25 Trending Companies & Startups (2024)
The COVID-19 pandemic completely changed the way thousands of businesses operate. While many have struggled to keep their heads above water, others have found a way to innovate and become “pandemic-proof”.
In this list, you’ll find several new and innovative startups along with a few old and established companies.
Let’s take a look at the top 25 trending companies across the globe, along with key data on each business.
1. Airwallex
5-year search growth: 9,500%
Search growth status: Exploding
Headquarters: Melbourne, Australia
Revenue: $200 million
Industry: Finance
Founders: Jack Zhang, Max Li, Lucy Liu, Xijing Dai, and Ki-lok Wong
What they do: Airwallex is a global payment and financial tech company offering financial services and a SaaS platform. Primarily, the startup offers borderless business accounts to manage expenses, accept payments globally, and hold multiple currencies without monthly fees or minimum balance requirements. Airwallex has become a FinTech unicorn with more than 100,000 global customers and a $5.5 billion valuation.
2. Airbyte
5-year search growth: 99x+
Search growth status: Exploding
Headquarters: San Francisco, California
Revenue: $50 million
Industry: Software Development
Founders: John Lafleur and Michel Tricot
What they do: Airbyte is an open-source data integration platform that transfers and consolidates data from databases, digital applications, and APIs to data warehouses. It operates as a no-code solution with a catalog of 300+ pre-built connectors. Currently, more than 40,000+ engineers use Airbyte, including big-name customers like Datadog and Graniterock. The startup also raised $150 million in Series B funding at a $1.5B valuation.
3. Blueground
5-year search growth: 99x+
Search growth status: Regular
Headquarters: New York, New York
Revenue: $600 million
Industry: Real Estate
Founders: Alex Chatzieleftheriou, Alexis Maragkos, and Penny Papakonstantinou
What they do: Blueground is a real estate tech company that provides flexible, fully furnished apartments for rent. Currently, the rental platform offers 15,000+ premium apartments in 32 cities around the world. In February 2023, Blueground acquired Travelers Haven to expand their reach and total property offerings. Now, the startup employs more than 1,200 people and eclipsed $600m in revenue in 2023.
4. Stellantis
5-year search growth: 9,700%
Search growth status: Exploding
Headquarters: Hoofddorp, Netherlands
Revenue: $189.9 billion
Industry: Automotive
Founders: Merge between Fiat Chrysler and PSA Group
What they do: In 2021, two automotive manufacturing powerhouses, Fiat Chrysler and PSA Group, merged together to form Stallantis. The car manufacturer now has 16 brands and in its first year after the merger, it managed to pull in over $157 billion in revenue. Stellantis is one of the largest car manufacturers globally and they have continued to innovate in the electric vehicle space to compete with major players such as Tesla, Volkswagen, Ford, and GM.
5. Beehiiv
5-year search growth: 9,500%
Search growth status: Exploding
Headquarters: New York, New York
Revenue: $3 million
Industry: Marketing
Founders: Tyler Denk, Benjamin Hargett, and Jake Hurd
What they do: Beehiiv is a newsletter platform with creator-friendly tools and features. Lean content creators rely on Beehiiv because it includes an advanced newsletter builder, website hosting, access to an ad network, and various marketing features like audience segmentation to improve open rates. The startup currently hosts 7,500 active newsletters while serving 35 million readers.
6. Flodesk
5-year search growth: 9,100%
Search growth status: Exploding
Headquarters: San Francisco, California
Revenue: $20.0 million
Industry: Marketing
Founders: Martha Bitar and Rebecca Shostak
What they do: Flodesk is a digital marketing platform built to add creativity to the email and checkout processes for websites. Flodesk simplifies the creative process by assisting users in making decorative landing pages, workflows, emails, sales pages, and checkout pages to ultimately boost the user experience and generate more traffic or sales. Although yearly packages start at $60/month and may seem a bit steep for some, users have reported higher open rates and more lead generation compared to other marketing sites in the space.
7. Athletic Brewing
5-year search growth: 2,400%
Search growth status: Exploding
Headquarters: Stratford, Connecticut
Revenue: $60 million
Industry: Beverage
Founders: Bill Shufelt and John Walker
What they do: Athletic Brewing is a beverage manufacturer that distributes non-alcoholic craft beer with all-natural ingredients. Athletic Brewing has quickly become the 26th fastest-growing private company in America and has also made Time Magazine’s “Top 100 Most Influential Companies” list. The beverage company’s most recent Series D funding round was primarily financed by Keurig Dr. Pepper (KDP) who invested $50 million into the organization, granting them a minority equity stake in the company and a seat on the Board of Directors.
8. Trulieve
5-year search growth: 573%
Search growth status: Exploding
Headquarters: Quincy, Florida
Revenue: $1.2 billion
Industry: Specialty Retail & Pharmaceuticals
Founders: Kim Rivers
What they do: Trulieve is a US medical, recreational cannabis, and CBD distributor. Trulieve took the top spot as the nation’s largest cannabis retailer after its $2.1 billion acquisition of Harvest Health & Recreation and rightfully earned the Benzinga Cannabis Award for the best cannabis retail expansion in 2021. Their presence clearly stretches far beyond their home state of Florida as they have over 180 dispensaries scattered across the United States.
9. Tubi
5-year search growth: 262%
Search growth status: Exploding
Headquarters: San Francisco, California
Revenue: $1.0 billion
Industry: Entertainment
Founders: Farhad Massoudi and Thomas Ahn Hicks
What they do: Tubi is the largest content streaming platform where users can watch premium movies and TV series completely free. Tubi has over 50 million monthly active users and 45,000 available movies and TV shows from notable studios such as Paramount, Lionsgate, and MGM. The company requires no credit card and charges no subscription fees for its services. Their parent company, Fox, acquired the organization in 2020, and in Tubi’s last quarter, they reached their highest viewing time at 1.3 billion hours.
10. Breeze Airways
5-year search growth: 6,900%
Search growth status: Regular
Headquarters: Salt Lake City, Utah
Revenue: $352.5 million
Industry: Transportation
Founders: David Neeleman
What they do: Breeze Airways is an American airline that provides non-stop flights for underserved areas across the United States. The company was founded in 2018 and already boasts a fleet size of 24. Breeze Airways recently added its 100th destination in the popular California destination, Orange County. The company’s recent success can be attributed to its concise focus on finding markets with high demand and low or overpriced airfare services.
11. CeraVe
5-year search growth: 658%
Search growth status: Exploding
Headquarters: New York, New York
Revenue: $1 billion
Industry: Skincare
Founders: Tom Allison
What they do: CeraVe is a skincare manufacturer that offers a variety of moisturizers, cleansers, ointments, and acne treatments used to help individuals restore their natural protective skin barrier. CeraVe has quickly become a leading distributor in the market and is ranked as the #1 trusted dermatologist skincare brand and the third biggest corporation in terms of sales within the dermo-cosmetics market. Their parent company, L’Oreal, reported that CeraVe’s earnings eclipsed $1 billion in 2021 with a substantial 75% year-over-year growth rate.
12. TikTok
5-year search growth: 1,750%
Search growth status: Exploding
Headquarters: Beijing, China
Revenue: $14.3 billion
Industry: Entertainment
Founders: Launched by parent company ByteDance
What they do: TikTok is a personalized video content and entertainment platform. Owned and operated by Chinese Internet technology company ByteDance, the platform hosts a variety of content, mostly centered around dance, fitness, self-help, jokes, and pranks. TikTok has amassed quite the following, with over 1 billion monthly active users only behind Facebook, Youtube, and Instagram.
13. SKIMS
5-year search growth: 6,300%
Search growth status: Exploding
Headquarters: Los Angeles, California
Revenue: $750 million
Industry: Fashion
Founders: Kim Kardashian and Jens Grede
What they do: Founded by media celebrity Kim Kardashian and pop culture retail investor Jens Grede, SKIMS is the newest American clothing brand. The company’s mission is centered around body confidence and the brand primarily features women’s underwear, shapewear, and comfortable loungewear. In 2021, the clothing company skyrocketed in popularity and had a 90% increase in sales, generating around $275 million in revenue. Launched just three years ago, the company already has a valuation of $3.2 billion and has projections to hit sales of up to $400 million this year.
14. DistroKid
5-year search growth: 269%
Search growth status: Exploding
Headquarters: New York, New York
Revenue: $59.8 million
Industry: Music
Founders: Philip Kaplan
What they do: DistroKid is a music distribution service built for artists to seamlessly upload, sell, and send their music to top streaming platforms. For just $19.99 a year, DistroKid allows users to upload as much as they like and receives between 15,000 and 25,000 music uploads a day. The main draw for artists is that they are permitted to keep 100% of the revenue from their music. DistroKid’s recent third funding round from investors including Insight Partners and Spotify gave them an astounding valuation of $1.3 billion.
15. Telegram
5-year search growth: 390%
Search growth status: Exploding
Headquarters: London, United Kingdom
Revenue: Unavailable
Industry: Communication
Founders: Pavel and Nikolai Durov
What they do: Telegram is a global cross-platform messaging application that allows users to chat and video call for free. This cloud-based app was founded in 2013 by Nikolai and Pavel Durov and differentiates itself from competitors such as WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger by allowing access on multiple platforms and providing encryption protocols to ensure user safety. Around 700 million people utilize the freemium platform on a monthly basis as they close in on a staggering 1.3 billion cumulative downloads.
16. Sumsub
5-year search growth: 99x+
Search growth status: Exploding
Headquarters: London, England
Revenue: $50 million
Industry: Cybersecurity
Founders: Andrew Sever, Jacob Sever, Vyacheslav Zholudev, and Peter Sever
What they do: Sumsub is an identity verification platform that offers various solutions, including Know Your Customer (KYC), Know Your Business (KYB), Anti-Money Laundering (AML), and transaction monitoring. The startup's AI-based biometric system can authenticate an individual's identity through unique facial features. Sumsub currently supports over 2,000 customers, including Binance, Mercuryo, Wirex, and Bybit.
17. Scale AI
5-year search growth: 1,150%
Search growth status: Exploding
Headquarters: San Francisco, California
Revenue: $750 million
Industry: Artificial Intelligence
Founders: Alexandr Wang and Lucy Guo
What they do: Scale AI is a data labeling and annotation platform. The company provides developers with a network of human annotators and machine learning models to label images, text, audio, video, 3D point clouds, and other data types. Scale AI's data engine collects, curates, and annotates data to help accelerate AI application development.
Some of the biggest customers in the world, including Meta, Microsoft, Open AI, and General Motors, use Scale to develop new AI models. The company has raised over $600 million at a $7.3B valuation.
18. BetterHelp
5-year search growth: 384%
Search growth status: Exploding
Headquarters: Mountain View, California
Revenue: $1 billion
Industry: Psychotherapy
Founders: Alon Matas and Danny Bragonier
What they do: BetterHelp is a global online mental health platform that virtually connects therapists with patients. Mental health awareness has recently become a hot topic, especially during the pandemic and BetterHelp has capitalized greatly as they are an insurance-free, cheap alternative to traditional therapy costs and practices. BetterHelp offers specialized features such as unlimited messaging, real-time video calls, phone calls, and a live chat to assist patients anytime and anywhere. The platform has over 25,000 certified therapists and around 2 million clients today.
19. Notion
5-year search growth: 631%
Search growth status: Exploding
Headquarters: San Francisco, California
Revenue: $119.4 million
Industry: Software
Founders: Jos and Ben White
What they do: Notion is an all-in-one customizable project management tool. The company has been valued at $10 billion in their most recent private offering where Sequoia and Index Ventures purchased shares directly from employees. Notion’s most recent acquisitions have also given their valuation a boost, buying companies such as Automate.IO, FlowDash, and Cron, to further support their API, UI experience, and calendar management.
20. Tailscale
5-year search growth: 99x+
Search growth status: Exploding
Headquarters: Toronto, Canada
Revenue: $18.5 million
Industry: Software
Founders: Avery Pennarun, David Crawshaw, David Carney, and Brad Fitzpatrick
What they do: Tailscale is a peer-to-peer zero-config VPN company, meaning the software creates a private network by linking devices instead of sending traffic through a central gateway server. Their VPN service enables encrypted point-to-point connections using the open-source WireGuard protocol, ensuring that only devices on the private network can communicate with each other. Currently, Tailscale has over 2.5 million devices connected and 4,000+ companies subscribed.
21. Mint Mobile
5-year search growth: 216%
Search growth status: Exploding
Headquarters: Costa Mesa, California
Revenue: $127.2 million
Industry: Telecommunication
Founders: David Glickman
What they do: Mint Mobile is a premium phone service that offers customers wireless, prepaid, and customizable plans. Mint Mobile’s aim is to give users more freedom with their phone plans against traditional big services. Their most recent offering entices users to switch with a 55% discount on a new Google Pixel 7 Pro and 12 free months of service. Ryan Reynolds is the primary owner of the organization and has been very outspoken on his stance to keep plans affordable at $15 a month.
22. DoorDash
5-year search growth: 96%
Search growth status: Exploding
Headquarters: San Francisco, California
Revenue: $8.6 billion
Industry: Food
Founders: Andy Fang, Tony Xu, and Stanley Tang
What they do: DoorDash is a food ordering platform that works with local restaurants to deliver products to customers’ doorsteps. In recent news, DoorDash has been pilot-testing drone deliveries with a Google-owned drone company called Wing in Logan, Australia. Orders are expected to arrive at customers’ houses in 15 minutes or less and if the program is successful, it will be featured on the app as DoorDash Air.
23. Affirm
5-year search growth: 173%
Search growth status: Regular
Headquarters: San Francisco, California
Revenue: $1.91 billion
Industry: Finance
Founders: Max Levchin, Nathan Gettings, Jeffrey Kaditz, and Alex Rampell
What they do: Affirm is a pay-over-time fintech organization that separates itself from the competition by offering customers no late fees or surprise charges. Essentially, the company operates as a lender of installment loans that customers can utilize to finance a purchase. One of CEO Max Levchin’s goals with his organization is to provide a valuable alternative to the traditional credit card system that is in place today. He notes that the company has a long way to go, but it’s achievable to chase and revolutionize the trillion-dollar credit card industry.
24. Fiverr
5-year search growth: 295%
Search growth status: Exploding
Headquarters: Tel Aviv, Israel
Revenue: $361 million
Industry: Service
Founders: Micha Kaufman and Shai Wininger
What they do: Fiverr is an online freelance service that connects employers (buyers) with independent contractors or freelancers (sellers). Fiverr’s stock recently soared 41.5% after its most recent earnings call announcement on November 9th as shareholders were delighted with the 11% year-over-year increase in revenue. CEO Micha Kaufman believes that the gig economy will continue to soar as the world pulls away from the pandemic and employment begins to rebound.
25. Canva
5-year search growth: 1,329%
Search growth status: Exploding
Headquarters: Sydney, Australia
Revenue: $2 billion
Industry: Design
Founders: Melanie Perkins, Cliff Obrecht, and Cameron Adams
What they do: Canva is a freemium online graphic design tool used to create an assortment of content including social media graphics and presentations. Canva is known for its easy-to-use drag-and-drop features and its massive library of over 1 million images, icons, and graphics. The platform recently passed a massive milestone of over 100 million monthly active users and is used regularly across 190 countries. Canva’s recent spike in users comes directly after the release of its Virtual Worksuite which assists business teams in enhancing their visual communication through professionalized content.
Conclusion
This wraps up our list of the top trending companies across the world.
Some of these companies are publicly traded giants, while others are just starting to make their mark on the world.
We’ll continue to update this list as new, exciting, and innovative organizations start to earn mainstream traction.
