2019 Best Tech Startups in Pennsylvania

January 20, 2019 thetechtribune

The Tech Tribune staff has compiled the very best tech startups in Pennsylvania. In doing our research, we considered several factors including but not limited to:

Revenue potential
Leadership team
Brand/product traction
Competitive landscape

Additionally, all companies must be independent (unacquired), privately owned, at most 10 years old, and have received at least one round of funding in order to qualify.

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1. Duolingo

Founded: 2011

Also honored in:

“Duolingo is the world’s most popular way to learn languages online with over 200 million users. Founded in 2011 by crowdsourcing pioneer Luis von Ahn and Severin Hacker, it is the most downloaded Education app on iOS and Android and has been awarded Apple’s iPhone App of the Year and Android’s Best of the Best.

With the mission to bring ‘free language education to the world, we’re building a future in which the highest-quality education is accessible to all. Our approach is simple — language learning should be fun, personalized, and based on science.”

2. Petuum

Founded: 2016

Also honored in:

“Petuum is a software infrastructure and ecosystem provider that enables AI for enterprise. Petuum’s operating system gives users a single platform to build any Machine Learning or Deep Learning application using large amounts of data, and deploy it at scale on any hardware – such as workstations, datacenters, the internet of things, and edge computing.

The Petuum development platform and gallery of AI building blocks work with any programming language and any type of data, allowing managers and analysts to quickly build AI applications without any coding, while engineers and coders can further re-program applications as needed.”

3. Guru

Founded: 2013

Also honored in:

“Sharing knowledge is easy, but capturing (and reusing) it for your entire team is hard. Wasted time searching for stale and inaccurate information leads to low adoption rates for your knowledge initiatives. Guru is reinventing the way your team captures & shares knowledge, providing access to verified information from experts on your team: where you work and when you need it most.”

4. Curalate

Founded: 2012

Also honored in:

“Curalate is a leading marketing technology company that enables brands to sell online more effectively. The Curalate Discovery-Driven Commerce Platform is currently in use by over 800 of the world’s most loved brands including Urban Outfitters, Neiman Marcus, Sephora and J.Crew, and touches hundreds of millions of consumers, monthly. With Curalate, brands grow engagement and revenue, at scale, utilizing images and videos from a wide variety of sources, including user generated content (UGC).”

5. Pineapple Payments

Founded: 2012

Also honored in:

“Pineapple Payments powered by CardConnect provides payment processing technology for both brick and mortar and online businesses with a specific focus on mid-market E-Commerce, SaaS, and Enterprise technology integrations. By bundling innovative products and services to bring a more integrated and seamless credit card processing experience to merchants, Pineapple has a compelling value proposition. With credit card processing industry leader Brian Shanahan at the helm, Pineapple is undoubtedly a fresh approach to payments through its simple pricing, secure processing, flexible reporting, and high-touch service.”

6. Phenom People

Founded: 2010

Also honored in: 2018 Best Tech Startups in Pennsylvania

“At Phenom People, we believe great people build great companies. We know that there is no difference between marketing and selling products and jobs, so we took CRM best practices and applied them to talent acquisition and built the world’s first Talent Relationship Marketing platform.

Candidates today are not job hunters, they are savvy shoppers. They expect a certain quality of user experience when browsing jobs, researching companies and applying for positions – an experience traditional recruiting tools and tactics cannot deliver. Welcome to the talent relationship business.”

7. Relay Network

Founded: 2010

Also honored in: 2018 Best Tech Startups in Pennsylvania

“Designated a 2017 Gartner Cool Vendor in Customer Service and Support, Relay Network is a mobile engagement automation company that connects businesses with their customers for easy, effective interactions. Using Relay’s solution, businesses can create, deliver, and automate personalized service experiences that proactively direct the right customer, through the right process, with the right tools. Some of the largest organizations including Comcast, Independence Blue Cross, and Citizens Bank use Relay to improve the customer experience by making it easy for customers to get things done.”

8. JazzHR

Founded: 2009

Also honored in:

“JazzHR is powerful, user-friendly and affordable recruiting software that enables today’s greatest people to build tomorrow’s greatest companies. JazzHR replaces antiquated hiring processes like using email and spreadsheets with an intuitive applicant tracking system that helps recruiters and hiring managers build a scalable and effective recruiting process that consistently results in great hires. JazzHR is also the creator of Crowd, the HR industry’s first integrated crowd-sourcing, big-data and predictive analytics initiative. Since 2009, JazzHR has helped thousands of companies fill more than 100,000 positions.”

9. IAM Robotics

Founded: 2012

“IAM Robotics provides a complete set of technologies required for autonomous mobile manipulation solutions, with a focus on order picking and retrieval. With a platform of products including the Swift autonomous piece-picking robot, IAM is uniquely suited to help supply chain managers succeed and scale in the face of e-commerce challenges and increasing customer demands. For more information please visit www.iamrobotics.com.”

10. Jornaya

Founded: 2011

Also honored in: 2018 Best Tech Startups in Pennsylvania

“Jornaya is the consumer journey insight platform that provides marketers, data analysts, and compliance professionals with the highest-resolution view of the consumer buying journey. It is the only technology platform that witnesses both first- and third-party consumer interactions in real time and across devices.

Meeting consumers at these moments of intent enables businesses to shorten the distance between data, decision, and action. Jornaya seamlessly integrates with any buyer journey decisioning process or toolkit.”