11. Coupons.com: Valued At $1.0 Billion
Location: Mountain View, California
Founded: 1998
What is it: Coupons.com recently filed for an IPO so expect that valuation to go up. The company lets users fnd a bunch of offerings and print them out before shopping. This simple concept caused Coupons.com to make $115 million during the first nine months of 2013.
10. Sogou: Valued At $1.2 Billion
Location: Beijing, China
Founded: 2004
What is it: Sogou is a search engine that can find text, images, music and maps. According to Crunchbase, people in China have searched over 10 billion pages and has a daily update of 500 million pages. One cool aspect of the service is that it can identify malicious software on websites and provide users with the cleanest results on search pages.
9. Fanatics: Valued At $1.5 Billion
Location: Jacksonville, Florida
Founded: 1995
What is it: Fanatics Inc.is an important for major sports leagues to sell merchandise. Fanatics contains official licensed jerseys and other memorabilia for sports fans to buy. Sports apparel is a lucrative market and Fanatics Inc should grow even more in the new year.
8. Jawbone: Valued At $1.5 Billion
Location: San Francisco, California
Founded: 1999
What is it: Originally, Jawbones were intended as noise-canceling headphones for the military. Now, these wireless speakers and Bluetooth headsets that sync with mobile devices are used by music lovers and exercise enthusiasts all over the world.
7. Legendary Entertainment: Valued At $1.5 Billion
Location: Burbank, California
Founded: 2005
What is it: Legendary Entertainment is a production company that achieved considerable success co-financing and co-producing the Dark Knight trilogy with Warner Brothers studios. It's one of the first companies to partner film production with hedge fund investors. While Legendary's partnership with Warner Bros was lucrative, that deal expired in 2013. Universal Studios will be Legendary's new home in 2014.
6. Stripe: Valued At $1.8 Billion
Location: San Francisco, California
Founded: 2010
What is it: Stripe's software helps companies take credit-card payments on apps and websites. Recently, they raised another $80 million dollar investment and could be in talks with Twitter about a possible program where people can buy stuff from tweets. Mobile payments could be a big trend this year and Stripe may become one of its leaders.
5. Woodman Labs: Valued At $2.3 Billion
Location:San Mateo, California
Founded:2009
What is it: Woodman Labs is responsible for the GoPro camera, the small waterproof cameras that have become quite popular surfers and other extreme athletes. The founder, Nicholas Woodman, joined the billionaire ranks after he sold 8.9 percent of his company to Foxconn Technology Group. Now, the petite wearable gadget could be sold in Taiwan opening up another market for Woodman Labs to rake in more cash.
4. Bloom Energy: Valued At $2.9 Billion
Location: Sunnyvale, California
Founded: 2001
What is it: Bloom Energy creates fuel cells called Bloom Boxes that produces clean energy and the first customers for these devices included Walmart, Federal Express and Coca Cola according to The Guardian. The cost of these boxes are $750,000 but Sridhar hopes to cut that down $3,000 within a decade. That may be sooner rather than later. In order to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions, Fast Company writes that eBay purchased five boxes and saved $100,000 in under a year.
3. Zalando: Valued At $4.9 Billion
Location: Berlin, Germany
Founded: 2008
What is it: Zalando is an online retailer that sells clothing and other fashion products for 14 different countries in Europe. Originally, CEO Robert Gentz was inspired by Zappos and created the site to sell a luxury line of shoes before he expanded it. Subscribers receive magazines of special holiday sales which has helped Zalando become the king of e-commerce overseas.
2. Palantir: Valued At $9 Billion
Location: Palo Alto, California
Founded: 2004
What is it: Founded by Alexander Karp, Palantir is a software company used by government agencies and financial firms like banks and hedge funds to help sort through large amounts of information. Forbes writes that U.S. marines have deployed this technology to anticipate insurgent attacks as well as forensic analysis of roadside bombs. In this day and age, tools like this would drive any privacy advocate nuts but Palantir has potential to revolutionize our security.
1. Xiaomi: Valued At $10 Billion
Location: Beijing, China
Founded: 2010
What is it Xiaomi is a technology company that creates and produces smartphones, apps and other consumer electronics. The company's low priced smartphones have been a big hit in China since it sold 18.7 million smartphones last year which makes it a serious threat to Apple in a lucrative market. Former Android exec Hugo Barra is helping Xiaomi with an international expansion so this company has big plans ahead.
