Get your nominations in for Technical.ly’s RealLIST Startups 2021

After a challenging year, we’re eager to celebrate examples of resilience and growth in 2021.

Accordingly, it’s baaaack: This January, Technical.ly will publish the 2021 edition of the RealLIST Startups, aka our annual list of the most promising tech companies in Philly, Baltimore, D.C. and Delaware. It’s our look at the youngest companies that we expect to have a local impact for years to come.

The RealLIST is basically our way of forecasting what local companies are going to have a big year based on factors such as founder experience, venture capital raises and originality of product. In 2019, we expanded the RealLIST series to include software engineers, then expanded again in 2020 to include community connectors.

There’s some extra significance this year: It’s our fifth annual RealLIST Startups. Yep, we’ve been publishing these roundups since 2017. Scroll to the bottom of this page to check out what companies we shouted out then — and note how they’ve grown since (or what we got wrong).

We have a whole bunch of finalists in our heads already, but we want suggestions from readers, too. Know an exceptional up-and-coming company that deserves some shine? Keep in mind that to be considered, companies can’t be older than three years (so, must be founded in 2018 or later); they must make the majority of their revenue from selling a product (not agencies or studios); and they must not have undergone an exit event.

See Philly’s 2020 list here, Baltimore’s here, D.C.’s here and Delaware’s here for inspiration. In Philly, this year’s list is again underwritten by Morgan Lewis.

Tell us via this form by EOD Sunday, Jan. 10: