New technologies are cropping up online every day
By Rebecca Holcomb
Wealth of Geeks
In 2020, an estimated 9,114 tech startups were launched.
Founded by Tyler Fair and Prescott Nasser, Sourcescrub, a data analytics company compiled these ten states where tech is growing exponentially. Providing room for biotech, edtech, and major innovation in several industries, these states are hosting new businesses that flooded in during the pandemic and continue to crop up.
1. California
Not only is California the first in agriculture, but they are also first when it comes to tech startups. Boasting 519 startups to form in 2020 or after, the west coast leads the way in new tech business.
Take Prolific Machines, for instance, raising $42 million in their series A funding from a set of 14 investors, including Mark Cuban — the owner of the Dallas Mavericks — and David Rubenstein — founder of The Carlyle Group and chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations — to name a few.
At Prolific Machines, they are developing cell technology to redefine how cells are produced to help create a sustainable and healthy future. A cultured meat startup, Prolific Machines is looking to expand the way meat is produced to meet the demand for more animal protein.
As just one of the new tech startups to secure seed and series A funding, Prolific Machines is set to grow in the coming years as the demand for sustainable food sources expands.
2. New York
Coming in at number 2, New York is home to 195 new tech startups founded in 2020 or later. Shypyard, a direct-to-consumer merchant service company that helps modern businesses with planning solutions and fractured supply chain issues, earned $3 million in seed funding in July of 2022.
Shypyard Co-founder Sam Chuang said this about his company’s existence in the tech space. “Our business was created by and for merchants. Although global commerce has undergone a complete digital transition, it is still incredibly fragmented, making it difficult to seamlessly organize a complicated supply chain. To rectify that, we are here.”
Dan Li, the other Co-founder of Shypyard expanded on how the pandemic helped give Shypyard the platform they needed to grow. “The pandemic and Great Resignation accelerated a historic burst in entrepreneurship and innovation in business, paving the way for millions of merchants to follow their dreams and launch cutting-edge, omni channel brands. We founded Shypyard intending to equip entrepreneurs with the resources they need to expand their companies.”
If merchants need a place to start, Shipyard can definitely point them in the right direction.
3. Texas
The Lone Star State comes in third in our top 10 list with a hefty 155 new tech startups. Albedo, a satellite design and operation company, is set on capturing imagery that’s up to 9x higher in resolution than what’s currently available-garnering a healthy $58 million in series A funding for this new tech company.
They raised $10 million just for their first satellite and expect to expand as technology and resources become available. Recently graduating from Y Combinator, Albedo saw its first round of funding led by Initialized Capital and also saw participation from Jetstream, Liquid2 Ventures and Soma Capital.
Former Lockheed Martin Senior System engineer Topher Haddad became Albedo’s CEO (Chief Executive Officer), and AJ Lasater, who also worked at Lockheed Martin as a System Architect before becoming Albedo’s CTO (Chief Technology Officer), founded this new business. The two originally worked together on top secret satellites for remote imaging. Now they run a tech startup determined to change how real-time images are secured.
Albedo is hoping to get their resolution down to 10 centimeters for visual imagery and 2 meters for thermal. Their tech depends heavily on an ability to refuel in orbit, however, and hinges on that refueling success. If it fails, the company might have to send their satellite fleet — of which they hope to launch the beginnings of in 2024 — higher into orbit. That would, of course, mean wider resolution imagery, something they’re hoping to avoid.
At any rate, they’d secured funding to get their first satellite into orbit and hope to have their entire eight-satellite constellation in orbit by 2027.
4. Florida
The Sunshine State played host to 108 startups from 2020 on. One of those is a small business and e-commerce financing startup known as Boopos.
This seed and series-funded startup is looking to provide small business financing for entrepreneurs regardless of personal assets, credit history, or the owner’s personal guarantee. Getting access to financial solutions for SaaS and e-commerce businesses.
Backed by Fasanara Capital and Bonsai Partners, Boopos is looking to revolutionize access to capital for business owners who are just getting started and have made loans available that can be paid back within 1-5 years, allowing borrowers to work within the constraints of their revenue cycles.
5. Massachusetts
Massachusetts comes in 5th in our top ten tech states, hosting 71 startups from 2020. Boston is the headquarters of a tech company known as Labfront.
In 2014, Labfront co-founders Jason Masys and Chris Peng partnered with Nordic Medical Center in Aldis Ababa, Ethiopia, to build an app-based emergency response system.
Building on the success of that project, the two started a non-profit called PhysioQ, which looked to accelerate scientific discovery through education and new tools. PhysioQ’s objectives ranged from promoting research education to developing an alert system for families who were trying to track loved ones during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Combining those experiences with an evolving landscape with the pandemic led to the launch of Labfront in 2021.
“In 2020, the pandemic pushed traditional researchers that were used to having study participants come into the lab to run their studies remotely. This left researchers scrambling to find tools for remote research. Luckily for them, we had been working a couple of years on Labfront, a remote-friendly data collection tool that allows scientists to utilize wearable technologies to collect physiological data.” — Jordan Masys, Labfront Co-Founder and COO.
“Understanding the very significant need for Labfront within the research community during the pandemic, we decided to put all our efforts towards building out the ultimate research platform that combined remote data collection from wearables, participant management, and data analysis.” — Chris Peng, Labfront Co-Founder, and CEO.
Since its launch, Labfront has been featured in Entrepreneur and Medical Daily. They’ve also been selected for MassChallenge’s 2022 U.S. Early Stage Accelerator program as well as the 500 Global Accelerator program.
Given their success so far, it looks as if Labfront is only going up from here.
6. Delaware
Sliding into the 6th slot comes Delaware with 69 new tech startups who chose the ‘First State’ for their headquarters.
On a nice seed funding round, Preimage — a fast, scalable, and integrable 3D reconstruction platform that processes photos to generate high-quality 3D digital twins of real-world environments and assets — is looking to the future with $1.7 million in seed investment.
Founded by Ugam Kamat and Siddharth Jha, this Indian-based digital construction company is hoping to revolutionize the way construction is viewed. Its open-to-all 3D construction platform will be released later this year.
When speaking about Preimage, CEO and co-founder Ugam Kamat had this to say. “The market for the creation of 3D digital clones of real-world environments is gaining momentum across several businesses in different verticals. We are one of the first companies in the world to rethink this market and empower users with the advances of AI to handle the scale of visual data for the current decade.”
Pi Ventures — a leading investor in Preimage — Managing Director Roopan Alukha said this about the growing demand for 3D content. “The demand for 3D content is increasing. However, the traditional tools for 3D reconstruction plagued with long processing time, inadequate accuracy and a lack of generalizability are unable to fulfill the market demand.”
“Preimage solves this problem using deep learning AI models & distributed computing to build a horizontal platform that can cater to multiple industries while being fast and accurate. We are excited to partner with Ugam and Siddharth on their journey to disrupt this space.”
7. Washington
Washington state pulls into 7th place on our list with 65 tech startups from the pandemic on. Making their home in Seattle, Cap Hill Brands — a unique consumer products company — raked in a massive $250 million in total funding. A hefty chunk of series B funding came from investors like BlackRock, who led the series B investment round.
Former Zulily executives Kevin Saliba and Jason LeeKeenan collaborated to create CapHill Brands, which looks to nurture high-quality, enduring brands and help them thrive in an e-commerce world.
To date, Cap Hill Brands has acquired 35 brands and is working on filling out their staffing needs. They also acquired a technology marketing company known as DemandHelm, led by Sarang Fegde — a former Amazon engineer — who is now their Chief Technology Officer (CTO).
With such obvious credentials and an impressive set of funding rounds, it seems that Cap Hill Brands will be a major success for years to come.
8. Illinois
Illinois runs in 8th place with a startup count of 62 from 2020 onward. With a slogan, Made to be Meaningful, the floral arrangements startup, Floracracy, is certainly making a name for itself.
Sitting on a pretty seed funding of $1 million from investors Harry Gottlieb and John Higginson, Floracracy is hoping to run a revenue between $100 and $500 million. One unique aspect from many other startups is that Floracracy is founded and led by women.
Sarah-Eva Marchese founded Floracracy on a few simple concepts. According to the Floracracy website, her company “is the ONLY company where you can send flowers customized to a flower, style, or language of flowers anywhere in the US. We’re the ONLY ONES that let you design it yourself on our website or work with our live concierge team to get what you want. We’re THE ONLY ONES to guarantee we send the exact flowers you pick. We’re the ONLY ONES to ship in a cooled box. And we’re the ONLY ONES that send real letters, which can include the language of flowers, birthday month flowers, specific memories in sympathy flowers, or more. We’re also the only ones to send really large arrangements.”
With a diverse and interesting background in terrorist profiling, war studies, and sales, Marchese had a bit of a learning curve when starting her tech company around flowers. Thankfully, for anyone needing a personalized experience, she didn’t give up!
9. Pennsylvania
Next to last, Pennsylvania had 55 new tech startups from 2020 on. Taking online gaming to a new level, Metafy — founded in 2020 by Josh Fabian — allows gamers to monetize their skills with coaching and online classes.
Raising a cool $25 million in series A funding, Metafy is changing the way gamers learn the craft of gaming. With coaches from esports entities like VALORANT, Super Smash Bros., and League of Legends, to name a few, Fabian had this to say about his innovative gaming platform.
“In our first year, experts on our platform made over a million dollars using what we’ve built. We got there by focusing obsessively on product and experience. I couldn’t be more proud of that accomplishment, but the job’s not done. We’re assembling a terrifyingly talented team of folks to continue building a platform that reaches far beyond coaching.”
Fabian has also dedicated a nice $1 million from the series A round for his platform by hosting local and online gaming tournaments to grow the gaming community for coaches and gamers alike.
And while other platforms have tried the coaching angle when it comes to gaming, no other startup has secured such a large investment. Tiger Global, Metafy’s biggest investor, has previously invested in entities like Facebook, Coinbase, and Spotify, to name a few companies.
10. Virginia
Tenth place belongs to the “Mother of States,” with 51 new tech businesses spawned during or after the start of COVID-19.
Founded in 2022, Loric Games raised a healthy $600K in their first seed funding round. Offering player, story-driven games and entertainment, Loric Games is an early venture for investors. And while there’s no word on who those investors might be, Loric Games isn’t sitting on that investment.
Founded by Brian Johnson, Gabe Carter and Ray Soto, the CEO, Design Director and Studio Art Director respectively, Loric Games is looking to innovate the way players experience RPG’s or role playing games.
Loric Games is using their seed funding, or part of it, to fill out more roles to help build ‘immersive and fantastical worlds’ for every gamer to enjoy. Check out their site to see what they’re working on for the near future.
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Tech still has it
If anyone thought technology had seen its heyday, they’d be wrong. With new technologies coming online every day, tech startups are going to continue to pop up in places like California, New York, Pennsylvania and more.
