A new year also marks the beginning of #StartupSeason. Last year a number of startups made waves in their respective industries. In the spirit of this year's startup season, let's look back at some startups that made an impact in 2019.
All About the Data
Ranked number one in 2019 LinkedIn Top Startups for the US was 'Snowflake'. Snowflake's success came from its cloud data warehouse platform. This equips organisations with a platform that offers the only data warehouse built for the cloud. Importantly, this innovation offers businesses instant, secure and governed access to their entire network of data.
Another startup 'Samsara' found itself ranked number 3 in 2019 ranked startup list. Samsara found success by supporting the transportation, construction, energy and food production industries with their internet-connected sensor systems. In this age of inexpensive sensors, wireless connectivity, smartphones, and cloud computing, businesses with Samsara could more easily collect data. Subsequently, the insights derived from the data proved useful in improving the efficiency of physical operations.
Delivery on Demand Startups
Insights into LinkedIn's US Top Startups list reveal a number of delivery-on-demand focussed Startups making the list. DoorDash and Daily Harvest both found success with their specialized service for getting food delivered to your door within minutes.
Additionally, Startup Nuro which developed a fully autonomous, on-road vehicle for transporting and delivering goods also found success.
Startup Success in Australia
Success for Australian Startups continued last year, again highlighting the country as a thriving startup ecosystem. Currently, a variety of financial services dominate Australia’s startup ecosystem. They, however, were not the only ones.
Banking & Finance
As mentioned above, numerous financial startups experienced growth in 2019. Ranked number one as LinkedIn's Top Startup 2019 for Australia was 'Judo Bank', a challenger to the big four. Founded in 2016, 'Judo Banks' idea was to focus on banking for SMEs.
Competitors also on the startup scene, Volt Bank and Xinja also made the list and offer a more digital banking experience with innovations towards helping customers track their spending and saving using AI.
Canva
The Canva website and apps help people and companies create logos, social media graphics and presentations. The company was founded back in 2012 and in 2019 became ranked 2nd in LinkedIn Top Startups in Australia.
The popular online designing platform that stemmed from a simple idea is now worth a whopping $5.2 billion.
All the startups mentioned were nothing but ideas 10 years ago. Now, these ideas are changing the way people interact with the world and are worth millions, even billions of dollars. Whilst these innovations became popular last year, continuous advancements in technology and fresh ideas will make it interesting to see what innovations other startups can come up with this year.