In the ninth annual Disruptor 50 list, CNBC highlights the private companies leading out of the pandemic with business models and growth rates aligned with a rapid pace of technological change.
Investors have taken notice that the companies on the 2021 Disruptor 50 list have become critical players in fundamental economic and consumer transformations. A majority of the CNBC Disruptor 50 are already billion-dollar businesses. Thirty-four disruptors are unicorns that have already reached or passed (in some cases far surpassed) the $1 billion valuation mark — 10 of the companies on this year’s list are worth at least $10 billion.
The 50 companies selected using the proprietary Disruptor 50 methodology have raised over $72 billion in venture capital, according to PitchBook, at an implied Disruptor 50 valuation of more than $388 billion. While technologies including AI, 5G, cloud computing and the Internet of Things are key to many companies making the 2021 Disruptor 50 list, the sectors they are upending are widespread, from financial services to health care, biotech, education, food, media, agriculture and transportation.
| 1 | Robinhood | Wall Street’s frenemy |
| 2 | Stripe | The GDP of the Internet |
| 3 | Discord | The Internet chat room, re-imagined |
| 4 | SentinelOne | A SolarWinds saving grace |
| 5 | Didi Chuxing | Your $100 billion IPO is on the way |
| 6 | Brex | Giving credit to the start-up economy |
| 7 | Marqeta | Playing their cards right |
| 8 | Chime | Software as a bank |
| 9 | TytoCare | Urgent care delivered virtually |
| 10 | ElevateBio | Building a deep lab bench |
| 11 | K Health | The health care app will see you now |
| 12 | Convoy | Freight’s neural network |
| 13 | Checkout.com | Transactional relationships |
| 14 | Indigo Ag | Top soil |
| 15 | Snyk | Sniffing out open-source flaws |
| 16 | Tempus | Informing the precision clinician |
| 17 | Lineage Logistics | Cold comfort |
| 18 | Gojek | Southeast Asia’s super-app |
| 19 | CLEAR | Keep the line moving |
| 20 | TALA | The underserved deserve credit |
| 21 | Flutterwave | Helping Africa’s small business soar |
| 22 | Thrasio | Transforming the Amazon economy |
| 23 | Relativity Space | Engineering an interplanetary future |
| 24 | Impossible Foods | Beyond possible |
| 25 | AMP Robotics | Robots recycle better |
| 26 | Neteera | A sixth sense in medicine |
| 27 | Cockroach Labs | Deep inside enterprise cloud data |
| 28 | Cityblock Health | Because everyone deserves good health care |
| 29 | Udacity | Graduating a new generation of skilled labor |
| 30 | Apeel | Good preservatives |
| 31 | Sight Diagnostics | See the whole picture in two drops of blood |
| 32 | Cybereason | Fighting the dark side |
| 33 | Clubhouse | The new sound of social |
| 34 | Sila Nanotechnologies | Making EV batteries better is no small thing |
| 35 | Bestow | Digital transformation comes to life (insurance) |
| 36 | Gopuff | When you need stuff ASAP |
| 37 | Databricks | The next Snowflake? |
| 38 | Ripple | Making waves in crypto regulation |
| 39 | Plaid | The gateway to Venmo, Robinhood, Coinbase |
| 40 | Nubank | Latin America’s big bank challenger |
| 41 | Flexport | Supply chain economics |
| 42 | Flock Freight | Carbon-smart truckloads |
| 43 | Eat JUST | The egg and the chicken |
| 44 | Movandi | Making 5G a broader reality |
| 45 | Footprint | Just three words for you: No more plastic |
| 46 | Airtable | Code for non-coders |
| 47 | BlocPower | Fighting climate change block-by-block |
| 48 | Patreon | How the creative class gets paid |
| 49 | Guild Education | Education as a benefit |
| 50 | Heal | New ideas in home-based health care |