Erik Cardenas and Mariza Hardin co-founded Seattle-based Zócalo Health in 2021.
Sasha Reiko Photography
Seattle-area startups faced serious challenges in 2023.
Amid a market downturn and drop-off in venture capital funding, multiple local companies tightened their spending and cut jobs. Rather than focus solely on growth, startups now must demonstrate to investors how they can make money.
Still, many local startups have shown impressive growth and landed notable funding rounds. Seattle Inno has picked 24 startups to watch in 2024.
The list is not definitive but a starting point. It is the product of our reporters and editors who have covered Seattle-area tech over the past year. Let us know if you think there were startups we overlooked.
Although there are exceptions, this list loosely defines startups as companies founded no earlier than 2015. Editors also focused on companies that haven't raised beyond their Series C.
Scroll through the gallery below to see the 24 companies, in no particular order, poised to make major moves in 2024.
Startups to watch in 2024
1 of 24
![Beverly Leon Profile[10]](https://media.bizj.us/view/img/12563227/beverly-leon-profile10*540xx2079-1386-0-0.jpg)
Local Civics founder and CEO Beverly Leon launched her company while at Columbia University's business school. The education technology company, which has dual headquarters in Seattle and New York City, provides online student lessons to help build civic, college and career skills. Local Civics in July landed $150,000 in a non-equity cash award from the Google for Startups Black Founders Fund.
Onetwenty Pictures
Parse Biosciences co-founder and CEO Alex Rosenberg helped spin the company out of the University of Washington in 2018. The Seattle-based company offers single-cell sequencing technology that allows researchers to better understand the biology of an individual cell. Parse raised a $50 million Series C round in December.
Anthony Bolante | PSBJ
Seattle-area startup Zuper helps clients that offer services such as plumbing, roofing and pest control manage technicians working in the field. The company raised a $32 million Series B round in December and plans to add about 50 employees to its more than 170-person team over the next year.
Zuper
Jamari Morrison co-founded Pongo in January 2022. The Seattle-based company helps customer support teams solve tickets faster and more accurately using artificial intelligence. Morrison and co-founder Caleb John initially built Pongo's technology for their own internal use.
Pongo
Seattle-based public speaking platform Yoodli raised more than $6 million in July 2022. Co-founder Esha Joshi in 2021 helped launch the company, which allows users to rehearse a speech and receive automated feedback on pacing, volume and filler words, among other factors important to public speaking.
Yoodli
Rhythms is the latest project of serial entrepreneur Vetri Vellore, who sold his previous startup, goal-setting software company Ally.io, to Microsoft in 2021 for an undisclosed amount. Vellore, now Rhythms' CEO, said the company is still in the early stages of building its product but hopes to get it to select customers in early 2024 and make it more widely available later in 2024. The Bellevue-based work software company raised a $26 million seed round in December.
Ally.io
Bellevue-based expense management startup Center raised a $30 million Series C round in November. Center co-founder and CEO Naveen Singh said the company has 175 employees and will likely get to a little more than 200 by the end of 2024. Founded in 2018, Center offers a corporate card with connected software that automatically tracks employee spending.
Center
Seattle-based agriculture tech startup Carbon Robotics makes a robot that uses lasers to kill weeds. The company in December added $8 million to its Series C round, pushing the total to $43 million. Carbon Robotics' machine, called the LaserWeeder, is meant to replace hand weeding, spraying or mechanical weeding, and the machine can work 24/7.
Carbon Robotics
Hydrogen heating company Modern Hydrogen, co-founded by CEO Tony Pan, plans to finish moving its team from Bothell to Woodinville during the first quarter. Modern Hydrogen was founded in 2015 and rebranded in May from its previous name, Modern Electron. The company makes devices to decarbonize natural gas, and the devices work on-site and don't require clients to replace existing pipes.
Anthony Bolante | PSBJ
Health and fitness startup Ventrk landed $1 million in 2022 from HBSI Capital. The Bellevue-based startup is led by former Seattle Seahawks wide receiver Doug Baldwin, who spent eight seasons with the team before retiring in 2019. Ventrk makes two apps, TheraCentric and TrainCentric, aimed at helping users with their health and fitness.
Ventrk/HBSI Capital
Kirkland-based cybersecurity company Chainguard raised a $61 million Series B round in November. Chainguard co-founder and CEO Dan Lorenc, left, said at the time the company had 90 employees, of which about 15 were based in the Seattle area. Chainguard, founded in 2021, provides secure open-source software so clients can use the software with peace of mind. Pictured with Lorenc are Kim Lewandowski (center), co-founder and head of product; and Bogomil Balkansky (right), partner with Sequoia Capital.
Chainguard
Michelle Seitz, the former CEO of Seattle-based Russell Investments, in 2022 launched an investment and advisory firm called MeydenVest Partners. On the firm's website, MeydenVest Partners says it wants to make sure "deserving businesses focused on solving important societal issues are funded" and that "women and other historically underrepresented groups have equal access to capital, networks and mentorship."
Anthony Bolante | PSBJ
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Seattle-based biopharmaceutical company Avalyn Pharma raised a $175 million Series C round in September. The company is developing inhaled drugs aimed at pulmonary fibrosis, a deadly lung disease. The company's lead drug candidate is in phase 2 trials. Lyn Baranowski, Avalyn's CEO, said the inhaled delivery could make the drug more tolerable and effective.
Eric Atkinson
MotherDuck, a Seattle-based data analytics startup, raised a $52.5 million Series B round in September. The company was founded in 2022 and hit a $400 million valuation after its latest round. MotherDuck helps clients make sense of their data to guide decision-making. Co-founder and CEO Jordan Tigani said MotherDuck's tech could also help identify problems in the sales process.
MotherDuck
![Gable Headshots Founders 2829 3000px[31]](https://media.bizj.us/view/img/12595115/gable-headshots-founders-2829-3000px31*540xx3000-2000-0-1.jpg)
Seattle-based data startup Gable.ai launched out of stealth in September with $7 million in seed funding. Gable helps developers communicate with data scientists to avoid machine-learning breakdowns. Gable founders, from left: Adrian Kreuziger, Chief Technology Officer; Chad Sanderson, CEO; and Daniel Dicker, founding engineer.
Olli Tumelius
![PowerNode Charging Station Render Dark[43]](https://media.bizj.us/view/img/12581847/powernode-charging-station-render-dark43*540xx1418-946-0-0.jpg)
Seattle-based electric vehicle charging company Electric Era raised an $11.5 million Series A round in August. Electric Era, founded in 2019, makes EV charging stations designed to mimic what consumers are used to at a gas station. Founder and CEO Quincy Lee said the company plans to have 10,000 charging stations by the end of the decade.
Electric Era
Zócalo Health, a Seattle-based health care startup, was founded by Amazon veterans Mariza Hardin and Erik Cardenas. The 3-year-old company offers virtual health care appointments in both English and Spanish, and Hardin says it takes patients only four or five clicks to sign up.
Sasha Reiko Photography
Seattle-based Alzheimer's and Parkinson's biotech AltPep raised a $52.9 million Series B round in June. AltPep, founded in 2019, is focused on treatments and detection of amyloid diseases, which include Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Type 2 diabetes. Valerie Daggett, founder and CEO of AltPep, has taught at the University of Washington for over 30 years.
AltPep
Derek Streat, co-founder and CEO of DexCare, guided the Seattle-based health care tech startup through a $75 million Series C round in June. The company, which spun out of Providence in 2021, helps health care systems make it easier for patients to set up appointments using major search engines like Google and Bing, and it helps consumers find the best care options based on their needs.
DexCare
Bellevue-based startup Aiberry offers an artificial intelligence-powered mental health screening tool. Patients can use the tool on their smartphone or laptop, and the AI analyzes factors like tone of voice, facial expression and words to provide a mental health assessment. Co-founder and co-CEO Linda Chung said Aiberry, which raised $8 million in March, is just one of many tools clinicians would use.
Aiberry
Seattle-based legal tech company Lexion raised a $20 million Series B round in April. Lexion spun out of the Allen Institute for AI in 2019. Its product is meant for corporate legal teams, not law firms, to streamline the legal review process for contracts. Lexion's leadership team, from left: Chief Technology Officer Emad Elwany, CEO Gaurav Oberoi and Chief Legal Officer Jessica Nguyen.
Lexion
Seattle-based Joon Care provides virtual therapy appointments for teens and young adults through a smartphone or tablet, while the therapist sees patients through a desktop. Joon, which started seeing patients in 2020, raised $6 million in December. Emily Pesce, CEO of Joon, joined the company in 2022 after more than two years at Nerdy.
Joon
Puyallup-based truckload carrier Rollzi in 2022 raised $8 million in seed equity and credit financing. The company, co-founded in 2020 by CEO Damien Hutchins, 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 keeping drivers closer to home.
Jason Redmond | PSBJ
Seattle-based child care technology startup Littlebird Connected Care was founded in 2020 by CEO Monica Plath. The company makes a wristband designed to track the location of toddlers. In addition to GPS-enabled tracking, the wristband, called the Toddler CareTracker, offers heart rate, sleep and activity data.
Littlebird
