Flexport, a San Francisco firm attempting to fix the seemingly insurmountable supply chain situation, was ranked No. 1 on CNBC's Disruptor 50 list, which ranks private companies by the impact of their disruptive technologies.
We wrote about Flexport in February when it raised a whopping $935 million in a Series E round in one of the largest funding rounds of the year so far. The company aims to improve supply chain bottlenecks by building a platform akin to a travel booking site, where clients can choose the methods of their shipments, track progress in real time, and optimize for price and arrival times.
It currently has a valuation of $8 billion with a business model highly in demand as supply chain woes continue throughout the globe.
"It's a pretty ugly situation out there especially for direct to consumer brands that are newer are hotter and don't have a long track record to forecast demand," said Flexport CEO Ryan Petersen on CNBC today. "Getting the quantities right is really hard and you have these bullwhip effects where there is too much inventory and its an ugly picture for a lot of companies."
Flexport wasn't the only Bay Area firm to make the list. No. 2 was Brex, an S.F. fintech that offers credit cards and cash management services to startups.
A total of 19 bay area startups made the list:
- Stripe, San Francisco — #8
- Pony.ai, Fremont — #10
- Chime, San Francisco — #12
- Discord, San Francisco — #13
- Medable, San Francisco — #15
- Truepill, San Francisco — #16
- CloudTrucks, San Francisco — #18
- Monarch Tractor, Livermore — #20
- Virta Health, San Francisco — #28
- Zipline, San Francisco — #29
- Airtable, San Francisco — #33
- Databricks, San Francisco — #34
- NEXT Insurance, San Francisco — #37
- Zum. Redwood City — #45
- Plaid, San Francisco — #47
- Impossible Foods, Redwood City — #49
- Envoy, San Francisco — #50
