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The startup world is changing fast.
Higher interest rates, lack of VC funding and a slow economy means that many startups need to change how they operate.
Despite the challenging environment, a small number of new companies are seeing rapid growth.
From tech to ecommerce, this is our list of the fastest growing startups in 2024.
1. Zerotier
5-year search growth: 567%
Search growth status: Exploding
Year founded: 2015
Location: Los Angeles, California
Funding: $3.7M (Series Unknown)
What they do: ZeroTier is a platform used to deploy and maintain secure peer-to-peer networks.The virtual networks are encrypted, and only the owner has access to the encryption keys, adding another layer of security to the network. According to the startup, theirplatform currently hosts over 1.2 million networks that handle over 3 million connected devices.
2. Cradlewise
5-year search growth: 5,200%
Search growth status: Exploding
Year founded: 2019
Location: San Fransisco, California
Funding: $7M (Seed)
What they do: Cradlewise sells smart bassinets with built-in baby monitors. Their bassinet monitors sleep depth and can automatically soothe the baby as soon as they display signs of waking up. Last year the company was awarded an Innovations Award at the CES 2022 event, accelerating interest in the new company.
3. OnlyFans
5-year search growth: 3,100%
Search growth status: Exploding
Year founded: 2016
Location: London, UK
Funding: Undisclosed
What they do: OnlyFans is essentially Patreon (crowdsourced funding that goes directly to creators) for NSFW content. With net revenues of $2.5 billion in 2022 and a dedicated user base of 7 million fans per month, there's no doubt that OnlyFans is one of the fastest-growing private companies in the world. However, OnlyFans’ public image has prevented the app from receiving mainstream VC backing.
4. StackBlitz
5-year search growth: 210%
Search growth status: Exploding
Year founded: 2018
Location: San Francisco, California
Funding: $7.9M (Seed)
What they do: Computer programmers love simplicity more than anything else, and StackBlitz serves up a suite of nuts and bolts tools in a single platform. Critical tools like source code editors, automation, and debugging are all accessible in a “Google Suite” type cloud environment. StackBlitz is already being used by Google and other leading enterprise developers worldwide.
5. Linktree
5-year search growth: 833%
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 2016
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Funding: $165.7M (Series C)
What they do: Linktree was designed to help influencers and content creators share content across platforms via a one-click link. Instead of having subscribers searching tediously through different platforms to find their page, a Linktree link branches out to show all of a creator's pages in one simple display.
Featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur, and Digital Trends, Linktree continues to expand its functionality with features like payments and Shopify integration.
6. Fandom
5-year search growth: 189%
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 2004
Location: San Francisco, California
Funding: $145.4M (Series E)
What they do: Fandom is a “nerd’s paradise”, the world’s largest wiki for gaming, fantasy, and entertainment culture all on one site. 350 million rabid fans across 250,000 communities from Halo to Game of Thrones interact with the site on a monthly basis.
Gaming alone is massive on the platform. Over 1.2 billion gaming questions are answered every month with a user base of 125 million gaming users worldwide.
7. Preply
5-year search growth: 1,567%
Search growth status: Exploding
Year founded: 2012
Location: Brookline, Massachusetts
Funding: $170.1M (Series C)
What they do: Preply is a fast-growing one-to-one language tutoring service. Built on a marketplace model like Upwork, students can select tutors from over 200 countries to help them learn anything from Chinese to English.
Preply’s has 32,000 tutors signed up to teach and has an impressive user base of over 100,000 monthly students.
8. Labster
5-year search growth: 191%
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 2011
Location: Copenhagen, Denmark
Funding: $150.5M (Series C)
What they do: The COVID-19 pandemic helped educators and students discover that online learning has its perks. However, lab work has been seen as one area of virtual learning that's hard to replicate outside of the laboratory. In fact, labs were seen as one of the last frontiers of science that required in-person instruction.
Labster’s software team has developed over 250 high-quality virtual labs for students to experiment on everything from DNA sequencing to cancer treatment. The popular gamified approach has worked and 1,800 institutions and 900,000 students worldwide now use Labster to simulate real lab work.
9. Oura
5-year search growth: 614%
Search growth status: Exploding
Year founded: 2013
Location: Oulu, Finland
Funding: $148.3M (Series C)
What they do: Oura’s sleek rings have started to permeate the globe. But their creation all started from a small city in Finland by a trio of Finnish entrepreneurs. Less noticeable than many other wearable competitors, Oura monitors heart rate 24/7, sleeping patterns, body temperature, via their smartphone app.
Publications like Wired have given Oura rave reviews for their accurate data and very lightweight design.
10. Tailwind
5-year search growth: 1,063%
Search growth status: Exploding
Year founded: 2012
Location: Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Funding: $10.7M (Series B)
What they do: Pinterest and Instagram are loaded with content creators. Which makes standing out from the crowd hard to do. Tailwind’s visual creation platform is used by over 1,000,000 brands and influencers worldwide largely because it makes sticking out easier than attempting to create content from scratch. Automating the most annoying parts of the creation process like hashtagging, color schemes, and scheduling lets brands focus on the idea behind the posts.
Over 1 million small businesses like Article, Serena & Lily, Jenny Yoo, and even giants like Shopify utilize Tailwind.
11. Gumroad
5-year search growth: 327%
Search growth status: Exploding
Year founded: 2012
Location: San Francisco, California
Funding: $16.1M (Equity Crowdfunding)
What they do: Digital creators have traditionally struggled to monetize their audiences. Gumroad is the answer for over 120,000 creators who have sold over $743 milliion on the platform. Their platform lets creators sell anything from blog posts to cookbooks.
Gumroad has launched a blog, a “university”, and a podcast thanks to the explosion in interest around the platform.
12. Clockify
5-year search growth: 571%
Search growth status: Exploding
Year founded: 2017
Location: Palo Alto, California
Funding: Undisclosed
What they do: Project managers everywhere despise one thing more than any other: tracking their time. Clockify is a free time tracking tool used by several top-tier companies like Disney, Sony, Amazon, and more. According to the company, 100,000+ users sign up each month.
13. Glow Up
5-year search growth: 323%
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 2020
Location: Khobar, Saudi Arabia
Funding: Undisclosed
What they do: Glow Up lets women in Saudi Arabia book on-demand beauty services that are offered in the comfort of their own homes. By simply choosing from 4 categories (Makeup, Hair, Spa, Model) on the platform, women can then choose which professional they’d like to hire.
14. Brightwheel
5-year search growth: 317%
Search growth status: Exploding
Year founded: 2014
Location: San Francisco, California
Funding: $88.8M (Series C)
What they do: Running a daycare or preschool is not an easy task in the slightest. Between managing attendance, juggling learning plans, and keeping anxious parents at ease, daycare center staff have to do it all. Brightwheel sensed an opportunity and developed their SaaS solution to handle essentially everything involved in running a child care facility.
Brightwheel claims that 85% of users end up recommending them, 100% of parents are more satisfied with their child care, and tens of millions of moments have been recorded and shared.
15. Manscaped
5-year search growth: 229%
Search growth status: Exploding
Year founded: 2016
Location: San Diego, California
Funding: $500K (Convertible Note)
What they do: As you scroll through social media you might have seen edgy ads from Manscaped, the San Diego startup trying to bring the cool back to men’s grooming. Manscaped has gone with the strategy of using masculine sports stars like tight end Rob Gronkowski and millennial publications like Barstool Sports to get their sleek grooming tools notoriety.
American made in San Diego, their signature products like “The Lawnmower” have been so successful that SPAC talks to go public are potentially in the works.
16. Shiprocket
5-year search growth: 1,700%
Search growth status: Exploding
Year founded: 2017
Location: New Delhi, India
Funding: $399.1M (Series E)
What they do: Shiprocket is an end-to-end e-commerce logistics platform based in India that enables businesses to streamline their shipping and delivery processes. The platform offers a range of shipping solutions, including domestic and international shipping, multiple courier integrations, and advanced tracking and analytics tools.
Shiprocket has become a leading player in e-commerce logistics due to their affordable pricing, seamless integration with popular e-commerce platforms, and focus on simplifying shipping for small and medium-sized businesses.
17. Saie
5-year search growth: 629%
Search growth status: Exploding
Year founded: 2019
Location: New York, New York
Funding: Undisclosed (Seed)
What they do: Saie is a beauty brand that offers clean, natural, and sustainable makeup products. The company's products are made with high-quality ingredients and free from harmful chemicals, with a focus on ethical and sustainable sourcing.
Saie's commitment to transparency and eco-consciousness has earned it a loyal following among consumers looking for natural and ethical beauty products.
18. Boddle
5-year search growth: 8,100%
Search growth status: Exploding
Year founded: 2018
Location: Tulsa, Oklahoma
Funding: $5.6M (Seed)
What they do:Boddle is a gamified math learning platform that uses adaptive learning technology to automatically tailor learning content for each child. The platform also records students’ responses and turns them into “actionable reports” for teachers. According to the startup, they have over 2.5 million users.
19. Liquid Death
5-year search growth: 767%
Search growth status: Exploding
Year founded: 2017
Location: Santa Monica, California
Funding: $200.6M (Series D)
What they do: Liquid Death is a canned water DTC startup known for its unique approach to branding and marketing. According to Axios, the company was projected to generate$130 million in revenue in 2022 (that’s a 3x increase vs. 2021.)
20. Printify
5-year search growth: 2,150%
Search growth status: Exploding
Year founded: 2015
Location: San Francisco, California
Funding: $54.1M (Series A)
What they do: Printify is an on-demand printing service that makes adding custom designs to physical products relatively easy. Mugs, socks, coffee cups, shirts, and a catalog of over 800 products are available on-demand for whatever designs that users draw up.
21. Melio
5-year search growth: 791%
Search growth status: Exploding
Year founded: 2018
Location: New York, New York
Funding: $504M (Series D)
What they do: One of the banes of a small business’s existence is keeping the books, especially paying and invoicing vendors and contractors. Melio seamlessly syncs with Quickbooks and lets business owners create workflows that streamline the payment process.
22. Adalo
5-year search growth: 4,100%
Search growth status: Exploding
Year founded: 2018
Location: St. Louis, Missouri
Funding: $9.8M (Series A)
What they do: Creating an app can seem like a scary task when you don’t know how to code or where to start. Luckily, Adalo is solving that problem with their seamless no-code app builder. Fresh off of a Series A funding round of $8 million led by renowned Tiger Global, Adalo’s easy-to-use interface lets app creators drag and drop simple blocks to create their dream application without a single line of code.
23. The Farmer’s Dog
5-year search growth: 614%
Search growth status: Exploding
Year founded: 2014
Location: New York, New York
Funding: $103.1M (Series C)
What they do: Most dog owners are happy to do whatever it takes to give their “fur babies” the best life possible. The Farmer’s Dog seized the opportunity to offer high-end, human-grade dog food without preservatives. Over 200,000,000 meals have been delivered so far and The Farmer’s Dog team has grown to 300+ employees.
Farmer’s Dog is hoping they can cure the rising threat of obesity (over 60%) in dogs, which is largely down to the food they consume.
24. Elegoo
5-year search growth: 867%
Search growth status: Exploding
Year founded: 2015
Location: Shenzhen, China
Funding: Undisclosed
What they do: Chinese manufacturing startup Elegoo is committed to providing STEM students worldwide with affordable robots, 3D printers, and other machinery to help them learn the basics of software and hardware combinations at an elementary level.
Elegoo’s 3D printers have gotten rave reviews from critics for their combination of affordability and functionality.
25. Givebutter
5-year search growth: 8,700%
Search growth status: Exploding
Year founded: 2016
Location: Washington, District of Columbia
Funding: $7M (Seed)
What they do:
Givebutter is a fundraising software startup that provides a number of fundraising tools (donation forms, CRM, email management, etc.).Notably, their actual tools are free. The startup generates revenue mainly from tips and transaction fees.The platform has facilitated over $300M in donations by more than one million donors.
Conclusion
2024 is proving to be a challenging time for the startup ecosystem.
But these up and coming companies are showing the world that growth is possible in just about any economic environment.
Notably, the fast growing companies on this list come from a wide range of founders, backgrounds, locations, and industries. Which suggests that the right startups can still see growth despite additional challenges and pressure.
