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

In 2012, Armon Dadgar and Mitchell Hashimoto founded HashiCorp to build open-source tools and commercial products for software infrastructure management. In layman speak: HashiCorp's DevOps software makes it easier for businesses to build apps. Hashimoto (CEO) and Dadgar (CTO) use the metaphor of the power grid to explain their tools: Think of an app as an electronic device, and HashiCorp services as the transmission lines that carry power to it. Except instead of connecting electronics to electricity, it helps the internet of things stay connected to the cloud servers that keep products and services running. As highly technical and obscure as the company's niche sounds, Dadgar says data-center management is potentially a $100 billion market. What makes it different from other options, say the founders and customer Twitch, is how it offers a general solution that doesn't sacrifice options for modification. That flexibility is one reason big-name customers--Dropbox, Square, Commonwealth Bank of Australia--are drawn to the service.
Note: All data as of 1/31/16

Hometeam is a health care technology startup that pairs older adults with quality, in-home health aides. Using an iPad app, aides can record important patient data and communicate in real time with physicians and family. Unlike traditional competitors, Hometeam trains the aides itself, brings them on as full-time employees and pays them $15 per hour, versus the industry standard of $9.50. What's more, it guarantees them between 30 and 40 hours of work each week, 52 weeks a year. It has raised $38.5 million in venture capital, is operational in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, and licenses its software for free to hospitals and nursing homes. Co-founder Josh Bruno says his company's goal is to create "beautiful days for older adults" while simultaneously empowering the work force.
Note: All data as of 1/31/16