Welcome to Disruptor 50 in the age of artificial intelligence.
34 of the 50 companies on our 12th annual CNBC Disruptor 50 list claim artificial intelligence is “critical” to their businesses. These include companies in industries ranging from cybersecurity to agriculture. Thirteen of the 2024 Disruptors call themselves “generative AI companies,” including five in the top ten on this year’s list.
These companies are upending the classic definition of disruptive innovation that shaped the Disruptor 50 list more than a decade ago. Mostly missing from the 2024 list are innovative ideas that are better and cheaper. On the contrary, using artificial intelligence to achieve disruptive innovation requires substantial capital investment and inevitably requires the establishment of close cooperative relationships with existing giants.
Instead of Amazon disruptor Anthropic (which debuted at No. 7 on the 2024 Disruptor 50 list), we have “Amazon-backed Anthropic,” which also has a $2 billion investment from Alphabet and is working with “Microsoft Supported by OpenAI (there is no competition). No. 1 for the second year in a row).
The venture capital community has also been pouring cash into any startup that claims to be part of the artificial intelligence revolution. According to PitchBook data, more than $90 billion will flow to artificial intelligence startups in 2023. Among disruptors, 17 raised new capital in the past year. This includes 8 of 13 generative AI startups that have collectively raised at least $5.5 billion.
All told, disruptors have raised $70 billion in 2024, up from $54 billion last year, demonstrating the power of artificial intelligence, with a total implied valuation of $436 billion, the first on this list after 2022’s $500 billion Second highest valuation ever.
The willingness of existing giants to invest in these private disruptors also means that many of the companies on the 2024 Disruptors 50 list can wait to go public, even as the long-closed IPO window begins to open. We expect first- and second-time disruptors to appear on many future lists.
Here’s how we’ll select them in 2024:
All private, independent startups founded after January 1, 2009 are eligible for nomination to the Disruptor 50 list. Nominating companies are required to submit detailed analysis, including key quantitative and qualitative information.
Quantitative metrics include data submitted by companies on workforce size and diversity, scalability, and sales and user growth. Some of this information is no longer recorded and is used for scoring purposes only. CNBC also brings in data from two outside partners: PitchBook, which provides data on fundraising, implied valuation and investor quality; andIBIS worldwe used its database of industry reports to compare companies based on the industries they are trying to disrupt.
CNBC’s Disruptor 50 Advisory Board, comprised of 50 leading thinkers in innovation and entrepreneurship from around the world, then ranks companies based on quantitative criteria based on their importance and ability to disrupt existing industries and public companies. This year, boards again found scalability and user growth to be the most important criteria, followed by sales growth and the use of breakthrough technologies (most commonly artificial intelligence and machine learning). These categories have the highest weighting, but the purpose of the ranking model is to ensure that companies must score high on a broad range of criteria to make the final list.
Companies are also asked to submit key qualitative information, including a description of their core business model, ideal customers and recent company milestones. The CNBC editorial team, which includes television anchors, reporters and producers, and CNBC.com writers and editors, as well as numerous members of the Advisory Board, read the submissions and provided a thorough qualitative assessment of each company.
CNBC has launched a new Disruptor 50 VC Advisory Council in 2024 to leverage the valuable expertise of leading venture capital firms and investors. Each member of the new board will evaluate a small group of finalists as an additional component of the qualitative review. Importantly, these venture capital firms are not permitted to evaluate any company in their corporate portfolio.
In the final stage of the process, the total qualitative score is combined with the weighted quantitative score to determine which 50 companies make the list and in what order.
This is our twelfth year, but we still see a few “#1s” on this year’s list.
OpenAI is the first company to be ranked No. 1 for multiple years and only the second company to be at the top multiple times (the other is SpaceX, which was No. 1 in 2014 and 2018). OpenAI embodies what it means to scale rapidly and continue to innovate as it grows, and it remains the most influential and powerful venture-backed startup in the world.
This year, Stripe welcomed its first 10-time disruptor. Despite having its valuation slashed and staying away from the IPO market, 2020’s No. 1 disruptor continues to innovate. However, the tenth time will be the last. Whether it goes public or goes private, Stripe will “exceed” Disruptor status next year.
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