Top Ten New Startups

Welcome to an entirely new Light Reading feature – the “Top Ten New Startups” list, not to be confused with Light Reading’s “Top Ten Private Companies.”

Why’s that? Well, silly, The Top Ten Private Companies are successful private companies with revenue and products, which might be close to IPO or acquisition. In other words, they’re more mature startups, with proven business models, more than four or five years old. With this Startups to Watch list we looked for things a little more green in nature – you know, real startups – brand new companies, which we defined as companies that have been funded with a Series A or B round of venture financing within the last 24 months. Yeah, that’s it: fresh companies with fresh ideas and fresh funding.

These companies, by nature, should be a bit raw. Some of them may very well go rancid before they’ve become fully cooked. Some of them may not even have a product or revenues yet. But some of the companies on the list have both – pretty amazing itself, since we were looking for companies under two years old. To make the list, a company needs an interesting and somewhat unique concept – ideally an entirely new sort of product.

In combing the Earth for these startups, we looked at three things: (1) Quality of the idea; (2) Quality of the people; and (3) Quality of the investors. If you get all three right, chances are you’re on the path to success. We focused particularly on the people factor – especially the founders and investors – and what they’ve done before.

Here's the list

1) Mavenir Systems
2) Brightcove
3) Mu Security
4) T-Vips
5) Vyatta
6) Nistica
7) Zeugma Systems
8) SoonR
9) M2Z Networks
10) Gigle Semiconductor

— The Staff, Light Reading

Next Page: Mavenir Systems