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45 enterprise startups that will soar in 2021, according to venture capitalists

45 enterprise startups that will soar in 2021, according to venture capitalists
Photo Illustration by Business Insider
  • We asked a group of investors at successful venture capital firms to name the startups set for big success next year from inside and outside their portfolios.
  • VC named so many enterprise startups — those that make tech for businesses — that we couldn't include them all our main list. (Read 81 startups that will boom in 2021.)
  • Some of these startups are experiencing rapid growth because of the pandemic, others in spite of it.
  • The result is this exciting list of enterprise startups that are sure to boom in 2021.

2020 has reshaped the way companies across the globe do business - and those changes are will stretch into 2021 and beyond.

Amid the changes brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, a crop of startups has risen in prominence to help businesses adapt to the changing landscape. At the same time, other startups are succeeding irregardless of the pandemic because they provide new innovations that solve age-old problems faced by companies.

Business Insider asked a select group of venture capitalists about the startups they believe are likely to experience big growth in the coming year. They were asked to name startups inside and outside of their portfolios, meaning startups that their firms had invested in as well as ones with which they have no financial relationship.

We published one big list of 81 startups that will boom in 2021 but VCs nominated so many enterprise startups that we couldn't include them all in that larger list.

So we created the following list, organized alphabetically, of the promising venture-backed companies serving the $4 trillion a year business-to-business tech market, as named by VCs. We included the estimates of their total funding according to deal database Pitchbook.

Here are the 45 enterprise startups that VCs say are set to make it big in 2021.

Abacus.ai: AI-powered data science for companies

Abacus.ai: AI-powered data science for companies
Satish Dharmaraj, Redpoint Ventures      Redpoint Ventures

Startup: Abacus.ai

VC: Satish Dharmaraj, Redpoint

Relationship: No relation. VC just thinks it's cool.

Total funding raised: $40.25 million

Headquarters: San Francisco

What it does: helps companies make accurate predictions using AI in any system that collects data.

Why it will boom in 2021: Abacus brings "state-of-the-art AI techniques to companies of all sizes," said Dharamaraj. "Their technology is especially helpful where there is noisy, incomplete, or little training data, and with companies pulling in more data sources than ever before, they are destined to have a big year next year," he added.

Ally.io: Productivity software for offices

Ally.io: Productivity software for offices
Soma Somasegar      Madrona Venture Group

Startup: Ally.io

VC: Soma Somasegar, Madrona

Relationship: No relation, VC just thinks it's cool.

Total funding raised: $26 million

Headquarters: Bellevue, WA

What it does: Makes productivity software for companies to internally track objectives and key results.

Why it will boom in 2021: "Particularly in an environment where the vast majority of employees are operating remotes, this is a great tool for teams to operate in a high performance environment with the right level of agility," Somasegar said.

Anyscale: distributed computing projects

Anyscale: distributed computing projects
Jerry Chen, Greylock Partners      Greylock Partners

Startup: Anyscale

VC: Jerry Chen, Greylock

Relationship: No relation. VC just thinks it's cool.

Total funding raised: $60.74 million

Headquarters: Berkeley, CA

What it does: helps run distributed computing projects through an open-source project called Ray.

Why it will boom in 2021: "Anyscale is the next step in cloud computing evolution, allowing developers to easily build distributed applications across the cloud. It effectively turns the cloud into one giant computer," Chen said.

AuditBoard: A cloud-based platform for compliance

AuditBoard: A cloud-based platform for compliance
Tyler Sosin, Menlo Ventures      Menlo Ventures

Startup: AuditBoard

VC: Tyler Sosin, Menlo Ventures

Relationship: Investor

Total funding raised: $46.31 million

Headquarters: Cerritos, CA

What it does: Provides a platform for enterprises to conduct internal audits and make sure they're in compliance with government regulations.

Why it will boom in 2021: The platform is already widely used by financial firms to ensure they're compliant with federal laws, Sosin said, adding that AuditBoard is "growing extremely quickly and efficiently."

Benchling: Cloud services for pharma companies

Benchling: Cloud services for pharma companies
Nina Achadjian, Index Ventures      Index Ventures

Startup: Benchling

VC: Nina Achadjian, Index Ventures

Relationship: No relation, Achadjian just thinks Benchling is cool. She's previously written about Benchling on her blog.

Total funding raised: $111.8 million

Headquarters: San Francisco

What it does: Research and development cloud services for pharma companies.

Why it will boom in 2021: "COVID has dramatically accelerated the need for the 'lab of the future,' one powered by centralized data, powerful tools, and a collaboration platform. This is a permanent tailwind that will continue to drive large pharma customers to Benchling," Achadjian said.

BuildBuddy: Open source tools for software developers

BuildBuddy: Open source tools for software developers
Elizabeth Weil, Scribble Ventures      Scribble Ventures

Startup: BuildBuddy

VC: Elizabeth Weil, Scribble Ventures

Relationship: Investor

Total funding raised: $3 million

Headquarters: Palo Alto, CA

What it does: Provides open-source tools for developers using Bazel, a software build-and-test system.

Why it will boom in 2021: "BuildBuddy represents an opportunity to get double digit efficiency gains on the most important investment companies make, and early interest from outstanding companies like Apple and Stripe show this," Weil said.

Cloud Agronomics: Data for sustainable farming

Cloud Agronomics: Data for sustainable farming
Ludwig Schulze, Alumni Ventures Group      Alumni Ventures Group

Startup: Cloud Agronomics

VC: Ludwig Schulze, Alumni Ventures Group

Relationship: Investor

Total funding raised: $10.74 million

Headquarters: Boulder, CO

What it does: Provides data and analysis to farms in order to increase sustainability and fight climate change.

Why it will boom in 2021: "Cloud Agronomics is making agriculture more sustainable and data driven, which is vital to support a growing population and combat climate change," Schulze said. "Carbon sequestration will be a major focus for policymakers in 2021."

Codat: An interface connecting businesses to banks

Codat: An interface connecting businesses to banks
Jesse Wedler, CapitalG      CapitalG

Startup: Codat

VC: Jesse Wedler, CapitalG

Relationship: No relation. VC just thinks it's cool.

Total funding raised: $12.15 million

Headquarters: London

What it does: Provides an interface for small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) to connect with financial institutions.

Why it will boom in 2021: "By capturing data from different internal systems, Codat can power access to multiple solutions spanning lending, finance solutions and insurance for SMBs," Wedler said.

Coder Technologies: Cloud software development tools

Coder Technologies: Cloud software development tools
Ethan Kurzweil, Bessemer Venture Partners      Bessemer Venture Partners

Startup: Coder Technologies

VC: Ethan Kurzweil, Bessemer Venture Partners

Relationship: Investor

Total funding raised: $44.78 million

Headquarters: Austin, TX

What it does: Cloud-based platform for managing and collaborating around software development.

Why it will boom in 2021: "The software world is increasingly a cloud-based one," Kurzweil said. "However, the actual development environment where programmers do their work is still dominated by local tools that are installed and saved locally."

Coder offers "the benefits of the scalability of the cloud" without sacrificing security, he said.

CodeSignal: Automating technical job interviews

CodeSignal: Automating technical job interviews
Jean-Paul Sanday, Menlo Ventures      Menlo Ventures

Startup: CodeSignal

VC: Jean-Paul Sanday, Menlo Ventures

Relationship: Investor

Total funding raised: $40 million

Headquarters: San Francisco

What it does: Provides cloud software that helps companies to automate and assess technical interviews.

Why it will boom in 2021: "More companies are becoming software companies and need to hire technical talent at scale and (increasingly) all over the world," Sanday said. "CodeSignal allows companies to go beyond resumes and assess candidates based on skill and aptitude, something very important for creating a high-performing and diverse workforce."

CommandE: Keyboard shortcuts to make cloud computing tools easier

CommandE: Keyboard shortcuts to make cloud computing tools easier
Jean-Paul Sanday, Menlo Ventures      Menlo Ventures

Startup: CommandE

VC: Jean-Paul Sanday, Menlo Ventures

Relationship: No relation. VC just thinks it's cool.

Total funding raised: $6.52 million

Headquarters: San Francisco

What it does: Keyboard shortcuts for businesses using software-as-a-service and cloud computing tools that make it easier to navigate and search from the cloud.

Why it will boom in 2021: "With the onset of business SaaS tools users have to log into so disparate systems to get their jobs done and a tool like this helps bring it all together and produce huge gains in productivity," Sanday said.

Cresta: AI for customer service

Cresta: AI for customer service
Saam Motamedi, Greylock Partners      Greylock

Startup: Cresta

VC: Saam Motamedi, Greylock Partners

Relationship: Investor

Total funding raised: $21 million

Headquarters: San Francisco

What it does: AI that provides real-time coaching and automation for contact center agents.

Why it will boom in 2021: "Every company with a contact center will need a platform like Cresta to transform and bring their contact center into the future," Motamedi predicts.

Eclypsium: Cloud-based device security

Eclypsium: Cloud-based device security
Steve Greenberg, Alumni Ventures Group      Triphammer

Startup: Eclypsium

VC: Steven Greenberg, Alumni Ventures Group

Relationship: Investor

Total funding raised: $24.05 million

Headquarters: Portland, OR

What it does: A cloud-based security service that protects any device that connects to the corporate network from hackers, right down to the firmware, including corporate laptops, network equipment and servers in data centers.

Why it will boom in 2021: "As data privacy and security continues to become more and more important to large enterprises, Eclypsium is positioned well to challenge hackers who are become more sophisticated and looking for exploitable loopholes in firmware," Greenberg said.

Divvy: corporate credit cards that help employees with expense reports

Divvy: corporate credit cards that help employees with expense reports
Ben Narasin, New Enterprise Associates      NEA Ventures

Startup: Divvy

VC: Ben Narasin, NEA

Relationship: Investor

Total funding raised: $1 billion

Headquarters: Draper, Utah

What it does: Divvy provides corporate credit cards to a company's individual employees, and helps employees automatically fill out their expense forms.

Why it will boom in 2021: "Divvy will explode next year as companies scramble to get control of their remote workers and use Divvy for corporate cards tied to real time expense management and budgeting," Narasin said.

"Swipe your card or pay with your phone and the charge feeds instantly to your expense account, saving time and improving management visibility and control," he added.

Drivewealth: Easily adds trading functionality for fintech firms

Drivewealth: Easily adds trading functionality for fintech firms
Mercedes Bent, Lightspeed Venture Partners      Lightspeed Venture Partners

Startup: Drivewealth

VC: Mercedes Bent, Lightspeed Ventures

Relationship: No relation. VC just thinks it's cool.

Total funding raised: $103.82 million

Headquarters: Chatham, NJ

What it does: Provides a cloud-based interface that allows fintech firms to easily embed investing and trading services into their offerings.

Why it will boom in 2021: "I love Drivewealth because they're making it easier for anyone to start a trading platform," Bent said. "Investing functionality is becoming a core feature of many consumer and commerce experiences, fintech or not. Social investing mindset is reaching its zeitgeist moment."

Docsend: secure document sharing platform

Docsend: secure document sharing platform
Bling Capital founder Ben Ling      Bling Capital

Startup: Docsend

VC: Ben Ling, Bling Capital

Relationship: No relation. VC just thinks it's cool

Total funding raised: $14.70 million

Headquarters: San Francisco

What it does: a secure document-sharing platform that lets users know when documents are opened and read.

Why it will boom in 2021: Ling said that DocSend has become "the standard for investor communication and fundraising."

Envoy: tracking who is in the office

Envoy: tracking who is in the office
Matt Murphy, Menlo Ventures      Menlo Ventures

Startup: Envoy

VC: Matt Murphy, Menlo Ventures

Relationship: Investor

Total funding raised: $59.5 million

Headquarters: San Francisco

What it does: Envoy helps companies track who is in the office on a given day and manages routine office tasks, like notifications for things like when a conference rooms runs out of sanitizer.

Why it will boom in 2021: "Even post pandemic, many workers will only be in the office part-time, and Envoy will help companies best use their office footprint for the flexibility expected by tomorrow's workforce," Murphy said.

Esper.io: Software for companies to manage workers' Android devices

Esper.io: Software for companies to manage workers
Tim Porter, Madrona Venture Group      Madrona Venture Group

Startup: Esper.io

VC: Tim Porter, Madrona

Relationship: Investor

Total funding raised: $11.72 million

Headquarters: Bellevue, WA

What it does: Makes software for companies to manage Android devices.

Why it will boom in 2021: "This is a huge and growing market as more and more intelligent edge devices are deployed — from exercise bikes to food delivery tablets to intelligent signs — nearly all of which now run Android," Porter said.

Extend: Personalized warranty plans for product makers

Extend: Personalized warranty plans for product makers
David Beazley, Alumni Ventures Group      PurpleArch

Startup: Extend

VC: David Beazley, Alumni Ventures Group

Relationship: No relation. VC just thinks it's cool.

Total funding raised: $60.65 million

Headquarters: San Francisco

What it does: Software that allows companies to easily offer warranties and protection plans for products of any kind.

Why it will boom in 2021: "Ecommerce sales of consumer durables still has a lot of runway ahead and buyers are more interested than ever in using innovative fintech solutions that are customized to their needs," Beazley said.

Hivecell: Platform-as-a-service for edge computing

Hivecell: Platform-as-a-service for edge computing
Annelies Gamble, Scribble Ventures      Scribble Ventures

Startup: Hivecell

VC: Annelies Gamble, Scribble Ventures

Relationship: No relation. VC just thinks it's cool.

Total funding raised: $2 million

Headquarters: Beacon, NY

What it does: Provides a low-cost hardware device for so-called edge computing, which brings some parts of cloud computing computing power and storage to the location where it's needed to increase speeds.

Why it will boom in 2021: "According to Gartner, by 2022, more than 50% of enterprise-generated data will be created and processed outside the data center or cloud," Gamble said. "As this market grows, more and more customers are going to look for ways to experiment with moving to the edge."

Kandji: A way for large companies to manage employees' Apple devices

Kandji: A way for large companies to manage employees
Josh Kopelman, First Round Capital      First Round Capital

Startup: Kandji

VC: Josh Kopelman, First Round Capital

Relationship: Investor

Total funding raised: $28.44 million

Headquarters: San Diego, CA

What it does: Provides mobile-device-management software for large companies to manage employees' Apple devices.

Why it will boom in 2021: "Given the recent adoption of remote and work from home culture, Kandji stands to gain by providing the most robust and flexible [device management] solution on the market," Kopelman said.

KitchenMate: Food-as-a-service for offices

KitchenMate: Food-as-a-service for offices
Ed Yip, Norwest Venture Partners      Norwest

Startup: KitchenMate

VC: Ed Yip, Norwest Venture Partners

Relationship: No relation. VC just thinks it's cool.

Total funding raised: $6.76 million

Headquarters: Toronto

What it does: Offers businesses an alternative to hot pantry cafeterias with "smart meal-pods" that are heated in a "smart cooker."

Why it will boom in 2021: "While it might not seem like the right time for any sort of office service, KitchenMate is heating up among essential industries like healthcare, manufacturing, and distribution who need onsite meal options while nearby restaurants and food services remain closed," Yip said.

Malomo: marketing platform built into online stores' shipment tracking

Malomo: marketing platform built into online stores
Gabby Cazeau, Harlem Capital      Harlem Capital

Startup: Malomo

VC: Gabby Cazeau, Harlem Capital

Relationship: Investor

Total funding raised: $5.42 million

Headquarters: Indianapolis

What it does: Lets e-commerce brands turn customers' shipment tracking into a brand marketing channel.

Why it will boom in 2021: "Through the pandemic, we've seen a massive shift towards e-commerce that will be the norm in the post-COVID era," Cazeau said, adding that Malomo lets companies "deliver on their brand promise through a delightful user experience post purchase."

Materialize: Data streaming for app developers

Materialize: Data streaming for app developers
Bucky Moore, Kleiner Perkins      Kleiner Perkins

Startup: Materialize

VC: Bucky Moore, Kleiner Perkins

Relationship: Investor

Total funding raised: $40.5 million

Headquarters: New York

What it does: Processes complex analytics over streaming datasets for developers building internal tools and customer-facing products.

Why it will boom in 2021: "For the first time, any employee with fluency in SQL can ask questions of their data and get correct answers, in real-time. This is a revolutionary capability, and where the industry is inevitably headed," Moore said.

Melio Payments: bill payment platform for small businesses

Melio Payments: bill payment platform for small businesses
Lauren Kolodny, Acrew Capital      Acrew Capital

Startup: Melio Payments

VC: Lauren Kolodny, Acrew Capital

Relationship: No relation. VC just thinks it's cool.

Total funding raised: $143.5 million

Headquarters: New York

What it does: Provides a one-stop platform for small businesses to pay vendors and contractors.

Why it will boom in 2021: While peer-to-peer payments companies like Venmo and CashApp have seen booming popularity, Melio brings a similar function to business-to-business transactions for small and midsize business (SMBs).

"With the majority of SMBs payments still happening via check, there's still a huge opportunity for digitization here," Kolodny said.

Observe.ai: AI for monitoring customer service

Observe.ai: AI for monitoring customer service
Steve Sloane, Menlo Ventures      Menlo Ventures

Startup: Observe.ai

VC: Steve Sloane, Menlo Ventures

Relationship: Investor

Total funding raised: $88.19 million

Headquarters: San Francisco

What it does: Provides AI that monitors call center interactions so companies can keep tabs on customer service.

Why it will boom in 2021: "Enduring shift to remote-work and cloud in the call-center space makes the software a must-have going forward," Sloane said.

Particle Health: parsing medical data for healthcare companies

Particle Health: parsing medical data for healthcare companies
Sumi Das, CapitalG      CapitalG

Startup: Particle Health

VC: Sumi Das, CapitalG and Greg Yap, Menlo Ventures

Relationship: Yap is an investor. Das has no relation and just thinks it's cool.

Total funding raised: $14.34 million

Headquarters: New York

What it does: Provides APIs for healthcare companies to access and parse through comprehensive medical datasets.

Why it will boom in 2021: "Just as we're seeing an open banking renaissance within fintech, we're also seeing the healthcare industry beginning to demand improved data communications and interoperability," Das said.

"I believe 2021 will mark the turning point in health data interoperability and that Particle Health will play a key role in the solution," Yap added.

Promise: A platform for government payments

Promise: A platform for government payments
Bill Trenchard, First Round Capital      First Round Capital

Startup: Promise

VC: Bill Trenchard, First Round Capital

Relationship: Investor

Total funding raised: $3.12 million

Headquarters: Mountain View, CA

What it does: Provides a platform for government agencies — as well as some private-sector clients — to track outstanding payments on tickets, restitution, program fees, child support, and other charges.

Why it will boom in 2021: "Promise is closing deals at incredibly fast rate for Govtech. The current record is four days from first meeting to approval vote," Trenchard said, adding that "COVID creates an economic window in which government agencies want and/or need Promise's offering."

Refraction AI: Robots that deliver packages

Refraction AI: Robots that deliver packages
David Beazley, Alumni Ventures Group      PurpleArch

Startup: Refraction AI

VC: David Beazley, Alumni Ventures Group

Relationship: Investor

Total funding raised: $6.5 million

Headquarters: Ann Arbor, MI

What it does: Builds robots for last-mile logistics and deliveries.

Why it will boom in 2021: "Refraction hasn't been able to grow its fleet of local delivery robots fast enough to keep up with demand for last-mile delivery services in its pilot market," Beazley said. "Restaurants, retailers and online delivery services are desperate to keep up with demand but they have had to rely on cars and gig workers."

Rheaply: Software for recycling and selling unused items

Rheaply: Software for recycling and selling unused items
Shardul Shah, Index Ventures      Index Ventures

Startup: Rheaply

VC: Shardul Shah, Index Ventures

Relationship: No relation. VC just thinks it's cool.

Total funding raised: $2.52 million

Headquarters: Chicago

What it does: Provides software-as-a-service that helps businesses track and recycle unused items, or sell them to other businesses.

Why it will boom in 2021: Rheaply "builds new economic capital through regeneration, giving businesses a competitive advantage," Shah said, adding that it "combines resource exchange, asset management, disposition and sustainability metrics."

ShipBob: Warehousing, packaging, and shipping for ecommerce

ShipBob: Warehousing, packaging, and shipping for ecommerce
Shawn Carolan, Menlo Ventures      Menlo Ventures

Startup: ShipBob

VC: Shawn Carolan, Menlo Ventures

Relationship: Investor

Total funding raised: $130.67 million

Headquarters: Chicago

What it does: Handles warehousing, packaging, and shipping for small and medium businesses.

Why it will boom in 2021: "The rise of Shopify has put millions of new e-commerce storefronts and brands on the web, selling direct to customers," Carolan said, adding that all of the market for package delivery grows.

Shogun: Web design that doesn't require coding know-how

Shogun: Web design that doesn
Ethan Choi, Accel      Accel

Startup: Shogun

VC: Ethan Choi, Accel

Relationship: Investor

Total funding raised: $14 million

Headquarters: San Francisco

What it does: Provides a no-code platform for businesses to build websites.

Why it will boom in 2021: "Amidst an explosion in e-commerce, merchants are looking to become 'headless' where they decouple their website with the rest of their technology stack, primarily for faster site speed," Choi said.

Snorkel.ai: Data sets used to train AI

Snorkel.ai: Data sets used to train AI
Tim Porter, Madrona Venture Group      Madrona Venture Group

Startup: Snorkel.ai

VC: Tim Porter

Relationship: No relation. VC just thinks it's cool.

Total funding raised: $18.25 million

Headquarters: Palo Alto, CA

What it does: Provides synthetic data sets used to train artificial intelligence algorithms.

Why it will boom in 2021: "As machine learning applications continue to proliferate, the need for high-quality training data also is growing exponentially," Porter says.

Solv Health: Doctors' appointments booking software

Solv Health: Doctors
Theresia Gouw, Acrew Capital      Acrew Capital

Startup: Solv Health

VC: Theresia Gouw, Acrew Capital

Relationship: Investor

Total funding raised: $50.5 million

Headquarters: San Francisco

What it does: Appointment booking and telemedicine software for healthcare institutions.

Why it will boom in 2021: Solv has already made inroads with agencies like the city of Seattle and the state of Michigan as a platform for booking COVID-19 tests, and Guow says she expects the startup to continue to expand large-scale public contracts.

Sonrai Security: securing public cloud computing for businesses

Sonrai Security: securing public cloud computing for businesses
Venky Ganesan, Menlo Ventures      Menlo Ventures

Startup: Sonrai Security

VC: Venky Ganesan, Menlo Ventures

Relationship: Investor

Total funding raised: $38.5 million

Headquarters: New York

What it does: Sonrai's software finds security holes in companies' infrastructure when using public cloud services like Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure.

Why it will boom in 2021: "Sonrai Security solves a pervasive problem that will only become more prevalent as the trend towards public cloud usage grows in 2021 and beyond," Ganesan said.

Sorcero: AI that rapidly reads and processes scientific papers

Sorcero: AI that rapidly reads and processes scientific papers
Chris Sklarin, Alumni Ventures Group      Alumni Ventures Group

Startup: Sorcero

VC: Chris Sklarin, Alumni Ventures Group

Relationship: Investor

Total funding raised: $5.46 million

Headquarters: Washington, DC

What it does: Sorcero's language intelligence platform rapidly reads and digests large amounts of scientific and medical publications, producing insights for its client base of insurance firms and life science companies.

Why it will boom in 2021: "Sorcero has incredible insights into markets and how to build technology that is powerful and differentiated. They move fast, are very quick to course correct and are capital efficient," Skarlin said.

"In 2021, I expect them to smash through their targets and make serious strides towards transforming decision-making for key technical industries that power the world," he said.

Tailscale: New-age virtual private networks for businesses

Tailscale: New-age virtual private networks for businesses
Amit Kumar, Accel      Accel

Startup: Tailscale

VC: Amit Kumar, Accel

Relationship: Investor

Total funding raised: $17.26 million

Headquarters: Toronto

What it does: Enables the easy creation and management of virtual private networks (VPNs) for businesses.

Why it will boom in 2021: "COVID has radically accelerated the shift towards remote and distributed teams, forcing organizations of every size to reconsider their security and access posture. Tailscale's world-class engineering team has built a leapfrog product, based on the widely adopted open-source Wireguard protocol and has unmistakable early buzz in the developer community," Kumar said.

Temporal: helps developers fix issues in microservices

Temporal: helps developers fix issues in microservices
Bogomil Balkansky, Sequoia      Sequoia

Startup: Temporal

VC: Bogomil Balkansky, Sequoia; Jerry Chen, Greylock; Sudip Chakrabarti, Madrona; and Aaron Jacobson, NEA

Relationship: Balkansky and Chakrabarti are investors. Chen and Jacobson have no relation and just think it's cool.

Total funding raised: $25.5 million

Headquarters: Bellevue, WA

What it does: App developers are increasingly adopting a "microservice" architecture, in which a large app with lots of features is broken up into small, independent parts that talk to one another. Temporal's software makes it easier for developers to fix problems when one of their microservices fails.

Why it will boom in 2021: "Creating software applications that handle failures gracefully is a very complex and time-consuming engineering problem,"Balkansky said. "Temporal solves this."

With customers like Snap, Box, Coinbase and Checkr, "we anticipate greater demand next year as more companies continue to migrate to microservice architectures," he added.

Chakrabarti said that Temporal helps "developers build invincible applications."

By hiding complex data engineering from developers, Temporal is "making it easy to build and orchestrate these apps," Chen said.

"Temporal's open-source 'workflow-as-code' solution bakes in resiliency from the start, freeing up developers to focus on writing impactful business logic code," Jacobson said.

Tines: A no-code platform for automated security

Tines: A no-code platform for automated security
Sarah Guo, Greylock Partners      Greylock Partners

Startup: Tines

VC: Sarah Guo, Greylock Partners

Relationship: No relation. VC just thinks they're cool.

Total funding raised: $15.1 million

Headquarters: Dublin, Ireland

What it does: Tines lets security teams automate their repetitive tasks using its no-code dashboard.

Why it will boom in 2021: "Investing in automation remains a top priority for security teams," Guo said, but that automation typically requires coding upfront. Tines makes automation more accessible with its no-code platform.

Trace Data: tools for sending and tracking sensitive data

Trace Data: tools for sending and tracking sensitive data
Matt Howard, Norwest Ventures      Norwest Ventures

Startup: Trace Data

VC: Matt Howard, Norwest Ventures

Relationship: No relation. VC just thinks they're cool.

Total funding raised: $5 million

Headquarters: Wilmington, DE

What it does: Trace Data's software lets companies see where their data is being accessed and used to ensure it's kept private and secure.

Why it will boom in 2021: Amid remote work, "managing and securing data has never been a bigger priority," Howard said. "Trace Data keeps all data secure in connected systems with a single platform, making it easier to manage all data at once."

Universe: tools for building mobile-first ecommerce sites

Universe: tools for building mobile-first ecommerce sites
M.G. Siegler, Google Ventures      Google Ventures

Startup: Universe

VC: M. G. Siegler, Google Ventures

Relationship: Investor

Total funding raised: $17.32 million

Headquarters: Brooklyn, NY

What it does: Universe's platform lets merchants build ecommerce sites from their smartphones.

Why it will boom in 2021: "The company took the time during the unfortunate reality of COVID during 2020 to hone in on and focus on a core mission: to enable anyone and everyone to build on the web and to build businesses while doing it," Siegler said. "While we all hope COVID starts to dissipate in 2021, these types of businesses should be here to stay."

Uptycs: security analytics platform for preventing and detecting hacks

Uptycs: security analytics platform for preventing and detecting hacks
Venky Ganesan, Menlo Ventures      Menlo Ventures

Startup: Uptycs

VC: Venky Ganesan, Menlo Ventures

Relationship: No relation. VC just thinks it's cool.

Total funding raised: $40.25 million

Headquarters: Waltham, MA

What it does: Uptycs' platform provides a dashboard for security teams that lets them monitor what's happening across their company and investigate unauthorized intrusions.

Why it will boom in 2021: Cybersecurity teams need to be able to rapidly gauge potential security threats, Ganasan said, especially as they increasingly rely on cloud computing and shifting endpoints amid remote work.

Uptycs has applied advanced modeling and database techniques for "real-time pipeline processing," Ganesan said, meaning it can crunch through tons of security-related data quickly.

The result is "a security analytics platform for visibility and accelerated time to insight," he said.

Userleap: tools for product developers to "micro-survey" their users

Userleap: tools for product developers to "micro-survey" their users
Bill Trenchard, First Round Capital      First Round Capital

Startup: UserLeap

VC: Bill Trenchard, First Round and Sarah Guo, Greylock

Relationship: Trenchard is an investor. Guo has no relation and just thinks it's cool.

Total funding raised: $20 million

Headquarters: San Francisco

What it does: UserLeap lets product teams build "micro-surveys" into their products that quickly gather feedback from people while they're using the product.

Why it will boom in 2021: "Every company needs a way to understand their customers in real time, and they don't have that capability right now. UserLeap fills that gap," Trenchard said.

"As businesses are increasingly dependent on digital experiences, we believe real-time qualitative data from users will become an competitive advantage," Guo added.

Utmost: software for managing contractors and non-employees

Utmost: software for managing contractors and non-employees
Sarah Guo, Greylock Partners      Greylock Partners

Startup: Utmost

VC: Sarah Guo, Greylock

Relationship: Investor

Total funding raised: $11.2 million

Headquarters: San Francisco

What it does: Utmost provides a tool for HR to find, track, and pay contractors and non-employees.

Why it will boom in 2021: "COVID has, of course, driven companies to completely rethink their approach to global talent, and their ties to physical office," Guo said.

"COVID-catalyzed digital transformation intensifies the turnover in workforce skills; the extended workforce is serving as a competitive advantage to companies going on the offensive in the post-COVID era," she added.

Wheel: Telemedicine and compliance for health startups

Wheel: Telemedicine and compliance for health startups
Greg Yap, Menlo Ventures      Menlo Ventures

Startup: Wheel

VC: Greg Yap, Menlo Ventures

Relationship: No relation. VC just thinks it's cool.

Total funding raised: $16.1 million

Headquarters: Austin, TX

What it does: Provides telemedicine software and a marketplace that helps startups find healthcare providers and quickly ramp up virtual offerings.

Why it will boom in 2021: "Demand for virtual care and telemedicine has accelerated during the pandemic, but building and managing national pools of physicians and other healthcare professionals is difficult," Yap said.

"Wheel has built a platform to efficiently attract health care providers and enable digital health companies to staff up quickly and flexibly," he said.

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