BioBots manufactures 3-D printers that create living tissue for research purposes. Co-founders Danny Cabrera and Ricky Solorzano met in college and applied their combined biology knowledge to invent microwave-size bioprinters. The printers start with cells of the desired tissue and combine them with a powdery "ink," which is molded into the required shape. So far, scientists have used the printers to produce heart and lung tissue as well as cartilage and bone. Bioprinting isn't a new field, but BioBots' price point is. The printers cost a fraction of the hundreds of thousands of dollars usually required for a 3-D bioprinter. Cabrera sees 3-D printing tissue as a means to an end. "The idea of being able to use biology to design and engineer living things that can do things like cure disease or eliminate organ waiting lists, or even revert climate change, or help us live on other planets--that's more what was exciting about it," he says. "3-D printing, bioprinting in general, was really just a starting point."
Note: All data as of 1/31/16

Why It's Disruptive

In the movie Her, humans interact with their computers, not using their hands and fingers but rather their voices and their ears to listen to their operating systems talk back. This is Doppler Labs' vision of the world, and that is why the San Francisco startup has developed the Here One wireless smart earbuds.

The Here One went on sale in February at a steep price of $299.99. The company justifies the price tag by pitching the device as something far more advanced than your standard earbuds. Equipped with numerous microphones and the processing power of a computer, Here One is capable of smart listening, allowing users to, say, tune out ambient noises and emphasize the voices they want to hear. The company is working on a feature it hopes will enable Here One to translate foreign languages in real time. Doppler Labs is betting that in the future, you will speak commands to your devices, and its earbuds will be the ones listening. 

Biggest Challenges

Taking on the crowded Bluetooth headphone space is no small task. For Doppler Labs to succeed, its Here One earbuds will have to go toe-to-toe with Apple, which began to ship its AirPod wireless earbuds late last year, to much acclaim. --Salvador Rodriguez

FiscalNote creates an artificial intelligence platform that scours federal and state databases for information about pending legislation. The platform uses machine learning to predict the likely outcome of a bill, by assessing information about the bill's sponsors, the committees it winds up in, and the language of the bill itself. The core product is useful to companies in highly regulated industries, such as health care and biotechnology, and to technology companies with consumer-facing products or services. Founder Tim Hwang has created organizations with a public policy focus from his teenage years on. His study of political science, international affairs, computer science, and engineering at Princeton informed his decision to found FiscalNote. The company got early funding from tech luminaries such as Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang, billionaire investor Mark Cuban, and New Enterprise Associates.
Note: All data as of 1/31/16

Getaround's peer-to-peer car-sharing platform allows car owners to defray the cost of their vehicles by renting them by the hour or daily to folks who don't want or need wheels 24/7. The environmental impact, according to co-founder Jessica Scorpio, has huge potential: One car on Getaround takes 10 cars off the road and can offset 100 million pounds of carbon emissions. The company now operates in 10 cities, has a fleet of 2,000 cars and 300,000 users, and has grown revenue to more than $20 million. Car owners who rent their vehicles on Getaround can earn up to $10,000 a year. A growing number of owners have even begun purchasing small fleets of cars and are starting their own businesses on Getaround. Along with co-founders Elliot Kroo and Sam Zaid, Scorpio worked with legislators in California, Oregon, and Washington state to pass laws enabling car sharing. New York is next.
Note: All data as of 1/31/16

Three years after it was a dorm room project in an MIT frat house, Grove has become a full-fledged business. The company's first product, a bookshelf-size aquarium ecosystem, allows consumers to grow more than 20 organic herbs and vegetables in their homes. It has the potential to be a game-changer in the $27 billion U.S. produce market--decentralizing it, the way solar panels have decentralized energy. Customers control the ecosystem from a smartphone app called Grove OS, or gOS for short. If you tell gOS what you'd like to grow, it'll optimize the ecosystem's settings for those plants. If your aquarium gets low on water, you'll receive a text specifying how many liters to add. In Grove OS, the founders believe they have another high-potential product--something gardeners or home-growers could use to care for plants and flowers remotely. From this perspective, you can also view the company's upside in terms of the $5.5 billion U.S. home automation and controls market. In other words, Grove might just become the next Nest.
Note: All data as of 1/31/16