San Francisco-based Twilio already provides the cloud-communications backbone for some 36,000 customers, including Coca-Cola and Nordstrom. Its technology lets you message with your Uber driver, reminds you about appointments, and helps you generate passwords. Now it's expanding its capabilities--and mediums, especially into video. For example, telemedicine provider Doctor on Demand uses Twilio to connect doctors and patients via videoconferencing. "Voice and messaging are the biggest parts of our business, but video is coming on incredibly strong," says Patrick Malatack, Twilio's VP of product. --Kate Rockwood

Xenon Pharmaceuticals tries to help humans get better, from the genes up. The Burnaby, British Columbia–based company, co-founded by CEO Simon Pimstone in 1996, uses a proprietary platform to develop potential gene therapies for conditions ranging from epilepsy to pimples. It's an ambitious, sometimes frustrating mandate--the company recently killed its acne treatment after two years of tests--but Xenon's innovations remain in high demand from pharma peers like Teva and Genentech, for which Xenon is developing pain-relief drugs. --Helaine Olen