25 Hot Tech Startups To Watch For

There are a lot of hot tech startups around these days. Many of them are relatively new; others which have been operating for some years are getting significant momentum most recently. I have tried identifying 25 very promising ones. Those I think you should keep an eye on.

Please note that it′s my own personal compilation and that it does not claim to be complete. Saying that, I believe that it gives a good overview for both experts and anyone being interested in tech startups:

www.distractify.com
Launched in October 2013, Distractify is one of those viral story sites like BuzzFeed, Viral Nova and Upworthy. It aims for a mix of original content and repackaged content meant to go viral. Its founder and CEO Quinn Hu is not only just 20 years old, but also the boss of one of the fastest growing new Internet sites.

www.storenvy.com
Storenvy is a fascinating site and home to emerging brands and inspired goods. It's a place where you can launch your own custom store in minutes, and a site where you'll discover amazing, one-of-a-kind things you can't find anywhere else.

www.eyeka.net
EYeka, founded in France in 2006, enables marketers and their agencies to leverage a wealth of creative ideas developed by a community of 250,000 creative individuals in 154 countries. 40 leading brands such as P&G, Kraft, Coca-Cola, Unilever, Nestle, Danone, Hyundai, Citroen and Microsoft are already tapping into eYeka’s community.

www.hukkster.com
Expected to have more than 1 million registered users in 2014, Hukkster is a a free shopping tool which tracks products online for users and notifies them via text, email or push notification when products they want go on sale. You only need to "hukk" a product from more than 1,000 retailers, and Hukkster informs you whenever their prices drop.

www.clarity.fm
Clarity is a marketplace that connects entrepreneurs with top advisers & industry experts to learn new skills, conduct market research, or get strategic advice on how to grow their business. Having over 30,000+ verified experts; many of which are very successful entrepreneurs (i.e Mark Cuban, Eric Ries, etc.).

www.lyft.me
Lyft, founded in 2012, facilitates peer-to-peer ridesharing by enabling passengers who need a ride to request one from drivers who have a car. Unlike traditional taxis, Lyft drivers do not charge "fares" but receive "donations" from their passengers.

www.nimble.com
Nimble is an innovative web-based CRM solution that brings together all contacts, calendar, communications and collaborations in one simple, free platform. Nimble’s core benefit lies in its ability to unify email, calendar activities and the most popular social channels (LinkedIn, Facebook Google+, and Twitter), and automatically link this functionality to business contacts. No more jumping from application to application.

www.thumb.it
Launched in 2010, people use Thumb to get and give feedback in virtually every area of life (music, artwork, shopping, hairstyles, relationships, movies, food, etc.). Thumb is a vibrant community where you’ll discover interesting things and people via an insanely engaging and instantaneous experience. Thumb it!

www.coinbase.com
Launched in 2012, San Francisco-based Coinbase has become the most widely-used way to buy and transfer the online currency Bitcoin in the U.S. It′s growing into an international digital wallet that allows to securely buy, use, and accept Bitcoins.

www.oysterbooks.com
Experts are betting that e-book subscription start-up Oyster can do for books what Spotify has done for music and Netflix for movies. Its library has over 100,000 titles with HarperCollins being the largest partner publisher.

www.rolepoint.com
The London-based social recruiting software startup matches relevant roles with potential candidates in the social networks. It is a smart, well-designed business software that is easy to use.

www.memrise.com
It′s a learning platform and community to learn vocabulary, languages, history, science, trivia and just about anything else. There are thousands of courses on Memrise. All free and all created by members of the community. Courses are available in many languages. If they don't have what you want, you can join and create your own course.

www.gotinder.com
Tinder is an edgy mobile dating app that lets users browse for potential suitors. The free app, which quickly has grown into a global phenomenon, is currently spreading like wildfire.

www.duckduckgo.com
Founded in 2008 by Gabriel Weinberg is a search engine which experts describe as the biggest long-term threat to Google. It protects searchers' privacy by avoiding the "filter bubble“ of personalized search results. DuckDuckGo also emphasizes getting information from the best sources rather than the most sources.

www.adyapper.com
Chicago-based AdYapper tracks display and mobile ads, generating detailed verification data, consumer sentiment, real-time analytics across the entire ad buying ecosystem and centralize the data into one platform. AdYapper makes advertising performance data actionable so advertisers can optimize, and increase the efficacy of their ad buys.

www.plated.com
The “curated food” startup Plated assembles and delivers meal “boxes” to its customers that contain all the ingredients and instructions they need to cook a tasty, healthy meal at home from locally sourced ingredients.

www.cir.ca
The San Francisco-based company has a great app to read news in a well-structured manner on the go. It provides the most critical pieces of information first, followed by expanded explanations, photos, related suggestions, etc.

www.doublerobotics.com
Double takes everything you love about video calls on an iPad and puts that on a mobile base that puts the remote worker in control. Having your own Double in the office means you can be free to roam around anywhere without having to schedule a meeting.

www.smartthings.com
It′s a startup that provides tools to help users connect their homes to their smartphones. It′s about turning your home into a smart home.

www.whisper.sh
Whisper, being a hit since day one, allows users to send messages anonymously and receive replies. Users post messages which are displayed as text superimposed over an image, similar to greeting cards.

www.opencare.com
A network and exchange forum of more than 7,000 health providers and almost 4 million patients. Their mission is to create a healthier world by connecting patients with health providers and health data.

www.estimize.com
This New York online startup is the first open financial estimates platform. They allow buy-side, sell-side, and independent analysts to publish their forecasts for the fundamental metrics of public companies.

www.nationbuilder.com
NationBuilder is the world’s first Community Organizing System: an accessible, affordable, complete software platform that helps creators grow and organize communities to achieve great things. A nation is group of people united behind a common purpose. Everyone who cares about what you are doing – your fans, followers, constituents, members, donors, volunteers, customers.

www.spacemonkey.com
Founded in 2011 in Salt Lake City, USA it′s been described as "The cloud on your desk.“ Space Monkey is taking the cloud out of the datacenter by providing an affordable, subscription-based data storage solution, creating a faster and more durable way to store data from any device. It provides a device that stores one terabyte of online storage for $49 per year.

www.flipboard.com
Although Flipboard has been around for some years, with users now having the option to create their own magazines, it′s more attractive than ever. A great way to have one′s favorite social networks, publications and blogs combined.

What do you think? Which are the hottest startups in your opinion?

Best regards,

Andreas von der Heydt

*****

Andreas von der Heydt is the Country Manager of Amazon BuyVIP in Germany. Before that he hold senior management positions at L'Oréal. He′s a leadership expert, executive coach and NLP master. He also founded Consumer Goods Club. Andreas worked and lived in Europe, the U.S. and Asia.

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