86 Software Companies in San Francisco to Know

San Francisco has very deep roots in tech. From early days of military technology, the founding of Intel and its ecosystem of universities and venture capital firms, San Francisco and the Bay Area have been synonymous with tech for decades. Though hardware is still an important part of tech in the Bay Area, San Francisco and software have proved to be an inseparable pair. Here are the software companies in San Francisco you should know.

 

GRAIL is a healthcare company that utilizes software and advanced technologies, along with next-generation sequencing and large-scale clinical studies, to detect cancer early. Headquartered in the Bay Area, the company employs staff across various departments, including its labs, software engineering and clinical development.

 

CreatorIQ makes marketing software that manages and optimizes influencer marketing campaigns. By providing hard data on the various ROI metrics of any given influencer relationship or campaign, it allows clients to search for, compare and research creators, get information on trends in their niche communities and assess factors like creator retention on behalf of social networks. CreatorIQ is used by every major social network, including Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook and X. 

 

Superhuman makes an email client app that uses AI to manage and optimize inboxes. Through keyboard shortcuts, email tracking and workflow streamlining, it functions something like a personal assistant that’s 100 percent focused on your email. The San Francisco-based company has integrated its own Superhuman AI into the app, which can scan subject lines and perform other basic time-saving tasks.  

 

Software company iManage provides business service tools and strategies that help client companies manage their knowledge assets and processes. Services including document and email management, risk and compliance management and legal transaction oversight are delivered through cloud-based software to help law firms, accounting offices and knowledge work companies maintain operational integrity as they handle huge influxes of sensitive documents and information. 

 

San Francisco-based software company HoneyBook makes a SaaS platform for client management geared toward freelancers, sole proprietors and small businesses. On the platform, clients can perform business operations including invoicing, contract generation, payment processing and project management. The aim and promise of the platform is that clients can save time and money by using it to perform all the tasks they might otherwise manage across multiple software products.

 

Redflag AI makes SaaS products that comb the internet to locate and identify instances of client assets being used outside of copyright or without permission. It uses AI to perform these searches, which allows for extreme speed and scope in finding cases of piracy, fraud, copyright infringement and cyberthreat. While Redflag’s team is fully remote, it maintains a home base in Berkeley. 

 

Finch makes API software that connects disparate systems in a business’s ecosystem, like HR, payroll and benefits, so that processes can be automated. Because data in these systems must be protected in compliance with local, state and federal privacy laws, the integrations need to bridge otherwise closed systems. Finch was seeded by Y Combinator and is headquartered in San Francisco.

 

Asana’s San Francisco headquarters is located in a 12-story skyscraper in the heart of the Financial District. The company’s productivity platform helps teams across all kinds of organizations manage their work together by organizing projects by stage, assigning tasks to different team members and aggregating important project details all in one place.

 

Navan offers software solutions for corporate travel and expense management. Its platform includes features for booking individual and group travel accommodations, customizing dashboards for viewing real-time insights on travel-related spending, incorporating sustainability into travel programs and accessing 24/7 support from live travel agents and Navan’s AI-powered agent known as Ava.

 

Sendbird offers a communications API platform that developers can use to incorporate chat, video and other communication features into their applications. Businesses across industries such as financial services, retail and digital health rely on Sendbird’s technology to cover a variety of use cases, ranging from providing customers with effective chat support to enabling live in-app video streaming.

 

Course Hero operates an edtech platform providing access to course-specific study materials, textbooks and guides for students. Utilizing AI-powered technology, the company’s AI Course Assistant offers answers, explanations and recommendations for homework assistance. Course Hero also offers proofreading and grammar checking tools, and the option to connect with live human tutors. It’s headquartered in Redwood City.

 

Sanity is a software company that operates a content management platform where users can collaboratively edit content and determine where to send it. Sanity differentiates itself from other content management systems by looking at content as data, using programming languages to alter and distribute it so that clients can customize existing content to fit their specific needs and channels. 

 

Retool is a software design platform that allows users to build internal website tools like a database front end or customer service dashboard, using a minimal amount of code in the development process. With the mission of accessibility for all, the company offers drag and drop tools and an AI editor to make the process of building these software assets faster and simpler.

 

Technology is at the core of Instacart’s business. The company’s software engineers build and maintain digital solutions that serve shoppers and retailers. Instarcart’s website and mobile app are designed to make it easy for consumers to pick out grocery items like meat, seafood, produce, dairy products and canned goods to be delivered to their homes. The company also offers e-commerce tools that enable retailers to customize digital storefronts, for example, or build effective marketing campaigns.

 

Benchling makes a cloud-based platform for research and development in life sciences. Geared toward biotech and pharmaceutical companies, the platform provides an integrated space for assets like lab notes, sample tracking, experiment data and data analytics. The platform’s selling point is its ability to facilitate collaboration and manage data.

 

Roblox is a video game software developer and online gaming company. On its platform, users can program their own games and play games that have been programmed by other users. Working within the programming language Lua, the platform is free for users to access and offers optional purchases using the virtual currency Robux. 

 

Render offers a cloud-based platform for quickly building apps and other digital products. Its hosting and deployment capabilities also make it easy and secure for customers to scale their digital offerings as their business grows. More than 750,000 developers and teams across tech trust Render. The company is headquartered in San Francisco, but has remote team members working around the world. 

 

Duo Security describes itself as “one of the world’s most trusted access management tools.” Its cloud-based security platform serves more than 100,000 global customers, including well-known enterprises like Eventbrite, Lyft and Yelp. Duo’s multi-factor authentication solution is customizable and helps to prevent against common types of phishing attacks.

 

Adyen expanded from a tech company focused on payment processing to a fintech platform that encompasses a variety of solutions for businesses. Its revenue optimization product streamlines recovering funds from declined transactions, for example, while Adyen’s risk management capabilities facilitate fraud prevention and detection. The company has upwards of 3,000 employees spread around the globe and maintains a regional headquarters in San Francisco.

 

Clari’s revenue tech software is built to dial in revenue processes. With products for capturing high quality data, inspecting deals and accounts, collaborating with buyers, forecasting and pipeline management, finding sales leads and even coaching for revenue conversations, its suite of software handles all things revenue.  

 

Spotnana offers a Travel-as-a-Service platform for managing corporate travel. Its cloud-based product allows users to book flights, hotels, rental cars and other travel accommodations online or through a mobile app, and travelers can use those same tools to amend or cancel their bookings. The company also provides its customers with access to 24/7 assistance from travel agents, traveler safety info, real-time analytics and details about their carbon footprint. 

 

Deepgram is revolutionizing the speech recognition sector with its end-to-end deep learning platform. Companies can leverage Deepgram’s solutions to create transcriptions of all their recorded conversations. Deepgram’s platform can also transcribe conversations across various languages, allowing companies to serve the most diverse customer bases.

 

Kinship utilizes data and technology to build apps designed for the unique needs of pets. The company provides pet owners with data-driven insights related to their pet’s genetic makeup, nutritional requirements, and health predictions. This way, people can better understand their pets and give them the specialized care they deserve.  

 

Lever is a combined CRM and ATS solution that provides an end-to-end talent acquisition platform to forward-thinking hiring teams. The Lever Talent Suite combines sourcing, nurturing, interviewing, hiring, rediscovery and results analysis in one accessible platform, featuring a talent database, candidate relationship management tools, custom dashboards, diversity insights, candidate self-scheduling, referral gathering, automated drip sequences and more — saving hiring managers time while growing the workforce.

 

Cruise is known for engineering driverless cars, building the hardware and software to power autonomous vehicles for applications like delivery and ride-hailing services. A subsidiary of General Motors, the company is native to San Francisco. Cruise vehicles are fully electric, with zero emissions for reduced carbon footprint operations in high-density cities.

 

PitchBook Data operates a platform that provides access to key insights on where companies sit within the private investment lifecycle, with powerful historical data available for analyzing deals, funds, investors and service providers. The platform allows users to dive into private market intel, fundraising details, deal sourcing, due diligence, business development, networking and deal execution, with data accessible via a desktop site, mobile app, Excel plugin and more.

 

Crunchbase operates a big data platform providing detailed information on the status and business growth of both private and public companies. Users insights can easily be attained through the platform through specific data ranging from funding and investors to monthly web traffic and revenue estimates, all accumulated through a combination of machine learning, data science and their community members.

 

Shift Technologies makes buying and selling used cars online a simple task. Buyers interested in purchasing can receive a car directly to their door for a test drive via the company’s Concierges, who are well informed with answers to any questions the potential buyer may have. Shift even takes the stress out of the selling experience by handling all listing, price estimate, test drive and paperwork responsibilities for the seller.

 

Collective Health operates a health insurance management platform that allows self-funded employers to streamline the process of understanding and accessing health insurance plans for their employees. In addition to plan administration, Collective Health also provides services for patient advocacy and employee engagement while providing analytics to make benefits decisions more straight forward, leading to better control over their insurance costs and employee healthcare.

 

Miro is a highly capable visual collaboration platform that bolsters project and product development capabilities for businesses and teams across departments. The cloud-based platform helps product development and UX/UI teams share their ideas and collaborate on specific goals, creating an environment where organization and intuition blends seamlessly.

 

Braze’s automated platform allows organizations to engage in more authentic conversations with their audiences, leading to better user experiences and powerful insights that drive business forward. The product features tools for creating intuitive customer journey maps, collecting data-based suggestions via an AI engine and formulating feedback loops to discover new strategic insights and actionable steps that can be taken in real time.

 

Wix allows users to design their own websites to accomplish their goals, no matter how large their dreams have the potential to grow. The platform makes it easy for everyone from small business owners to creative minds to start a website that boosts their online presence, with tools available for building portfolios, e-commerce stores, media websites and more.

 

UJET creates forward-thinking CX solutions designed specifically with smartphones in mind, seamlessly prioritizing the largest number of user experiences and pushing businesses forward. Voice, messaging, mobile and virtual agent products are all included within the UJET platform, featuring efficient automation and Cloud capabilities to adapt to evolutions in human interactions and create frictionless experiences.

 

Lob allows businesses to automate and streamline their direct mail operations, saving time and updating an effective communication method that has been mired with outdated processes for too long. The company’s print/mail and address verification APIs have helped save thousands of companies save time that would have otherwise been spent physically processing and sending mail, leading to unmatched scalability and a significant boost in ROI.

 

 

Mural provides a collaborative, whiteboard solution where imaginative teams can brainstorm to solve important problems. Multiple templates are available on the platform to choose the right amount of organization and free space needed for teams to work in the ways that they know best, with shared workspaces, expert coaching, remote facilitation, agile frameworks and integrations all included to maximize the output of ideas.

 

Atlassian’s expansive suite products help to foster collaboration, communication and efficiency throughout the software development process. The company, which operates useful development tools like Jira, Bitbucket, Confluence and Trello, gives engineers insights into everything from project tracking to agile planning and code management. Airbnb, NASA, Cisco, eBay and Toyota are just a few of the thousands of companies that use Atlassian’s products to make their software development processes more efficient.

 

Unity Technologies is a software platform that develops 3D technology and VR visualization tools to help companies make physical navigation more streamlined and accessible. They work with companies in the gaming, automotive, film and architectural industries to enhance their operations with the help of 3D interfaces. Unity Technologies works on projects ranging from educational teaching simulations for edtech companies to interactive VR that helps automotive customers experience products before making a purchase.

 

Webflow enables designers and developers to build professional websites and apps without code. The company enables its users to create website interactions and animations visually, define their own content structure, edit and update site content and easily set up managed hosting. Webflow’s technology allows marketing teams to create, launch and iterate on new campaigns without employing product teams. 

 

Celonis is a software-powered company that delivers process mining technology and visualizing solutions to businesses looking to expand and improve on their operations. They collaborate with a number of top international companies including Uber, L'Oreal, Siemens, Cisco and Vodafone.

 

Cisco Meraki provides cloud-managed IT solutions to clients ranging from small businesses to global enterprises. In addition to its wide range of products, the company offers a variety of services such as real-time malware blocking, location analytics, zero-touch remote site deployment and self-provisioning VPN networks. 

 

Sentry provides cloud-based and self-hosted error monitoring tools that help software developers discover, triage and prioritize errors in real-time. Software teams at GitHub, Disney, Dropbox, Microsoft, Square, PayPal and Peloton all use Sentry’s platform to quickly identify and correct issues in their code.

 

Discord is a video, voice and chat app designed specifically originally for the gaming community, but has since expanded to include many other groups. The platform-agnostic app makes it easy for small groups of friends, or communities or thousands, to gather virtually and broadcast their hobbies to each other. Discord maintains about 56 million active users who send more than 25 billion messages and videos per month.

 

Endpoint Clinical designs and tests integrated response software that allows clinical trial administrators to change parameters and tests in real-time. The company’s personalized IT solutions help to streamline clinical tests for more than 20 different sectors of medicine, including oncology, endocrinology, immunology and pharmacology. Endpoint Clinical’s platform is used at more than 54,000 healthcare sites all over the globe.

 

Snap Inc. is a video and camera company that combines photography with communication services and social media to give users new ways to connect and share conversations. Through their mobile app, the company allows users to take advantage of a variety of filters and lenses to enhance their photos, providing the opportunity to transport contacts into the app to share photos with their friend network.

 

Eventbrite is a global ticketing, event planning and technology platform. Eventbrite is behind event planning across more than 180 countries, connecting people to music festivals, networking events, marathons, fundraisers and a variety of other events.

 

Grammarly is an AI-powered writing platform, helping users improve their overall writing skills by catching mistakes in grammar, spelling, tone and style. Grammarly goes beyond corrections in simple word documents; the tool integrates into emails, messaging platforms, social media and more.

 

Smartly.io is a social media advertising platform designed to help businesses run large marketing campaigns and reach customers across the globe. The company offers scalable advertising tools that automate ad buying and production, making it easier for companies to get their campaigns out to their consumer bases. Smartly.io's advertising services are trusted by companies like Uber, eBay, Under Armour and Zalando.

 

Seesaw is an interactive shared learning platform that gives parents and teachers the ability to connect over the education of their students while providing an area for young learners to own their work and retain more knowledge. Students have the ability to demonstrate progress through the Seesaw platform while teachers receive crucial learning insights and parents become more engaged throughout the learning process – unlocking creative thinking potential by providing a more focused education.

 

Monday.com allows teams in organizations across industries to become better connected and be able to track progress on assigned tasks more effectively. The platform features a dashboard that enables team members to add tasks and progress indicators, comment on ongoing items, assign new items, and add additional team members to any project in order to to provide full visibility into completion timelines and workload across departments.

 

Nylas serves as a one-stop communications platform that connects email, calendar, and contacts applications all in one synced location. The company's platform simplifies the process of integrating different communications apps, offering pre-built security features and the ability to build personalized features more quickly. Their services are trusted by a number of international corporations, including Hyundai, Comcast, HubSpot, and Ceridian.

 

Sendoso’s platform helps companies to find new ways to engage with customers throughout the buying journey. The platform allows marketers, salespeople, customer experience teams and even people teams to send thoughtful gifts to potential sales targets and prospects as a way to stand out from the crowd. Adobe, Snowflake, Nasdaq and Gong all use Sendoso’s platform to create meaningful engagement for clients and potential customers.

 

Clumio is a SaaS-based data protection company that delivers private, public and enterprise data protection services on a single platform. The platform features automatic resource scaling, real-time IT dashboards, a universal set of backup policies for all workloads and end-to-end encryption.

 

Qualia produces digital real estate technology that streamlines the home buying and selling process by bringing users from across the real estate ecosystem into a single shared platform. The platform’s suite of products facilitate improved connectivity between those responsible for title, escrow, closing, notarization and mortgage processes, with more than 500,000 title and escrow agents currently registered on the Qualia platform to date.

 

Chorus.ai is a platform designed to help sales teams analyze their calls and compare them against customizable benchmarks, built via machine learning to create strategies proven for success. Users are able to form their own onboarding programs and develop talk tracks to help their team adopt approaches pioneered by sales-savvy individual contributors, all while Chorus.ai’s technology reviews sales call to quickly pull key information like next steps, pricing and objection handling.

 

Gong.io is an AI-powered insights platform for sales teams. The software platform has real-time data on market, deal and people intelligence, so your sales team always understands how to forecast, which customers want to buy your products and how to become a better salesperson. SurveyMonkey, Drift, Monday.com, Twilio, HubSpot and Pinterest all use Gong.io’s platform to enhance their sales processes.

 

Built around the idea of “radical transparency,” Better.com makes it easier for people to access the things they need to turn their dream home into a reality. The company offers instant access to mortgage rates, homeowner’s insurance prices, and title insurance rates, along with commission-free agents dedicated to fulfilling their clients’ homeownership needs, eliminating extraneous fees, and making homeownership more equitable to all.

 

PagerDuty is a digital operations management platform used across DevOps, IT Ops, customer support, business operations and more. The PagerDuty platform gives teams more visibility—enabling them to glean insights from all aspects of their organization's operations.

 

Yext aims to help organizations confront misinformation by providing consumers with correct answers to their most frequently asked questions. By using the company’s Search Engine Cloud platform, organizations are able to provide their customers with accurate, up-to-date answers to questions across the entire search ecosystem. Yext also allows organizations to monitor and respond to customers’ reviews and analyze their performance across sites, platforms and devices.

 

Optimizely is an experimentation platform designed for product and marketing teams to test and deploy digital experiences. Utilized by teams at leading brands like Alaska Airlines, eBay and Sony, the platform works across channels like websites, TV apps, mobile apps and IoT apps.

 

UserTesting is an on-demand platform that allows businesses to collect consumer insights in real time. The software allows companies to target their audience members, engage with customers who are interacting with an app or website, and lets the companies conduct live interviews with consumers. Facebook, Wayfair, Expedia, Adobe and DocuSign all use UserTesting’s platform to gain better insight into the way consumers feel about, and interact with, their products.

 

Sisense provides companies with a platform for collecting and examining customer insights and revenue datasets, empowering organizations with the crucial information they need to reach their goals. The company’s analytics software allows enterprises and businesses of all sizes to maintain their data in house, make better strategic decisions based on customer needs and align users and stakeholders better than ever before.

 

Gladly creates customer experience communication solutions for enterprise clients. The unified communication platform provides omnichannel tracking of every customer point of contact, removing the need for customers to repeat previous conversations and providing a better customer experience overall.

 

Blend is a digital lending platform for consumer banking and mortgages. The software-based fintech company forms partnerships with financial institutions all over the world in order to bring a streamlined, accessible platform to customers. The individualized platform powers more than $2 billion in loans every day from major banks like Wells Fargo and US Bank.

 

On a mission to make email more efficient, Front is an inbox system designed to optimize enterprise workflow and enhance collaboration between teams. Their email platform provides users the ability to organize communication by assignments or teams in order to better contextualize the projects that need to get done. Front also offers built in analytics tools to take control of insights and keep track of customer experience trends.

 

Gusto offers streamlined, scalable payroll solutions for HR teams at companies of all sizes, housing an intuitive dashboard filled with tax, benefits and payroll capabilities. Powered by automation to reduce the amount of time it takes to complete payroll, Gusto also contains 401(k), workers’ compensation and PTO request capabilities to ensure employees can reach their goals and maintain security.

 

Scout RFP is a leading provider of source and supply chain visibility solutions to enterprises across various industries. The cloud-based platform features metrics for measuring costs saved and  tools to ensure ethical sourcing, along with project tracking and pipeline management capabilities. Scout RFP is key to the success of companies like Intuit, Biogen and Tapestry, amongst others.

 

Aside from being a leading athletic entertainment provider that’s home to 30 national top-level sports teams, Major League Baseball (MLB) boasts a global digital presence and works with leading statisticians to discover new ways to measure their product . The MLB website is a leading platform for finding the latest baseball scores and advanced stats, as well as detailed analysis on injury updates, starting lineups, prospect rankings and much more.

 

DoorDash is a software-powered food service company with an online platform that facilitates door-to-door food delivery. Site users can search restaurants by proximity and cuisine type and are connected directly with local businesses to streamline the ordering and delivery process.

 

With simple, cloud-hosted servers and completely private infrastructure available to businesses of any size, CircleCI's platform integrates with GitHub, GitHub Enterprise and Bitbucket to allow a simpler way to push code. The product includes automated testing and deployment capabilities, allowing a customizable and scalable way to stay on top of software with record performances.

 

TrustArc is a pioneer and leader in data protection and privacy compliance solutions. TrustArc’s platform takes care of each phase of privacy program management from data inventory and cookie consent to website compliance and incident response.

 

Airtable is a flexible organization platform that acts as both a database and spreadsheet, combining the best of both. Used by over 80,000 companies, Airtable helps users organize virtually anything and collaborate from anywhere.

 

Khoros is a customer engagement platform that helps businesses utilize their company knowledge to develop their customer relationships and retain new clients. Their software solutions assist enterprises in building support structures and developing marketing strategies, so that they can reach more people in their networks and build their brand voices.

 

Envoy helps physical workplaces step into the digital age. The software integrates with tools businesses already use to simplify the management of office visitors and deliveries. Used by leading companies like Slack, MailChimp and Pinterest, Envoy helps companies enhance onsite security, meet compliance needs and boost efficiency.

 

Fastly is a cloud edge platform helping businesses deliver secure, fast, online experiences. Fastly enables developers to build custom apps, gain real-time traffic insights and apply more automation, all of which frees up time for developers to test new ideas and dive into other projects.

 

Figma is a collaborative design platform enabling design teams to consolidate processes in one place. The online tool integrates with a number of other platforms and is used for UI/UX design, prototyping, graphic design and more.

 

The Lightstep platform gives organizations more visibility when monitoring their complex software applications. Utilized by tech leaders like DigitalOcean, GitHub and Lightstep provides a reliable look at the entire software system to find and resolve issues quickly.

 

Modsy is a platform helping users visualize interior design projects. Users simply upload room photos and measurements, explain project needs, receive custom design plans and shop directly within the platform. Modsy works with top retailers like Joybird, Wayfair and West Elm.

 

Reciprocity creates corporate compliance solutions for clients like SurveyMonkey, Stanford University and Colgate-Palmolive. The platform helps businesses and organizations deploy risk management programs, gain visibility, access all compliance documentation, share progress with stakeholders and more.

 

Zenefits is an all-in-one human resources platform built for small and medium-sized businesses. From benefits and payroll to people and time management, Zenefits helps companies simplify onboarding, org charts, performance reviews and other crucial HR operations.

 

Quizlet is a platform for online learning, enabling students and teachers to build, share and study topics of all varieties. From school basics like state capitals to higher education courses, Quizlet helps students share learning materials and study more efficiently.

 

HR tech company Deputy offers a software platform that supports more than 355,000 global workplaces, providing them with solutions for efficiently managing employees. Businesses can use Deputy’s product to verify timesheets, for example, or handle time-off requests and shift coverage for absent staff members.

 

Embroker’s platform connects businesses with insurance coverage. The company offers insurance packages designed to meet the needs of startups, growth-stage organizations and company leaders. Embroker’s policy options encompass everything from workers compensation to cyber liability. Embroker also has a portal that lets brokers access its products.

 

Cockroach Labs operates an office in the Financial District. The company serves the banking, fintech, media streaming and logistics sectors with a distributed SQL database that enables companies to house and use programming data, helping them scale and leverage multiple data clouds.

 

Tarro provides small, locally owned restaurant systems with its digital operating system. Its tools offer services that include marketing solutions, payment processing and handling orders. The company has grown to help over 1,800 small businesses since it was founded in 2015, and its annual recurring revenue has increased to more than $46 million. 

 

Alchemy says its mission is to “bring blockchain to a billion people.” The company provides blockchain developers with tools to support creation of Web3 applications, offering technology solutions that support users across 197 countries. Supernode is Alchemy’s development platform that’s designed to enable app reliability and scalability.

 

Toast is headquartered in Boston and has its San Francisco office in the Financial District. The company aims to enable restaurants of all sizes to improve their operations, increase their revenue and build their teams. The company’s all-in-one platform covers HR, payroll, delivery, guest marketing and point of sale.