Summer Tech Spotlight: 11 SF Companies to Watch

Even with remote work still booming post-pandemic, there’s no place like San Francisco for community, collaboration and innovation. The city’s tech offices, coffee shops, hacker houses and conference spaces are once again hubs for networking and deal-making as ambitious professionals return to the city seeking new opportunities. 

The artificial intelligence boom is reenergizing much of the industry, bringing together top tech talent with visionary leaders and venture capitalists ready to invest in the next brilliant idea. Many local companies are also investing heavily in meaningful benefits, professional development and people-first cultures to keep employees engaged and motivated.

The companies featured in Built In San Francisco’s summer roundup are among the most in-demand workplaces in the area — and for good reason. Below, find out more about what it’s like to work at a communication platform beloved by more than 150 million users, a startup building the future of cloud infrastructure and more.

 

 

WeaveGrid develops software to manage and optimize electric vehicle charging for automakers, utilities and drivers.

 

 

Driven by values: “The clean energy transition is the most important challenge of our time. WeaveGrid works to solve that challenge while bridging the largest and most complex industries in the world every day,” ​​Head of Product Kyle Garton told Built In San Francisco in November 2022, shortly after the company announced a $35 million Series B raise. “New technology, personas and use cases arise constantly, and WeaveGrid is helping shape the sustainable future of e-mobility. I can’t imagine anything more exciting to work on.”

 

 

Lob automates direct mail for businesses so they can programmatically send physical mail as easily as emails.

 

 

Upward trajectory: In April, Lob announced that it had reached the milestone of $100 million in revenue, scaling 40 percent year-over-year and growing its customer base by 25 percent in 12 months. “It is a testament to our team's hard work and dedication, as well as the innovative direct mail solutions we provide to our customers,” CEO and co-founder Leore Avidar said in a release.

The company makes a point of recognizing success on an individual basis, too. As ​​Senior Engineering Manager Jonathan Lowsley told Built In San Francisco in January, “One of our daily standup questions is: ‘Please share any kudos you have for any of your team members.’ We also have a #props channel where people can share public appreciation and praise for someone else, and how it impacted them personally.”

 

Discord is a communication platform that allows users to create and join virtual communities.

 

 

Collaboration anywhere: More than 150 million people use Discord every month — and that includes the company’s employees. With a flexible, virtual-first hybrid workplace, Discord teams meet and communicate on the platform. “Our mission is to help people find belonging. This guides everything we do — both externally and internally. Whether employees are working from home, at the office or somewhere in between, our platform is designed to help bring people together and build community,” COO Liz Hamren told Built In San Francisco in May 2022.

 

Tonic.ai creates synthetic data that businesses use for development, testing and data analysis while preserving privacy and compliance.

 

 

A culture of curiosity: Creating data resources for developers across industries calls for a team of enthusiastic problem-solvers. “We look for candidates who are passionate about their work. They go beyond simply knowing how to use technology and are interested in why technology is built the way it is, have opinions on how it can be made better and constantly strive to know more. Our constant curiosity makes us better developers, makes work fun and ensures that we’re always learning,” Larry Conly, the company’s vice president of engineering, told Built In San Francisco in November 2022.

 

 

Sprig is a user testing and insights platform that helps companies build better products.

 

 

Satisfied customers: Sprig works with companies like Dropbox, Notion, Square and Adobe, and its insights help improve products used by hundreds of millions of people every day. “My proudest moments at Sprig are when customers tell us that they love the product and their Sprig customer success manager or engineer,” Lisa Ashcraft, the company’s head of customer success, told Built In San Francisco in November 2022. “Our customers’ relationship with us and their relationship with their own customers — these are the experiences that matter. We’re thrilled to be part of their extended team.”

 

 

Embroker provides commercial insurance services for businesses.

 

 

In the news: Earlier this June, the company launched a new product aimed at making the process of ​​sourcing excess coverage for insurtech policies faster and more straightforward for brokers. “The problems that brokers face in building towers and securing needed capacity ultimately trickle down to impact their business clients. By tapping into the pain points of brokers and giving them the tools to alleviate these holdups, we can bring tech companies the expanded coverage they need before they need it — all online, using their trusted broker, with no delay,” David Derigiotis, chief insurance officer at Embroker, said in a news release.

 

Philo is a television streaming service for live and on-demand viewing.

 

 

Empowered employees: Individuality and a distinctive point of view are considered assets in new hires. “We harness unique strengths to help the team grow. Our flat organizational structure gives everyone a voice, which aligns with my personal values,” Sandy Micone, the company’s head of design, told Built In San Francisco in March 2023. “At Philo, we all believe great experiences create a great brand — I mean, we are reinventing TV — a designer’s dream!”

 

 

Render offers cloud services for developers and businesses to host and run their applications and websites.

 

 

In the news: Fresh off a $50 million Series B round announced this June, Render is gearing up to launch new products and brings its services to larger engineering teams. “Render offers the promise of a powerful, flexible, and intuitive cloud experience for software developers and teams of all skill levels and sizes. Fulfilling this promise means expanding platform functionality rapidly, which is exactly how we’ll use the new investment,” founder and CEO Anurag Goel wrote in a blog post.

 

 

Benchling is a cloud-based software platform for life-science research.

 

 

Ongoing innovations: Earlier this June, the company announced a series of new features and integrations designed to streamline data analysis and decision-making for scientists. The enhancements offer connectivity to leading scientific analytics tools, enabling seamless exchange of data, results and charts. Also forthcoming: an open-source library that will automatically format instrument-generated data according to a recognized industry standard. “When R&D is connected, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. At Benchling, we’re working against the tendency towards inflexible, closed data models and fragmented, proprietary systems. We know that biotechs succeed faster when they operate in a connected environment with effortless access to intelligent tools and standardized data,” Shawna Wolverton, Benchling’s chief product officer, said in a release.

 

 

Zscaler is a cloud-based security platform for enterprise organizations.

 

 

Ambitious AI plans: At the cybersecurity event Zenith Live in June, Zscaler announced a suite of advanced security solutions designed to help businesses maximize the benefits of generative AI while safeguarding enterprise intellectual property and customer data. Among the new tools are a comprehensive risk scoring system for AI applications, precision access controls and a proactive security feature that uses AI to learn from changing cloud policies and logs, the latter now in pilot mode. “Generative AI presents a game-changing inflection point in technology, and the organizations that have large volumes of relevant, private enterprise data to seize its potential today will emerge as leaders tomorrow,” said Jay Chaudhry, Zscaler’s CEO, chairman and founder, in a release. “Zscaler is taking a quantum leap forward by introducing a suite of security capabilities that allow our customers to safely harness the power of new generative AI tools to predict and stop breaches.”

 

 

Wish is an e-commerce platform that connects sellers to buyers in 60 countries worldwide. 

 

 

Make your mark: “At Wish, the decisions you make and the things that you do can have a huge impact on the company direction. Every single person can make a significant difference,” Stephen Hu, senior director of engineering, said in an employee spotlight profile on Wish’s blog. While e-commerce is a vast and decades-old industry, he also emphasized that there are ample opportunities to push it forward. “The technology necessary to handle the scale, efficiency and new user requirements is still a very interesting and challenging problem space. There are lots of new areas where technology can be applied to make the experience better and more interesting for customers and merchants.”