[LINK] World Economic Forum, Technology Pioneers

[stephen at melbpc.org.au]

CloudFlare, Dropbox, Palantir And Kickstarter Named Technology Pioneers 
By The World Economic Forum 

http://techcrunch.com/tag/world-economic-forum

Every year the World Economic Forum picks a number of up-and-coming 
technology startups from around the world and dubs them Technology 
Pioneers. 

Past members of this club include Google, Mozilla, Mint, Etsy, Twitter, 
Amiando, Playfish, Obopay, and Brightcove

Today, The World Economic Forum announced 25 new members of the 2012 
class of Technology Pioneers, who will be honored at a conference in 
China in September.

This year’s group includes CloudFlare, DoubleVerify, Dropbox, 
Kickstarter, Lending Club, and Palantir Technologies.

CloudFlare, which was a TechCrunch Disrupt runner-up last Fall, offers a 
service that protects websites from online threats, promises and increase 
in page load speeds, and more. The startup made recently waves when it 
was revealed the security service was being used by infamous hackers 
LulzSec. And CloudFare just announced a $20 million round of funding.

File sharing company Dropbox is on a roll of late, with its 25 million 
users (many of which are paying), uploading 200 million files a day. The 
company is expected to announce a $200 million to $300 million  funding 
round soon, which could value the company at a whopping $4 billion.

Founded in 2004 by former PayPal employees and Stanford computer 
scientists, Palantir offers a high-powered analysis platform for 
businesses and governments. The company analyzes a variety of data 
including structured, unstructured, relational, temporal, and geospatial 
content. The virtue of of Palantir is that it accepts huge databases and 
allows users to slice and dice this information. The company has raised a 
massive $175 million, most recently adding $50 million to its coffers.

Crowd-funding website Kickstarter allows anyone with an idea for a film, 
album, art project, or product to make their pitch, say how much they 
need to get started, and ask for pledges. Once the minimum amount needed 
is pledged, the project gets started. To date, Kickstarter has helped 
fund more than 25,000 projects, with $75 million pledged. 

According to the organization, Technology Pioneers are chosen on the 
basis how innovative a company is, the potential impact on society, 
growth and sustainability, proof of concept and leadership ..

--

Cheers,
Stephen