Top 10 tech startups shaking things up in 2018
Tags: Startup, Slack, It

Top 10 tech startups shaking things up in 2018

In 2018 startups need to offer left field solutions that can be flexible and fluid enough for today’s fast-changing world. Rockship Apr 11, 2019·4 min read

The concept of automation, machine learning, data collection and AI being key elements of the business world today is one that most companies are by now comfortable with.

That being said, being accustomed to it means a strenuous new challenge for startups: finding out ways to not only enter a market full of automated solutions, but being able to uphold a feature of their business that will not become dated and forgotten with the development of new technology.

Below is EM360’s list of top 10 tech startups to keep an eye out for in 2018. Each one having earned its way to the top by thinking their way carefully to success.

Slack is currently known as the fastest-growing enterprise and work chat app. Its funding to this date is 790 million dollars in 10 rounds, while it further announced to be on a $200 million annualised run rate.

With previous rumours about Amazon being interested in buying the company for $9 billion, Slack is a goliath, the success of which is making companies reconsider their approaches to their own work chat apps (Microsoft with their project Teams and Atlasssian unveiling the app Stride).

The key to Slack’s success is optimising and reinventing the work chat environment for people, allowing them the freedom to operate the chat more creatively than any other message-app. CEO of Slack, Stewart Butterfield, had this to say: “One thing we can predict is that we will increasingly rely on human intelligence and creativity as opposed to human capacity to perform repetitive tasks”.

tilr is a startup that is revolutionising the hiring process for both employers and employees. Matching applicants with companies based solely on skills, tilr seeks to reinvent the way companies look at applicants and attempts to strip old biases away.

With a funding of $5 million and aiming to expand to 16–19 markets by the end of this year, tilr is not just interested in making the application process easier for workers. They are also looking to protect and aid people seeking jobs in an economy that is hesitant to hire full-time.

tilr’s name makes the round by professing their philosophy again and again. The importance of looking after workers in an economy that becomes harder and harder to engage with is crucial, as the co-founders, Carisa Miklusak (CEO), Summer Crenshaw (COO) and Luke Vigeant (CTO) say in their about page: “Our mission is to automate the recruitment process. Our vision is to close the global skill gap”.

FreightHub is a digital asset-free freight service provider, they are located in Berlin and Hamburg and aim to add a technological spin to the freight forwarding industry, facilitating and maximising the quality of their service.

Founded in 2016 by Ferry Heilemann, Erik Muttersbach, Michael Wax and Fabian Heilemann, FreightHub managed to raise a $20 million A series round after 1.5 years of launching.

“The problem with most established (freight forwarding) players today is, that their processes and customer interfaces seem to be as old as the industry itself,” co-founder and CEO Ferry Heilemann says. FreightHub is all about innovating and revamping the old into a new, fresh and exciting image.

A startup with a strange story: ctrlio was backed $1.3 million by Genesis frontman Peter Gabriel. It is a free to use price comparison site that requires no forms to be filled in as they analyse your online bills.

Ctrlio looks to bring the best deals and discounts from brands to customers at the best times, specifically when customers are prepared to pay or renew contracts. Further, they vouch to deliver these deals in an “unbiased” way, remaining distant from sponsored deals companies might want them to promote and choosing to instead give customers the deals that statistically work best for them, regardless of the popularity of said deal.

Also: It’s pronounced “control-ee-o”, like the CTRL button, because you control what goes in and out.

Their slogan is, “Turn brands into religions”, which should say enough about their mission statement. Qualtrics attempts to fortify clients’ brands with features like customer segmentation, targeting and positioning and brand touchpoint research.

In 2012 Qualtrics received a $70 million investment from Sequoia Capital and Accel Partners, and things have only moved upwards since. CEO Ryan Smith has said Qualtrics is set to constantly update and innovate the system and the approach to the system:

“We definitely have built what our clients need, but we are also innovating for what they’ll need in the future”.

(to be continued)