LinkSquares, an AI-powered contract management platform, has been named to the Forbes‘ Next Billion-Dollar Startups list for 2022. The list identifies a select group of 25 venture-backed startups with the potential to become billion-dollar companies. With this honor, LinkSquares receives a new appointment to its Board of Directors.
LinkSquares
LinkSquares is a cloud-based legal collaboration platform with over 600 customers and an ARR of $20 million. The company has a strong track record of delivering results and recently added Tim Dent to its board of directors. He previously served as the CFO and CCO of Cam4 for nine years. He will now head up the company’s Audit Committee and help with financial management and compliance. LinkSquares is on track to hit $20 million in recurring revenue by the end of 2022 and expects to double its workforce to 500 employees by then.
The company is poised for growth, having recently raised $100 million in Series C funding from G Squared. In addition, its platform can identify essential information and obligations contained in contracts and provide organizations with better visibility of those contracts. As a result, LinkSquares is to scale in challenging market conditions.
Despite the recent market volatility, VCs continue to be cautious about investing in tech startups. The company has reportedly faced a challenging year despite the high valuation of its founders. Over 55% of startup stock options exist, leaving over $33 billion on the table. That’s why it’s crucial to offer equitable compensation packages for all stakeholders.
Forbes recently named the company among the Next Billion-Dollar Start-Ups in 2022. The list includes the most promising venture-backed startups with the potential to become billion-dollar companies.
Solana
Solana is a tech startup aiming to make mobile payments more straightforward and secure. Its mobile stack is promising for the subsequent web3 turnover, as its built-on open-source technology awes investors. But critics point out that the Solana network is overly centralized and experiences outages for hours at a time. For example, the network was recently down for several hours, forcing decentralized applications to go offline. Still, Yakovenko is bullish on crypto, he is currently working on a web3 mobile phone called Saga, and a new lupoporno CMS.
During the first quarter of 2022, the Solana network experienced unprecedented growth. As a result, the company was able to stabilize some metrics but faced significant challenges in others. As a result, the company’s financial performance and network infrastructure both saw volatility. Nonetheless, the company’s network usage reached billion-dollar sales volumes, and its TVL diversified across multiple DeFi applications. Meanwhile, strategies to launch new applications across several sectors were in the works.
Solana has a unique total value of $54.6 billion.
Its goal is to provide scalable services for a variety of applications. Its transaction rate can reach 50,000 per second, compared to less than half that for Ethereum and 54 for Visa. This fast speed results from the widespread support and use of Proof of History.
The Solana project also had an excellent team. The team behind the project understood operating systems and network protocols. The project went live in March 2020, but it took 22 months for the project to go live. Solana’s auction occurred three days after the coronavirus was declared a global pandemic. Solana also survived the infamous “Black Thursday” crash in the middle of that month. This provided the startup with 22 months of runway before the market’s next bull market.
The blockchain operated by Solana utilizes “proof of history” technology to verify transactions on the network. Proof of history is a process in which computers worldwide agree on when and where a transaction occurred. This makes transactions cheaper and faster.
R-Zero
R-Zero is a company that makes ultraviolet light lamps, which kill germs and viruses. The company has raised $170 million from investors now valued at $505 million. In addition, the company made the Forbes Next Billion-Dollar Startups 2022 list for its disruptive innovation in healthcare.
Barzilai has been an early employee of tech startups, starting two of them in his early 20s. He offered employees equity compensation packages in both cases, but few exercised those options. As a result, over half of the startup companies’ stock options go unused, leaving over $33 billion untapped. In response to this problem, Barzilai founded EquityBee, which connects employees with accredited investors.
R-Zero has developed innovative technologies to protect people from harmful bacteria and viruses, including COVID-19. The company works with the Mayo Clinic and other medical institutions to identify and mitigate the risk of infections and other illnesses. It also works with companies that use indoor spaces to promote public health, like corporations and schools. It hopes to change the perception and treatment of indoor air.
A former Uber employee founded the startup. The company’s founder, Arodiogbu, had previously worked as a product manager at HR firm Zenefits before the company crashed in 2015 and among the company who runs Youporn. The founders also worked at a tech-enabled real estate firm, Opendoor, in 2016.
Settle
You might want to consider an IPO if you’re a tech startup. Last year, VCs raised nearly $21 billion in venture capital to fund their businesses. While the year was challenging for many VC-backed startups, one company that has raised a billion dollars and has the potential to go public is Instacart. The company has raised $2.9 billion in venture capital and growth capital. It has been considering an IPO in the fourth quarter of 2020. However, a Department of Justice lawsuit delayed the plan. The company is now raising money to fund an IPO.
The company founded by Israeli Oren Barzilai, who started two startups in his early 20s. Barzilai gave his workers stock options as part of the reimbursement package. However, he noticed that most employees did not exercise their stock options. Only about 5% of startup employees exercise their options. This means that $33 billion of startup stock options are unrealized. As a result, Barzilai’s company, EquityBee, is trying to address this problem.