November, Carbon Reform emerged victorious from the BuiltWorlds Venture East 2023 Conference demo day competition.
Carbon Reform is currently taking pre-orders for its Carbon Capsule device, which can service spaces up to 15,000 square feet, as well as its Carbon Canister, which is suited to spaces spanning up to 5,000 square feet.
Fashionkind
Founded: 2014
Founders: Nina Farran and Sophia Bush
Headquarters: Philadelphia
Not many local startups can say they were co-founded by a Hollywood celebrity, but that is the case for Philadelphia-based Fashionkind. The eco-conscious apparel brand was started in 2020 by Nina Farran and actress Sophia Bush, who is known for her roles on The CW’s “One Tree Hill” and NBC’s “Chicago P.D.”
Bush isn’t the brand’s only major backer. In November at the Philadelphia Alliance for Capital and Technologies’ Capital Conference and its Lion’s Den pitch competition, Farran scored a $500,000 deal with three big-name local investors: Tendo CEO Daniel Goldsmith, SEI Investments CEO Ryan Hicke and Devon Hill Capital Partners founder Dr. Robert Corrato.
Farran is currently raising a $2 million seed round to further grow the retail platform that connects consumers with sustainably designed clothes from artisans around the world. The marketplace says it supports 13,000 independent artisans in 20 countries that create products for a customer base of about 3,000.
The University of Pennsylvania alum has amassed an online following of some 80,000 people for the brand and is projecting $8 million in revenue in 2024. Farran said her goal is to nearly double that figure again in 2025, when she projects revenue will be about $15 million.
Halfday
Founded: 2020
Founders: Kayvon Jahanbakhsh and Mike Lombardo
Headquarters: Blackwood, New Jersey
The two Rowan University alums behind Halfday are looking to make their gut-healthy beverages mainstays in refrigerators across the country. A little over three years after launching, Halfday’s products can be found in some 2,000 stores in the U.S., including on the shelves of major retailers like Giant, Whole Foods, Target and Publix.
The South Jersey iced tea brand addresses gut and digestive health by incorporating prebiotics into its recipe. In keeping with its mission of being a healthy alternative to otherwise sugary iced teas, Halfday products contain only 30 calories.
In its 10 anticipated trends for 2024, Whole Foods identified “clean caffeine” and pointed to the brand’s green tea flavor as a product in the category for its customers to try.
The idea for Halfday was born after co-founder Kayvon Jahanbakhsh’s ulcerative colitis diagnosis. The drink went through a number of iterations before arriving at its current form, which is available in five flavors: cranberry, raspberry, peach, lemon and green tea. A 12-pack retails for around $36.
To fuel its growth, Halfday raised $7.3 million in late August through its first major fundraising round since the company launched in 2020.
KIN Apparel
Founded: 2019
Founder: Philomina Kane
Headquarters: Philadelphia
Philomina Kane has checked some pretty big entrepreneurial boxes early in her career. In 2021, as she built her brand KIN Apparel from her South Philadelphia home, Kane was tapped to appear on hit ABC show “Shark Tank,” where she ultimately struck a deal with SKIMS founder and Good American CEO Emma Grede for a $100,000 investment.
Keeping the momentum going, in late November the 28-year-old was recognized by Forbes as one of its 30 Under 30 awardees in the retail and e-commerce category. That honor came just two weeks after Kane received a $75,000 prize from music producer Pharrell Williams’ Black Ambition program.
Kane is currently looking to raise a $2 million seed round to scale the business, which is known for its satin-lined hoodies. In the past two years KIN Apparel has expanded its product line and introduced new items like zip-up and sleeveless hoodies, joggers, shorts, a onesie and a hoodie dress. Kane told the Business Journal the company’s revenue more than doubled in 2022 to $2.5 million and at last tally sales were tracking to hit $3 million in 2023.
She currently has a staff of six full-time employees and 10 part-time workers and contractors and is looking to further scale the brand in the year ahead.
Nexteon Technologies
Founded: 2017
Founders: Rob Kaimowitz, Jill Wittels, George Hunter and Dave McNally
Headquarters: Ambler
Greater Philadelphia doesn’t have a reputation as a hotbed for aviation innovation, but Ambler-based Nexteon Technologies is on a mission to change that.
Founded in 2017 as Route Dynamics Corp. and rebranded in 2021 to its current moniker, Nexteon Technologies has two primary offerings: SmartRoutes and SecureTrack. SmartRoutes optimizes flight paths by finding wind-corrected reroute opportunities, resulting in shorter flight times and less jet fuel usage.
The startup has caught the attention of major players in the industry and is onboarding carrier JetBlue as its second airline customer for SmartRoutes. The New York low-cost carrier is set to begin using the technology this January. Nexteon also has agreements in place with another undisclosed major global airline and one of the world’s largest cargo carriers to deploy SmartRoutes.
Its SecureTrack product, which generates secure air traffic surveillance data, is being used by the Estonian government and Nexteon is working to conduct additional customer trials in 2024.
To continue its growth, the company – whose co-founders have decades of experience across NASA, Wall Street, communications and in aerospace engineering – in June raised a $4.8 million growth round. Its investors include Broad Street Angels, an investment group made up of members of the Union League of Philadelphia.
Sojo Industries
Founded: 2021
Founders: Barak Bar-Cohen and Steve Rubin
Headquarters: Bristol
As far as startups go, Sojo Industries has some major experience in its C-suite. The Bucks County firm was founded in 2021 by Barak Bar-Cohen and Steve Rubin, who have been involved in combined company exits that amount to roughly $3 billion. Bar-Cohen was the chief operating officer of Princeton beverage brand Bai, and Rubin is the former CEO of container shipping giant Horizon Lines and ITS ConGlobal.
Together they are looking to conquer a niche, but lucrative, segment of the beverage industry: variety packs. Sojo Industries uses robotics to streamline the packaging of variety packs, which can often prove complicated in low-tech packaging warehouses which are forced to pull flavors from different corners of a space — and in many cases, different corners of the country. That slows the process and makes it more expensive. Their robotics system automates almost every part of that process for beverage companies to make it easier to deliver the final product to consumers.
In its first full year of operation, Sojo Industries brought in $4 million in revenue and was on pace to as much as quadruple that figure in 2023. The company has added global beverage brands and local breweries alike and caught the attention of investors. In 2021, Sojo Industries raised a $4 million seed round, which it followed up with a $6.2 million raise in 2022 and follow-on funding of $2.8 million in September.
Treeswift
Founded: 2020
Founders: Vaibhav Arcot, Steven Chen, Elizabeth Hunter and Michael Shomin
Headquarters: Philadelphia
This University of Pennsylvania spinout based at Pennovation Works in Grays Ferry uses drones and robotics to capture extensive data on forests. It can detect different species of trees, gauge the health of those trees, measure their size or timber quality, and gather inventories of carbon emissions in forests, allowing companies and agencies to understand the health of large swaths of land.
Treeswift works with the likes of forest landowners and firms with environmental and sustainability interests to provide that information.
Its services are used in areas like carbon volume measurements, timber value appraisal, deforestation monitoring and wildfire mitigation, providing detailed insight in real time.
Prior to the development of the type of technology used by Treeswift, forest measurements were historically gathered by what is known as a timber cruiser. These individuals manually measure the circumference and height of trees on the ground as well as by using data from satellites and airplanes.
Treeswift’s Swiftcruise product is streamlining that process. By flying below the canopy, its sensors can gather data at 10 times the speed of a timber cruiser.
The company, founded by Penn alums Steven Chen, Elizabeth Hunter, Michael Shomin and Vaibhav Arcot, has raised $17.2 million in funding, most recently securing $10.8 million in September.
Verismo Therapeutics
Founded: 2020
Founders: Dr. Bryan Kim, Dr. Michael C. Milone and Dr. Donald L. Siegel
Headquarters: Philadelphia
Investors are clearly buying into the mission of University of Pennsylvania spinout Verismo Therapeutics. In June, the company raised a second pre-Series A round of $17 million, bringing its total capital funding to some $50 million just three years after it launched.
Verismo Therapeutics is focused on immunotherapy candidates that target a variety of cancers and has developed what it calls a novel KIR-CAR platform technology. Therapy using CAR T-cells — an acronym for chimeric antigen receptors — has historically involved removing a patient’s T cells, genetically modifying them in the laboratory and injecting them back into the patient to better attack cancer cells. Verismo’s KIR-CAR platform takes a different approach by making the alterations in vivo, or in the body, and is being used to create the first “multi-chain” CAR therapies capable of maintaining the T-cell activity even in harsh solid tumor environments and destroying tumors from the inside until they disappear. The KIR-CAR construct has been proven to kill solid tumor models in in vivo studies.
Last spring, Verismo received fast track designation from the Food and Drug Administration for SynKIR-110, its experimental therapy targeted at individuals with advanced ovarian cancer, mesothelioma and cholangiocarcinoma. In September it dosed its first patient with SynKIR-110 in what CEO Dr. Bryan Kim called a “significant milestone” for the company.
