Forbes 2022 Next Billion-Dollar Startups List: Nominations Are Open

With this year’s Forbes Next Billion-Dollar Startups list, we’re looking for companies like alumni DoorDash, Benchling and Alchemy in their nascent days.

This summer, for the eighth year in a row, Forbes will shine a spotlight on the innovative and fast-growing startups that we believe have the best shot of becoming unicorns with the Next Billion-Dollar Startups list.

Compiled in conjunction with TrueBridge Capital Partners, this Forbes list showcases 25 companies that are well on their way to becoming billion-dollar startups and profiles the entrepreneurs behind their success.

Past lists have included DoorDash (back in 2015), Opendoor (2016), Ginkgo Bioworks (2017), Lemonade (2018), Duolingo (2019), Benchling (2020) and Alchemy (2021). You can see last year’s list here or the 2020 list here.

Given the liquidity in the market today, the most successful alumni of the list have easily soared past the $1 billion mark. DoorDash, for example, went public in December 2020, and trades at a recent market cap of $44 billion. Biotech software firm Benchling, meanwhile, reached a valuation of $6.1 billion last November, two years after making the cut, and is now preparing for an initial public offering. And Blockchain firm Alchemy hit a valuation of $3.5 billion months after making our list last year, then tripled that number to $10.2 billion.

With this year’s list, we’re looking for the next DoorDash, Benchling or Alchemy in their nascent days.

Know a company that we should consider? We’re currently accepting nominations online, and we want to hear from you. Women, Black founders, immigrants, entrepreneurs who live outside of Silicon Valley, we hope you’ll get in touch. This an editorial list, and there is no fee to apply.

Here are the basic qualifications:

1-All companies must be based in the United States.

2-All must be privately held, and venture backed with current valuations below $1 billion.

3-No company that has been on the list before is allowed to be on again.

For more information, check out the application link. The deadline to apply is April 22, 2022.

TrueBridge will run a quantitative analysis of all companies based on the information in the nominations, and Forbes reporters will be in touch with all finalists.

We look forward to hearing from you!