San Francisco remains a global hotspot for startup innovation, particularly within the Silicon Valley ecosystem. The city's unique combination of abundant capital, talent, and supportive infrastructure fosters a thriving startup scene. In 2022 alone, San Francisco startups secured over $31 billion in funding, with more than 1,000 VC funds actively investing.
The local government’s proactive stance, exemplified by initiatives like the Startup in Residence Program, further bolsters the ecosystem by connecting startups with key resources and support. This environment not only attracts global investment but also facilitates the rapid growth and success of innovative ventures.
San Francisco’s startup ecosystem, home to approximately 11,811 startups, is the highest-ranked in the United States, underscoring its pivotal role in driving technological advancement and entrepreneurship. With institutions like Stanford University contributing cutting-edge research and fostering an entrepreneurial spirit, the city continues to be the ultimate destination for aspiring entrepreneurs aiming for global impact.
1. Paragon
Year Founded: 2019
HQ: San Francisco, California, USA
Size: 1-50
Founders: Brandon Foo, Ishmael Samuel
Paragon offers an embedded integration platform-as-a-service (iPaaS) tailored for developers aiming to rapidly and reliably add multiple integrations to their SaaS applications. Founded in 2019 by Brandon Foo and Ishmael Samuel, Paragon simplifies the complex process of integrating with third-party apps by providing pre-built connectors and a powerful SDK. This allows engineering teams to ship integrations seven times faster, handle authentication securely, and manage maintenance seamlessly. The platform supports a wide array of workflows, including data ingestion, bi-directional sync, and automation, making it a versatile tool for scaling SaaS offerings.
Paragon has raised $16.5 million in funding, including a $13 million Series A round led by Inspired Capital, with participation from FundersClub and Garuda Ventures. Paragon's robust integration solutions are trusted by over 100 B2B SaaS engineering teams, handling around 100 million requests per month. By abstracting the complexities of SaaS integrations into a single, easy-to-embed software development kit, Paragon allows software companies to stay competitive without dedicating extensive engineering resources to build and maintain integrations from scratch.
2. Hellometer
Year Founded: 2020
HQ: San Francisco, California, USA
Size: 1-50
Founders: Adam Wilson, Bryan Weingarten
Hellometer is transforming the quick-service restaurant industry by utilizing AI-powered computer vision to enhance operational efficiency. Founded in 2020, Hellometer provides advanced drive-thru and dining room timers that offer precise tracking of each guest's experience from arrival to departure. By replacing traditional vehicle loops with camera-based systems, Hellometer delivers comprehensive insights into service speed, identifying bottlenecks and opportunities for improvement. It not only improves guest satisfaction by reducing wait times by up to 47 seconds but also drives revenue growth, with every seven seconds shaved off wait times translating to a 1% increase in revenue. The technology also offers high-definition, high-frame-rate video for enhanced security and loss prevention. Hellometer’s AI solutions are easy to install and integrate seamlessly with existing security systems.
The company has raised $125,000 in funding over two rounds, supported by investors including Intel Ignite and Y Combinator. With a client base that includes major chains like Subway, Zaxby's, and Hardee's, Hellometer is well-positioned to lead the industry in optimizing fast food service times and improving overall customer experience.
3. Forage
Year Founded: 2020
HQ: San Francisco, California, USA
Size: 1-50
Founders: Pasha Rayan, Thomas Brunskill
Forage is a mission-driven fintech startup founded in 2019, based in San Francisco. It specializes in enabling merchants to accept EBT SNAP payments online through a unified API. Forage addresses a significant gap in the market, as traditionally few retailers accept SNAP payments for online orders due to technical and regulatory challenges. Forage is making it easier for low-income Americans to use their benefits for online grocery delivery. It helps grocers navigate the complex approval process required by the USDA, allowing them to offer SNAP payments in as little as 90 days.
Forage was co-founded by Anthony Grullon, Justin Intal, and Victor Fimbres. Grullon initially conceived the idea to help low-income consumers get discounts on groceries, but the focus shifted to enabling online SNAP payments during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2022, Ofek Lavian, a former Instacart payments team leader, joined as CEO, steering the company towards significant partnerships, including one with Shopify. Forage has raised $22 million in Series A funding led by NYCA Partners, with additional investments from PayPal Ventures, EO Ventures, and angel investors such as Instacart founder Apoorva Mehta, valuing the company at approximately $100 million.
4. Opal Security
Year Founded: 2020
HQ: San Francisco, California, United States
Size: 1-50
Founders: Umaimah Khan
Opal Security is a next-generation identity security and access management platform headquartered in San Francisco. The company addresses identity risks by offering a unified view of an organization’s identity and access data, enabling secure-by-default policies and rapid remediation.
Trusted by major clients such as Databricks and Scale AI, Opal Security has raised $32 million in total funding, with a notable $22 million Series B round led by Battery Ventures. The platform's scalability and AI-driven tools cater to evolving enterprise security needs. Opal simplifies compliance processes and enforces least privilege access, significantly reducing identity-related risks and ensuring a secure environment for enterprises.
5. Pomelo
Year Founded: 2020
HQ: San Francisco, California, United States
Size: 1-50
Founders: Eric Velasquez Frenkiel
Pomelo is a fintech startup revolutionizing the remittance industry by combining international money transfers with credit solutions. Founded in 2021, Pomelo aims to address the high fees and inefficiencies in traditional remittance services by utilizing a "Send Now, Pay Later" model. This innovative approach allows users in the U.S. to send money to countries like the Philippines instantly while helping build their credit history.
Pomelo has raised $55 million in equity capital and $125 million for its warehouse facility, with backing from prominent investors like Founders Fund, Vy Capital, and A* Capital. By leveraging strategic partnerships with companies like Mastercard and utilizing advanced technologies such as blockchain and AI, Pomelo ensures cost-effective, secure, and rapid money transfers, significantly enhancing the financial well-being of its users.
6. Varda
Year Founded: 2021
HQ: San Francisco, California, United States
Size: 51-200
Founders: Will Bruey, Delian Asparouhov
Varda Space Industries is pioneering in-space manufacturing by leveraging the unique conditions of microgravity to produce materials not feasible on Earth. Founded in 2021, Varda focuses on producing high-value products such as pharmaceuticals in low Earth orbit and safely returning them to Earth using their innovative reentry capsules.
Varda has successfully launched and reentered its first hypersonic capsule, the W-1, and is preparing for the launch of W-2. It has raised $145 million to date, with major investors including Khosla Ventures, Lux Capital, and Founders Fund.
7. Ambience
Year Founded: 2020
HQ: San Francisco, California, United States
Size: 1-50
Founders: Michael Ng, Nikhil Buduma
Ambience Healthcare is revolutionizing the healthcare industry with its AI-driven operating system designed to reduce clinician burnout and enhance system efficiency. Founded in 2020 by Michael Ng and Nikhil Buduma, the company leverages advanced generative AI to streamline administrative tasks for healthcare providers.
Ambience’s platform includes tools such as AutoScribe for real-time clinical documentation, AutoCDI for coding and billing accuracy, AutoAVS for personalized after-visit summaries, and AutoRefer for efficient referrals to specialists. Ambience has raised $100 million from prominent investors like Kleiner Perkins, OpenAI Startup Fund, and Andreessen Horowitz. Its technology is already being adopted by leading health systems like UCSF and Memorial Hermann, aiming to transform the patient journey and improve healthcare outcomes across various specialties.
8. Squint
Year Founded: 2021
HQ: San Jose, California, United States
Size: 1-50
Founders: Devin Bhushan
Founded in 2021 by Devin Bhushan, Squint is a pioneering augmented reality (AR) platform that enhances factory procedures and operator training. Leveraging mobile AR, computer vision, and machine learning, Squint allows users to access dynamic, contextual help by pointing their smartphone or tablet cameras at physical objects in their work environment.
This innovative approach transforms traditional training methods, offering immersive, media-rich digital instructions that boost productivity and safety. Trusted by industry leaders like Siemens and Volvo, and backed by Sequoia Capital and Menlo Ventures, Squint significantly reduces training time and improves knowledge retention. The company has raised $19 million in total funding, including a $13 million Series A round led by Sequoia Capital and a $6 million seed round from Menlo Ventures and other investors.
9. Anthropic
Year Founded: 2021
HQ: San Francisco, California, United States
Size: 51-200
Founders: Dario Amodei, Daniela Amodei
Anthropic, founded in 2021 by Dario Amodei and Daniela Amodei, is a San Francisco-based AI safety and research company, specializing in creating reliable, beneficial AI systems. It has developed the Claude family of models, including the latest Claude 3.5 Sonnet.
Anthropic has secured significant investments, with a notable $4 billion from Amazon Web Services (AWS) and contributions from Google, Salesforce, and Menlo Ventures, totaling over $7.3 billion. This funding supports their mission to ensure AI safety and advance AI technologies, leveraging AWS's cloud infrastructure for development and deployment.
10. Atlys
Year Founded: 2020
HQ: San Francisco, California, United States
Size: 51-200
Founders: Mohak Nahta
Atlys is a leading online visa application platform that simplifies the visa process through advanced technology and user-friendly design. Founded in 2020 by Mohak Nahta, a former Pinterest engineer, Atlys has facilitated over 120,000 visa applications to more than 150 destinations, boasting a 99.5% on-time delivery rate. The platform leverages phone cameras for document scanning and provides real-time status updates, ensuring a seamless application experience.
Atlys has raised over $16 million in funding, with notable investors including Sequoia Capital and Andreessen Horowitz. It aims to make international travel more accessible by reducing visa rejection rates and offering step-by-step guidance throughout the application process.
11. Typeface
Year Founded: 2022
HQ: Palo Alto, California, United States
Size: 51-200
Founders: Abhay Parasnis
Typeface, founded by former Adobe CTO Abhay Parasnis in 2022, is a generative AI startup focused on enterprise applications. The platform enables companies to create personalized, on-brand content rapidly and securely, integrating seamlessly into existing workflows. Typeface's AI-driven solutions include a content hub for uploading brand assets, Blend for training AI to match a brand's voice, and Flow for integrating templates into current systems. The company quickly gained traction, securing partnerships with Fortune 500 companies and tech giants like Salesforce and Google Cloud.
In 2023, Typeface raised $100 million in a Series B round led by Salesforce Ventures, bringing its total funding to $165 million and valuing the company at $1 billion. It emphasizes content safety, brand governance, and privacy, providing dedicated AI models for each customer to ensure data security.
12. Harvey
Year Founded: 2022
HQ: San Francisco, California, United States
Size: 51-200
Founders: Gabriel Pereyra, Winston Weinberg
Harvey is a San Francisco-based legal tech startup founded in 2022 by Gabriel Pereyra and Winston Weinberg. Utilizing advanced natural language processing, Harvey streamlines legal workflows by automating labor-intensive tasks such as contract reviews and document rewrites. The platform, powered by OpenAI's GPT-4, is designed to enhance efficiency for legal teams by offering customized AI models tailored to specific legal tasks.
Harvey has gained significant traction among leading law firms and Fortune 500 legal departments, including PwC, Macfarlanes, and Allen & Overy. Its commitment to client confidentiality and data privacy has been crucial in winning over legal clients. In December 2023, Harvey raised $80 million in a Series B funding round, bringing its valuation to $715 million. This funding will be used to expand its engineering team and accelerate the development of its SaaS platform.
13. Cortex
Year Founded: 2019
HQ: San Francisco, California, United States
Size: 51-200
Founders: Anish Dhar, Ganesh Datta
Cortex, a San Francisco-based company, offers an Internal Developer Portal (IDP) that enhances productivity by providing comprehensive visibility and control over microservices ecosystems. Founded by Anish Dhar and Ganesh Datta, Cortex integrates with various tools to centralize information about services and streamline development processes. Its features include a Service Catalog, Scorecards, and Initiatives for assessing and improving production readiness, as well as Scaffolder and Actions to facilitate the deployment of new services according to best practices.
In 2023, Cortex raised $35 million in a Series B funding round led by IVP, with participation from Craft Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Tiger Global, and Y Combinator. The funds will be used to enhance integrations and automation, further establishing Cortex as a leading IDP in the industry.
14. Graphiant
Year Founded: 2020
HQ: San Jose, California, United States
Size: 51-200
Founders: Khalid Raza
Graphiant, a Silicon Valley-based company, specializes in next-generation edge services, offering an "as-a-Service" solution called the Graphiant Network Edge. This platform aims to provide seamless connectivity across enterprise WANs, hybrid clouds, network edges, and partnerships.
Founded by Khalid Raza, who previously co-founded SD-WAN pioneer Viptela, Graphiant addresses the limitations of traditional connectivity solutions like MPLS and SD-WAN by integrating MPLS-like performance with the agility of internet-class services. The company recently secured $62 million in Series B funding led by Two Bear Capital, with participation from Sequoia Capital and others, bringing its total funding to $96 million.
15. Shef
Year Founded: 2019
HQ: San Francisco, California, United States
Size: 51-200
Founders: Joey Grassia, Alvin Salehi
Shef is a chef-to-consumer marketplace that enables talented home cooks to turn their culinary skills into small businesses. Founded in 2019 by Joey Grassia and Alvin Salehi, Shef offers a platform for local cooks to prepare and sell authentic, homemade meals. The company assists these "shefs" with business tools, including menu creation, pricing, and marketing.
Shef also ensures all cooks undergo rigorous food safety training. Operating across 11 states and Washington, D.C., Shef has raised over $100 million, including a $73.5 million Series B round, to support its nationwide expansion.
16. Glean
Year Founded: 2019
HQ: San Francisco, California, United States
Size: 200+
Founders: Arvind Jain
Glean is an AI-powered enterprise work assistant that connects and understands all company knowledge, providing personalized answers grounded in an organization's unique data. The technology integrates advanced enterprise search and retrieval augmented generation (RAG) to deliver up-to-date, secure, and private information. It supports over 100 connectors for turnkey implementation, avoiding the need for costly professional services and manual fine-tuning.
Glean has raised over $200 million in a Series D funding round, reaching a valuation of $2.2 billion. The funding was led by Kleiner Perkins and Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation from Sequoia Capital, Coatue, ICONIQ Growth, IVP, and other strategic investors like Capital One Ventures, Citi, Databricks Ventures, and Workday Ventures. Founded by Arvind Jain, a former Google engineer, Glean aims to enhance enterprise productivity by integrating generative AI into business workflows, helping companies make better decisions faster.
17. CaptivateIQ
Year Founded: 2017
HQ: San Francisco, California, United States
Size: 200+
Founders: Conway Teng, Hubert Wong, Mark Schopmeyer
CaptivateIQ is a leading no-code SaaS platform specializing in incentive compensation management. Founded in 2017 and part of Y Combinator’s Winter 2018 batch, CaptivateIQ helps companies automate and optimize complex commission processes. The platform's SmartGrid™ technology enables rapid and accurate commission calculations, enhancing transparency and operational efficiency.
CaptivateIQ’s flexible solution is trusted by numerous organizations, including more than a quarter of Forbes’ Cloud 100. In January 2022, it raised $100 million in a Series C round, bringing its total funding to $165 million and valuing the company at $1.25 billion.
18. Watershed
Year Founded: 2019
HQ: San Francisco, California, United States
Size: 200+
Founders: Avi Itskovich, Christian Anderson, Taylor Francis
Watershed is a leading enterprise sustainability platform designed to help companies measure, report, and reduce their carbon emissions. Founded in 2019, Watershed has quickly become a critical tool for businesses committed to sustainability. It is trusted by global enterprises, including Airbnb, General Mills, Carlyle Group, and BBVA, for its audit-grade emissions data, regulatory compliance support, and high-impact decarbonization initiatives.
With a robust data engine and a marketplace for clean power and carbon removal projects, Watershed enables companies to achieve real reductions in their carbon footprints. Watershed recently raised $100 million in a Series C funding round led by Greenoaks, bringing its valuation to $1.8 billion. Watershed's advisors include prominent figures like Mark Carney and Christiana Figueres, underscoring its commitment to impactful climate action.
FAQs
1. What makes San Francisco a top destination for startups?
San Francisco offers unparalleled access to venture capital, a wealth of talented professionals, and a robust support network including accelerators and incubators. Its proximity to Silicon Valley adds to its appeal, fostering innovation and collaboration.
2. What industries are most prominent in San Francisco's startup ecosystem?
San Francisco's startup ecosystem is diverse, with strong representation in tech, biotech, fintech, and AI. Companies like OpenAI, Stripe, and numerous biotech firms underscore the city’s leadership in these fields.
3. How much investment have San Francisco startups raised on average?
In 2023, startups in the San Francisco Bay Area collectively raised approximately $49.3 billion in funding across various stages, maintaining a significant share of the total U.S. venture funding despite an overall decline in the market. This substantial investment highlights the region's resilience and attractiveness, particularly for AI-driven ventures which have seen considerable backing from major investors.
