How we rank hot startups

Which companies are eligible

• It is a private technology startup. Public companies, their subsidiaries, staffing agencies and non-commercial employers are left out.
• It has at least 3 open roles on Saywise today, each with a stated salary. A role with no stated pay does not count.

What the hot score reads

Each eligible company gets one score. In the order they matter:

1. How recent the last funding round is. A round in the last 30 days counts most, then 90 days, six months and a year. Older rounds add nothing.
2. New open roles. Roles posted in the last 30 days, and in the last 90.
3. The size of the round for its stage. A seed round is compared with typical seed rounds, a Series B with typical Series B rounds.
4. Backing. An investor from a fixed list of the most active venture firms and accelerators, or a Y Combinator batch.
5. How many roles are open in total.

Headcount growth is not part of the score yet: we do not hold a history of it. We publish the inputs and their order, not the exact weights.

The lists

• The main list shows the top 50 companies up to Series C. Companies at Series D or later are ranked on the growth-stage list and on every other list they qualify for. Every other list (by signal, stage, sector, city and investor) shows up to 25, ranked by the same score.
• A city list holds the companies with an open role based in that city, not the companies headquartered there.
• “Recently funded” is the one list ordered by date: rounds from the last 30 days, newest first, or the last 90 days when fewer than 5 companies qualify.
• A list with fewer than 5 companies is not published. A city list needs 15.

Where the data comes from

Open roles and salaries come from the companies' own job postings, which Saywise reads from their applicant tracking systems. Funding rounds, investors and stages come from public filings, company announcements and licensed company data. Each page shows the date it was last updated.