Building a successful tech startups requires a lot more than a cool idea and good salesmanship. It involves putting in the late nights, making tough choices, and taking care of the little details from crafting the tone of social media posts to choosing the right electrical enclosure for a product.
For entrepreneurs who are prepared to go the distance, though, 2022 offers an abundance of opportunities for startups. Consumer spending is beginning to come back after COVID, but its patterns are changing, especially when it comes to the influence of things like the shift to working from home. Entrepreneurs everywhere see these opportunities and are responding with their value propositions.
The businesses we’ll talk about today are nine of the hottest startups in the tech world right now. Some have the world’s attention already, while others are on the verge of breaking out. All share a drive to innovate, disrupt and make a better world.
1. Hopin
COVID-19 created an unprecedented boom in the virtual events industry, and Hopin was there to ride the wave. Hopin offers a powerful platform for virtual event hosting aimed at the B2B market, and over 80,000 different organizations hosted events through it last year.
That’s why the company’s valuation has skyrocketed to $5.65 billion and made it one of the true potential competitors to other digital events giants like Zoom. It’s still uncertain how many corporate events will return in person this year and how many will stay virtual, so Hopin could have another blockbuster year.
Also read: 5 Popular Business Models for a Startup You Can Choose From
2. Cockroach Labs
In the booming field of cloud database management, Cockroach Labs has made a name for itself with its innovative CockroachDB SQL database management system. The heart of CockroachDB’s value proposition is it can store multiple data copies across hundreds or thousands of locations, making it both exceptionally fast and highly resistant to failure. Now, thanks to a recent $130 million Series E round, the company is valued at over $2 billion.
3. Cherre
Real estate properties generate enormous amounts of data, from maintenance costs to mortgage interest rates, and Cherre is there to consolidate it all. This software platform helps real estate owners and investors make smart decisions about their properties and consolidate all of the most relevant information about their portfolios into a single accessible platform.
Cherre just completed a $50 million growth round which will help them further promote their platform to an audience hungry for guidance in today’s booming real estate market.
4. ServiceTitan
ServiceTitan is a unified CRM and operations management platform for home services contractors like plumbers, HVAC techs, and roofers. Its powerful features allow contractors to effortlessly communicate with clients and communicate pricing clearly and effectively.
Simultaneously, it helps track critical operations metrics to ensure a superb experience for every client. ServiceTitan has raised nearly $900 million from investors since its founding in 2013, and they’re using the latest round to expand the platform’s offerings for lead generation, supplier integration, and more.
5. Outlier
Outlier is on a mission of tremendous importance: to establish a digital platform that makes higher education accessible for those without traditional access to it. The company offers online courses taught by seasoned professors from respected universities, which students can earn actual college credit by taking.
Each class costs only around $400, and a wide selection of accessible intro classes is perfect for students trying out college. With the need for accessible education clearly apparent in the U.S., Outlier just raised another $30 million in Series B.
6. Front
Office productivity apps became even more phenomenally popular during the pandemic, and some investors think Front will be the next app to join names like Slack and Asana. The idea is relatively simple: A universal inbox for multiple messaging apps shared between team members, that also includes functions to make collaboration and record-keeping easy.
It’s perfect for sales and PR teams, but it’s also branching out. Investors rewarded Front with $59 million in Series C funding to expand its platform into an office-wide format.
7. TripActions
2020 wasn’t great for travel apps, but TripActions is poised to reap the benefits of the boom in corporate travel when it does return. Apps like Kayak have been popular in the consumer flight sector for years, and now TripActions has made a name for itself as the enterprise-scale, business travel-oriented companion to these stalwarts.
It combines elements of both a travel agency and an expense management service, and the response from the corporate world has been enthusiastic. With a new $155 million Series E round closing in January 2021, TripActions is poised for takeoff.
Also read: 10 Best Ideas to Start Business from Home
8. HackerOne
You wouldn’t leave your electrical devices outdoors without protection from a waterproof junction box, and these days, that might as well be what you’re doing if you run large data systems without input from professional security consultants. HackerOne has a unique solution: Hire security consultants who think like hackers because, well, they are hackers.
With HackerOne, businesses get access to the services of skilled penetration testers who can put enterprise systems through their paces and identify the same weak points a real hacker might target. HackerOne’s latest round of Series D funding brought it to a total of $110 million in funding.
9. Mortgage Automator
Private mortgage lending is popular, but until now, the market has been lacking a flexible all-in-one automation toolset for private lenders. That’s why Mortgage Automator, a cloud-based platform for managing loan origination and servicing, is making such exciting inroads on the market right now.
This flexible software provides everything from process automation to data security to document templates—and it’s customizable enough to slip easily into a stack. Over $10 billion in mortgage financing has now passed through the service, and with the housing market on a white-hot streak, there’s little reason to think Mortgage Automator is headed anywhere but up.
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