The Directory

Anthropic builds Claude, frontier AI sold mostly to businesses, and is organized as a public benefit corporation.

SK hynix makes the memory chips inside phones, servers, and the AI accelerators that Nvidia sells.

Lime put rentable electric scooters and bikes on city streets, unlocked by phone and left wherever the ride ended.

Bending Spoons bought tired internet brands like Evernote, Vimeo, and AOL, cut costs, and raised prices.

SpaceX launched rockets that land and fly again, and sold satellite internet from thousands of its own satellites.

Quantinuum builds quantum computers from trapped atoms, aimed at problems ordinary computers struggle to solve.

Liftoff found new users for mobile apps and let their makers earn money from ads shown inside them.

Cerebras built AI chips as big as a whole silicon wafer to run AI models faster than racks of GPUs.

HawkEye 360 used small satellites to locate radio signals on Earth and sold that intelligence to defense agencies.

PayPay let shoppers across Japan pay by scanning a QR code with their phone, in a country that loved cash.

BitGo kept digital assets safe for exchanges, funds, and governments, and let them trade and settle from the same vault.

Wealthfront let young professionals hand their savings and investments to software instead of a human adviser.

Navan let companies book work travel, hand out corporate cards, and track expenses in one app.

Netskope watched how employees used cloud apps and the web, and stopped company data from leaking out.

StubHub let fans resell tickets to concerts, games, and shows on a marketplace that stood behind every seat.

Via sold cities and transit agencies software to run on-demand shuttles, school buses, and smarter routes.

Gemini gave people and institutions a regulated place in the United States to buy, sell, and store crypto.

Klarna let shoppers get their order first and pay for it later, in installments.

MIAX built electronic exchanges for options and futures, competing with the giants that run Wall Street's markets.

Bullish ran a crypto exchange for big institutions and owned CoinDesk, the crypto news and price index business.

Figma let designers, engineers, and product teams draw and edit the same screen together, live, in a web browser.

Ambiq made chips that run on so little power that watches and sensors can go much longer between charges.

NIQ tracked what consumers buy in stores and online, and sold that data to the brands and retailers making them.

Chime gave everyday workers a free phone-based bank account, early paychecks, and overdraft cover without the fees.

SanDisk makes the flash memory inside memory cards, USB drives, phones and the solid-state drives in data centers.

Circle issued USDC, a digital dollar backed one to one by cash, and earned interest on the reserves behind it.

Galaxy Digital offered trading, lending, asset management and data centers for crypto and AI customers.

Hinge Health gave people with back, joint and muscle pain physical therapy at home, guided by an app.

MNTN let small and midsize brands buy streaming TV ads and see what sales they brought in.

eToro let ordinary investors trade stocks and crypto, and copy the trades of other users automatically.

CoreWeave rented out huge clusters of NVIDIA chips to AI labs and tech giants that needed computing power fast.

SailPoint told big companies exactly who could open which systems and files, and took access away when it was risky.

ServiceTitan gave plumbers, roofers, and HVAC crews one app to book jobs, dispatch techs, and get paid.

Pony.ai built self-driving taxis and trucks, and ran paid driverless rides on public roads in Chinese cities.

WeRide built self-driving taxis, buses, vans, and street sweepers, and ran them in cities from Guangzhou to Abu Dhabi.

Ingram Micro moved computers, chips, and cloud subscriptions from tech makers to the resellers who sell them to businesses.

OneStream gave finance chiefs one platform to close the books, plan budgets and report results.

Tempus ran genetic tests on cancer patients and used the data to help doctors choose treatments.

Waystar's software helped hospitals and clinics file insurance claims correctly and collect what they were owed.

Silvaco sold software that lets engineers simulate how a chip will behave before anyone builds it.

ZEEKR built premium electric cars for Chinese drivers, backed by the factories and supply chain of Geely.

Rubrik kept a clean copy of company data that hackers could not lock, so businesses could recover from attacks.

Ibotta paid shoppers cash back on groceries and everyday buys, and brands paid only when a sale happened.

Astera Labs made the connectivity chips that keep data moving between processors, memory, and networks in AI servers.

Reddit gave strangers thousands of forums to swap advice, jokes, and news, ranked by the votes of other users.

Kaspi.kz put shopping, payments, loans, and bills for millions in Kazakhstan into a single phone app.

Klaviyo let online shops send emails and texts based on what each shopper had browsed and bought.

Instacart sent personal shoppers to pick groceries off store shelves and bring them to your door.

Arm designed the energy-sipping chip blueprints that nearly every smartphone, and many other devices, are built on.

Mobileye built the chips and software that let a car see lanes, cars, and people with a single camera.

Applied Digital built power-hungry data centers on the North Dakota prairie, first for bitcoin miners and then for AI.

Credo made chips and cables that move data quickly between servers while using less power.

Samsara put cameras and sensors in trucks and factories, so fleet and plant managers could see their operations live.

HashiCorp gave engineers tools to build, secure, and run cloud servers by writing code instead of clicking through consoles.

Braze let apps send the right push, email, or text at the right moment, so customers kept coming back.

IREN built renewable-powered data centers to mine bitcoin, then rented them out for AI computing.

UserTesting let companies watch videos of real people trying their websites and apps, and hear what confused them.

Weave gave dental, eye care, and veterinary offices one system for calls, texts, reminders, reviews, and payments.

Expensify let workers snap a photo of a receipt and file their expense report without the paperwork.

Backblaze backed up people's computers and stored companies' data in its own cloud, for far less than the giants charged.

Rivian builds electric pickups and SUVs for people who like mud, plus delivery vans for Amazon.

Cian was where Russians went online to find an apartment to buy or rent, starting in Moscow.

NerdWallet compared credit cards, loans, and insurance in plain language, and got paid when readers signed up.

GlobalFoundries makes chips that other companies design, in factories in New York, Germany, Singapore, and Vermont.

Udemy let anyone teach an online course and sell it to learners anywhere in the world.

Arteris licensed the on-chip networks that move data between the many parts of a modern processor.

Informatica moved, cleaned, and connected a company's data so its systems and analysts could trust it.

Rent the Runway let women wear designer dresses for a night, or a month, without buying them.

Enfusion gave hedge funds and asset managers one cloud system for trading, risk, and accounting, replacing patched-together software.

IHS built and rented out the cell towers that carry phone calls and data across Africa and other emerging markets.

GitLab gave software teams one app to store code, review it, test it and ship it.

AvidXchange let midsize companies receive, approve, and pay their bills electronically instead of shuffling paper and checks.

Amplitude showed product teams what users did inside their apps, so they could build what people kept using.

Clearwater gave insurers, companies and asset managers one clear daily view of every investment they held.

Remitly let immigrants send money home from a phone, faster and cheaper than a wire office counter.

EngageSmart made software that let therapists run their practices and let towns and utilities take bill payments online.

Toast gave restaurants one system to take orders, run the kitchen, pay staff, and process every card payment.

Freshworks sold simple, low-cost help desk and sales software to businesses that found the big brands too costly.

ForgeRock managed logins for big companies, so billions of customers and workers could sign in safely to apps and services.

Definitive Healthcare sold data on hospitals, doctors, and clinics to the companies trying to sell to them.

Thoughtworks built custom software for big companies and taught the industry new ways to write it.

Sportradar sold live sports data to betting companies and media, and watched games for signs of match fixing.

Robinhood let anyone buy stocks and crypto from a phone app with no trading commissions.

Riskified approved more online orders for retailers, and paid them back for any fraud it let through.

PowerSchool ran the grades, attendance, and records software used by most K-12 schools in the U.S. and Canada.

Duolingo made learning a language free, bite-sized, and as habit-forming as a phone game.

MeridianLink sold the software that credit unions and community banks used to take loan applications and decide who got approved.

Instructure made Canvas, the online classroom where millions of students turn in homework and teachers post grades.

Zenvia let Latin American companies reach customers by SMS, WhatsApp, and chat, from marketing to fraud alerts.

Outbrain filled the bottom of news articles with recommended links, and paid publishers for every click.

Kaltura gave companies and universities the software to host, stream, and manage their own video.

Paycor ran payroll and HR software for American businesses with a few dozen to a few thousand workers.

Couchbase sold a fast, flexible database for apps that needed to stay quick under heavy traffic and offline.

VTEX gave big brands and retailers the cloud software to run online stores and marketplaces in many countries at once.

DISCO let lawyers search, sort, and review mountains of documents and email for lawsuits, using cloud software.

Blend gave banks software that let people apply for a mortgage online in minutes, without stacks of paper.

EverCommerce sold booking, billing, and payment software to small service businesses like contractors, clinics, and gyms.

Xometry let engineers upload a part design, get an instant price, and have a machine shop make it.

Integral Ad Science told brands whether their online ads were seen by real people, in safe places.

Intapp built the software that big law, accounting, and investment firms use to run their deals and clients.

Clear let travelers skip airport ID lines by proving who they were with their eyes and fingertips.

Hepsiburada let shoppers across Turkey order almost anything online, from phones to groceries, with fast delivery.

SentinelOne used AI on laptops and servers to spot attacks and stop them without waiting for a human.

LegalZoom let small business owners form a company, write a will, or file a trademark online for a flat fee.

Dingdong delivered fresh vegetables, meat and fish to Chinese city homes within about half an hour of an order.

DiDi let hundreds of millions of people in China hail a taxi or private car from their phones.

Confluent turned Kafka, free software that streams data between apps instantly, into a service companies could rent.

Doximity gave American doctors a private network to message colleagues, send faxes, and run video visits from their phones.

Sprinklr gave big brands one place to post, listen, advertise, and answer customers across every social network.

Full Truck Alliance matched Chinese shippers with truck drivers on an app, so fewer trucks drove home empty.

Nexxen sold video and TV advertising software to both the brands buying ads and the publishers selling them.

WalkMe laid step-by-step pop-up guides over business software, so employees could learn it without a manual.

Kanzhun's BOSS Zhipin app let Chinese job seekers skip the resume pile and message hiring managers directly.

TaskUs staffed the support desks, content review teams and AI data work behind fast-growing tech companies.

Zeta Global let big brands find and reach customers, using its own data on millions of consumers.

monday.com gave teams colorful boards to see who was doing what, and let them build their own work tools.

Marqeta let fintech apps and delivery companies issue their own payment cards, with rules written in code.

1stDibs let collectors anywhere buy vintage furniture, art, and jewelry from the world's top dealers.

ZipRecruiter let small businesses post a job once, send it everywhere, and get matched with good candidates.

Paymentus let people pay their power, water, and insurance bills online, any way they liked.

Flywire let students, patients, and travelers pay big bills abroad in their own currency, without wire transfer headaches.

Procore put every drawing, change order and budget for a building project in one app the whole crew could share.

Squarespace let anyone build a good-looking website, store, or portfolio without hiring a designer.

Global-e let online stores sell to shoppers in other countries, handling local prices, payments, duties and shipping.

Similarweb showed businesses how much traffic their competitors' websites and apps were getting, and where it came from.

KnowBe4 trained employees to spot phishing emails by sending them fake ones and teaching them when they clicked.

SkyWater made chips for other companies in Minnesota, as the only U.S.-owned pure-play silicon foundry.

DoubleVerify told advertisers whether their online ads were real, seen by people, and kept away from ugly content.

UiPath sold software robots that clicked, typed, and copied data so office workers did not have to.

TuSimple built software to let big freight trucks drive themselves on long highway routes.

AppLovin found paying users for mobile app makers, with software that decides which ad to show to whom.

Alkami gave community banks and credit unions mobile and online banking as good as the giants offered.

Coinbase let ordinary people buy, sell and store bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies through a simple app.

Karooooo's Cartrack tracked cars and trucks and turned that data into software that helps fleets run cheaper.

Compass gave real estate agents software and a sleek brand, and signed thousands of them away from older brokerages.

Coursera put courses from top universities online so anyone, anywhere, could learn from them, often for free.

ThredUp let people mail in the clothes they no longer wore and buy secondhand fashion at a steep discount.

Zhihu gave millions of Chinese readers a place to ask hard questions and get long, thoughtful answers from experts.

Semrush showed marketers how people found them online, and how to beat rivals in search results.

Vizio sold affordable smart TVs, then made money from the ads and streaming on their screens.

ACV let car dealers trade used cars with each other in 20-minute online auctions.

DigitalOcean rented simple cloud servers to developers and small businesses at low, flat prices.

Tuya gave appliance makers a ready-made cloud and app, so a cheap lamp or plug could join the smart home.

Olo ran the online ordering behind restaurant chains' own apps and websites, so customers could skip the line.

Coupang delivered almost anything in South Korea by the next morning, often before people woke up.

Roblox gave kids millions of games built by other players, and the tools to build and sell their own.

Bumble built a dating app where women send the first message, then stretched the idea to friendship and work.

Viant gave advertisers software to buy ads on connected TVs, phones, streaming audio, and billboards from one screen.

ON24 ran webinars and virtual events for businesses, and told sales teams which viewers were ready to buy.

TELUS International answered customers, moderated content, and labeled AI training data for big tech brands.

Qualtrics let companies ask customers and employees how they felt, then showed them what to fix.

Mytheresa sold designer fashion online to the world's biggest spenders, picked with a boutique buyer's eye.

Playtika made free mobile games, led by Slotomania, that earn money when players buy coins and boosts.

Poshmark let people sell the clothes in their closets from their phones, to shoppers who followed them like friends.

Affirm let shoppers split a purchase into fixed payments and see the full cost before they clicked buy.

Wish sold rock-bottom-priced goods from overseas merchants to shoppers on their phones, if they were willing to wait.

Upstart let banks approve more borrowers at lower rates by judging loans with AI instead of credit scores alone.

Certara let drug makers test medicines on simulated patients first, saving time and money before real trials began.

C3.ai sold big companies and governments ready-made software for building and running AI applications.

Airbnb let travelers stay in strangers' homes and let hosts earn money from a spare room or an empty house.

PubMatic let websites and apps sell their ad space to the highest bidder, in the split second a page loads.

DoorDash brought food from local restaurants, and later groceries and more, to your door within the hour.

Ozon delivered almost anything to Russian homes, across eleven time zones, from a website that began by selling books.

Allegro made the tiny magnetic sensors and power chips that tell a car's motors where they are.

Lufax used data and the internet to lend money to China's small-business owners and to sell wealth products to savers.

McAfee sold antivirus and online safety software that guarded hundreds of millions of home computers and phones.

Datto gave small businesses big-company backup and recovery, sold through the local IT firms that ran their computers.

Chindata built giant data centers near Chinese cities and filled them with servers for ByteDance.

Palantir built software that let spy agencies, armies, and big companies pull scattered data together and find patterns in it.

Asana gave teams one shared place to see who was doing what, by when, so fewer meetings got wasted.

GoodRx showed Americans how much their prescriptions cost at each pharmacy, then gave them coupons to pay less.

Corsair sold the keyboards, mice, memory and cases that serious PC gamers and streamers build their setups with.

Bentley made the software engineers use to design and run roads, bridges, rail lines, and power plants.

Unity gave small studios the same kind of game engine that big studios built for themselves.

Amwell let patients see a doctor by video, and sold the system to hospitals and health insurers.

Sumo Logic gathered the logs that servers and apps write and turned them into alerts and answers.

JFrog gave software teams one place to store, secure, and ship the finished builds they release to the world.

Snowflake let companies pour all their data into the cloud and query it without managing a single server.

XPeng builds smart electric cars in China, with driver-assist software it writes itself, and is working on flying cars.

Duck Creek sold insurers the software that writes policies, handles claims, and sends bills, delivered from the cloud.

BigCommerce gave merchants an online store they could run without building or hosting the software themselves.

Rackspace ran and fixed other companies' servers and clouds, and sold itself on answering the phone.

Vertex worked out the right sales tax and VAT on every invoice, so big companies did not have to.

Li Auto sold big electric family SUVs in China with a small gas engine that recharged the battery.

Jamf let schools and companies set up, update, and secure thousands of Apple devices from one console.

nCino gave banks one cloud system for opening accounts and making loans, in place of stacks of paper.

Accolade gave employees a person to call who could untangle their health benefits, bills, and doctors.

Agora let app makers add live voice and video with a few lines of code, without building the hard parts.

Shift4 processed card payments for restaurants, hotels, and stadiums, tied into the software they already ran.

Dada brought supermarket orders to Chinese homes within the hour, using hundreds of thousands of riders on call.

ZoomInfo sold sales teams a giant, constantly updated directory of companies and the people who make buying decisions inside them.

Kingsoft Cloud rented computing power and storage to Chinese companies, from video apps to phone makers.

Sprout Social let brands answer, schedule, and measure their social media from one screen.

OneConnect sold China's banks and insurers the cloud software Ping An had built for itself.

Livongo let people with diabetes share their blood sugar readings and get advice the moment one looked wrong.

Bill.com let small businesses pay and get paid online, so owners stopped writing paper checks.

SiTime made tiny silicon timing chips that keep electronics in sync, built to outlast the quartz crystals they replace.

Canaan designed the chips and machines that bitcoin miners run around the clock to earn new coins.

Youdao turned China's most popular dictionary app into a business selling online courses and learning tools.

Peloton put a live spin class on a screen bolted to a bike in your living room.

Ping Identity let workers and customers sign in once and safely reach every app a big company ran.

Datadog gave engineers one screen to watch all their servers and apps, and a warning when something broke.

Cloudflare made more than 20 million websites faster and kept attackers out, often for free.

Dynatrace watched over companies' software and told engineers what broke, where, and why, before customers noticed.

Health Catalyst gave hospitals one place to pull their scattered records together and use the data to improve care.

Phreesia let patients check in at the doctor's office on a tablet instead of a clipboard.

Medallia let big companies hear what their customers thought, and act on it before they lost them.

DouYu let Chinese gamers watch their favorite players stream live and pay them in virtual gifts.

Change Healthcare ran the hidden network that carried medical bills and insurance claims between doctors, hospitals, and insurers.

The RealReal let people sell their designer clothes, bags and watches, with experts checking each piece was real.

Cambium sold radios that beam internet across fields and rooftops to places cables never reach.

Slack moved office talk out of email and into channels anyone on the team could search and join.

Chewy shipped pet food to your door on a schedule, with service reps who sent flowers when a pet died.

Fiverr let anyone hire a freelancer for a logo or a translation as easily as buying a book online.

CrowdStrike guarded company computers from hackers with software that lived in the cloud and learned from every attack.

Revolve sold young shoppers the clothes they saw on Instagram, picked by data and promoted by influencers.

Gaotu put star teachers in front of thousands of Chinese students at once, live, with a tutor for each child.

Fastly kept big websites quick by serving their pages from servers close to each reader.

Uber let anyone summon a car with a phone, then grew into food delivery and freight.

SciPlay put casino slot machines on phones for free, then sold players more coins to keep spinning.

Pinterest let people save pictures of what they wanted to cook, wear, build, or buy, and plan around them.

Zoom made video meetings start with one click, so nobody spent the first ten minutes fixing the call.

Jumia let shoppers across Africa order online and pay on delivery, in markets few big retailers dared to serve.

PagerDuty woke up the right engineer the moment a website or app broke, so outages got fixed faster.

Tufin let big companies see and change thousands of firewall rules from one screen without breaking anything.

Huya let millions of Chinese gamers watch their favorite players stream live and tip them with virtual gifts.

Lyft let anyone with a phone call a ride from a nearby driver in a personal car.

Tiger Brokers gave Chinese investors a phone app to buy US and Hong Kong stocks.

Futu let investors in Hong Kong and mainland China trade stocks from a phone app with a social feed.

Pinduoduo let shoppers in China team up with friends to buy fruit, tissues, and clothes at group prices.

360 Finance matched Chinese borrowers with banks through a lending app, using data to judge who would pay back.

Tencent Music runs China's biggest music apps, where people stream songs, sing karaoke and tip live performers.

MOGU sold everyday fashion to young Chinese shoppers through influencers, live video and its Mogujie app.

StoneCo gave Brazilian shopkeepers card readers, fast payouts, and real people to call when something broke.

Niu sold sleek lithium-battery electric scooters in China and abroad, each connected to the rider's phone.

Anaplan let big companies plan the whole business in one live model instead of a thousand spreadsheets.

Elastic gave developers a free, fast way to search mountains of text, logs and security data.

Upwork let businesses hire skilled freelancers anywhere in the world, with contracts and payment handled for them.

SurveyMonkey let anyone write a survey, send a link and watch the answers come back in charts.

Farfetch let shoppers anywhere buy from hundreds of small luxury boutiques through a single website.

Eventbrite let anyone running an event, from a yoga class to a conference, sell tickets online.

Qutoutiao was a Chinese news app that rewarded readers with points for reading articles and recruiting friends.

NIO built premium electric SUVs for Chinese drivers, with batteries you could swap out in minutes.

Arlo made wire-free security cameras you could mount anywhere and check from your phone.

Sonos put wireless speakers in every room and let one app play music through all of them.

Opera made fast web browsers for phones and computers, used by hundreds of millions of people outside the big names.

Endava built and ran software for banks, payment firms and media companies, using engineers across Central and Eastern Europe.

Tenable shows companies every weak spot in their networks before an attacker finds it.

EverQuote let people shop for car, home and life insurance online, then sold those shoppers to insurers and agents.

Uxin let Chinese buyers find, finance and buy secondhand cars online, from dealers and from each other.

Avalara worked out the sales tax on every sale and filed the returns, so businesses did not have to.

GreenSky let contractors and medical offices offer customers instant loans, funded by partner banks.

Pluralsight taught developers and IT staff new technical skills through a library of expert video courses.

Carbon Black watched every laptop and server in a company, so security teams could stop attacks and trace them.

Smartsheet turned the familiar spreadsheet grid into a shared place to plan projects and track work.

DocuSign let people sign contracts on a screen, so deals closed in minutes instead of days of printing and faxing.

Dayforce ran payroll, schedules, and HR for big employers in one cloud system that kept pay up to date daily.

Pivotal taught big, old companies to build and run software the way Silicon Valley startups did.

Zuora let companies sell subscriptions instead of one-time products, handling the billing, pricing, and revenue math.

Spotify let people play almost any song on demand, free with ads or for a monthly fee.

Bilibili gave young Chinese fans of anime, comics and games a video site where they could watch and talk together.

Dropbox put your files on every computer and phone you owned, and made sharing them easy.

Zscaler let companies protect workers anywhere by checking their internet traffic in the cloud instead of in office boxes.

Huami designed and built Xiaomi's cheap fitness bands, then sold smartwatches under its own Amazfit brand.

Cardlytics put cash-back offers inside online banking, using card purchase data to show who bought what.

Stitch Fix mailed you clothes picked by a stylist and a computer, and you kept only what you liked.

SailPoint showed big companies exactly who could open which apps and files, and helped them take access away.

SendGrid let developers send password resets, receipts and newsletters by email without landing in the spam folder.

Bandwidth gave software companies phone numbers, calling, texting and 911 service through simple code.

Sogou let Chinese phone users search the web and type Chinese faster, with a search engine and a keyboard app.

Aquantia made chips that pushed much faster Ethernet over the copper cables already in buildings and data centers.

Altair let engineers test cars, planes and parts in software before anyone built a physical prototype.

Forescout showed companies every device on their network and kept risky ones away from everything else.

Sea turned a Southeast Asian gaming business into the region's biggest online shopping app and a digital bank.

MongoDB gave developers a database that stored data the way their code already thought about it.

CarGurus told used-car shoppers whether a listed price was a great deal or a bad one.

Switch built huge, power-hungry data center campuses in the Nevada desert and rented the space to big companies.

Roku made streaming on the TV easy, first with small boxes, then with software built into sets.

Despegar let Latin Americans book flights, hotels and package trips online, in their own currency and language.

Redfin let people buy and sell homes with salaried agents, honest data and lower commissions.

Tintri made storage that understood virtual machines, so IT teams could tune each application on its own.

Blue Apron shipped measured ingredients and recipe cards so people could cook dinner at home without shopping.

Appian let big companies and government agencies build their own business apps by drawing them, with little hand-written code.

Veritone let media companies and police search their audio and video using AI tools from many vendors at once.

Carvana let people buy a used car online, finance it and have it delivered to their door.

Cloudera let big companies store and sift huge piles of data using Hadoop, free software named after a toy elephant.

Yext let businesses fix their hours and addresses once and have them show up right on Google, Siri and Yelp.

Netshoes sold sneakers, jerseys and sports gear online to millions of shoppers across Brazil.

Okta gave workers one login for all their work apps, and gave IT one place to control it.

Alteryx let business analysts clean, blend and study their data by dragging boxes, with no programming.

MuleSoft let big companies connect their old systems and new apps, so data could move between them.

Presidio designed, installed and ran the networks, data centers, cloud systems and security of midsize companies.

Snapchat let young people talk in pictures that vanished, and its Stories format spread across the industry.

trivago let travelers compare hotel prices from many booking sites in one search.

GDS built and ran the big, power-hungry data centers that China's cloud and internet companies rent.

Quantenna made the fast Wi-Fi chips inside the gateways and set-top boxes cable companies gave customers.

BlackLine gave finance teams cloud software to close the books each month without endless spreadsheets.

Everspin makes magnetic memory chips that are as fast as RAM but keep their data when the power cuts out.

Nutanix let companies run their own data centers like a cloud, with storage and computing folded into one simple system.

Apptio showed chief information officers what their technology cost and where the money went, line by line.

The Trade Desk let ad buyers bid for space across websites, apps and streaming TV from one screen.

Everbridge sent urgent alerts by call, text and email to the people who needed them during storms, attacks and outages.

Talend gave away software to move and clean company data, then sold the version big teams needed.

Impinj makes the tiny RFID chips that let stores and warehouses count and track individual items by radio.

LINE gave hundreds of millions of people across Asia a free way to chat, call, and send cartoon stickers.

Twilio let any programmer add calls and text messages to an app with a few lines of code.

Acacia built optical chips and modules that pushed more data down each strand of fiber between data centers and cities.

SecureWorks watched clients' networks around the clock and stepped in when attackers got through.

Atlassian sold Jira and Confluence to software teams cheaply online, and let the tools spread through companies on their own.

Mimecast protected, backed up and archived company email from the cloud, so attacks and outages never reached the inbox.

Square let a coffee cart or a craft-fair seller take credit cards with a phone and a small plastic reader.

Match Group owned the apps where millions of single people met, from Match.com to OkCupid to Tinder.

Canvas gave teachers and students one simple place online to post, turn in and grade coursework.

Pure Storage replaced the slow spinning disks in company data centers with fast, simple flash memory.

Rapid7 showed companies the weak spots in their systems and watched for attackers trying to use them.

Ooma sold a small device that gave homes and small businesses phone service over the internet, with low monthly costs.

Xactly worked out what salespeople were owed, so reps trusted their pay and managers knew which plans worked.

Alarm.com connected home alarms, cameras, locks and thermostats to the cloud, so owners could check them from a phone.

AppFolio gave small and midsize property managers one cloud system for rent, repairs, accounting and tenants.

TransUnion tracks how hundreds of millions of people borrow and repay, and sells that record to lenders.

Mindbody gave yoga studios, gyms and salons software to run their business, and gave customers an app to book.

Fitbit counted your steps and your sleep, and nudged millions of people to move a little more.

Baozun ran the online shops of global brands in China, from the website to the warehouse to customer service.

Shopify let small sellers open an online store in an afternoon, without hiring a programmer.

Apigee gave companies the tools to open their data and services to outside apps through managed APIs.

Etsy gave knitters, potters and vintage sellers their own shops, and buyers a place to find them.

GoDaddy sold millions of small businesses their web address, then the hosting, email and site tools to use it.

SolarEdge made the electronics that squeeze more power out of each rooftop solar panel and track it online.

Box let big companies keep their files in the cloud without scaring their security teams.

OnDeck lent small businesses money online, with an answer in minutes and the cash within a day.

Connecture let insurers and state exchanges show health plans online, so shoppers could compare prices and enroll.

Workiva gave finance teams one cloud tool to write, check and file their reports with regulators.

Hortonworks sold support and tools for Hadoop, the free software big companies used to store and crunch huge data sets.

LendingClub let ordinary investors fund other people's personal loans online, often loans to pay off credit cards.

New Relic showed software teams how fast their apps ran and where they slowed down.

Momo let people in China find and chat with strangers nearby, based on where they were and what they liked.

Zayo bought and built fiber networks, then leased the bandwidth to carriers, cloud companies and big businesses.

HubSpot gave small businesses the tools to pull in customers with blogs, search, and email instead of cold calls.

Wayfair sold furniture and home goods online from a huge catalog, shipped mostly from suppliers' warehouses.

Travelport ran the booking systems that travel agents and websites used to find and sell airline seats and hotel rooms.

CyberArk protected the powerful admin accounts that attackers hunt for once they get inside a network.

Alibaba gave Chinese shoppers and small merchants one giant place to buy and sell almost anything online.

Mobileye taught cars to see the road with one camera and a chip, so they could brake in time.

TubeMogul gave brands self-serve software to buy, place and measure video ads across websites, apps and TV.

Globant built websites, apps and software for big companies using engineers across Latin America.

GoPro gave surfers, skiers, and bikers a tiny tough camera to film themselves in the middle of the action.

Xunlei made the download accelerator that most Chinese internet users relied on to fetch movies, games and files.

MobileIron let companies secure the apps and data on employees' phones, even phones the employees owned.

Arista built fast network switches for the giant data centers behind the cloud, and took on Cisco to sell them.

JD.com sold electronics and then everything else online, and delivered it with its own couriers.

TrueCar showed car buyers what others paid for the same car, then sent them to dealers with a set price.

Jumei sold Chinese shoppers discounted makeup and skincare online, one limited-time deal at a time.

Zendesk gave companies a simple way to answer customer emails, chats, and calls without the chaos of a crowded inbox.

Cheetah Mobile made free apps that cleaned, sped up and protected Android phones, paid for by ads.

Sabre ran the booking system that travel agents, websites and airlines used to sell seats and rooms.

Weibo gave hundreds of millions of Chinese users a public feed for news, gossip and celebrity posts.

Paycom ran payroll, hiring, time clocks and HR for businesses from one online system.

Grubhub let hungry people order takeout from local restaurants online, without hunting for a paper menu.

Five9 moved call centers into the cloud, so companies could answer customers without owning phone hardware.

Opower got people to use less electricity by showing them how their bills stacked up against their neighbors'.

Rubicon Project ran instant auctions that let websites sell each ad slot to the highest bidder.

Everyday Health gave readers health advice online and gave drug makers a way to reach patients and doctors.

Aerohive let companies run office Wi-Fi from the cloud, with no costly central controller box.

2U built and ran online degree programs for well-known universities, from marketing to classes to student support.

King made free puzzle games like Candy Crush Saga that people played in short bursts on their phones.

A10 Networks makes the gear that spreads web traffic across servers so busy apps stay fast and online.

Q2 gave small community banks and credit unions the slick online and mobile banking their big rivals had.

Paylocity runs payroll and HR in the cloud for companies too big for a spreadsheet and too small for SAP.

Castlight showed employees what doctors and procedures would cost before they got care.

Coupons.com gave shoppers digital discounts from big brands, online and on grocery store loyalty cards.

Varonis showed companies who could see and touch their files, and flagged it when someone touched the wrong ones.

Nimble sold fast flash storage that watched itself from the cloud and flagged trouble before customers noticed.

Autohome was China's top car website, where buyers read reviews, compared prices and traded advice in busy forums.

Zulily ran fresh flash sales every day on clothes, toys and home goods for moms and their kids.

Chegg saved college students money on textbooks, then sold them homework help by the month.

Wix let anyone build a website by dragging boxes around a page, with no code and no web designer.

Mavenir sold software that let mobile carriers run voice calls and texts over their new 4G LTE networks.

Twitter let anyone post a short message that the whole world could read, reply to, and pass along.

Barracuda sold small and midsize businesses simple, affordable boxes and cloud services to block spam and attacks.

Qunar let Chinese travelers search every airline and hotel site at once and find the cheapest trip.

58.com let people in China find a plumber, an apartment, a used car or a job from local listings.

Criteo showed shoppers ads for the exact products they had looked at and left behind.

Endurance hosted websites for millions of small businesses under brands like Bluehost and HostGator.

Veeva built cloud software for drug makers alone, covering sales calls, clinical trials and regulatory work.

RingCentral let businesses run their phone system from the cloud for a monthly fee, with no hardware.

Violin Memory sold all-flash storage arrays that made databases run much faster than spinning disks.

Applied Optoelectronics makes the lasers and optical parts that move data through data centers and cable TV networks.

FireEye caught hackers' newest attacks by opening suspicious files in a safe virtual machine and watching what happened.

Rocket Fuel used machine learning to decide, in real time, which online ads to buy for advertisers.

Benefitfocus ran cloud software where employees, employers and insurers shopped for, signed up for and managed benefits.

Control4 let homeowners run their lights, music, TVs, locks and thermostats from one remote or phone.

RetailMeNot found shoppers a working coupon code before they paid, and charged stores a cut of the sale.

Tremor Video sold and measured the video ads that play before online clips, for brands and their agencies.

CDW sells computers, software and IT services to businesses, schools, hospitals and governments without big IT staffs.

Luxoft wrote complex software for banks, carmakers and tech firms using engineers across Russia, Ukraine, Romania and Poland.

Gogo let airline passengers get online in the air, then turned to serving private and business jets.

Gigamon copied network traffic and sent it to the security and monitoring tools that needed to see it.

LightInTheBox sold Chinese-made dresses, gadgets and home goods straight to shoppers around the world.

ChannelAdvisor let retailers and brands list and sell their products on Amazon, eBay, Google and hundreds of other channels.

Tableau let ordinary office workers turn a spreadsheet into a chart by dragging and dropping, with no code.

Marketo told marketers which people were ready to buy, and sent each one the right email at the right time.

Qiwi let Russians pay phone bills, loans and online purchases in cash at a kiosk on the corner.

Blackhawk Network put gift cards for hundreds of brands on the racks of grocery and drug stores.

Intelsat runs a fleet of communications satellites that carry TV channels, airline Wi-Fi, and military and corporate networks.

EVERTEC runs the ATM and debit network and card processing behind much of Puerto Rico's daily spending.

Rally gave software teams a shared online board to plan and track their work in short, fast cycles.

Marin gave advertisers and agencies one place to manage, measure and tune their search, social and display ads.

Model N let drug and chip makers track the prices, contracts and rebates that decide what they actually earn.

YY ran live voice and video rooms in China where people sang, played games and bought virtual gifts for performers.

Ruckus built Wi-Fi gear with smart antennas that steered the signal toward each device for stronger, steadier connections.

Workday moved the payroll, hiring, and staff records of big companies off their own servers and into the cloud.

Shutterstock sold stock photos, illustrations and video clips for a flat subscription instead of a price per picture.

Ambarella designs the chips that turn raw camera images into sharp, compact video, from action cameras to cars.

Fleetmatics showed small businesses where their trucks and vans were, how fast they drove, and how much fuel they burned.

LifeLock watched for signs that someone was using your name and credit, and promised to fix it if they did.

Qualys scanned company networks for security holes from the cloud, so nobody had to install scanning software.

Trulia let home buyers search listings on a map, and see the neighborhood before they called an agent.

ExactTarget gave marketers software to send, track and tune email, text and social campaigns to their customers.

Eloqua let marketers track every prospect's clicks and emails, then hand the warmest leads to sales.

E2open connected big manufacturers with their suppliers, shippers and contract factories on one cloud network.

KAYAK let travelers compare flights, hotels and rental cars from hundreds of booking sites in one search.

Palo Alto Networks built firewalls that could tell which app was talking, so companies could block the risky ones.

ServiceNow gave companies one cloud platform to track IT fixes, then HR, customer service and security work.

Facebook connected people with their real friends and family online, and later bought Instagram and WhatsApp.

Infoblox made the boxes and software that give every device on a network its address and name.

Proofpoint kept spam, phishing and malware out of company inboxes, and kept sensitive data from leaking out.

Splunk let engineers search the logs their machines spit out, so they could find what broke and why.

Enphase made small inverters that sit under each solar panel, turning sunlight into household power more safely and reliably.

CafePress let anyone sell T-shirts, mugs and posters with their own designs, printed only when ordered.

Millennial Media placed ads for brands inside phone apps and mobile websites, using data to target users.

Vipshop sold discounted brand-name clothes and goods in short online flash sales to Chinese shoppers.

Vantiv moved the money every time a shopper swiped a card at a store, a gas pump or a website.

MACOM designs analog chips that move radio, microwave and fiber-optic signals through networks, radars and satellites.

Demandware ran the online stores of big retail and consumer brands from the cloud, for a cut of sales.

Yelp let people read and write reviews of local businesses, from restaurants and salons to plumbers.

Bazaarvoice collected customer ratings and reviews and showed them on retail and brand websites.

Brightcove gave media companies and brands the tools to host, play and make money from video on their own sites.

Synacor built the home pages, email and logins that cable and internet companies gave customers under their own brands.

EPAM rented out skilled software engineers from Eastern Europe to build and test products for Western companies.

AVG gave away antivirus software to millions of people, then sold upgrades to the ones who wanted more.

Guidewire sold insurers modern software to write policies, pay claims and send bills, replacing their aging core systems.

Zynga made free social games like FarmVille and Zynga Poker, then became a major mobile game publisher.

Jive gave big companies their own private social networks, where employees shared ideas and found each other's work.

Angie's List sold memberships that let homeowners read trusted reviews of plumbers, roofers, doctors and other local services.

InvenSense made tiny motion sensors that let game controllers, phones and cameras know how they were moving.

Groupon emailed millions of people one half-price local deal a day, unlocked once enough of them bought it.

Ubiquiti sold low-cost wireless gear that let small operators bring broadband to places big carriers skipped.

Tudou let Chinese internet users upload, share and watch videos on one of the country's first video sites.

Carbonite let ordinary people stop worrying about a dead hard drive, for one flat yearly price.

Zillow let anyone see what a home was worth, including their own and their neighbor's.

HomeAway let families find a beach house or a cabin for the week without a stack of classified ads.

Pandora played you a free radio station built around one song you loved, then found more music like it.

Fusion-io put flash memory right inside servers, so busy websites stopped waiting on spinning disks.

Active Network ran the online sign-ups for races, campsites, sports leagues, fishing licenses and conferences.

LinkedIn let people keep their résumé online, so the next job could come looking for them.

Jiayuan gave China's urban singles a place to find someone to marry, through a dating website built on trust and serious intent.

Phoenix New Media ran ifeng.com, a Chinese news portal born from the Hong Kong broadcaster Phoenix TV.

FriendFinder ran dozens of paid dating and adult sites, plus Penthouse, and went public carrying heavy debt.

Renren gave Chinese college students one place to post photos, share news and find their friends.

Boingo got travelers online at the airport gate, then built wireless networks for stadiums and military bases.

Responsys let big brands send millions of personal marketing emails and texts, and track who responded.

21Vianet ran data centers across China that any network or company could plug into.

Sequans designed the radio chips that let phones, hotspots, and connected devices talk to 4G wireless networks.

Ellie Mae let lenders close home loans in software instead of by fax and courier.

Qihoo 360 gave China free antivirus software, then earned its money from the browser and search box it shipped alongside.

NeoPhotonics made the optical chips and modules that push internet traffic through fiber networks as pulses of light.

Demand Media paid freelancers to write the how-to articles people were searching for, then sold ads beside them.

GAIN Capital let ordinary people trade dollars, euros and yen from home, at any hour.

FleetCor, now Corpay, gave trucking and delivery fleets fuel cards that let managers control what drivers spent.

Dangdang sold books to Chinese readers online, then grew into a general store shipped to the door.

Youku gave Chinese viewers a free place to stream TV shows, films and homemade videos.

Bitauto let Chinese car buyers research new cars online and gave dealers software to reach them.

Inphi made high-speed analog chips that moved data quickly and cleanly between memory, servers and optical networks.

NetSpend sold reloadable prepaid debit cards to people who lived without a regular bank account.

ChinaCache stored copies of websites and videos on servers across China so pages loaded fast for users everywhere.

SouFun ran China's leading real estate website, where home buyers searched listings and developers paid to reach them.

RealPage sold landlords software to run apartment buildings, from screening tenants to setting rents.

IntraLinks gave bankers and lawyers secure online rooms to share confidential deal documents.

NXP makes the chips inside car systems, contactless cards and phones, spun out of the Dutch electronics giant Philips.

Envestnet gave independent financial advisers the tools the big brokerages had, so they could compete on their own.

Green Dot sold prepaid debit cards at Walmart and drugstores to people who did not have, or want, a bank.

RealD put 3D on movie theater screens and handed audiences the glasses to see it.

Qlik let ordinary business people click through their company's data and find answers without waiting on IT.

SMART put touch-screen whiteboards in classrooms, so teachers could write, tap and drag lessons on the wall.

AutoNavi drew the digital maps of China that car navigation systems and phone apps used to find their way.

Tesla made electric cars that people wanted to drive fast, then pushed the whole car industry toward batteries.

Fabrinet builds the precise optical parts that move data through the fiber networks other companies design.

BroadSoft sold phone companies the software to run business phone and video calling over the internet.

ReachLocal got plumbers, dentists and restaurants found on Google without making them learn how search ads work.

Convio let charities collect donations, send email and stay close to supporters over the internet.

Alpha and Omega designs power chips that move electricity efficiently inside laptops, phones, TVs and servers.

SPS Commerce connected suppliers to the retailers they sold to, so orders, invoices and shipping notices flowed automatically.

SS&C sold software and services that ran the trading, accounting and reporting behind investment firms.

MaxLinear made tiny radio chips that let TVs, set-top boxes and phones pick up broadcast and cable signals.

Calix sells small and rural internet providers the equipment and software to bring fiber broadband to homes.

Financial Engines told workers how to invest their 401(k) savings, and for a fee managed the money itself.

QuinStreet found people shopping for a degree, a policy or a loan, and sold their interest to companies.

Fortinet sold one network box that did the work of a firewall, antivirus, and intrusion blocker together.

Ancestry let families trace their roots from home, using billions of scanned historical records.

Shanda Games ran online fantasy worlds that Chinese players logged into for years, starting with Legend of Mir II.

Vitacost sold vitamins and supplements online for less than the health food store down the street.

Avago made the analog and wireless chips inside phones and networks, then bought its way into becoming Broadcom.

LogMeIn let people reach their own computers from anywhere, and let IT staff fix machines without a visit.

Medidata ran clinical trials in the cloud, replacing the paper forms drug companies used to collect patient data.

OpenTable let diners book a restaurant table online in seconds, at any hour.

SolarWinds sold IT administrators cheap, downloadable tools that warned them when their networks broke.

Rosetta Stone taught languages through software that used pictures and immersion instead of grammar drills and translation.

Changyou ran online role-playing games for millions of Chinese players, led by the martial arts epic Tian Long Ba Bu.

Rackspace ran companies' servers for them and answered the phone, day or night, when something broke.

ArcSight gathered security alerts and logs from across a company's network and spotted the attacks hiding in them.

NetSuite let growing companies run their books, orders and inventory in a web browser.

K12 let kids take a full public school course load from home, with certified teachers online.

Entropic made chips that sent video between rooms over the coaxial cable already inside homes.

SuccessFactors put employee goals, reviews and pay decisions online, so managers could see how their people were doing.

Internet Brands ran hundreds of small websites and forums, each built for one loyal crowd.

3PAR built storage arrays that let big companies and web firms share disk space flexibly, like a utility.

American Public Education let soldiers and veterans earn a degree online from wherever they were posted.

SoundBite let banks and utilities send reminder calls, texts and emails without owning any call center equipment.

Giant Interactive gave Chinese gamers a vast online war for free, then sold them the weapons to win it.

Longtop sold software and IT services to Chinese banks, until its auditor said the books were false.

Maxcom gave Mexican homes and small businesses an alternative to Telmex for phone, internet and TV.

Virgin Mobile USA sold no-contract cell phone plans to young people, using Sprint's network and Richard Branson's brand.

Compellent sold smart, easy storage networks that let midsize companies keep and protect huge amounts of data.

Constant Contact let a florist, a dentist or a church send a good-looking email newsletter without hiring help.

athenahealth took over the billing headaches of doctors' offices and got their insurance claims paid faster.

VMware let one server act like many, so companies could do more work with fewer machines.

MercadoLibre let people across Latin America buy and sell online and trust strangers with their money.

DemandTec helped big retailers set prices, promotions and markdowns using data on how shoppers actually behave.

HireRight let big employers check a job candidate's record with a click instead of a stack of paperwork.

Virtusa wrote and maintained software for big banks and phone companies, with engineers in Sri Lanka and India.

Genpact ran finance, claims and other back-office work for big companies from India and other low-cost centers.

Perfect World built its own 3D game engine and online fantasy games, then sold them in China and abroad.

BladeLogic automated the chores of running thousands of data center servers, from setup to patches to audits.

Monotype licensed the fonts that printers, phones, cars and software used to put words on screens and pages.

Airvana built the software and gear that let cell networks carry fast internet to phones and laptops.

Orbitz let travelers compare fares and book flights, hotels and packages in one fast search.

Netezza sold ready-made machines that let companies search mountains of data much faster than older systems.

Dice let tech workers find their next job, and let employers search for the résumés they needed.

ShoreTel sold business phone systems that ran over a company's computer network instead of old phone wiring.

Spreadtrum designed the main chips for low-cost mobile phones, many of them built in China.

Data Domain shrank company backups by keeping one copy of repeated data, so disks could replace tape.

Comscore told websites and advertisers how many people visited, and what those people did online.

Limelight delivered video streams, downloads and web pages fast to people anywhere in the world.

Infinera packed dozens of optical parts onto one chip, making long-distance fiber networks cheaper and simpler to run.

Starent built the gear that let wireless carriers move internet traffic to and from millions of phones.

TechTarget gave IT buyers free research, and told tech vendors who was reading it.

Interactive Brokers gave traders cheap, automated access to more than 60 exchanges around the world.

Cavium designed processors that let network gear move and secure traffic at high speed.

Veraz Networks sold phone carriers the gear to carry voice calls over the internet for less.

Supermicro built the server boards and racks that data centers filled with chips, and later with AI.

Aruba let hospitals, universities and offices run thousands of secure Wi-Fi connections from one place.

Glu made games for mobile phones, from Monopoly to Diner Dash, sold through phone carriers.

BigBand sold cable companies the gear to squeeze more TV channels and faster internet through their networks.

Clearwire sold fast wireless internet to homes and laptops before 4G phones made it ordinary.

Switch & Data rented space where rival networks plugged into each other, without taking sides.

U.S. Auto Parts sold replacement car parts online for well below what dealers and repair shops charged.

Mellanox made the chips and switches that let thousands of servers trade data with almost no delay.

Isilon built storage systems that held huge video and media files and grew by adding another box.

Double-Take kept a live copy of a company's servers elsewhere, so work could continue when disaster struck.

IPG Photonics makes fiber lasers that cut, weld and mark metal in factories around the world.

Capella let working adults earn master's and doctoral degrees online, on their own schedule.

ORBCOMM used small low-orbit satellites to send short data messages from trucks, ships and machines anywhere on Earth.

Globalstar ran a fleet of low satellites that let people call and text from places with no cell towers.

Acme Packet made the boxes that let internet phone calls pass safely between carriers' networks.

eHealth let people who bought their own health insurance compare plans and prices online.

Shutterfly turned the digital photos piling up on people's computers into prints, books and holiday cards.

DivX squeezed full-length movies small enough to download, and got its format built into millions of DVD players.

CommVault let big organizations back up, archive and recover all their data from one system.

Riverbed made files and applications open quickly in branch offices far from the company's data center.

Omniture showed online stores where their visitors came from, what they did and what they bought.

Synchronoss ran the software that signed up and switched on customers for phone and cable companies.

LoopNet let brokers, buyers and tenants find offices, shops and warehouses for sale or lease online.

Vonage let people keep their phone number and call anywhere in the country for one flat monthly fee.

Liquidity Services sold surplus and returned goods online, from retailers' extra stock to government vehicles.

NightHawk let small radiology groups sleep through the night while doctors abroad read their emergency scans.

Traffic.com told drivers where the jams were, live, on the radio, the web and the car's navigation screen.

DealerTrack let car dealers send a buyer's credit application to many lenders at once and hear back in minutes.

Vocus gave public relations teams one place online to find reporters, send releases and track coverage.

SunPower made high-efficiency solar cells and panels that squeezed more power from every square foot of roof.

Vimicro designed the processors inside PC webcams, from a base in Beijing.

Taleo gave big employers web software to post jobs, sort applicants and manage hiring from one place.

WebMD explained conditions, drugs and treatments in plain language to anyone who searched their symptoms.

TRX handled the routine work behind business trips, so travel agencies and corporations did not have to.

Heartland processed card payments for restaurants and small shops, and promised them fair, plain pricing.

Baidu built the search engine most people in China used to find things on the web.

Eschelon gave small businesses in the West and Midwest one local provider for phones and internet.

Unica sold software that let marketers plan, target and measure their campaigns, from direct mail to email.

Hittite designed the chips that send and receive high-frequency radio signals in radios, radar, satellites and test gear.

Focus Media put flat-screen ads beside the elevators of China's office towers, where bored workers had nothing else to watch.

Silicon Motion designed the controller chips that make flash memory cards and USB drives work.

Neustar kept your phone number working when you switched carriers, as the neutral referee between rival networks.

Rackable built dense, cool-running servers for giant data centers, then bought Silicon Graphics and took its name.

VeriFone made the card terminals on store counters, so any shop could take credit and debit cards.

Fastclick placed ads across thousands of small and mid-size websites and paid the site owners a share.

Dolby made the sound technology that kept tapes, films and phones clear, and charged a small fee on each device.

Syniverse passed calls, texts and roaming bills between rival mobile carriers, so phones worked across networks.

Valor ran local phone service in rural Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Arkansas, and paid investors a large dividend.

optionsXpress let everyday investors trade stock options online for low fees, with tools once kept for professionals.

Arbinet let phone carriers buy and sell routes for international calls on one exchange, without private deals.

The9 ran online games for Chinese players, most famously World of Warcraft, before turning to bitcoin mining.

HouseValues told homeowners what their houses were worth for free, then sold their names to local agents.

Ninetowns let Chinese exporters and importers file inspection and quarantine forms online instead of on paper.

Monolithic Power Systems makes chips that manage and convert power inside laptops, servers, cars, and phones.

InPhonic let shoppers compare cell phones and plans online, often with the phone thrown in free.

China Netcom ran the phone lines and broadband in northern China, from Beijing to Liaoning.

MarketAxess let big investors trade corporate bonds on a screen, asking many dealers for prices at once.

eLong let Chinese travelers book hotel rooms and flights through a call center and a website.

PlanetOut gave gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people a place online to find news and each other.

WebSideStory told website owners who was visiting, where they came from and what they did once there.

eCOST.com sold cheap computers, cameras and closeouts online, in deals that vanished when stock ran out.

Google let anyone type a question into a plain white box and find the right page in under a second.

RightNow let companies answer customer questions by web, email and phone, with software rented over the internet.

Volterra made power chips that fed precise, steady voltage to processors in servers, networking gear and storage systems.

LG.Philips LCD made the thin glass panels inside the monitors, laptops and TVs that replaced bulky tube screens.

Greenfield Online let brands and researchers survey the right people online in days instead of weeks.

NetLogic made the chips that let routers decide in an instant where each packet of internet traffic should go.

KongZhong sold text-message news, ringtones, pictures, and games to China's mobile phone users through the carriers.

Salesforce let sales teams track every customer in a web browser, with nothing to install and a monthly bill.

Blackboard gave colleges one website where professors posted syllabi, readings, and grades, and students turned in work.

Blue Nile let people shop for diamonds online, with grades and prices in the open, for less.

Shanda ran China's most popular online game and turned millions of internet cafe players into paying customers.

SiRF made the cheap, low-power GPS chips that put turn-by-turn navigation into cars, handhelds and phones.

PalmSource made Palm OS, the software inside Palm handhelds, and licensed it to Sony, Samsung, Garmin and others.

Marchex sold search ads for merchants, then built software that analyzes the phone calls those ads produce.

SMIC made chips to order for designers around the world, from factories in Shanghai.

TOM Online sold ringtones, games and text alerts to Chinese mobile phone users, billed through their carrier.

ProFlowers shipped fresh flowers in a box straight from the grower, skipping the local florist.

Ctrip let Chinese travelers book hotel rooms and plane tickets by phone or online, at a time when few could.

Open Solutions gave community banks and credit unions modern software to run their accounts and transactions.

DTS made the surround sound that filled movie theaters and home theaters, starting with Jurassic Park.

Tessera invented ways to package chips smaller and licensed them to the companies that made memory and processors.

RedEnvelope picked upscale gifts for busy shoppers and shipped them wrapped in its signature red box.

iPass gave business travelers one account to get online anywhere, by dial-up, hotel network or Wi-Fi.

Plumtree gave each employee one web page that pulled together the company's applications and documents.

Overstock.com sold other companies' surplus goods online at deep discounts, then moved into furniture and home goods.

Netflix mailed DVD rentals with no late fees, then became the world's largest subscription streaming service.

PayPal let anyone with an email address send money online, and made it safe to pay strangers on eBay.

BAM! Entertainment made video games starring familiar cartoon, movie and sports characters for nearly every console.

Alliance Data ran the store credit cards and rewards programs behind familiar retail brands.

Instinet let big investors trade stocks directly by computer, privately and even after the exchanges closed.

Riverstone made fast routers that let telecom carriers run Ethernet across a city, linking offices and data centers.

Novatel Wireless made modems that put laptops on cell networks, then the MiFi hotspot that shared that connection.

Transmeta made low-power laptop chips that used software to run Intel-style programs, for longer battery life.

Wipro wrote software and ran IT projects for companies worldwide from its base in India.

Ixia built machines that flood network gear with simulated traffic, so makers could test it before customers did.

Synplicity made software that turned an engineer's written circuit description into a design for a programmable chip.

Asia Global Crossing laid undersea fiber to carry the internet's traffic between Asia's cities and across the Pacific.

Oplink made the fiber optic components and modules that let telecom gear squeeze more light through each strand.

AvantGo loaded news and web pages onto Palm handhelds so people could read the internet away from a connection.

Intershop sold the software that let European and American companies open online stores in the early web years.

SimpleTech made memory modules and flash cards, then rebuilt itself as STEC to sell fast solid-state drives to data centers.

ASE packaged and tested chips for semiconductor companies around the world, from factories in Taiwan and across Asia.

CoSine built network gear that let phone carriers sell firewalls and private networks to businesses as a service.

TTM made custom printed circuit boards fast, so electronics makers could test and ship new designs sooner.

OmniSky sold a clip-on modem and a monthly plan that put email and the web on Palm handhelds.

WJ Communications made radio chips and parts that let wireless base stations and broadband gear carry signals.

PeoplePC sold a new home computer and internet access together for one monthly fee.

Equinix runs the buildings where networks, cloud providers and companies plug their equipment into each other.

McDATA built the big switches that let a company's servers reach its shared storage over one fast network.

AOL Latin America brought AOL's dial-up internet service to Brazil, Mexico, Argentina and Puerto Rico.

Microtune shrank the bulky radio tuner inside TVs and cable modems down to a single chip.

OPNET's software simulated computer networks, so engineers could see how changes would perform before making them.

Western Multiplex built radio systems that beamed broadband between buildings and towers without digging up streets.

SpeechWorks let callers talk to automated phone systems in plain words instead of punching buttons.

WebEx let people meet online from a web browser, sharing the same screen, slides and video.

TyCom built, laid and fixed the fiber optic cables that carry the internet across the ocean floor.

Blue Martini sold retailers software to run their websites, call centers and mobile sales as one store.

Evoke let businesses set up their own conference calls and online meetings, with no operator in the middle.

Corio let midsize companies rent big business software over the internet instead of installing it themselves.

Support.com made software and services that fixed computer problems remotely, for companies and then for consumers.

OmniVision made the tiny image sensor chips that let phones, laptops and toys take pictures and video.

Network Engines built compact servers and appliances that other tech companies sold under their own brands.

I-many let drug makers track their contracts and rebates, so they stopped losing money to errors.

Sohu gave Chinese readers a web directory, news and email in their own language, early.

Sunrise Telecom made test gear that phone and cable technicians used to find and fix faults in their networks.

divine interVentures backed and ran a network of business internet startups, then tried to remake itself as a software company.

EXFO made the instruments that tell fiber-optic engineers whether their light is getting through.

StorageNetworks stored and backed up companies' data in its own data centers and charged for it like a utility.

Virage made software that let people search video by the words spoken, the faces seen and the scenes shown.

Genuity ran one of the biggest internet backbones, carrying traffic and hosting websites for large businesses.

Marvell designed the chips that move data in and out of hard drives, networks and, later, data centers.

Click Commerce gave manufacturers one website to work with their dealers and distributors on orders, prices and support.

Handspring made the Visor handheld and the Treo, an early phone that also ran your calendar and email.

Rediff.com gave Indians at home and abroad free email, news, chat and online shopping in one portal.

CrossWorlds connected big companies' separate software systems so an order or a customer record flowed between them.

ONI built optical gear that moved data as light across a city's fiber, between offices and long-haul lines.

Sonus built switches that let phone companies carry ordinary voice calls over internet-style data networks.

Centillium made the chips that let phone companies send DSL broadband over the copper lines already in homes.

CoolSavings let shoppers pick coupons online and print them at home, paid for by brands and stores.

Pixelworks made the chips that turn video and computer signals into sharp pictures on screens and projectors.

iBEAM used satellites to beam streaming video and audio to servers near viewers, around the internet's traffic jams.

New Focus made lasers and optical parts that phone companies used to push more data through fiber.

SeeBeyond sold software that let a company's separate systems, and its partners' systems, pass data to each other.

360networks laid fiber optic cable across North America, Europe and the oceans, and sold capacity to carriers.

Embarcadero sold database administrators software to design, tune and manage the databases companies ran on.

Nuance built the speech software that let callers say what they wanted instead of pressing buttons on a phone menu.

HealthStream lets hospitals train and certify their staff online, and keeps the records that prove it.

Saba let large organizations plan, deliver and track employee training, then manage performance and talent.

LivePerson makes chat and messaging software so companies can answer customers on their websites and apps.

ArrowPoint built switches that sent each web request to the server best placed to answer it.

ARTISTdirect gave musicians a website to reach fans directly, with news, tour dates and merchandise in one place.

Websense let employers decide which websites their staff could visit at work, and log the rest.

Silicon Labs made mixed-signal chips that shrank modems and cell phone radios, and later the chips inside connected devices.

eMachines sold cheap home PCs to first-time buyers and hoped to earn more from ads than from hardware.

PartsBase let airlines and repair shops search one online database for aircraft parts from thousands of suppliers.

Caldera sold a business-ready version of Linux, with support and training, to companies running corporate networks.

Caldera sold a business-friendly version of Linux, then became SCO and sued IBM over the code.

Snowball ran IGN and other websites for young people who grew up online, starting with video gamers.

Netpliance sold a simple web appliance called the i-opener, then rebuilt itself as TippingPoint, a network security company.

Uproar ran free web games and online game shows, paid for by ads and prizes.

ImproveNet matched homeowners with screened contractors and architects for remodels and repairs.

Loudeye turned music and video libraries into digital files and ran online music stores for other companies.

Digitas used customer data, mail, email and the web so big brands could reach their customers directly.

HomeGrocer let busy families order groceries online and have them delivered by the company's own trucks.

iPrint let small businesses design and order business cards, stationery, and logo mugs online.

Versata let companies build business software by writing down their rules, with less hand-written code.

UTStarcom sold phone and internet gear to China's carriers while the country built out its phone network.

AsiaInfo built the networks and billing software that brought China's state phone companies onto the internet.

Register.com made it easy for small businesses and ordinary people to claim a web address of their own.

Switchboard put the white and yellow pages online, so anyone could find a person or business for free.

Palm made the PalmPilot, the pocket organizer that put a calendar and address book in everyone's hand.

MatrixOne let manufacturers and their suppliers work on the same product designs and parts lists over the web.

Onvia showed small businesses which government agencies were buying what, so they could win public contracts.

Avenue A bought and tracked online ads for big brands, then grew into a $6 billion Microsoft purchase.

Niku let consulting firms and IT departments see every project, person and billable hour in one place.

Intersil made the analog, power and Wi-Fi chips inside laptops, base stations and broadband gateways.

Hotels.com bought hotel rooms in bulk and resold them to travelers for less, first by phone and then online.

VarsityBooks sold college students their textbooks online for less than the campus bookstore charged.

LendingTree let borrowers fill out one loan form online and watch several lenders bid for their business.

Chordiant gave big companies one view of each customer, whether that customer came by web, phone or branch.

FLAG laid fiber-optic cable along the ocean floor so calls and data could cross continents.

Savvis gave banks and big companies faster, more reliable connections than the public internet, plus data centers for their servers.

VIA NET.WORKS bought small internet providers in Europe and Latin America to serve small businesses under one name.

Pets.com shipped dog food, cat litter and toys to your door, sold by a talking sock puppet.

webMethods sold software that let companies link their systems with suppliers and partners over the internet.

Organic built websites and online campaigns for big brands when most companies barely knew the web.

Pets.com sold dog food, cat litter and pet toys online and shipped them to your door.

Lightspan sold schools reading and math lessons that kids could play at home on a Sony PlayStation.

Buy.com sold computers, books and electronics online at prices so low it often lost money on the sale.

eMerge tried to move the American cattle trade online, then turned to tracking how beef was raised.

FirePond let buyers and salespeople configure complex machines online and get an accurate price and quote.

NBCi bundled Snap, Xoom.com and NBC's websites into one portal, promoted by a national TV network.

Avanex made the optical parts that let one strand of fiber carry far more internet traffic.

Centra let companies teach and meet live over the internet, so employees could learn from their own desks.

Turnstone made gear that let phone carriers connect and test DSL lines remotely instead of sending a technician.

SkillSoft sold web-based courses that taught workers business and people skills right at their desks.

L90 sold banner ads on other companies' websites and tracked how well those ads worked.

STATS tested and packaged other companies' chips, from a factory floor in Singapore.

Neoforma moved hospital buying online, so hospitals could order supplies and equipment with less paper and fewer calls.

OnDisplay gathered product details from scattered supplier catalogs so online stores could show accurate items and prices.

Egreetings let people send free animated greeting cards by email, with a gift suggestion attached.

Infonet ran one private data network that big companies could reach from more than 180 countries.

GRIC let business travelers dial into the internet abroad through local providers and get one bill at home.

eCollege ran the technology behind colleges' online degree programs, so schools could teach online without building it.

FreeMarkets ran online auctions where suppliers bid prices down to win factory orders from big manufacturers.

Fogdog sold sporting goods online, with up to 60,000 items from more than 500 brands across every major sport.

NetRatings told advertisers who was actually visiting websites, using a panel of tracked internet users.

Agency.com built websites and online campaigns for big brands that were still working out what the web was for.

VA Linux built servers and workstations that ran the free Linux operating system, for companies building the web.

Andover.net owned Slashdot and other sites where programmers and Linux fans got news and free software.

Harris Interactive moved the famous Harris Poll from the telephone to the internet, asking millions of people online.

PFSweb packed, shipped and answered customer calls for brands selling online, so they did not need their own warehouses.

McAfee.com let home users scan and repair their PCs for viruses through a website, paying a yearly subscription.

Digimarc hid invisible codes inside images, money and packaging so machines could identify them.

Official Payments let Americans pay taxes, fines and government fees with a credit card, by phone or online.

SmarterKids.com sold educational toys, books and software online, matched to each child's age and learning needs.

OpenTV wrote the software that let digital cable and satellite boxes run games, guides and interactive shows.

GetThere let companies book employee travel on the web, inside their own travel rules and supplier deals.

Digital Impact sent personalized emails to millions of shoppers for big retailers, and measured what brought them back.

deltathree carried phone calls over the internet and charged far less than traditional long distance carriers.

Mediaplex gave advertisers software to choose which online ad each person saw, and proof of what worked.

CacheFlow sold boxes that stored copies of popular web pages near users so the internet felt faster.

Retek's software told big retailers what to stock, where to ship it, and how to price it.

Agilent made the instruments that scientists and engineers use to test chips, networks, blood and chemicals.

Terra gave Spanish and Portuguese speakers one home page for news, email, search and dial-up access.

iManage gave big law firms one place to store, find and share every document and email on a case.

Virata designed the chips and software inside DSL modems that brought fast internet over ordinary phone lines.

NetCreations rented lists of people who had agreed to get marketing email, in an age of spam.

Finisar made the small modules that turn electrical signals into laser light for fiber-optic networks.

SonicWALL sold small businesses an affordable firewall box that kept intruders off their newly connected networks.

Expedia let anyone search fares, book flights and reserve hotels on the web without calling a travel agent.

iBasis carried international phone calls over internet lines for other carriers, at a fraction of old prices.

Cobalt sold small, cheap Linux server boxes that let a business or web host get online in minutes.

Webvan let you order groceries online and had them driven to your door within a 30-minute window you picked.

Tickets.com sold event tickets online and gave venues their own ticketing systems, as an alternative to Ticketmaster.

Be Free ran affiliate programs, so online stores could pay other sites a cut of each sale they sent.

Akamai made websites load faster by serving each visitor from a nearby server in a worldwide network.

Gaiam sold yoga gear, eco-friendly goods and wellness videos to people who wanted to live healthier and greener.

InterTrust built software to control how songs, films, and documents were copied and paid for online.

Sycamore made optical switches that let carriers set up fiber connections in minutes through software.

NaviSite ran the servers behind other companies' websites and applications from its own data centers.

Jupiter sold research and forecasts on internet commerce to executives trying to figure out the web.

Proxicom built websites and internet systems for big companies learning to do business online.

Interwoven let big teams write, review and publish a company's website together without breaking it.

DSL.net sold fast, always-on internet to small businesses over the copper phone lines they already had.

Calico let buyers and sales teams configure complex products online and get a correct price, with no impossible combinations.

Silicon Image built the digital links that carry pictures from computers and players to flat screens, including HDMI.

XM sold car radio by subscription, sending about a hundred channels coast to coast from satellites with no static.

Williams Communications ran a nationwide fiber network, much of it laid inside old gas pipelines its parent no longer used.

Digital Insight let community banks and credit unions offer online banking under their own names, without building it.