The Wall Street Journal had a couple of very interesting articles about start-up companies and their ability to obtain funding. The following list of top 50 venture-funded companies for 2011 came from one of those articles. Of particular interest to me was the ease that some young entrepreneurs are finding in terms of ways to obtain capital, should their startups be technology-based. Everyone is looking to get in on the next Facebook or Google. Entrepreneur Aaron Levie, 26, was able to raise $48 million in less than 3 weeks for Box.net, his online storage company. Check out what WSJ.com claims are the top 50 start ups for 2011 below:
| Rank | Company Name | Location | Industry | Why It’s Hot | 2010 Rank | Total Equity Raised in Millions |
| 1 | Castlight Health Inc. | San Francisco | Health Care | As consumers pay more of their health-care bills, Castlight lifts the veil on medical costs. | 14 | $81.00 |
| 2 | Xirrus Inc. | Thousand Oaks, Calif. | Information Technology | Founder Dirk Gates previously took another start-up, Xircom, public and then sold it to Intel. | 9 | $80.25 |
| 3 | Xactly Corp. | San Jose, Calif. | Business and Financial Services | Xactly’s partners include Microsoft, Oracle and Salesforce.com, which invested last June. | $69.00 | |
| 4 | Recycle Rewards Inc. | New York | Business and Financial Services | Recyclebank is expanding internationally and currently operates in 29 states. | 25 | $73.35 |
| 5 | ExteNet Systems Inc. | Lisle, Ill. | Information Technology | ExteNet raised $128 million in a January 2010 round led by George Soros’s investment firm. | $191.90 | |
| 6 | Cyan Optics Inc. | Petaluma, Calif. | Information Technology | CEO Michael Hatfield previously founded Calix Networks, which held an IPO last year. | $90.83 | |
| 7 | Aster Data Systems Inc. | San Carlos, Calif. | Information Technology | Aster helps companies analyze data to understand customer behavior and detect fraud. | $47.00 | |
| 8 | Glam Media Inc. | Brisbane, Calif. | Consumer Services | Glam’s sites attract 198 million monthly visitors world-wide. | 13 | $154.20 |
| 9 | Carrier IQ Inc. | Mountain View, Calif. | Information Technology | The software sits on 140 million devices world-wide, providing data to Sprint and Vodafone. | $48.00 | |
| 10 | Imperva Inc. | Redwood Shores, Calif. | Information Technology | CEO Shlomo Kramer co-founded one of Israel’s largest tech companies, Check Point Software. | $54.00 | |
| 11 | Vidyo Inc. | Hackensack, N.J. | Information Technology | Vidyo powers Google Chat and bundles its software on Hewlett-Packard PCs. | 35 | $61.19 |
| 12 | Etsy Inc. | Brooklyn, N.Y. | Consumer Services | It’s profitable and in August it estimated 2010 revenue of $30 million to $50 million. | $51.25 | |
| 13 | RGB Networks Inc. | Sunnyvale, Calif. | Information Technology | RGB acquired mobile-video rival RipCode in June. | $119.00 | |
| 14 | IronKey Inc. | Sunnyvale, Calif. | Information Technology | Founder and Chairman David Jevans helped develop Apple’s Internet strategy. | $50.30 | |
| 15 | Appia Inc. | Durham, N.C. | Information Technology | Appia is moving to build app marketplaces for the likes of AT&T and Samsung. | $18.25 | |
| 16 | The Active Network Inc. | San Diego | Business and Financial Services | Having raised at least $275 million, Active has made numerous acquisitions. | $272.44 | |
| 17 | Nimble Storage Inc. | San Jose, Calif. | Information Technology | Nimble has built an appliance that provides primary and backup storage in one box. | $24.27 | |
| 18 | PatientSafe Solutions Inc. | San Diego | Health Care | After raising $30 million in February, PatientSafe completed and launched its iPod Touch system. | $71.50 | |
| 19 | Glaukos Corp. | Laguna Hills, Calif. | Health Care | Glaukos is developing a new medical-device treatment for open-angle glaucoma. | $117.55 | |
| 20 | Fusion-io Inc. | Salt Lake City | Information Technology | Executive team boasts Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. | 2 | $111.50 |
| 21 | Achaogen Inc. | South San Francisco, Calif. | Health Care | Has support from the National Institutes of Health and Department of Defense. | $103.00 | |
| 22 | NeuroPace Inc. | Mountain View, Calif. | Health Care | Filed for approval of a system to monitor and stop epileptic seizures. | 12 | $130.30 |
| 23 | Xoom Corp. | San Francisco | Business and Financial Services | Two large, undisclosed public equities firms led its last $33 million round. | $81.44 | |
| 24 | Workday Inc. | Pleasanton, Calif. | Business and Financial Services | The latest effort from Dave Duffield is challenging his earlier creation, PeopleSoft. | 16 | $110.00 |
| 25 | SpiderCloud Wireless Inc. | Santa Clara, Calif. | Information Technology | Helps carriers meet the growing demand for mobile broadband on corporate campuses. | $54.10 | |
| 26 | Jive Software Inc. | Palo Alto, Calif. | Information Technology | Financed by Google backers Kleiner and Sequoia, Jive Software brings social-networking tools to big business. | $57.57 | |
| 27 | Federated Media Publishing | San Francisco | Consumer Services | Federated Media has made three acquisitions since August to bulk up its advertising and publishing network. | $57.25 | |
| 28 | Boku Inc. | San Francisco | Business and Financial Services | CEO Mark Britto previously led Ingenio to an acquisition by AT&T and Accept.com to Amazon. | $38.00 | |
| 29 | Zoosk Inc. | San Francisco | Consumer Services | The “social” online-dating company has more than 15 million active monthy users. | 42 | $40.10 |
| 30 | EndoGastric Solutions Inc. | Redmond, Wash. | Health Care | With $120 million total raised, EndoGastric is pushing to profitability. | $128.68 | |
| 31 | Chegg Inc. | Santa Clara, Calif. | Consumer Services | Chegg recently acquired two firms to expand into other student services. | 32 | $166.20 |
| 32 | Everyday Health Inc. | New York | Consumer Services | Everyday Health’s sites host 26.5 million visitors a month. In January, it partnered with AOL. | $77.20 | |
| 33 | Xsigo Systems Inc. | San Jose, Calif. | Business and Financial Services | Xsigo’s board of directors includes Veritas Software’s Mark Leslie and HP’s chairman Ray Lane. | $60.00 | |
| 34 | Soasta Inc. | Mountain View, Calif. | Information Technology | Soasta tests the mettle of online services prior to launch by simulating heavy traffic. | 36 | $21.05 |
| 35 | Rally Software Development Corp. | Boulder, Colo. | Information Technology | Rally was named the sixth best place to work in the U.S. by Outside magazine last year. | $49.25 | |
| 36 | Prosper Marketplace Inc. | San Francisco | Business and Financial Services | Prosper leveraged the credit crisis to build a service matching lenders and borrowers. | $54.24 | |
| 37 | Pivot3 Inc. | Houston | Information Technology | It says bookings doubled each of the last four years. | $78.00 | |
| 38 | Suniva Inc. | Norcross, Ga. | Energy and Utilities | One of the only start-up solar-cell makers in the U.S. that’s enjoying rising demand. | 15 | $130.50 |
| 39 | Veracyte Inc. | South San Francisco, Calif. | Health Care | Developing minimally invasive molecular tests to provide earlier cancer diagnoses. | $49.00 | |
| 40 | ExactTarget Inc. | Indianapolis | Business and Financial Services | Exact Target scrapped an IPO in 2009 and has bought three companies in 17 months. | $155.50 | |
| 41 | OncoMed Pharmaceuticals Inc. | Redwood City, Calif. | Health Care | OncoMed has shown an ability to attack cancer stem cells, which resist traditional chemotherapy. | $168.02 | |
| 42 | ExaGrid Systems Inc. | Westborough, Mass. | Information Technology | ExaGrid’s technology is similar to that of Data Domain, the subject of a $2.2 billion EMC-NetApp bidding war. | $78.10 | |
| 43 | SeeSaw Networks Inc. | San Francisco | Business and Financial Services | Founder Monte Zweben previously founded Blue Martini Software and Red Pepper. | $19.59 | |
| 44 | Silver Peak Systems Inc. | Santa Clara, Calif. | Information Technology | Silver Peak is growing quickly and taking on larger rival Riverbed Technology. | 20 | $59.80 |
| 45 | Zilliant Inc. | Austin, Texas | Information Technology | Zilliant uses scientific data to maximize profits by fine-tuning pricing. | $62.47 | |
| 46 | Yammer Inc. | San Francisco | Business and Financial Services | Called “Facebook for business,” Yammer has been embraced by employees at large companies. | $40.00 | |
| 47 | Bivio Networks Inc. | Pleasanton, Calif. | Information Technology | Its government contracts helped it navigate the recession better than most. | $78.30 | |
| 48 | TxVia Inc. | New York | Business and Financial Services | CEO Anil Aggarwal has a decade of experience running electronic-payments firms. | $51.50 | |
| 49 | Service-now.com Inc. | Del Mar, Calif. | Information Technology | Founder and CEO Fred Luddy was CTO of Peregrine Systems and Remedy. Former Documentum CEO Jeff Miller and Proflowers.com CEO Bill Strauss became directors last year. | 45 | $54.86 |
| 50 | Aprius Inc. | Sunnyvale, Calif. | Information Technology | Cofounder Peter Kirkpatrick hails from Intel and CEO Varun Nagaraj led NetContinuum. | $31.00 |
Source:Dow Jones VentureSource
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