In the third annual Disruptor 50 list, CNBC features private companies in 16 industries—from aerospace to financial services to cybersecurity to retail—whose innovations are revolutionizing the business landscape. These forward-thinking upstarts have identified unexploited niches in the marketplace that have the potential to become billion-dollar businesses, and they rushed to fill them. In the process, they are creating new ecosystems for their products and services. Unseating corporate giants is no easy feat. (Tweet this.) But we ranked those venture capital–backed companies doing the best job. Already it's hard to think of the world without them. Read more about the list ranking and the methodology.
1 | Moderna Therapeutics | Reprogramming cells to fight disease. | |
2 | SpaceX | Elon Musk's mission to Mars. | |
3 | Bloom Energy | Live off the grid; keep the lights on. | |
4 | Uber | A $50 billion on-demand rid/e. | |
5 | Airbnb | The newest idea in room service: Renting one. | |
6 | Dropbox | Saving a billion files every day. | |
7 | Palantir Tech | Helped find Bin Laden. Don't like to talk about it. | |
8 | TransferWise | Getting bankers out of the forex biz. | |
9 | Slack | Giving "slacker" a whole new meaning. | |
10 | Warby Parker | Taking on the Luxottica eyewear machine. | |
11 | Houzz | If you rebuild it ... | |
12 | LISNR | Using sound to make waves in the app world. | |
13 | DocuSign | Read their lips: No new faxes. | |
14 | SurveyMonkey | Questions for everyone. | |
15 | Quirky | Crowdsourcing an idea for basement tinkerers. | |
16 | Pure Storage | Predicting a flash flood of data. | |
17 | Oscar | Health insurance for the Obamacare era. | |
18 | Personal Capital | A 360-degree view of your finances. | |
19 | Blippar | An augmented reality check for your smartphone. | |
20 | GitHub | Cracking the code on collaboration. | |
21 | Synack | The white-hat army. | |
22 | GENBAND | Disrupting telecom by helping the disrupted. | |
23 | Motif Investing | Building theme-based portfolios online. | |
24 | Hampton Creek | The egg comes first; no chicken necessary. | |
25 | SoFi | Trying to ease the student-debt crisis. | |
26 | ZenPayroll | Changing the way we get paid/. | |
27 | MongoDB | Solving humongous data problems. | |
28 | Rent the Runway | Nice dress. Can I borrow it? | |
29 | Intarcia Therapeutics | A better way to treat diabetes. | |
30 | HackerRank | Helping nerds get hired. | |
31 | Coinbase | The closest thing bitcoin has to a central bank. | |
32 | SugarCRM | Building a better Salesforce. | |
33 | Klarna | No cart left behind. | |
34 | Wealthfront | Silicon Valley's plan to oust wealth managers. | |
35 | The world's bulletin board. | ||
36 | Betterment | Robo-advising for the masses. | |
37 | Dollar Shave Club | Disrupting the cutting edge. | |
38 | Optoro | On a mission to turn trash into treasure. | |
39 | Hearsay Social | Teaching Wall Street to tweet. | |
40 | Square | Saying good-bye to "cash only." | |
41 | Twilio | A stealth giant tapping into telecom's mobile moment. | |
42 | Impossible Foods | Introducing the meatless | cheeseless cheeseburger." |
43 | Birchbox | Free samples | for a price." |
44 | Nutanix | Breaking companies out of their IT handcuffs. | |
45 | DraftKings | Fantasy sports without the real-life commitment. | |
46 | Narrative Science | Here come the robo-writers. | |
47 | Spotify | The most controversial act in music. | |
48 | Qubole | Big-data turnkey service with a smile. | |
49 | Nextdoor | A social network for neighborhoods. | |
50 | Snapchat | The app for selfie photo lovers. |