Summer Tech Watch: 11 San Francisco Companies to Know

Summer is finally here. Whether you’re working on a tan, biking all 4.6 miles of the beautiful seaside Presidio, or stopping by the Ferry Building to sample goods from local vendors, it might also be a good time to catch up on the movers and shakers in your local tech scene — and Built In San Francisco has curated 11 noteworthy companies to get you started.1

With nine Silicon Valley startups becoming unicorns in May alone — along with a record $28.9 billion in VC capital investment for Q1 — many of the city’s tech employers are unveiling upgrades to the breadth, depth and inclusion of their culture and perks.

The SF-based companies we featured are unique in many ways, but all 11 have one thing in common: They are exciting, people-first organizations worth keeping on your radar.

 

 

What they do: GRAIL is a healthcare company focused on early cancer detection. In 2016, the Menlo Park-based company was founded and spun out as a standalone company by biotech giant Illumina. Four years later, the former parent company acquired GRAIL for $8 billion. 

 

 

Collaborative ambition: Cutting-edge technology and ambitious scientific goals are at the heart of GRAIL. For a company tackling one of the most important challenges in healthcare, it takes not just innovative equipment but also top talent. “GRAIL is taking on a challenge that is unprecedented,” Ting Ma, associate director of data engineering, told Built In SF. “It can only become successful when people with different expertise collaborate deeply.”

 

 

 

What they do: Clari is a revenue operations platform that collects data from across each client’s organization and uses AI to build dashboards and insights. The company recently announced its acquisition of conversation intelligence platform Wingman. 

 

 

Candidate transparency: Sunnyvale-based Clari believes that building a mutually beneficial relationship with its employees starts with the hiring process. “Lingering can be lonely, and right from the beginning we want our candidates to know they won’t be forgotten,” Talent Acquisition Manager Meghann Hanvey told Built In SF last November. 

 

 

 

What they do: Grove Collaborative offers curated natural products and healthy home essentials to customers with a monthly delivery model. As part of its eco-friendly ethos, the company pledges to be 100 percent plastic-free by 2025. Backed by strict vetting standards, a partnership with Recyclops and its Beyond Plastic campaign, Grove is leading by example as an environmentally conscious retailer in a climate-changed world.

 

 

Earthly ethics: For those at Grove, how the products are made may be just as important as how many are sold. As a Certified B Corporation, the San Francisco-based retailer embodies the highest standards of social and environmental impact for a business. With ethical consumerism on the rise, Grove is embracing the movement as a company principle. “When you work at Grove, you are a person, a person who is changing the Earth and making an impact on customers,” Robert Gash, Grove’s VP of operations technology, told Built In SF.

 

 

 

What they do: Endpoint Clinical provides Interactive Response Technology (IRT) systems and solutions for the life sciences industry. The company’s IRT model is a management tool that allows clients flexibility in every aspect of clinical study design. 

 

Reliably remote: Endpoint Clinical has always been ahead of the remote game. With a strong remote-work culture prior to the pandemic, the company hired across all regions in 2021. Its Joy Tour 2021 involved leadership organization regional gatherings across its large employment hubs. “The flexibility we offer, specifically through remote work opportunities and our new flexible time off program, is a significant perk for employees,” Senior HR Director Beth Sawyer told Built In SF in January.

 

 

 

What they do: Instawork is a flexible staffing platform, offering an online marketplace that connects businesses with workers they need. The company aims to bridge the gap of labor shortages in local economies. CEO and cofounder Sumir Meghani had the idea for Instawork when, during his time working at his family’s small business, he noticed that on-demand talent was hard to come by.

 

 

Collaborative functions: Instawork recently partnered with Hiring Our Heroes, an organization established by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation that helps incorporate members of the military community into the workforce. According to the company, military spouses especially can use the service to find flexible work, even with relocation. The collaboration is in line with Instawork’s mission statement of strengthening the local economic landscape, both for businesses and the labor pool.  

 

 

 

What they do: Webflow is a codeless website builder, with a visual CMS platform and a built-in designer that writes HTML and CSS code for users. The company is the fourth entrepreneurial venture for CEO and Founder Vlad Magdalin, and despite the struggles in Webflow’s early years, it recently closed a $120 million Series C funding round led by Y Combinator — a $4 billion valuation.

 

 

DEI work in progress: Webflow not only embraces a diverse, equitable and inclusive work environment, it isn’t afraid to show that it needs to improve. Displayed on its website is a breakdown of company demographics by race and ethnicity, gender expression and work location. “We’re not there yet. But here’s how we’re doing so far,” the accompanying statement reads. Mariah Driver, head of DEI at Webflow, would agree. “In order to reduce biased behavior and the inequitable outcomes it produces, companies need to pair bias awareness with operational changes that prevent the expression of bias in key decision-making processes such as hiring and promotion,” she told Built in SF last November. 

 

 

 

What they do: Mode is a business intelligence solution that helps clients visualize data to find  answers. By using technical languages — SQL, Python and R — in its product, the company leverages modern analytics so users can do more with their business data. Currently, half of all Fortune 500 companies use the platform. 

 

 

Awards and accolades: Mode’s flexible data visualization system, Visual Explorer, picked up three industry awards within six months of its launch. A global panel of more than 170 judges honored the big data company as a 2022 Information Technology Awards winner for “Business Intelligence and Analytics.” At the only peer-recognized award for the industry, SIIA CODie Awards, Mode was named a finalist, and the team also took home the silver prize at the 2022 Golden Bridge Awards for innovation in business intelligence.

 

 

 

 

What they do: iTradeNetwork is a supply chain management company with a focus on perishables. Its supply chain solution suite helps handle a network of over 8,000 food and beverage trading partners for its customers. In 2010, the company was acquired by Roper Technologies. 

 

 

Gretzky’s strategy: iTradeNetwork might have started back in 1999, but its innovative product strategy hails from hockey superstar Wayne Gretzky’s sage advice: “Skate to where the puck is going, not where it has been.” As a supply chain company, iTradeNetwork and its many trading partners are no strangers to the devastating effects of the pandemic. To account for the pains and challenges faced by the operators under its network, the Dublin-based company has introduced new products to its solution suite with Freight, its next-generation transportation solution, and with machine-learning file monitoring for data. 

 

 

 

 

What they do: Carrum Health is an excellence center-based company that provides healthcare options to businesses through a bundled payment solution. The company seeks to simplify the process for implementing employee health benefits by connecting self-insured employers with regional healthcare providers.

 

 

Shared Purpose: How does Carrum Health keep their valuable talent? According to Chief Operating Officer Dan Nardi, it’s important to rally the company around the mission for a shared sense of passion and purpose, cultivating company culture with a holistic approach.  “It’s been proven time and again that the number one reason people stay at a company is their coworkers,” he told Built In SF last November. 

 

 

 

What they do: Ujet Inc. is a cloud contact center platform built for customer experience in the mobile era. As the first and only platform of its kind, Ujet was founded on the principle of modernizing the contact center experience. Founder and CEO Anand Janefalkar sought to improve business results by adapting to how humans interact and communicate today.

 

 

Best Place to Work: As a winner of Built In’s Best Places to Work Awards 2022, Ujet Inc. knows all about maintaining a good work culture. By fostering work-life balance and a strong collaborative foundation for its workforce, the company helps employees work at their best — even in periods of rapid growth. “We realize that how we work together is as important as what we do,” Anand Janefalkar told Built In SF in January.

 

 

 

 

What they do: Slab is a knowledge-sharing platform, helping teams build and organize shared learning and documentation for better workflow and collaboration. Founded in 2016, the company is Co-founder Jason Chen’s second venture; his first was acquired by Salesforce back in 2012. 

 

 

Hiring needs: Though it’s run by a small team of 11, Slab’s enterprise software has big client numbers — over 7,000 companies use the platform. The private company, still in its seedling stage, is looking to grow its engineering and marketing teams. As a fully remote startup, Slab is open to hiring qualified candidates from anywhere, backed by perks and benefits that support this commitment.