As our economy tries to pull itself out of the pains of recession, startups are coming to the rescue by creating jobs and offering innovative technologies and solutions.
While thousands of entrepreneurs try their hand at creating successful businesses, there are a select few that truly rise up and transform industries and the business world at-large.
Here are five of the most rapidly-growing, incredible companies of 2012:
1. Instagram
Started in 2010, this picture-sharing app that allows you to add artsy “filters” to your smartphone photographs was already gaining users by the thousands this year -- and that was before being bought for $1 billion by Facebook. Since the acquisition in April, Instagram has exploded, growing its base by 1,100 percent to nearly 11 million daily active users. Even as it weathers the storm brought on by a recent change to their terms of service, Instagram will likely become a massive arm of monetization for its parent company.
2. StartApp
The issue of how to monetize mobile apps has plagued developers for years. But with StartApp’s ingenious and explosively growing mobile search engine, such developers may have finally found a solid monetization solution.
StartApp’s search engine has been downloaded over 250 million times in the last year and is currently on 20 percent of all android devices worldwide, making it the largest independent mobile search engine in the Western world. It is integrated into 7,500 mobile apps, which means when users download those apps, a new search icon appears on the user’s device home screen. Any time this icon is opened and a search is conducted, StartApp and its developer partners make money. The company recently raised $4.3 million in venture capital and is poised to significantly impact the mobile industry and make app development more viable on a global scale.
3. Kaltura
Kaltura has created the first open source video platform and has gained tremendous traction with media outlets, enterprise companies and educational institutions. As video becomes more common -- Cisco predicts the majority of all Internet traffic will be video traffic by 2016 -- Kaltura will continue to grow and offer robust video solutions to content providers and organizations of all shapes and sizes. The company had a tremendous 2012, growing its user base to over 300,000 organizations and websites including HBO, Wikipedia and Yale University.
Kaltura recently secured a $25 million Series D round of funding in November, which will help the company expand its operations into Asia and Europe in the coming year, and become one of the default video platforms worldwide.
4. Dropbox
For Dropbox, the file-hosting service that makes syncing your files, photos and music to the cloud a breeze, 2012 was another sensational year. In making this seemingly complex process very simple (a folder that syncs and appears the same way regardless of device used to access it), Dropbox has grown from its launch in 2008 to a valuation of $4 billion. The company recently hit 100 million registered users and 1 billion saved files, making it -- for now -- the undisputed king of cloud storage and file management services. Not bad for a startup.
5. Fab.com
Launched in 2011, Fab.com is flash sales site for designer products, a fantastic niche that helped the site become the world’s fastest growing e-commerce site. It now boasts over 10 million users, up from 175,000 at launch. This year was all about acquiring and raising funding for the ever-popular site, as it raised a staggering $105 million Series C round in July and bought a number of other companies, including FashionStake, Casacanda and Llustre. Fab.com’s daily deals continue to rope in new users, which certainly contributed to the site’s projected year-end revenue of $140 million.
What other companies would you add to this list?
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