AO Global 250 Winners
1Including 7 of Carmel Ventures’ Portfolio Companies: Amadesa, Delver, LiveU, C-nario, mFormation, eXelate, Kontera
We proudly present this year’s AO Global 250. With this list of top private companies, AlwaysOn’s editors and our panel of industry experts introduce a new generation of game-changing players in the global technology industries.
After six years of the AlwaysOn 100 - our list of the hottest, most disrupting private companies in technology - we found that the rapid growth of startup communities around the world was forcing us to broaden our perspective - so much that we more than doubled the number of companies and rebranded the list. As a result, this year’s AO Global 250 reflects a set of trends that are about to ignite new market opportunities the whole world over.
The consumer media space was hot in recent years, but "Web 2.0" has begun to see consolidation. Big innovation from platforms has stabilized, and social networks like hi5, virtual worlds like Gaia Online, and widget companies like RockYou and Slide continue to lead the space. However, some deeply disruptive technology has come from our top company of the year, Twitter, which has fueled a new form of communication: "micro-publishing." We believe Twitter will soon grow into a platform used widely for other services.
Green technology continues to attract a lot of media attention and venture capital. This year, many companies moved from the lab to the market and are now shipping products. A123 Systems, founded in 2001, has grown to be the top volume producer of nanophosphate-based cells in the world.
Another significant trend is the virtualization of consumer and PC services. Companies like Carbonite are bringing online back-up and storage services - previously reserved for Fortune 500 companies - to consumers and small businesses. Out top infrastructure company, OpSource, provides a complete Web operations infrastructure and service solution for SaaS and Web businesses.
The mobile sector continues to see huge growth. Consumer applications and services dominate the space, but enterprise apps are catching up. Many winning companies are turning the mobile device in a fully integrated media and service delivery tool. Our top company in this category, modu, has created a tiny modular phone that can interact with other devices, pushing the space into even smaller and more mobile territory.
At a time of economic uncertainty, the innovative business opportunities being created by the AO Global 250 winners couldn’t be more welcome.
The winners of this competition will be honored at The AlwaysOn & STVP Summit at Stanford, July 22-24 at the Arrillaga Alumni Center at Stanford University. They’ll also be featured in AO’s quarterly print “blogozine” and on the AlwaysOn website. Click here to reserve your ticket to the Summit at Stanford and take advantage of the AO-Insider discount!
