Faster, Cheaper, Younger: Meet 30 Under 30 Rising Stars Of Enterprise Technology

It’s a wonderful time for under-30 somethings to jump into enterprise technology. The market for software, hardware, security and services that helps businesses and government run better, faster and more cheaply is undergoing a massive shift as technology moves to the cloud and delivers automation and productivity to mobile devices at one’s fingertips. The legacy players such as HP, IBM and EMC are struggling to grow amid a siege by startups run by people barely ten years out of college.

Even though one tends to find more grey-haired people in enterprise tech , we found enough young leaders to field a separate Enterprise 30 Under 30 for the first time this year. (See the consumer tech 30 Under 30 here). The enterprise boom is reflected in venture funding trends: Investments in enterprise services firms in the first nine months of 2014 was up 42% to $18.6 billion from $13 billion, according to Dow Jones VentureSource. Funding for consumer services fell 7.1% to $429 million from $462 million the previous year. The fourth quarter figures will likely reinforce the trend, and 2015 will see a rash of high-quality enterprise startups go public or raise venture funding at healthy valuations based on solid growth in the markets for cloud computing, mobile device management, Big Data, cybersecurity and software development tools.Enterprise may not produce cultural headliners such as a Twitter, Facebook or Uber, but the mass impact of the dizzying array of B2B firms from Appirio, Aperian, Apptio to Zenpayroll, Zendesk and Zenefits is likely much greater. It’s God’s work selling the tools that help businesses run faster and more intelligently at lower costs. Join me in congratulating this year’s 30 Under 30 in Enterprise Tech, an eclectic bunch chosen based on their success at leading a team building tools that will change the face of business or government, and create profitable revenue growth. They could fall flat on their faces, but we think that’s highly unlikely. A big thanks to our category judges, who helped narrow down the nominees and provide important insights: Dan Levin, COO at Box; Mike Volpi, partner at Index Ventures; Jerry Chen, partner at Greylock Partners. Fadel Adib, 25, Ph.D. candidate at MIT As an MIT grad student, Adib was part of the team that created WiTrack, a spin on Wi-Fi that uses a radio signal–just 1% as strong as Wi-Fi and 0.1% of your smartphone’s signal–to track movements with incredible accuracy.

Scott Crouch, 23, Florian Mayr, 24, Matt Polega, 24, cofounders, Mark43 These three Harvard classmates were inspired by their work with police in Springfield, Mass., to develop an easy-to-use law enforcement cloud software platform. Mark43 raised $1.95 million in funding in 2013, and plans to launch its software with the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department next year.

Baldwin Cunningham, 26, cofounder, Partnered Cunningham started Partnered to create a self-serve digital network for big brands and startups that want to connect based on mutual business interests. Partnered has brokered 208 deals in the past four months. It’s backed by Y Combinator and has raised $1.6 million from Sherpa Ventures and other top Silicon Valley VCs. Cunningham has hustle: He introduced himself to one investor during a shared cab ride and got the guy to put money into Partnered. Nicholas Desmarias, 29, and Daniel Saks, 29, cofounders, AppDirect Dan Saks and Nicholas Desmarais founded AppDirect in 2009 as an app marketplace for companies instead of consumers. AppDirect raised $35 million in its most recent round of funding and has acquired three companies, including data visualization company Leftronics this November. The company hopes to double its revenue for the fifth straight year next year. Maisie Devine, 26, and Isaac Rothenbaum, 25, cofounders, Poacht Devine and Rothenbaum built a service that lets job seekers discreetly look for new gigs by covertly informing potential new employers about their requirements upfront (salary, benefits, culture) In its first 6 months, more than 250 employers (including 7 Global 2000 firms) have signed up to recruit through and posted thousands of job listings. Paul Doersch, 26, founder, Kespry In October, the Kespry founder and CEO raised a $10 million Series A led by Lightspeed Ventures. His company manufactures commercial-grade drones for businesses that want to capture aerial images. Taso Du Val, 29, cofounder, Top Tal Du Val started Toptal to connect companies with the best software engineers around the world. Du Val says Toptal is profitable and on track to do nearly $100 million in sales for 2015. The company is rumored to be valued at north of half a billion dollars. Calvin French-Owen, 25, Peter Reinhardt, 25, Ian Storm Taylor, 24, Ilya Volodarsky, 25, cofounders, SegmentSegment helps companies use servers, apps, and plug-ins to collect and analyze customer data. In the past year, it has grown from just four cofounders with no revenue to a staff of 30 who have raised $17.6 million in funding. Dmitri Gaskin, 19, CTO, Branchmetrics Nineteen-year-old Dmitri Gaskin dropped out of Stanford in his first semester and is now CTO of Branchmetrics, a startup that helps apps interact easily with each other through deep links. The company has has grown from 10,000 devices to more than 100 million in just three months, raising $3 million in funding in September. Ishan Gulrajani, 20, cofounder, Watchsend Thiel Fellow Ishaan Gulrajani dropped out of MIT to start a company allows developers to record users’ phone screens in order to learn and improve their app. Last year he organized HackMIT, one of the biggest hackathons in the world and the first ever of its scale at MIT. HackMIT had 20 organizers, 1,050 attendees and a $250,000 budget raised from over 70 sponsors. Jilliene Helman, 28, founder, Realty Mogul The former Union Bank vice president quit her job to start Realty Mogul in 2012. The fast-growing Los Angeles company crowdfunds investment pools for commercial property. So far its members have invested more than $50 million in more than 150 properties in over 20 states and returned more than $6 million to investors. Helman’s goal is to become the fastest-acting lender in the real estate game. William Hockey, 25, Zach Perret, 27, cofounders, Plaid Perret and Hockey used their experience working at Bain to create an API to make banking data easier for developers to use. Plaid raised $2.8 million in funding in 2013, and its infrastructure is used by many top financial apps such as PayPal, Venmo and Robinhood. Nancy Hua, 29, founder, Apptimize Hua’s company created software that helps mobile teams build and tune apps faster through A/B testing. Prior to Apptimize, Nancy made millions as an algorithmic trader and led the GETCO Quantitative Strategies team. Nancy studied math with computer science at MIT and led the MIT fencing team. Joanna Huey, 29, Associate Director, Princeton Center for Information Technology Policy Joanna merged her expertise in law and her entrepreneurial bent to cofound Casetext, which raised $1.8 million in funding to make the law free and understandable to everyone. Huey now directs the Princeton Center for Information Technology Policy, studying how policy can address the challenges of the digital age. Jay Kaplan, 29, cofounder, Synack Jay Kaplan and his cofounder Mark Kuhr left the NSA’s counterterrorism division in 2013 to start Synack, which creates bug-bounty programs on behalf of companies that want to squash security vulnerabilities from their code. Synack has raised more than $9 million in funding. Dan Kimerling, 28, Zach Townsend, 28, Standard Treasury After first meeting at Harvard Summer School as teenagers, Dan Kimerling and Zachary Townsend later worked together at Y Combinator to simplify commercial banking through their startup, aptly named Simple Treasury. The company makes it easier for companies to add electronic checks, foreign excanges, and other financial services to their websites and apps. Marcin Kleczynski, 25, founder, Malwarebytes Kleczynski started the company in 2008 on the belief that everyone has “a fundamental right to a malware-free existence.” He raised $30 million in Series A funding in June to fuel the firm’s global expansion. Andrew Levy, 29, cofounder, Crittercism After cofounding Y Combinator company AdThrow, Andrew Levy started mobile app performance management firm Crittercism in 2011. Before that, Levy worked at HP Software and defense and intelligence companies including Silicon Graphics, Northrop Grumman, and Computer Sciences Corp. In April, Crittercism grew to more than 1 billion monthly users and raised $30 million in Series C funding. Max Lynch, 27, cofounder, Drifty Lynch and his childhood friend and inventing partner-in-crime founded Drifty in 2012. In less than a year, Drifty’s Ionic Framework, software to develop mobile apps in HTML5, has become one of the 50 most popular open-source projects in the world.The company increased its revenue tenfold and became profitable in 2013, after which it raised $1 million in seed funding in 2014. Om Marwah, 25, cognitive scientist, Walmart Labs At Walmart Labs, Marwah is applying his academic background in cognitive science and geography to online marketing. Marwah has given speeches to audiences ranging from academics at UCLA to attendees of the Innovation Summit and World Future Summit. Austin McChord, 29, founder, Datto Do you love your work enough to pass up a 9-figure payday? That’s the question Austin McChord had to answer when an established security firm offered to buy him out (at the time he was the company’s sole shareholder) for more than $100 million. “I said no because there’s more ground for us to cover,” McChord explains. “I loved my job and the people working at the company.” Datto provides emergency back-up and data protection services to large firms who trust it to get them back online – fast. When Hurricane Sandy took down a New York City-area high-frequency trading firm, Datto had them back online in a matter of minutes and it claims it can restore IT-services in a matter of seconds now. That speed and reliability has translated into spectacular growth: the seven-year old firm is profitable, nudging $100 million in sales and has more than 330 employees. Last year, McChord took his first outside funding, $25 million from GeneralCatalyst, looking to tap its expertise and “play for real.” Vinith Misra, 27, research staff member, IBM Watson Group After getting a Ph.D. in electrical engineering, Vinith Misra joined IBM’s Watson Group, working at its Almaden Research Lab to study machine learning, data mining, and natural language processing. One of Vinith’s projects was the Chef Watson machine, which applies artificial intelligence to create new recipes. Dan Pinto, 27, Dmitri Rokhfeld, 27, cofounders, Machinio Based in Chicago, Machinio is a search engine for the mechanical industry—its cofounders call it the “Kayak of used machinery.” In May, the company raised $1 million in seed funding. In the past year alone, more than one million unique buyers have spent tens of millions of dollars on used machinery through Machinio. Georg Polzer, 26, cofounder, Teralytics Polzer’s Zurich company tracks the movements of more than 300 million cell phone users in Europe, US and Asia. The data, scrubbed and anonymized, is sold to to city planners and marketers in search of demographic insights. Kira Radinsky, 28, cofounder, SalesPredict Radinsky used to work at Microsoft Research developing early warning algorithms for global disasters. Now she puts those analytical skills to work as CTO of SalesPredict, a company that uses predictive analytics to help sales teams find the right customers. Vivek Ravisanker, 27, cofounder, HackerRank After graduating from NIT in India, Ravisankar moved to the U.S. and started HackerRank, a service that companies can use to host coding challenges to find new engineering talent. Paying customers include Facebook, Amazon, Zynga, Walmart, and the White House. Medhi Samadi, 29, cofounder, Solvvy Samadi and his fellow Carnegie Mellon computer science Ph.D. Justin Betteridge are using artificial intelligence to produce smarter search results than Google. The two earned $15,000 in investment capital by placing second their school’s 2014 McGinnis Venture Competition, and have also received an undisclosed amount of seed funding. Kyle Vogt, 29, CEO, Cruise Automation After co-founding Justin.tv, Socialcam and Twitch, Vogt now runs Cruise, an automated driving startup that could beat Google’s self-driving cars to market. Cruise’s $10,000 accessory straps to the roof of a car and plugs into the foot well for handsfree driving on freeways. It begins installing in Audi cars in early 2015. Junyu Wang, 29, cofounder, Wandoujia The former user-experience designer at Google is now CEO of Beijing’s Wandoujia, one of China’s biggest online stores for apps and entertainment with more than 350 million installs. In 2014 he raised a remarkable $120 million in an investment round led by Japan’s Softbank. Wandoujia has helped apps like Flipboard, LINE and Evernote launch in China. Yan Zhu, 23, privacy engineer, Yahoo Zhu was hired by Yahoo to help increase security in a post-Snowden age. She previously worked for the EFF, and gained notoriety for attending a mathematics conference where she attempted to dissuade attendees from joining the NSA due to concerns about the agency’s overreach.