Drumrolls 🥁 🥁 🥁 please……

HackerNoon’s annual Startups ✨ of The Year (SOTY) 2024 has officially COMMENCED 🎉 🎊 ✨

Nominations (how to here) and voting 🗳️ for the best companies are NOW open! It’s time to spotlight & celebrate Tech’s Rising Stars. This is your chance to help us recognize and celebrate the most innovative startups of the year and their impact on the tech industry.

History of Startups of The Year

Now in its 3rd edition, Startups of The Year by HackerNoon is a 100% community-driven voting event recognizing startups that are transforming technology and the world for the better. In our previous editions (SOTY 2021/2022 and SOTY 2023/2024), the community had the option to vote for the best startup based on cities, such as Sydney, London, or Singapore, divided into major regions of the world: Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, Oceania, & South America.

Startups of The Year 2023 concluded with over 623,000 total votes, up from more than 215,000 votes of the inaugural competition in 2021. In the last and most recent edition, HackerNoon and the community at large nominated over 30,000 startups from 4,000+ cities with populations of at least 100,000 people, across six continents. The 1,253 winners received perks from sponsors, such as a free .Tech Domain, a HackerNoon NFT, and an Evergreen Tech Company News Page from HackerNoon.

What’s new with Startups of The Year 2024

This year, the HackerNoon team proudly introduces a brand new way to browse, nominate, and vote for your favorite startups - by INDUSTRIES!

Choose from 100+ different industries and help us decide who stands out. Visit the Startups homepage and pick one of the clouds representing the diverse range of industries, enter a keyword via the search bar, or browse through our 11 different parent categories that umbrella all industries, including:

• AI
• Business
• Commerce
• Cybersecurity
• Education
• Emerging Tech
• Engineering
• Healthcare
• Media
• Programming
• Web3

Of course, you are welcome to nominate and vote for your favorite startups per location just like in previous years. Click on a location via the world map, use the search bar, or browse the 6 regions that encompass all 4000+ cities just like before.

📜 Each city and industry comes with a rich, concise history overview, as well as insights into the startup scene. You can also browse web links for startup news within each city and industry. For example, explore the history of Singaporean startups here and the evolution of AI as an industry here.

❇️ One true vote: while each startup can belong to both a location and up to 3 total industries, the vote you cast for each startup is a universal vote! Therefore, the chances that a startup is discovered and voted for this year are increased 4 fold!

Nominate Your Favorite Startups

If you know of a company that's been making waves and deserves recognition, especially in 2023 and 2024, now's the time to nominate them for Startups of The Year 2024. Visit our website, search for the city name or industry, and submit your nomination. We'll review each submission and accept the top contenders. If you’re looking for a tutorial on how to nominate a startup, see here.

Vote for the Best Startups

Once the nominees have been selected, it's time to cast your vote for the best of the best. You can help decide who wins by voting for your favorite startup in each category. The voting will be open until March 31st, 2025 and winners will be announced shortly after.

Spread the Word!

Don't keep this exciting news to yourself - share it with your friends, family, and colleagues. Encourage them to participate in the nominations and voting process, and let's recognize the most innovative and impactful startups of 2024 together! Use the hashtag #startupsoftheyear or #soty2024 and tag us on social so we can find your post and reshare the love 💚

About HackerNoon’s Startups of The Year

Startups of The Year 2024 is HackerNoon’s flagship community-driven event celebrating startups, technology, and the spirit of innovation. Currently in its third iteration, the prestigious Internet award recognizes and celebrates tech startups of all shapes and sizes. This year, over 150,000 entities across 4200+ cities, 6 continents, and 100+ industries will participate in a bid to be crowned the best startup of the year! Millions of votes have been cast over the past few years, and many stories have been written about these daring and rising startups.

The winners will get a free interview on HackerNoon and an Evergreen Tech Company News page.

Visit our FAQ page to learn more.

Download our design assets here.

Check out the Startups of the Year Merch Shop here.

HackerNoon’s Startups of The Year is a branding opportunity unlike any other. Whether your goal is brand awareness or lead generation, HackerNoon has curated startup-friendly packages to solve your marketing challenges.

Wellfound: Join the #1 global, startup-focused community. At Wellfound, we're not just a job board—we're the place where top startup talent and the world's most exciting companies connect to build the future.

Notion: Notion is trusted and loved by thousands of startups as their connected workspace—from building product roadmaps to tracking fundraising. Try Notion with unlimited AI, FREE for up to 6 months, to build and scale your company with one powerful tool. Get your offer now!

Hubspot: If you’re looking for a smart CRM platform that meets the needs of small businesses, look no further than HubSpot. Seamlessly connect your data, teams and customers in one easy-to-use scalable platform that grows with your business. Get started for free.

Bright Data: Startups that leverage public web data can make faster, data-driven decisions, giving them a competitive edge. With Bright Data’s scalable web data collection, businesses can grow from a small operation to an enterprise by harnessing insights at every stage.

Algolia: Algolia NeuralSearch is the world's only AI end-to-end Search and Discovery Platform combining powerful keyword and natural language processing in a single API.