Meet the nominees for Seattle Inno's 2023 Fire Awards

Local startups are fighting through a dry funding environment right now.

According to a report from PitchBook Data and the National Venture Capital Association, Seattle-area startups have landed about $1.4 billion in venture capital funding during the first half of 2023. The region's startups landed $7.8 billion in 2022 and $9.2 billion in 2021, putting this year well off pace of those red-hot years.

Despite the challenges, Seattle-area companies continue to grow and evolve. In recognition of the area's most innovative companies, Seattle Inno has identified five local companies in five categories as finalists for our 2023 Fire Awards. The categories reflect the diversity of the tech scene, from newly launched startups to so-called unicorns with billion-plus-dollar values.

Nominations were collected from the public and the Business Journal newsroom. The Seattle Inno team considered factors such as funding, revenue growth, mission and future potential when selecting the finalists.

Later in September, Seattle Inno will announce winners, or Blazers, for each category. See below for this year's nominees, including a brief description of each company.

NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK

Local Civics

Local Civics, which is dual headquartered in Seattle and New York City, landed $150,000 in a non-equity cash award from the Google for Startups Black Founders Fund in July. Founded in 2018, Local Civics provides online student lessons to help build civic, college and career skills. It also provides an educator-facing component to help them manage the curriculum. Local Civics offers over 200 hours of lessons.

Joon Care

Seattle-based teletherapy startup Joon Care first started seeing patients in 2020. The company provides virtual therapy appointments for teens and young adults through a smartphone or tablet, while the therapist sees patients through a desktop. In addition to providing tech tools, Joon provides evidence-based guidance to its therapists so they can provide better care.

Serve Reserves

Tacoma-based Serve Reserves is a digital platform for service industry shifts. Once onboarded, workers can start picking up shifts of their choosing that match their schedules and experience. Restaurants and bars, meanwhile, can get extra shift help on demand. Serve Reserves' app will launch this fall.

Rollzi

Rollzi, a Puyallup-based truckload carrier, raised $8 million in seed equity and credit financing last year. Rollzi, founded in 2020, focuses on a "single-lane relay strategy" in which the company transports loads along a single route, and drivers hand off loads to drivers coming from the other direction. The method, according to Rollzi, allows the company to be more efficient while keep drivers closer to home.

A-Alpha Bio

Seattle-based biotech A-Alpha Bio raised $22.4 million in July to develop its internal treatment pipeline. A-Alpha was founded in 2017 when it spun out of the University of Washington's Institute for Protein Design and Center for Synthetic Biology. The company also generates protein-interaction data. A-Alpha Bio does disease-based work through partnerships, including a joint project focused on antibody discovery and development with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

THE GROWING FISH

Upbound

Seattle-based cloud company Upbound was founded in 2017. The company helps clients manage their tech infrastructure, with the aim of making infrastructure management more automated, efficient and reliable. Upbound has raised $69 million to date, including a $60 million Series B round in November 2021.

Modern Hydrogen

Bothell-based hydrogen heating company Modern Hydrogen raised $32.8 million in March. Founded in 2015, the company makes devices to decarbonize natural gas. Modern Hydrogen works with gas utilities, process heat and steam users, heavy equipment and fleet operators, and building materials producers. The company will be shipping a handful of units out to customers this year as a pilot, after which Modern Hydrogen aims to scale up its production.

Zensa

Zensa, headquartered in Redmond, is a tech consulting firm that helps its clients with cloud services. According to the company, its services include app modernization, hardware engineering and internet-of-things data. Zensa has scored big-name clients like Amazon, Microsoft and Meta. The company was founded in 2014, according to its website.

PetHub

Wenatchee-based PetHub, founded in 2010, last year completed the Leap Venture Studio, a pet care-focused startup accelerator based in Los Angeles. It was one of six companies in the cohort, and the only company from Washington. The company offers a digital identification service for pet owners to help them when a pet is lost. PetHub can also send notices to local shelters and vets when a pet has gone missing.

Syndio

Syndio, a Seattle-based pay equity software company, has landed support from big names like WNBA star Candace Parker, two-time NBA MVP Stephen Curry and former Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff. The company has raised $83 million since its founding in 2017. Syndio uses technology to identify pay disparities across race and gender, cross-referencing those findings against tenure, skills and experience.

THE BIG FISH

Apptio

Bellevue-based business software maker Apptio made headlines this year when it sold to tech giant IBM for $4.6 billion. The deal, which officially closed in August, will "drive ubiquity and faster scale," according to co-founder and CEO Sunny Gupta. Apptio helps clients monitor the return they're getting on their tech spending. The company has more than 1,500 clients, including Bank of America, FedEx, Allstate and Nike.

Expedia

Seattle-based travel company Expedia Group generated $2.7 billion in revenue during the first quarter, up 18% year over year. The company said that was its highest-ever first quarter revenue. The revenue boost comes after a challenging few years for Expedia that included layoffs and a restructuring. Expedia generated $3.4 billion in revenue during the second quarter, up 6% year over year.

iSpot.tv

Bellevue-based iSpot.tv, a TV ad measurement company, raised $325 million from Goldman Sachs Asset Management in April 2022. iSpot, founded in 2012, measures the impact of live TV and streaming ads for marketers through the likes of website visits, online purchases and app downloads. Its clients include Google, T-Mobile and Amazon.

Temporal

Temporal, an app development company headquartered in Seattle, raised $75 million in February, building off a $103 million Series B round the company raised a year prior that pushed its value to roughly $1.5 billion. The company, founded in 2019, helps developers write and run back-end software, with the aim of making software more reliable. Its clients include Snap and Netflix.

Pushpay

Redmond-based church software company Pushpay in May completed its $1 billion acquisition by private equity firms Sixth Street, headquartered in San Francisco, and BGH Capital, headquartered in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 2011, Pushpay helps churches and parishes launch apps, manage giving and engage with members. In 2021, Pushpay acquired streaming provider Resi Media for $150 million in cash and stock.

ALL ABOUT THE GREEN (ENERGY)

Electric Era

Seattle-based Electric Era, an electric vehicle charging company, raised an $11.5 million Series A round in August to ramp up its charging station production. Electric Era, founded in 2019, makes EV charging stations designed to mimic what consumers are used to at a gas station. Electric Era plans to have 10 charging stations running by the end of the year and 80 new stations next year. The company is planning for 600 the following year and 10,000 by the end of the decade.

TerraPower

Bellevue-based nuclear power company TerraPower has more than 500 employees, the vast majority of which are based in the Seattle area. The company raised $830 million over the past 13 months. TerraPower, which was co-founded by Bill Gates, launched in 2008. The company is working on a thermal energy storage demonstration project called the Natrium Reactor Demonstration Project, which is focused on providing clean energy on demand when renewable sources like wind or solar aren’t available.

Helion

Everett-based fusion energy company Helion raised $500 million in 2021. The company last year moved from Redmond to Everett, where it is building its seventh-generation fusion generator, Polaris. The company aims to finish building Polaris late this year or early next year, with testing and operating Polaris to come next year. Polaris is a demonstration device meant to produce electricity from fusion.

Group14 Technologies

Woodinville-based battery technology company Group14 Technologies in July acquired German company Schmid Silicon, a company that produces a key gas for Group14's technology called silane. Group14, founded in 2015, makes a silicon-based anode powder to replace the traditional graphite powder found in most batteries today. The goal is to make batteries cheaper, smaller and longer-lasting. The company raised a $614 million Series C round last year and an extra $100 million from the Department of Energy.

First Mode

Clean energy company First Mode is building a 45,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Sodo. The company, which moved its headquarters to London earlier this year but still has the majority of its employees in Seattle, will make zero-emission power plants to replace diesel engines in mining haul trucks. The factory, set to begin operations later this year, comes after First Mode earlier this year merged with nuGen, the clean energy division of global mining company Anglo American.

BEYOND SOFTWARE

JaxJox

Redmond-based home gym company JaxJox launched in 2016. The company’s home gym features an adjustable kettlebell and dumbbells, a vibrating foam roller and a rotating touch screen that can track data and provide coach-led workouts. JaxJox got a major boost in May 2022 when four-time Olympic gold medal sprinter Michael Johnson, the only male athlete to win both the 200- and 400-meter dashes at the same Olympics, joined the company’s advisory board. Former NFL tight end Vernon Davis invested in the company in June 2022.

Templar Screens

Templar Screens, based in Auburn, makes custom exterior power screens. The company offers screens in 22 colors and has dozens of additional colors it stocks for specific customers, according to its website. Templar Screens also manufactures all the parts for its screens in house using 3D printers.

Littlebird

Seattle-based Littlebird is a hardware technology company that makes a wristband for toddlers that tracks their location, whom they are with and biometric data like heart rate. Littlebird also offers an app so parents can communicate with caregivers and see photos. In addition to GPS data and heart rate, the wristband provides sleep and activity data.

CAF

CAF, headquartered in Maple Valley, makes environmentally friendly cleaning products. The company also offers training and monitoring to help clients maintain a clean exterior and interior. CAF offers products for industries like convenience stores, food service and automotive. According to CAF, its products come from natural materials and are biodegradable.

Tidal Vision

Bellingham-based Tidal Vision uses a biomolecule extracted from crab shells to create an array of sustainable products. In August, the company acquired former customer Clear Water Services, a water treatment company headquartered in Everett. Tidal Vision, founded in 2015, extracts a biomolecule called chitosan from crab shells that can be used for water treatment, agriculture and textiles instead of toxic or nonbiodegradable materials. Tidal Vision gets its crab shells from a seafood plant in Bellingham that processes for multiple crabbing companies.