When Forbes launched the Next Billion-Dollar Startups List more than a decade ago, the premise was simple: identify promising young venture backed companies before they became famous unicorns.

Each year, the most promising companies are nominated by leading venture capital firms, founders, service providers and through self-nomination. Those confidential submissions include detailed operating data like revenue growth, customer adoption, fundraising history, and founding team experience, all of which is vetted and analyzed by TrueBridge Capital alongside publicly-available information to identify the startups with the strongest potential to become the next generation of market leaders. Forbes then conducts additional reporting and editorial review before selecting the final list.

Since the first list debuted in 2015, 275 companies have been highlighted. One hundred sixty-six including Duolingo, Quince, Plaid and Fireworks AI have gone on to become unicorns, and 30, including Rubrik and Astera Labs, have since gone public. Collectively they represent hundreds of billions of dollars in enterprise value across industries ranging from logistics and defense to enterprise software and artificial intelligence.

This year’s class enters a venture market unlike any before it. AI has compressed product cycles, accelerated company formation and enabled startups to reach meaningful revenue faster than previous generations. Yet looking across the alumni that ultimately produced the largest and most durable outcomes, the defining characteristics are remarkably consistent.

The companies that have endured aren’t simply the fastest-growing or the best funded. They built products customers needed, expanded into increasingly larger markets over time and repeatedly earned the confidence of the world’s leading investors.

Outperforming Founders Of Next Billion-Dollar Startups

One final trait seems to even more strongly align with success of top performing Next Billion-Dollar Startups: continuity of founder leadership. Many of the biggest winners were led by exceptional founders who not only stayed put but whose leadership strengthened over time. Here are ten companies that consistently demonstrate that a founder’s greatest contribution comes not only in building a company, but in guiding it through periods of rapid growth, market shifts, and strategic reinvention.

NBDS Class of 2015 | Status: Public (2020 IPO, NASDAQ: DASH)

When DoorDash was named to the inaugural Next Billion-Dollar Startups list in 2015, it was one of many companies chasing the food delivery market. What distinguished it wasn’t simply growth – it was founder Tony Xu's broader vision. Rather than building a delivery app, Xu saw DoorDash as the infrastructure for local commerce, expanding from restaurants into groceries, pharmacies, retail and other neighborhood businesses.

That long-term vision has remained remarkably consistent. Xu has led the company from startup through pandemic-era hypergrowth, IPO, and international expansion. Along the way, investors including Sequoia and SoftBank repeatedly increased their backing, and DoorDash grew into the dominant U.S. delivery platform. Today, the company is worth more than $80 billion and recently expanded its global footprint through the acquisition of fellow Next Billion-Dollar alumnus Deliveroo.

NBDS Class of 2017 | Status: Private

Flexport’s path illustrates that founder leadership isn't only valuable during a company's earliest stages.

After modernizing freight forwarding with software and attracting backing from Andreessen Horowitz, Founders Fund and SoftBank, the company encountered significant challenges following the post-pandemic collapse in global shipping. Founder Ryan Petersen returned as CEO in 2023, simplifying operations and refocusing the business. Since then, Flexport has nearly quadrupled net revenue, and in 2025 shipped to and from 147 countries on behalf of roughly 13,000 customers.

The company's recovery underscores an important lesson shared by many enduring venture-backed businesses: founders often become most valuable when navigating periods of change.

NBDS Class of 2019 | Status: Public (2025 IPO, NYSE: FIG)

When Figma appeared on the 2019 list, collaborative browser-based design was still emerging. Founder Dylan Field believed design software belonged in the cloud, allowing entire product teams to work together in real time.

That conviction transformed the category. Revenue scaled rapidly, Adobe’s proposed $20 billion acquisition validated Figma's strategic importance, and after the deal was blocked, Field led the company through one of the largest software IPOs in recent years. Figma had approximately 690,000 paid customers by Q1 2026, a 54% year-over-year increase, demonstrating how founder-led companies can maintain strategic clarity while scaling into global platforms.

The Biggest Winners Became Indispensable To Customers

The most enduring startups rarely remain point solutions. Instead, they become embedded in the daily operations of their customers, evolving into systems that businesses rely on to run critical functions. As products become more integral to core workflows, customer adoption deepens, switching costs increase, and new opportunities for expansion follow.

Across industries as varied as home services, enterprise data, and legal technology, the strongest Next Billion-Dollar Startups alumni created platforms that became increasingly indispensable over time.

NBDS Class of 2017 | Status: Public (2024 IPO, NASDAQ: TTAN)

ServiceTitan didn’t simply digitize plumbing businesses—it became the operating system for them.

Founded by the sons of tradesmen, the company built software that manages scheduling, dispatching, invoicing, payments, and marketing within a single platform. When it appeared on the 2018 list, annual revenue was $39 million. Last year, nearly 10,000 contractors processed more than $80 billion in transactions annually through the platform, with revenue approaching $1 billion.

Its success reflects a recurring theme among the strongest alumni: companies that become deeply embedded in customer workflows tend to become increasingly difficult to replace.

NBDS Class of 2020 | Status: Private

Moving enterprise data isn’t glamorous, but it has become essential.

Fivetran built automated data pipelines that quietly power modern analytics and AI applications. What began as back-office software has become critical infrastructure for thousands of enterprises, attracting continued backing from investors including Andreessen Horowitz and General Catalyst.

The company’s recent merger with dbt Labs created one of the largest independent data platforms in the industry, serving more than 100,000 data teams globally. As AI adoption accelerates, the demand for reliable data infrastructure has only reinforced Fivetran's central role.

NBDS Class of 2023 | Status: Private

Harvey demonstrates how quickly AI companies can scale when they become part of key elements of the job.

Founded in 2022, Harvey built an AI platform specifically for legal professionals rather than adapting a general-purpose model. In just a few years, it has grown to serve more than 1,500 organizations across 60 countries, including many of the world’s largest law firms and corporate legal departments, including Dentons and Comcast.

Repeated backing from Sequoia, Andreessen Horowitz, Kleiner Perkins, and others has pushed Harvey’s valuation to $11 billion. Like many of the strongest Next Billion-Dollar alumni before it, Harvey's success stems from becoming core infrastructure for customers rather than another productivity tool.

Great Investors Didn't Just Find Great Companies – They Kept Investing

Attracting a top-tier venture firm is an important milestone, but it’s rarely the strongest signal of long-term success. A more telling indicator is whether those investors continue to increase their conviction over multiple rounds as a company scales.

Many of the Next Billion-Dollar alumni were backed repeatedly by the same firms over years of growth. That sustained support reflected more than market enthusiasm – it reflected consistent execution, expanding market opportunities and management teams that continued to earn investor confidence.

NBDS Class of 2020 | Status: Private

Founder Parker Conrad built Rippling around a simple premise: HR, IT and finance should operate on a unified platform. As the company executed, investors repeatedly deepened their conviction. Greenoaks invested in six financing rounds, Founders Fund in four, and Coatue returned for multiple financings as Rippling grew into one of the world’s most valuable private software companies. During the Silicon Valley Bank crisis, Conrad's decision to advance nearly $130 million to ensure customers could meet payroll further reinforced investor confidence.

Today, more than 20,000 organizations run their workforce operations on Rippling, with exceptionally high customer retention and expansion rates.

NBDS Class of 2018 | Status: Private

Few companies better illustrate sustained investor conviction than Anduril.

Founded in 2017 to modernize defense technology, the company has repeatedly attracted capital from Andreessen Horowitz, Founders Fund and Thrive Capital as it expanded from autonomous surveillance systems into one of the country’s largest defense technology platforms. Its latest financing, which included funding from all three of those venture firms, valued the company at $61 billion, less than a year after its previous round.

That continued support has been matched by commercial execution. Government contracts have expanded alongside revenue, reinforcing a pattern seen throughout the Next Billion-Dollar Startups: elite investors backing companies that consistently execute against increasingly ambitious milestones.

The Best Companies Grew Into Their Valuations And Expanded Their Businesses

Private market valuations often dominate headlines, particularly in today’s AI-driven venture market. Looking back across more than a decade of Next Billion-Dollar Startups alumni, however, the companies that produced the most durable outcomes ultimately justified those valuations through sustained commercial execution.

The strongest businesses didn’t simply raise larger rounds. They expanded into larger markets, deepened customer relationships and translated early promise into enduring market leadership. Their valuations were ultimately a consequence of building exceptional businesses, not the reason they became exceptional.

NBDS Class of 2019 | Status: Private

Faire entered the wholesale market when buying inventory online remained uncommon for independent retailers. Founder Max Rhodes focused less on rapid expansion than on making the marketplace increasingly valuable for both retailers and brands.

Today, the platform connects more than 700,000 retailers with over 100,000 brands across 15 countries. Customer retention, reorder rates and marketplace activity have continued to strengthen, while investors including Sequoia, Founders Fund, Lightspeed and Baillie Gifford have remained committed.

Faire demonstrates that long-term value is often created through steadily deepening customer relationships rather than short-term growth alone.

NBDS Class of 2023 | Status: Private

Vannevar Labs began by helping intelligence analysts process foreign-language battlefield data more efficiently. Since appearing on the 2023 list, that mission has translated into rapid commercial adoption across U.S. defense and intelligence agencies.

Revenue has grown from an early pilot into a business exceeding $80 million annually, with government contracts now surpassing the company’s total equity funding. Backing from General Catalyst, Andreessen Horowitz, DFJ Growth and Felicis reflects growing confidence that software-first defense companies can become enduring businesses.

The technologies powering today’s startups look dramatically different from those that defined the list's earliest years. Artificial intelligence has shortened product development cycles, accelerated revenue growth, and allowed companies to scale faster than almost any previous generation of venture-backed businesses. But the Next Billion-Dollar Startups suggest that the qualities most predictive of enduring success have changed surprisingly little.

The companies that ultimately became category leaders weren’t simply first to market or first to raise capital. They built products customers couldn't easily replace. They expanded beyond their original markets as adoption grew. They maintained founder leadership through years of rapid execution. And they repeatedly earned the confidence of the world's most experienced venture investors.

As the newest class of Next Billion-Dollar Startups begins its own journey, those characteristics may prove far more meaningful than any single valuation headline.