What Do the Top 50 Startups of 2024 Have in Common?

Each year, LinkedIn releases its highly anticipated list of the Top 50 Startups in the U.S. These emerging companies aren’t just generating buzz—they’re fundamentally shaping their industries and setting the pace for future innovation. From leveraging generative AI to streamline legal work to revolutionizing healthcare with modern maternity clinics, these startups are paving the way for the next generation of business success.

But what is it that sets these 50 companies apart from the rest? While each startup is unique in its offerings and approach, there are key characteristics they share that have catapulted them into LinkedIn’s Top 50 Startups. Here’s a closer look at the common threads binding these companies together and what makes them stand out in the crowded startup ecosystem:

1. Explosive Employee Growth

One key pillar of LinkedIn’s ranking methodology is employee growth, and it’s no surprise why. Rapidly scaling teams are a strong indicator of a company’s growth trajectory and ability to meet the increasing demands of its market. The Top 50 Startups of 2024 have successfully built and scaled their teams, indicating robust internal growth that complements their business expansion.

2. Strong Jobseeker Interest

These startups are not only attractive to investors but also to jobseekers. Top talent is flocking to these companies because they offer innovative products, compelling missions, and the potential for employees to be part of something game-changing. In many cases, startups are offering roles that blend cutting-edge technology with the opportunity to shape the future, such as those using AI to automate tasks that once took hours.

3. High Engagement from Employees

Another significant pillar is the engagement level within the company, particularly among employees. Startups that make the Top 50 list have built cultures that encourage engagement, collaboration, and innovation. They are workplaces where employees are motivated, invested in the company’s success, and actively contribute to its mission. In an era where employee retention is increasingly challenging, these startups have cracked the code on maintaining high levels of employee satisfaction and involvement.

4. Attracting Talent from Top Companies

The ability to attract and hire talent from top companies is another hallmark of a high-performing startup. These 50 companies have successfully pulled talent from established industry leaders, signaling that their missions and growth potential are so compelling that people are willing to leave the stability of a larger company to join the excitement of a fast-growing startup.

5. Innovation at Their Core

Whether it’s using generative AI to transform entire industries or creating modern solutions for healthcare, each of these startups is rooted in innovation. They are not merely iterating on existing solutions—they are disrupting the status quo and reimagining how business is done. Their ability to be at the forefront of their industries is what makes them attractive to investors, jobseekers, and partners alike.

6. A Focus on Sustainability and Future-Readiness

Many of these startups are forward-thinking not only in their technology but in their commitment to sustainability and long-term success. Whether through sustainable business practices or forward-looking business models, these companies are preparing for the future by solving real-world problems today.

What This Means for You

As we look at the common traits among LinkedIn’s Top 50 Startups, there are valuable lessons for any company—whether you’re in the early stages of building a business or looking to accelerate growth. Rapid employee growth, strong engagement, attracting top talent, and a commitment to innovation are essential pillars for success in today’s fast-paced market.

If you’re seeking to build or expand your own startup, following these trends could be key to standing out in a competitive space. The future of business is being shaped by startups like these—companies that are unafraid to push the boundaries and reimagine the future of their industries.

Here is quick look at the top 50 LinkedIn Companies to Watch in 2024:

1. Perplexity.ai is an AI-powered search engine designed to provide direct answers to user queries by leveraging large language models. It aims to offer more contextually accurate and concise responses compared to traditional search engines. Perplexity focuses on delivering reliable and sourced information quickly, helping users find the information they need without sorting through multiple search results.
2. Ramp is a financial services company that provides an AI-powered corporate spend management platform. It offers tools for managing business expenses, corporate cards, bill payments, and accounting automation. Ramp helps businesses streamline their financial operations, track spending in real-time, and optimize costs. Its platform also includes analytics and reporting to help companies make data-driven financial decisions, ensuring better budget management and compliance. Ramp is designed to improve operational efficiency and save time for finance teams.
3. Cohere Health is a healthcare technology company that streamlines prior authorization processes for healthcare providers and insurers. Using AI and machine learning, Cohere Health’s platform enhances decision-making, reduces administrative burden, and ensures that patients receive timely and appropriate care. It focuses on improving care management, reducing delays, and enhancing collaboration between healthcare stakeholders, ultimately improving patient outcomes while lowering healthcare costs.
4. Headway is a mental healthcare platform that connects patients with therapists and psychiatrists who accept insurance. It aims to make mental health care more accessible and affordable by simplifying the process of finding and booking appointments with providers. Headway handles the administrative tasks for clinicians, such as billing and claims, allowing them to focus on patient care. The platform works with various insurance companies, making it easier for individuals to access mental health services at a lower cost.
5. Medallion is a healthcare technology platform that automates provider management for healthcare organizations. Its services include credentialing, licensing, payer enrollment, and ongoing monitoring of healthcare providers, helping organizations streamline operations and reduce administrative burdens. Medallion's platform ensures compliance, accelerates the onboarding process, and improves operational efficiency by managing complex healthcare provider data across networks. This allows healthcare organizations to focus more on patient care and less on administrative tasks.
6. Wiz is a cloud security platform that provides comprehensive visibility and security management across multi-cloud environments. It helps businesses identify and prioritize risks, such as vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and potential threats, in real-time. Wiz’s platform integrates with major cloud providers like AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure, allowing security teams to continuously monitor their cloud infrastructure and protect sensitive data. It enables organizations to detect issues before they become critical, improving security posture and operational efficiency in the cloud.
7. Charlie Health is a mental health care provider that offers personalized virtual therapy programs for teens, young adults, and families. Specializing in intensive outpatient programs (IOP), Charlie Health addresses complex mental health issues such as anxiety, depression, trauma, and self-harm. The platform connects patients with licensed therapists and provides group, individual, and family therapy. Its goal is to make high-quality mental health care accessible and tailored to the needs of young people, particularly those requiring more intensive treatment than traditional therapy.
8. Grow Therapy is a mental health platform that helps connect patients with licensed therapists and mental health providers who accept insurance. It aims to make mental health care more accessible by enabling therapists to easily start and manage their private practices while offering affordable care options for patients. Grow Therapy handles the administrative tasks such as insurance billing, allowing therapists to focus on patient care. It provides a broad range of therapy options to individuals, families, and couples.
9. Bloom Nutrition is a wellness company that offers a range of nutritional supplements, with a focus on providing products that support health, fitness, and overall well-being. Their flagship product is a Greens & Superfoods blend, designed to improve digestion, boost energy levels, and support immunity. Bloom Nutrition emphasizes clean ingredients and offers products such as protein powders, vitamins, and pre-workout supplements, catering to people looking to enhance their fitness and nutritional routines naturally.
10. Inworld AI is an AI-powered platform that enables the creation of intelligent virtual characters for interactive experiences, such as video games, virtual worlds, and simulations. Using advanced natural language processing and AI technologies, Inworld allows developers to design characters with rich backstories, personalities, and emotions, enabling them to interact with users in dynamic, lifelike ways. These virtual characters can engage in conversations, adapt based on the context, and enhance the realism and immersion of digital environments.
11. Rinsed is a software platform designed specifically for car wash businesses. It helps operators manage customer relationships, subscription billing, and marketing campaigns. Rinsed streamlines operations by automating tasks like customer engagement, subscription management, and payment processing, enabling car wash owners to increase customer retention and drive revenue growth. The platform also provides tools for managing customer data, analyzing performance, and optimizing marketing efforts to improve overall business efficiency.
12. Glean is an AI-powered workplace search platform designed to help employees find information quickly and efficiently within their organization. It integrates with various work tools like Slack, Google Workspace, Salesforce, and more to provide a unified search experience. Glean's AI capabilities allow users to search across different apps and platforms, making it easier to locate documents, messages, or files, thereby improving productivity and collaboration within teams. Its focus is on making knowledge retrieval seamless in enterprise environments.
13. Happy Dad is a hard seltzer brand known for its smooth taste, lower carbonation, and simple, refreshing flavors. It differentiates itself by offering a less bubbly and more drinkable alternative to other hard seltzers on the market. Recently, the brand has expanded its lineup to include Happy Dad Hard Tea, which combines the flavor of iced tea with alcohol, providing a new option for consumers looking for a flavorful and low-alcohol beverage. Happy Dad is widely popular, particularly among younger audiences, due to its clean branding and strong social media presence.
14. Whatnot is a live-streaming platform and marketplace designed for buying and selling collectibles, such as trading cards, sneakers, toys, and other pop culture items. The platform allows sellers to host live auctions where users can bid on items in real time, creating a more interactive shopping experience. Whatnot combines live entertainment with commerce, allowing collectors to engage with sellers and other buyers in a dynamic way.
15. Underdog is a sports gaming platform primarily focused on fantasy sports and pick’em games. It allows users to draft fantasy teams or make predictions on player performances in various sports leagues such as the NFL, NBA, and MLB. Underdog offers a more streamlined and user-friendly experience for daily and season-long fantasy sports contests. The platform is known for its innovative formats, including "Best Ball" drafts, where users draft a team once, and no in-season management is required.
16. Cyera is a data security platform that helps organizations manage and protect sensitive data across cloud environments. It provides real-time visibility into where data is stored, how it's being used, and who has access to it, allowing businesses to ensure compliance and mitigate risk. By using AI and automation, Cyera helps enterprises secure their data and maintain strong security practices as they scale across multiple cloud infrastructures. The platform supports proactive risk management and regulatory compliance.
17. Bubble is a no-code development platform that allows users to build web applications without needing programming skills. It provides a visual interface for designing, building, and launching fully functional apps, from MVPs to complex platforms. Users can create workflows, set up databases, and integrate APIs, all without writing code. Bubble is popular among startups, entrepreneurs, and small businesses that want to develop apps quickly and cost-effectively, offering flexibility for prototyping and scaling applications.
18. Feastables is a snack brand founded by YouTuber MrBeast (Jimmy Donaldson) that focuses on creating better-for-you snacks, starting with its line of chocolate bars. The brand emphasizes clean ingredients and high-quality flavors while making snacks that are enjoyable and accessible. Feastables products are marketed with fun and engaging campaigns, often tied to MrBeast’s broader content, connecting with his massive fan base. The company is focused on creating a fun and healthier alternative to conventional snack foods.
19. Carbon Direct is a carbon management company that helps businesses reduce their carbon footprint by providing solutions for carbon removal and reduction. They offer scientific expertise and financial solutions to organizations looking to meet climate goals, with a focus on carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) projects. Carbon Direct also invests in technology and innovations that enable companies to lower emissions and offset carbon, contributing to long-term sustainability and climate impact mitigation strategies.
20. Pinecone is a vector database designed for building and managing machine learning applications, specifically for handling unstructured data like text, images, and embeddings. It enables developers to store, index, and query vectors—numerical representations of data commonly used in AI models. Pinecone is optimized for high-performance search and retrieval tasks, allowing applications like recommendation engines, semantic search, and anomaly detection to work efficiently. The platform is often used by AI-driven companies to improve the speed and accuracy of large-scale machine learning operations, especially when working with real-time data.
21. CareYaya is a platform that connects families with affordable, non-medical caregiving services provided by college students. It focuses on offering companionship and support to seniors and others in need of daily living assistance. The service helps bridge the gap between professional caregivers and families looking for affordable care options, offering flexible, part-time caregiving solutions while also providing students with the opportunity to gain experience in healthcare and caregiving fields.
22. Harvey is an AI platform designed to assist legal professionals by automating and streamlining legal tasks. It leverages generative AI to provide insights, draft documents, answer legal questions, and help with research. The platform is aimed at improving efficiency in law firms by reducing time spent on repetitive, time-consuming tasks, enabling lawyers to focus more on strategic and complex aspects of their work.
23. Typeface is a generative AI platform designed for businesses to create personalized, on-brand content at scale. It combines AI with brand-specific guidelines to help teams generate marketing copy, social media posts, product descriptions, and more. Typeface enables companies to maintain brand consistency while improving the speed and efficiency of content creation. The platform is particularly useful for marketers, content creators, and product teams looking to streamline their workflows while ensuring the output aligns with their brand identity.
24. Oula is a modern maternity clinic that blends the best of obstetrics and midwifery care to provide comprehensive, personalized maternity services for women. The clinic offers both virtual and in-person care, covering everything from prenatal visits to postpartum support. Oula focuses on evidence-based care and aims to create a nurturing, community-driven environment for expecting mothers. Their approach integrates technology with personalized healthcare, ensuring a seamless and supportive pregnancy and birthing experience.
25. Beehiiv is an email newsletter platform designed to help creators and businesses build, grow, and monetize their newsletters. It offers a user-friendly interface for writing and managing newsletters, analytics to track audience engagement, and tools to help grow subscribers. Beehiiv is particularly focused on providing features for scaling newsletters, including custom domains, paid subscriptions, and referral programs, making it a popular choice for content creators looking to build a strong direct communication channel with their audience.
26. Bilt is a rewards program and credit card company that allows renters to earn points on their rent payments without paying transaction fees. Through the Bilt Rewards program and the Bilt Mastercard, renters can accumulate points that can be redeemed for various rewards, including travel, fitness memberships, dining, and even towards a future home down payment. Bilt partners with a network of properties and aims to transform rent payments into a valuable tool for building credit and earning rewards, offering renters the ability to benefit from a typically non-rewarded expense.
27. Snorkel AI is a data-centric AI platform that focuses on accelerating the development of machine learning models by automating the process of labeling training data. It enables organizations to quickly build high-quality training datasets using weak supervision and programmatic labeling techniques, which significantly reduces the time and manual effort needed for data annotation. Snorkel AI is designed to streamline model development, improve data quality, and make AI more accessible across various industries, especially for tasks requiring large amounts of labeled data.
28. Equip is a virtual healthcare platform that offers personalized treatment for eating disorders. It provides a comprehensive, family-based care approach, offering therapy, nutritional support, and medical care through telehealth services. Equip’s team includes therapists, dietitians, and physicians who work collaboratively to support patients in their recovery journey. The platform is designed to make evidence-based treatment accessible, regardless of location, and focuses on improving long-term outcomes by involving family members in the treatment process.
29. Fora Travel is a modern travel agency that allows travel advisors to plan personalized trips for clients while earning commissions. It empowers independent travel advisors, helping them build their own travel businesses through a platform that provides access to exclusive deals, travel content, and tools for booking flights, hotels, and experiences. Fora combines the benefits of a traditional travel agency with the flexibility of a modern platform, catering to both travel advisors and clients looking for curated travel experiences.
30. Midi Health is a virtual healthcare platform focused on providing personalized care for women in midlife, particularly those experiencing perimenopause and menopause. It offers evidence-based treatment, including hormonal and non-hormonal therapies, lifestyle recommendations, and ongoing support. Midi Health's services are delivered through telehealth consultations with specialized clinicians, making care accessible from anywhere. The platform is designed to help women manage symptoms, improve their quality of life, and navigate the unique health challenges of menopause.
31. Figure is a financial technology company that provides a range of services focused on leveraging blockchain for lending, asset management, and payments. It offers products like home equity lines of credit (HELOCs), mortgage refinancing, and personal loans, with a focus on speed and transparency through its blockchain infrastructure. Figure aims to streamline financial processes by using distributed ledger technology to make transactions faster, more secure, and efficient, especially in real estate and capital markets.
32. CharacterAI is an AI platform that allows users to interact with AI-generated characters capable of engaging in human-like conversations. These characters can be customized for different use cases, from entertainment and storytelling to virtual companionship and education. Using natural language processing, Character AI creates responsive and adaptive dialogues, offering users an immersive experience with AI characters that can take on different personalities and roles. The platform is popular for creative storytelling, role-play, and learning simulations.
33. Cadence is a healthcare technology company that provides remote patient monitoring and virtual care services for chronic conditions. It partners with healthcare providers to offer real-time health monitoring using connected devices, allowing clinicians to track patients' vital signs and manage their care between visits. The platform is designed to improve patient outcomes by enabling continuous monitoring and early intervention, helping individuals manage conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, and heart failure through personalized and data-driven care.
34. Haus is a brand that produces low-alcohol, natural apéritifs made from clean, organic ingredients. Known for its craft spirits with lower alcohol content compared to traditional liquors, Haus offers a variety of flavors aimed at creating a modern, healthier drinking experience. The company focuses on transparency, using simple ingredients without artificial additives. Haus is popular among consumers seeking more balanced drinking options for social occasions while still enjoying flavorful, crafted beverages.
35. Ambience Healthcare is an AI-driven platform designed to streamline clinical documentation. It automates the process of medical note-taking by listening to patient-doctor interactions and generating comprehensive, accurate notes. The platform aims to reduce the administrative burden on healthcare providers, enabling them to focus more on patient care. Ambience's solution helps improve the efficiency and quality of clinical documentation while minimizing errors and enhancing the overall healthcare workflow.
36. Scribe is a software tool that allows users to automatically create step-by-step guides by capturing their workflows. As users perform tasks on their computer, Scribe records the actions and turns them into visual, easy-to-follow instructions, complete with screenshots and annotations. It helps teams document processes efficiently, making it useful for training, onboarding, and knowledge sharing. The platform is particularly popular for creating tutorials and guides without the need for manual documentation.
37. Redpanda Data is a data streaming platform designed to handle real-time data at scale. It acts as an alternative to Apache Kafka, offering a high-performance, low-latency solution for building modern data pipelines, event-driven applications, and real-time analytics. Redpanda simplifies the deployment and management of data streams while ensuring compatibility with existing Kafka APIs. The platform is built to provide reliability and scalability, making it a popular choice for organizations handling large amounts of streaming data across various industries.
38. Xaira Therapeutics is a biotechnology company that uses advanced artificial intelligence to revolutionize drug discovery and development. The company aims to design new proteins and molecules to address "undruggable" targets that were previously considered difficult or impossible to treat. With over $1 billion in funding, Xaira focuses on leveraging generative AI and machine learning to accelerate the process of creating new therapeutics, transforming the way diseases are treated.
39. Chainguard is a cybersecurity company focused on securing software supply chains. It provides solutions to help organizations build, deploy, and manage secure software by ensuring the integrity and security of the code from development through production. Chainguard specializes in zero-trust security models and offers tools that ensure software components are verified and free from vulnerabilities. Their mission is to make software supply chains more resilient to threats and reduce the risks associated with open-source software and third-party?
40. Transcarent is a health and care experience company that provides a new approach to healthcare for self-insured employers and their employees. It offers a comprehensive, tech-enabled platform that gives employees access to high-quality healthcare services, including virtual care, second opinions, surgeries, and prescriptions, with transparent pricingdependencies.
41. Pave is a compensation benchmarking and planning platform designed to help companies manage employee compensation more effectively. It provides real-time data on salaries, equity, and benefits to ensure competitive and fair compensation packages. Pave integrates with HR and payroll systems, allowing companies to streamline compensation management, plan for salary adjustments, and maintain internal pay equity. The platform is commonly used by startups and high-growth companies looking to make data-driven decisions around employee compensation and retain top talent.
42. Truveta is a healthcare data platform that aggregates and analyzes real-world health data to improve patient care and accelerate medical research. Truveta collects anonymized data from healthcare providers across the U.S., using advanced analytics and AI to generate insights into health trends, treatment outcomes, and disease patterns. The platform aims to enable healthcare organizations, researchers, and pharmaceutical companies to make more informed decisions, improve patient outcomes, and discover new treatments. Its mission is to leverage data to improve global health and advance medical knowledge.
43. Gretel.ai is an AI-powered platform that enables users to create synthetic data, which can be used for machine learning, software testing, and data privacy purposes. By generating artificial datasets that mimic the characteristics of real data, Gretel helps organizations protect sensitive information while still allowing them to work with high-quality data for training models or conducting analysis. It is particularly useful in situations where data privacy regulations or limitations on data sharing create challenges. Gretel.ai also offers tools for data anonymization and augmentation, making it easier for teams to work with safe and scalable datasets.
44. Pulley is a cap table management platform designed to help startups, founders, and companies manage their equity and ownership structures. Pulley simplifies complex tasks like tracking ownership stakes, issuing stock options, and managing employee equity plans. It also helps companies stay compliant with regulatory requirements and provides insights into how equity impacts a company’s financials. Pulley is often used by startups looking to scale while maintaining clear visibility over their equity distribution.
45. Spotter is a company that provides upfront funding to YouTube creators in exchange for future ad revenue from their content. This allows creators to receive large sums of money upfront without giving up ownership of their channels or creative control. Spotter essentially invests in a creator’s existing content by purchasing the rights to future ad revenue for a set period, enabling creators to reinvest in their production or other ventures. Spotter aims to empower creators by providing them with capital while they continue to build their brand and audience.
46. Ignite Reading is an educational platform focused on improving literacy through personalized, one-on-one virtual tutoring for elementary school students. The program uses research-backed methods to help students enhance their reading skills, particularly targeting those who are struggling or below grade level. Ignite Reading pairs students with certified tutors for daily, individualized instruction, aiming to boost literacy rates and close the reading gap. The platform is designed to support schools and districts by offering scalable solutions to improve reading outcomes for young learners.
47. Statsig is a data-driven experimentation and feature management platform that helps companies optimize their product development through A/B testing and real-time analytics. It enables teams to run experiments, analyze user behavior, and make informed decisions based on statistical insights. Statsig also offers feature flagging, allowing companies to control feature rollouts, test new features with specific user segments, and measure the impact on key metrics. The platform is designed to help product and engineering teams make data-backed decisions to improve product performance and user experience.
48. Array is a fintech platform that provides white-label solutions for credit monitoring, identity protection, and financial tools. It enables businesses such as banks, credit unions, and fintech companies to offer credit-related services directly to their customers. Array’s platform includes tools for credit score tracking, financial insights, and fraud alerts, helping users improve their financial health. The company focuses on empowering consumers to better understand and manage their credit while allowing businesses to enhance their offerings with customizable financial tools.
49. League One Volleyball (LOVB) is a sports organization dedicated to building a professional women’s volleyball league in the United States. It aims to elevate the sport by providing a platform for elite female volleyball players while also fostering community engagement and youth development. League One Volleyball integrates grassroots initiatives with professional play, aiming to create a sustainable league that nurtures talent from a young age and gives athletes a pathway to compete at the highest levels. The organization focuses on promoting women's sports and empowering athletes through increased visibility and opportunities.
50. Jones Road Beauty is a clean beauty brand founded by renowned makeup artist Bobbi Brown. The brand focuses on creating high-quality, minimalist makeup products made with clean ingredients, without harmful chemicals or additives. Jones Road Beauty offers a range of skincare and makeup products designed to enhance natural beauty, with an emphasis on versatility and simplicity. The brand appeals to individuals seeking effective, easy-to-use products that prioritize skin health and natural, effortless looks.