For the ninth consecutive year CNBC has published a list of private companies that they assess will gain the attention of investors due their economic impact and their capability to disrupt industries. This year’s 2021 Disrupter 50 focused on business models and their growth rates that ran at a high pace of technological change leading out of the pandemic.
AI, 5G, cloud computing and other technologies empowered the 50 across a range of industries, bringing their new business models with the potential to disrupt the market and challenge established competitors. Their growth attracted over $72 billion in venture capital according to PitchBook with a valuation of more than $388 billion under CNBC’s implied valuation.
Thirty-four disruptors are unicorns and 10 of the companies are worth at least $10 billion. Popularly known finalists include Clubhouse, Stripe, and RobinHood, while those less known by the public include Convoy, ElevateBio and Marqueta.
When choosing the top 50, CNBC looks for companies that have the potential of becoming “great public companies”. Eligibility requirements include being a private and independently owned company and their agreeing to submit detailed analysis that includes key quantitative and qualitative information upon their nomination. The quantitative metrics of company-submitted data include workforce size and diversity, scalability, and sales and user growth. CNBC works with outside partners such as Pitchbook and others that also assist in data gathering and scoring.
CNBC’s Disruptor 50 Advisory Council comprised of 47 leading thinkers in the field of innovation and entrepreneurship ranks the quantitative criteria, specifically for their ability to disrupt established industries and public companies. 70 CNBC editorial staff members in coordination with members of the Advisory Council review the submissions and provide “holistic qualitative assessments of each company”.
The 2021 evaluation criteria identified as important by the council were scalability and user growth in combination with the use of breakthrough technologies and the size of the industry being disrupted. That noted, the ranking model is set up so companies must have high scores on a wide range of criteria for inclusion onto the final list.
Read about the Scale-Up Unicorn Report
