Courtesy of Lauren Kay

The Dating Ring team

Founder, The Dating Ring

Lauren Kay recently set out to help New Yorkers find love through group dates. What sets The Dating Ring apart from the rest is its free, full-service matchmaking service and emphasis on group dates.

The young startup is still in beta, but is actively adding new members every week.

Zephrin Lasker, Geoff Grauer, and Roshan Bangera

Co-founders, Pontiflex

Pontiflex is a thriving online advertising startup that powers a new type of mobile ad platform called Sign-up Ads, which allows people to opt-in to hear more about the brands they like.

Earlier this year, the company raised $7.7 million for its mobile sign-up ads. Pontiflex has raised $19.5 million to date and has been profitable since 2011.

HowAboutWe

Brian Schechter and Aaron Schildkrout

Co-founders, HowAboutWe

HowAboutWe, a dating website that markets itself as "the modern love company" and connects users by allowing them to post and browse date ideas, raised $4.2 million this year, bringing its total raised to $22 million. The site also extended its subscription-based couples product, which charges users $18 per month for discounts and free dates, to two new cities (it's now in New York, Chicago, Seattle, and San Francisco). 

About 1.6 million people use HowAboutWe Dating, and half a million subscribe to the couples' option. 

Dan Frommer, Business Insider

The General Assembly team

Co-founders, General Assembly

General Assembly made the tough decision this year to close down its co-working space for startups to focus more on education. Starting in 2014, about 100 entrepreneurs will need to find a new place to call home. 

General Assembly will continue to offer classes and host events, career fairs, hackathons, and panel discussions at its space in New York.

Heather Marie

Heather Marie, founder and CEO of 72Lux

CEO, 72Lux

This year, Heather Marie introduced a new platform for merchants so that e-commerce sites can market their products on the websites of publishers. 

72Lux's publisher network has a reach of over 75 million monthly unique visitors, and serves millions of product views each month. 

Back in July, Marie was named one of this year's Women in Digital by L'Oreal USA. 

Ryan Rzepecki

Ryan Rzepecki, CEO of Social Bicycles

CEO, Social Bicycles

This year, Ryan Rzepecki of Manhattan-based Social Bicycles brought bike sharing to Hoboken, N.J.

Earlier this year, SoBi closed a $1.3 million round of financing from investors including David S. Rose, Esther Dyson, SOS Ventures, and Karl Ulrich. 

Twitter

The Poncho team

P0ncho

Poncho, a new startup out of Betaworks, offers amusing daily weather updates by SMS or email. It learns your daily routine, like when you wake up, if you have pets, when you typically go to work, etc.

The idea is for Poncho to become part of users' daily routines; almost 10,000 people have subscribed so far. 

Flickr/Christopher.Michel

Karin Klein, Partner at Bloomberg Beta

Partner, Bloomberg Beta 

Since Bloomberg Beta, a $75 million tech fund, launched in June, Karin Klein has invested in five companies, including Codecademy and Nodejitsu.

Before joining Bloomberg Beta, Karin was a VC at Softbank where she worked closely with portfolio companies. Karin was also a member of the board of Buddy Media prior to its acquisition by Salesforce. 

Wikimedia, CC.

Cindy Gallop, founder of MakeLoveNotPorn

Founder, MakeLoveNotPorn

Cindy Gallop launched MakeLoveNotPorn.com back in 2009 to highlight the difference between porn and real sex and, ultimately, the impact that technology has had on our sex lives.

Because of the extraordinary response that site received, Gallop launched MakeLoveNotPorn.tv this year, to continue her mission to socialize real world sex and make it socially acceptable and shareable as anything else we share on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram.

TBG Digital, with permission

Simon Mansell, CEO of TBG Digital

CEO, TBG Digital

Simon Mansell of TBG Digital is one of Facebook's biggest ad buyers. Part of his responsibilities include handling clients and hundreds of millions of dollars in paid media on the social network. 

TBG was also named as one of Twitter's first Ads API partners—meaning the company got early access to en masse media buying on Twitter.

TechCrunch/Flickr

Tim Armstrong, CEO of AOL

CEO, AOL

Tim Armstrong pushed AOL deeper into video advertising this year when he aquired Adap.tv for $400 million over the summer. The move paid off quickly. By October, AOL was able to brag that it serves more video ads than even Google, which owns YouTube.

Armstrong also joined Priceline's board earlier this year.

Jared Grusd

Jared Grusd, general council at Spotify

General Counsel, Spotify

Spotify has been on a tear this year since they started getting a lot more brand friendly. Spotify is working with brands to develop a "follow" feature that lets companies share branded playlists and other content with music listeners. 

In June, NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that Spotify will bring 130 new engineering and tech jobs to NYC by the end of 2014 as part of its expansion to the city.  

Spotify is also reportedly working on becoming both an on-demand music and video service, one that would compete with services like Netflix and HBO.

IAC

Kerry Trainor, CEO of Vimeo

CEO, Vimeo

Under the leadership of Kerry Trainor, Vimeo launched an on-demand service that lets its Pro users charge viewers a fee to watch their videos. With Vimeo On Demand, Pro users can get 90% of all the revenue. 

Vimeo also made its way into iOS 7, replacing YouTube as the operating system's official video app. That means iOS 7 users can directly upload videos to Vimeo from the Camera and Photo apps. 

Daniel Goodman / Business Insider

Jonathan Zabusky, President of GrubHub Seamless

President, GrubHub Seamless

Jonathan Zabusky helped seal the deal on a merger between Seamless and GrubHub this year.

As part of the merger, Seamless will be able to serve more than 500 cities and offer food from 25,000 restaurants nationwide. That effectively makes it a more than $100 million business, based on both of the companies' earnings last year. 

Flickr / Ian Broyles

John Maloney, President of Tumblr

President, Tumblr

John Maloney joined Tumblr in September 2008 as its president. Maloney played a huge role in building Tumblr from the ground up. He stayed for four years until April 2012. 

Maloney is also a seed investor and advisor (investments include Sunrise, VHX, and Socratic), and he has recently started a new investment fund, Terrapin Bale.

Jonathan Hefter, founder and CEO of Neverware

CEO, Neverware

Hefter recently set out to help schools make the most of out old technology. His company, Neverware, started installing its software in schools earlier this year.

To date, the company has raised $1 million from Thrive Capital, Khosla Ventures, General Catalyst, Collaborative Fund, and Nihal Mehta. 

Alyson Shontell/Business Insider

Elliot Hirsch, founder and CEO of AdYapper

Founder and CEO, AdYapper

AdYapper made its debut at the TechStars NYC demo day back in June. When Elliot Hirsch entered TechStars, AdYapper had no revenue and no clients. 

Now, AdYapper has clients, one of which spends $4 million a year on digital advertising. Just last month, AdYapper raised a $1.2 million seed round led by KGC Capital with participation from David Cohen, Laurel Touby, Paul Sethi, Sameer Jagetia, Ari Newman, Vip Sandhir, and Dave Lerner. 

Daniel Goodman / Business Insider

Dan Porter, head of digital at William Morris Endeavor

Head of Digital, William Morris Endeavor

Dan Porter was the CEO of OMGPOP—the company behind the hit "Draw Something"—when it sold to Zynga for nearly $200 million in 2012. 

Last spring, Porter left Zynga and now he's the new head of digital at talent agency William Morris Endeavor.

Adam Ludwin

The Albumatic co-founders

Co-founders, Albumatic

Adam Ludwin and Devon Gundry (based in California) recently launched a new social photo album app called Albumatic because they believe most people are bored by Facebook.

The idea behind Albumatic is to make it dead simple to quickly combine camera rolls and image galleries with friends and family. 

Back in March, Albumatic raised $4.5 million from RRE Ventures, Thrive Capital, SV Angel, Highline Ventures, CrunchFund, Box Group, and Betaworks.

LinkedIn / Bridget Williams

Bridget Williams, President of Abrams Media

President, Abrams Media

After spending three years as SVP at Business Insider, Bridget Williams joined Abrams Media as its new president. 

Abrams Media's sites include Mediaite, Styleite, Geekosystem, TheMarySue, TheJaneDough, and The Braiser. 

Daniel Goodman / Business Insider

Susan Lyne speaking with Business Insider CEO Henry Blodget

CEO, AOL's Brand Group

As the current CEO of AOL's brand growth, Susan Lyne oversees all of AOL's content properties, with the exception of the Huffington Post.

Thanks to Lyne, AOL has increased its investment in programmatic advertising, hoping to rival Google's DoubleClick division. 

Laughing Squid

Chad Dickerson, CEO of Etsy

CEO, Etsy

Chad Dickerson is the genius behind Etsy, the crafts and artistic items marketplace. The site is growing and has been profitable since 2009. Given that success, a lot of people have speculated about an IPO. But despite rumors, Dickerson says he has no plans for an IPO. 

Etsy has 1 million active sellers on its platform. Most of its revenue comes from charging sellers $0.20 to list a single item for four months, and then 3.5% of the value of the sale if an item sells. 

Alexis Ohanian

Alexic Ohanian, founder of Reddit

Founder, Reddit 

Alexis Ohanian has made a name for himself as the "Hero of the Internet." So it's no surprise that Ohanian decided to cold call his congresswoman about cyber security bill CISPA on stage at South by South West earlier this year. 

Back in July, Ohanian teamed up with The Verge to launch a video series called "Small Empires." As part of the series, Ohanian visits rising startups throughout New York City.

Ohanian also released a book this year entitled "Without Their Permission: How the 21st Century Will Be Made, Not Managed." 

Gilt

Michelle Peluso, CEO of Gilt Groupe

CEO, Gilt Groupe

In late February, Gilt Groupe board member Michelle Peluso took over as the company's CEO, replacing its chairman, Kevin Ryan. 

Since Peluso joined, she's said that Gilt Groupe is definitely a target for an IPO, but that the company is not in a rush to go public. 

[Full disclosure: Ryan is also a co-founder and chairman of Business Insider.]

Nicole Glaros, managing director of TechStars

Managing Director, TechStars

Nicole Glaros, the new managing director of TechStars NYC, was tasked with the job of filling Dave Tisch's shoes, who stepped down from the role last August. 

Glaros previously managed TechStars Boulder, but was pulled in to serve as interim managing director. 

Maker's Row

Tanya Menendez, Matthew Burnett, and Scott Weiner

Co-founders, Maker's Row

Maker's Row is an online marketplace that connects manufacturers with product-based businesses of all sizes. It's essentially a matchmaker for fashion designers and manufactures.

Back in July, Maker's Row raised $1 million from Index Ventures, Comcast Ventures, Alexis Ohanian, and Joanne Wilson.

WunWun

Calvin Lai and Lee Hnetinka

Co-founders, WunWun

WunWun is a super useful on-demand service for your city. The app lets you order essentially anything in your city for delivery in under an hour. 

In September, WunWun launched free delivery from Manhattan stores (it had previously charged $15 for delivery). 

LinkedIn

Diego Zambrano, founder of Bondsy

Founder, Bondsy

Before e-commerce platform Bondsy even launched this year, it had already secured funding from Thrive Capital, Betaworks, Chris Dixon, Patrick Keane, Jared Hecht, and Steve Martocci.

It's arguably a safer version of Craigslist since only the people connected to you can see what you're selling. It also doesn't require a cash-only exchange, meaning you could offer to "sell" a bike in exchange for a dinner on the buyer's dime. 

LinkedIn / Samantha John

Jocelyn Leavitt and Samantha John, Hopscotch co-founders

Co-founders, Hopscotch 

Samantha John and Jocelyn Leavitt recently set out on a mission to teach girls and boys how to code.

In April, Hopscotch launched the beta version of its iPad app to teach kids computer programming. Hopscotch allows kids to make programs from blocks of code. 

During its first week, the app was downloaded 20,000 times. One of John's early favorites was a kid-created game that turns an iPad into an Etch-a-Sketch.

Daniel Goodman / Business Insider

Dan Roth, executive editor at LinkedIn

Executive Editor, LinkedIn

Dan Roth is the one of the people behind LinkedIn's drive to become a media powerhouse. 

Under Roth's leadership, LinkedIn Today has become a go-to tool for consuming news, and its 'influencer' program allows easy access to the minds of prominent people like Mark Cuban, Richard Branson, and Barack Obama.

Back in May, LinkedIn added Channels to help people discover news in areas like social media, technology, retail, and health care. 

Courtesy of Bonobos

Andy Dunn, CEO of Bonobos

CEO, Bonobos 

Andy Dunn is reportedly in the midst of raising his third fund for Red Swan Ventures. Some of Red Swan's past investments include success stories like Warby Parker and Birchbox. 

Meanwhile, Dunn's clothing company Bonobos, which launched in 2007, has raised nearly $73 million and closed a deal with Nordstrom. Bonobos also opened a few retail stores. 

Twitter / LinkedIn / Lerer Ventures

The managers at Lerer Ventures

Partners, Lerer Ventures

Lerer Ventures is a seed-stage investment firm in New York. This year, the firm scored a big win when Makerbot merged with Stratasys (the deal valued Makerbot at $403 million, with potential earnouts of $201 million—Lerer Ventures invested $10 million into the company in 2011).

Other notable exits: Bluefin Labs was acquired by Twitter for $80 million, Cue was acquired by Apple for $50 million, GDGT was acquired by AOL for the "high 7-figures," Qwiki was acquired by Yahoo for $50 million, and Pulse was acquired by LinkedIn for $90 million. Can't complain about a year like that. 

Twitter / LinkedIn / Wikimedia

James, James D., Stuart, Eric, Will

Partners, RRE Ventures

RRE, an early-stage venture capital firm, has made some big investments this year, from a men's fashion site called Trumaker and Co. to monthly dog-treat subscription service BarkBox.

The company also saw some substantial payouts from various acquisitions of its portfolio companies, including BrainTree (Ebay acquired it for $800 million) and Whiptail (Cisco acquired it for $415 million), and Makerbot (valued at $403 million), which merged with Stratasys.

Full disclosure: RRE is an investor in Business Insider

The Winklevosses

Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss

Co-founders, Winklevoss Capital

The Winklevoss twins, famous for their claim to have been co-founders of Facebook, announced in July that they would launch a Bitcoin exchange traded fund. 

The Winklevoss twins also proclaimed in April that they owned 1% of all bitcoins in existence. 

LinkedIn

Foursquare's Brendan Lewis and Steve Rosenblatt

Director of Communications; CRO, Foursquare

Earlier this year, Brendan Lewis left startup Living Social to join Foursquare as its director of communications. Ever since Lewis joined Foursquare, people started to regain some faith in the company. Lewis has been instrumental in helping Foursquare tell the world the story of its data, API, and highly trafficked website. 

Things also started looking up for Foursquare this year thanks in part to Steven Rosenblatt, its chief revenue officer. Rosenblatt recently said he's convinced that the company has proven its business model.

This year, Foursquare is expected to generate about $10-15 million in revenue.

Dan Frommer, Business Insider

Jared Hecht

Founder, Stealth Startup

Jared Hecht left Microsoft this year to pursue his own finance-related startup.

Hecht found himself at Microsoft after it bought Skype, which had previously acquired GroupMe—a messaging startup founded by Hecht and Steve Martocci—for a rumored $85 million. 

One Blue Brick/Screenshot

The Cameo founders

Founders, Cameo

A couple of years ago, Matthew Rosenberg, Andy Thompson, and Michael Constantiner shut down their group messaging app, Fast Society. Now, they're onto their next venture.

Earlier this month, Rosenberg and the team launched Cameo, a mobile app for slightly long-form video. With Cameo, users can create two-minute videosby stitching together six second clips and then adding music and special effects.

Betterment

Eli Broverman and Jon Stein, Betterment co-founders

Co-founders, Betterment

Jon Stein and Eli Broverman essentially built Betterment from scratch, including the regulatory process, to become the premiere financial tech company in New York.

The online investment company raised $10 million late last year from Bessemer Venture Partners and Menlo Ventures.

It has raised about $15 million in funding to date and is approaching $300,000,000 of assets under management (the money invested by their customers). 

CNN Screenshot / Twitter (via Nitasha Tiku)

Sam Biddle and Nitasha Tiku

Editor of Valleywag; senior writer at Gawker

Sam Biddle helped revive Valleywag this year to serve as the go-to site to get your daily fix of gossip and debauchery in the tech industry. Biddle has become infamous in the tech industry for calling a spade a spade, and consistently mocks and calls out people in both Silicon Alley and Silicon Valley. 

Since joining Valleywag in April, Biddle has made a point to target the wealthy executives in Silicon Valley and Silicon Alley. He has also targeted the tech press, including PandoDaily and even Business Insider.

Nitasha Tiku also joined the Gawker team this year. She left BetaBeat to join Gawker as a senior writer. 

Blue Apron

The Blue Apron co-founders

Founders, Blue Apron

VC-turned-entrepreneur Matt Salzberg wants to help people without a lot of time to cook to eat healthier. Back in April, Blue Apron raised a $5 million Series B round. 

Blue Apron sends weekly ingredients to its subscribers. To date, it ships ingredients for more than 200,000 meals per month. 

Matt Meeker

Strife, Meeker and Werdelin cofounded BarkBox

Co-founders, BarkBox

BarkBox is a dog-owner's dream created by a trio of self-proclaimed dog lovers. Their subscription e-commerce and content company sends a monthly box full of dog goodies to owners' doors.

Meeker, Strife, and Werdelin have created strategic partnerships with Groupon and LivingSocial, and Barkbox has secured funding from investors including RRE and 500 Startups.

Back in April, BarkBox raised $1.5 million led by RRE Ventures. 

Marissa Evans

Marissa Evans, founder and CEO of Go Try It On

Founder and CEO, Go Try It On

Marissa Evans joined Rent the Runway this year, following an acquisition of her fashion app Go Try It On. (More than 400,000 people had downloaded Go Try It On before Rent The Runway bought the style advice app.)

Now, Evans leads the new "Radical Innovation" team at Rent the Runway. 

Twitter / Rachel Haot & Getty Images / Mike Stobe

Rachel Haot and Michael Bloomberg

Chief Digital Officer; Mayor, New York City

Rachel Haot is the country's first chief digital officer. She's responsible for working alongside NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg to bolster the city's startup ecosystem and modernize old infrastructure, like phone booths.

Since 2011, Haot has increased the number of media channels the government uses to interact with its constituents. Under Haot and Bloomberg's leadership, New York City has started campaigns to reinvent payphones and launched an initiative to install at least 77 new touchscreen kiosks in subway stations throughout its five boroughs.  

First Round Capital

Howard Morgan, Phin Barnes, and Chris Fralic

Partners, First Round Capital

This year, First Round Capital expanded its Dorm Room Fund to New York. As part of DRF, college students are tasked with finding smart entrepreneurs on their college campuses.

The firm also launched content hub First Round Review. The idea is to something like the Harvard Business Review for the startup industry.

First Round has backed companies like Fab, Path, and One Kings Lane. It was also an early seed investor in Uber, which has a rumored valuation of $3.4 billion. 

ZocDoc

Oliver Kharraz, Nick Ganju, and Cyrus Massoumi

Co-founders; CEO, COO, CTO, ZocDoc

Billion-dollar startup ZocDoc announced this year that its users have booked 1,000 different types of appointments, be that for marriage counseling sessions, physicals, or for psychiatric evaluations.

Back in June, ZocDoc raised a $55 million convertible debt note. This year, we also found out that insurance company Aetna once tried to buy ZocDoc for more than $300 million, but the founders turned it down.

Founded in 2007, ZocDoc has raised nearly $100 million to date to help people schedule in-network doctor appointments. 

Hatch

Hatch co-founders Anastasia Leng and Ryan Hayward

Co-founders, Hatch

Before starting Hatch, formerly known as Makeably, both Anastasia Leng and Ryan Hayward worked at Google. 

"Google’s a phenomenal company," Leng previously told Business Insider. "But I just needed to do this."

Hatch aims to help makers utilize their underlying skill sets to further expand their product offerings and range, while eliminating some of the risk. At the same time, it's enables everyday people to personalize and purchase one-of-a-kind items.

Just this month, Hatch unveiled interactive hotspots to assist in the customization and personalization process. 

Since May, Hatch has grown 30% month over month in new makers and products. It has also doubled its user base.

David Tisch

Founder, BoxGroup

David Tisch is one of the smartest early-stage investors in New York.

He co-founded the investment fund BoxGroup in 2009, and, within the last year, two of its portfolio companies had nice exits. Vine, the fastest-growing app of the year, sold to Twitter in late 2012, and Boxee sold to Samsung for a reported $30 million in July.

Daniel Goodman / Business Insider

Bradford Shellhammer and Jason Goldberg, Fab co-founders

Co-founders; CEO and Chief Creative Officer, Fab

Fab's 2013 has been full of major highs and major lows.

In this year alone, e-commerce site Fab has raised $165 million, for a total of $336 million in venture funding. But the year has also been plagued with layoffs. Just this month, Fab let go a second round of workers, bringing its total employee head count to about 440.

To help offset Fab's burn rate, its CEO Jason Goldberg and CTO Nishith Shah will forfeit their 2014 salaries. 

Business Insider/Julie Bort

Infor CEO Charles Phillips

CEO, Infor 

Charles Phillips has made a big comeback this year. In fact, he's quietly becoming the "Steve Jobs" of business software.  

In 2013, Infor hit almost $2.8 billion in revenues, up from $2.2 billion when Phillips first joined the company. 

Getty Images/Bryan Bedder

CEO of Songza Elias Roman

CEO, Songza

Songza, an app and website that lets users select playlists based on their moods, raised $4.7 million in private equity funding this fall. The company also boasts a 50% retention rate for its more than 2 million users.

Back in June, Songza's iPad app hit number one in the "top free" category.

YPlan

Rytis Vitkauskas and Viktoras Jucikas

Co-founders, YPlan 

Founders Rytis Vitkauskas and Viktoras Jucikas just brought their startup, YPlan, to New York from London this year. YPlan, a social events app, gives users several exciting outing ideas per night and allows them to purchase tickets within the app. 

Since debuting in London in November 2012, YPlan has partnered with venues and artists like The Brunel Museum, The O2 Arena, and Kanye West. Back in June, Y Plan closed a $12 million Series A round led by General Catalyst Partners.

hunter lee soik

Shadow founder Hunter Lee Soik

Founder, SHADOW 

Hunter Lee Soik, the former creative consultant for Kanye West and Jay-Z's "Watch the Throne" tour, wants to help you remember your dreams with a new startup called Shadow.

This fall, Shadow launched its Kickstarter campaign. It was able to surpass its goal of $50,000 before the funding period even ended. 

Shadow will gently wake you up with escalating alarms and then immediately prompt you to either type or speak about your dreams. Over time, you'll be able to explore if your dream is unique or recurring, and if so, how often it happens. You can choose to share your dreams with other people, or keep them totally private.

Eventually, Shadow will be able to determine what people dream about during thunderstorms, or if teachers dream differently than journalists.

Splash

Ben Hindman and Brett Boskoff

Co-founders, Splash 

Ben Hindman and Brett Boskoff launched Splash just last year, but it's already nearly profitable. Investors have called Splash a hot startup to watch and was the "winner" of South by Southwest this year. It powered nearly 200 events and collected 384,000 RSVPs.  

During NY Internet Week, Hindman was named Webutante Ball King.  

Soraya Darabi

Co-CEO of Zady, Soraya Darabi

Co-CEO, Zady

After finding great success with Foodspotting, the food startup that sold to OpenTable for $10 million, Soraya Darabi pulled back the curtains on her latest venture.

This year, Darabi and her co-founder Maxine Bédat launched a new e-commerce startup called Zady. Before she even officially unveiled Zady, Darabi had already raised $1.35 million from undisclosed investors.

Zady officially launched to the public in August.

Steve Martocci

Co-founder, Splice

Just this month, Steve Martocci and Matt Aimonetti (based in California) raised $2.75 million for their music startup Splice. They raised the money from an impressive group of investors including Union Square Ventures, True Ventures, Lerer Ventures, SV Angel, First Round Capital, Code Advisors, Rob Wiesenthal, David Tisch, and Seth Goldstein. 

A founder of GroupMe (which sold to Skype for a rumored $85 million in 2011), Martocci left the company just this past August.

Robert Libetti/ Business Insider and AppNexus

Michael Rubenstein (top) and Brian O'Kelley

CEO; President, AppNexus

Brian O'Kelley has been hailed as the king of adtech and Michael Rubenstein has been president since 2009.

The 5-year-old company is a fast-growing one. Its servers process 16 billion ad buys per day, and handled about $700 million in ad spending last year. 

Back in September, AppNexus did a huge deal with Millennial Media to create the Millennial Media Exchange. AppNexus is widely expected to be considering an IPO in the near future. 

Hailo

Hailo team

Co-founders, Hailo

Taxi app Hailo found itself rolling in the dough earlier this year when Union Square Ventures, Richard Branson, and others invested $30.6 million in a Series B round. 

Hailo currently offers its services in 15 cities around the world, including, of course, New York.  

LinkedIn

Jeremy Le Van and Pierre Valade

C0-founders, Sunrise

A team of former Foursquare designers pivoted from an email app to a must-have calendar app this year. Upon launch, people quickly went gaga over it for its elegance and ease of use. 

Back in June, Sunrise raised a $2.2 million seed round led by Resolute.vc and NextView Ventures. 

Kim Taylor

Taylor and Retelle, co-founders of Ranku

Co-founders, Ranku

Ranku launched just three months ago, but it's already cash-flow positive. Going forward, Ranku wants to solve some of the biggest, most complicated issues in education and close the skills gap.

That's likely thanks to Taylor's chops in both education and sales, and Retelle's skills with education policy. Retelle is the former senior director of education policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. 

Just last month, Taylor and Retelle secured a $500,000 investment from prolific investor Mark Cuban.

Courtesy of Bryan Goldberg

Bustle CEO Bryan Goldberg

CEO, Bustle

Bryan Goldberg, co-founder of Bleacher Report, raised $6.5 million this year to launch a new site geared toward women called Bustle. 

Its investors include Social + Capital Partnership, Time Warner Investments, Google Ventures, 500 Startups, Rothenberg Ventures, friends, and family. 

Demo Conference Flickr / Twitter

Dash co-founders Jamyn Edis and Brian Langel

Co-founders, Dash

Dash, a real-time data collection and monitoring technology that's like a FitBit for your car, was selected to be one of the 11 companies to participate in 2013's TechStars New York. Dash users just plug the hardware into their car's on-board diagnostics port and then use an app to review their driving data. Edis and Langel set out to raise $1.2 million but by the time the fundraise is done, Dash will likely raise closer to $2 million.

Twitter / LinkedIn

Co-founders Nat Turner and Zach Weinberg

Co-founders, Flatiron Health

Nat Turner and Zach Weinberg have quite the ambitious mission. They want to fight cancer. Earlier this year, Flatiron Health attracted an impressive group of people and firms to back it. It raised $8 million in a Series A round led by Google Ventures, with participation from First Round Capital, Laboratory Corporation of America, Great Oaks Capital, The Social+Capital Partnership, SV Angel, IA Ventures, and a group of angels.

LuLu

Lulu founder Alexandra Chong

Founder, Lulu

Lulu lets women anonymously rate men they know. Since launching its app in February, Lulu has grown to 1 million users. 

Back in February, Lulu secured an additional $2.5 million from Yuri Milner, Hosain Rahman, Alexander Asseily, Bill Tai, Dave Morin, Vivi Nevo, Passion Capital, and PROfounders Capital.

LinkedIn / Wikimedia

Glynnis MacNicol and Rachel Sklar

Co-founders, TheLi.st

Rachel Sklar and Glynnis MacNicol founded TheLi.st, a visibility platform committed to helping awesome women help other awesome women. Both Sklar and MacNicol are digital media veterans and write a thrice-weekly newsletter that highlights the different accomplishments, ventures, and projects of connected women. TheLi.st also hosts panels, seminars, meet ups, and conferences.

Disclosure: Glynnis MacNicol previously worked as a media editor at Business Insider.

Grand St.

The Grand Street team

Co-founders, Grand St.

Grand St. launched this year to give people access to some of the coolest gadgets. The boutique offers new products to members every other day. But since it's a flash sales site, you have to act fast. 

What makes Grand St. especially unique is that it tests each and every gadget it sells. Back in April, the site raised $1.3 million in funding. 

Daniel Goodman / Business Insider

The Stamped team

Co-founders, Stamped

This trio, which includes two ex-Googlers, joined Yahoo late last year when Marissa Mayer decided to acqui-hire the startup. Stamped was the first of many startups acquired by Yahoo under the leadership of Mayer. 

Stamped was a mobile app that let users keep track of their favorite things, from restaurants to books, movies, and music. 

Daniel Goodman / Business Insider

Qwiki founder Doug Imbruce

Founder, Qwiki

Doug Imbruce was lucky enough this year to be one of Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer's acquisition targets. Ever since Mayer joined Yahoo, she's placed a strong emphasis on mobile. Given that Qwiki was super mobile-heavy and cheap, it became a prime target. So in July, Yahoo purchased Qwiki for a reported $50 million. 

Twitter / Flickr / Facebook

Cohen, Ronen, Vulkan, and Sella

Co-founders, Boxee

The Boxee team joined Samsung in July, following Samsung's reported $30 million acquisition of the digital video company. 

Before the acquisition, Boxee had raised $30 million in venture funding, but had never really gained any traction.

The Fancy

Fancy founder and CEO, Joseph Einhorn

Founder and CEO, Fancy

Joe Einhorn has been on a tear lately. His e-commerce startup, Fancy, recently raised $60 million at a $600 million valuation. That's an increase of $500 million from its valuation last year.

Fancy's investors include actor Will Smith, American Express billionaire Len Blavatnik, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kanye West, and Drake.

Fancy brings in $100,000 in revenue per day, so that's about $3 million in revenue per month. Last year, Apple was in talks to acquire Fancy, but nothing has come of it.

Reshma Saujani / Twitter

Founder Reshma Saujani and executive director Kristen Titus

Founder and Executive Director, Girls Who Code 

Reshma Saujani founded the highly influential high school program, Girls Who Code. Saujani launched Girls Who Code last summer as an eight-week intensive program where high school women learn the basics of Ruby, HTML, Java, and more. 

Since then, Saujani and Kristen Titus have been working to close the gender gap in engineering and increase the number of women involved with software engineering. 

Girls Who Code's partners include Goldman Sachs Group, Twitter, Intel, and eBay. 

LinkedIn

Top: Miles Bottom: Horowitz Right: Altchek

Co-founders, PolicyMic

Media startup PolicyMic recently raised $3 million to further serve millennials. PolicyMic is focused on "lighter and more entertaining content."

On any given day, PolicyMic publishes between 50 and 100 pieces of content. 

Smartling

Jack Welde, CEO of Smartling

CEO, Smartling

Smartling, the language startup that powers translations for Uber, Dropbox, and Pinterest, recently raised a $24 million Series C round led by Tenaya Capital.

In the last 12 months, Smartling has more than tripled its revenues and has added over 120 new enterprise customers in that same period.

Refinery29

Co-founders Justin Stefano and Philippe von Borries

Co-founders, Refinery29

This year, style and culture website Refinery29 raised $25.6 million in funding, acquired creative technology agency Socialbomb, and completely revamped its site and brand. Both Stefano and von Borries are first-time founders who had never worked in fashion, but their company is now worth an estimated $100 million. 

Complex Media

Rich Antoniello, CEO of Complex Media

CEO, Complex Media 

It was a big year for Complex Media and its CEO Rich Antoniello. In March, Complex Media acquired Sole Collector, the leading sneaker culture brand.

In September, the style and entertainment network for men raised $25 million from brands like Iconix Brand Group, the owner of Rocawear, Ecko Unlimited, Umbro, and others. As part of the investment, Iconix CEO Neil Cole, brother of designer Kenneth Cole, joined the board. 

RapGenius

The Rap Genius team

Co-founders, Rap Genius

The Rap Genius team has made major headlines this year, for their apparent beef with Mark Zuckerberg, and their claim that their site will eventually be bigger than Facebook.

Earlier this year, Rap Genius launched a new project called Poetry Genius. Instead of annotating rap songs, Poetry Genius offers crowdsourced annotations of classic literary texts, poetry, academic papers, and even political speeches.

Rap Genius also launched a new tool called Rap Stats for tracking the popularity of words in rap songs. 

BuzzFeed

Jon Steinberg and Jonah Peretti

President and COO, Founder and CEO, BuzzFeed

BuzzFeed, the site full of cute animals and news, raised a nice $19.3 million in a Series D round earlier this year at a $200 million valuation. It's an incredibly successful publication, generates about $50 million in annual revenue, and is profitable. 

In March, BuzzFeed and CNN teamed up to launch a joint venture on YouTube called CNN BuzzFeed.

Insight Ventures

Managing directors of Insight Venture Partners

Managing Directors, Insight Venture Partners

Insight Venture Partners, the firm behind Tumblr and Twitter, had a big year. In May, Insight Venture Partners' portfolio company Tumblr sold to Yahoo for $1.1 billion. Just a week later, IVP announced that it closed a massive new $2.57 billion fund.

David Needleman

Michael Wolf found a CEO for Yahoo

Founder and Managing Director, Activate

Michael Wolf was one of the people responsible for hiring Marissa Mayer as Yahoo's new CEO. Before Mayer joined, Wolf was an important ally for former Yahoo interim CEO Ross Levinsohn. Back in July, Wolf left Yahoo's board. 

Heidi Gutman/CNBC

Hedge fund manager Dan Loeb

Hedge Fund Manager, Third Point

A year after joining the Yahoo board and convincing it to hire Marissa Mayer as CEO, Dan Loeb left back in July after he had already made a fortune. 

In July, Loeb's hedge fund, Third Point, sold 40 million shares of Yahoo back to Yahoo. 

Twitter / IAC

Chet Kanojia and Barry Diller

CEO; Investor, Aereo

Aereo, the paid service that lets you watch live network television on the Internet, has hundreds of thousands of TV antennas crammed into its single-floor office in Brooklyn.

These dime-sized, tiny antennas are part of what makes it possible for Aereo to stream live television to its one million customers.

As part of the service, every subscriber rents a pair of those tiny antennas so they can watch live TV while recording another show, or watch live TV on two different devices at the same time.

Diller, an investor in Aereo through IAC, has previously defended Aereo and wants to help the startup on its mission to disrupt the traditional cable industry.

Nomi

Corey Capasso, Wesley Barrow and Marc Ferrentino co-founded Nomi.

Co-founders, CEO, Nomi

These three former Salesforce executives were able to raise $3 million in just 13 days for their new marketing startup, Nomi, earlier this year. 

Nomi brings real-time customer data to brick and mortar stores by leveraging shoppers' cell phones. Nomi gives retailers a snippet of code to let wireless routers detect nearby smartphone signals. 

Betaworks / Twitter

Dots co-founders Patrick Moberg and Paul Murphy

Creators, Dots by Betaworks

This spring, Dots was hands-down the hottest iPhone game. After just one week, more than 1 million people played the game more than 25 million times. Within 16 days, users had played the game 100 million times.

Dots is the highly addictive puzzle game that is very simple, yet beautifully designed. Back in August, Dots launched on Android. 

Flickr/Yodel Anecdotal and Flickr/poptech

Peter Koechley and Eli Pariser

Co-founders, CEO, Upworthy

Upworthy, the media company that tries to make meaningful information and pictures go viral and effect change, has been growing like crazy. In fact it's the fastest growing media site ever. 

In July, Upworthy had its biggest traffic month ever, touting 30 million unique visitors. 

Prior to founding Upworthy, Peter Koechley and Eli Pariser worked on a MoveOn.org video together during the last weeks of the 2008 election. The video, which intended to remind people of the dangers of not voting, went viral and was viewed by more than 23 million people. That's when they got the idea to start Upworthy. The duo wanted to make the Internet more meaningful. And they arguably are.

Mike Brown Jr.

Mike Brown Jr., founder of Bowery Capital

Founder, Bowery Capital

Mike Brown Jr., the co-founder of AOL's venture arm, left the firm this year to start his own early-stage venture capital firm. Brown was able to secure $33 million for Bowery Capital, where he invests in about 25 startups per year in their seed and Series A rounds. 

Shana Fisher

Shana Fisher, angel investor

Angel Investor, High Line Venture Partners

Shana Fisher is arguably one of New York's smartest investors — one who has a reputation for being able to spot hot new startups and Internet trends early on. Fisher led the angel round in 3D printing startup MakerBot, which sold in June to fellow 3D printing company Stratasys in a deal worth roughly $403 million. High Line VP also invested in Vine, the video-sharing app that sold to Twitter last October. 

JTA / YouTube (techyfication)

Ori Allon and Robert Reffkin, Urban Compass co-counders

Co-founders, Urban Compass

Ori Allon and Robert Reffkin's young startup Urban Compass is quickly gaining traction in New York. The five-month-old startup, which aims to help people find apartments in New York, is already worth $150 million following a recent $20 million round of funding.

Allon's first company sold to Google, and his second company sold to Twitter.

Dan Frommer, Business Insider / LinkedIn via Mario Schlosser

Joshua Kushner and Mario Schlosser

Founder; Chief Scientist, Oscar

Joshua Kushner quietly hired 25 employees (including computer scientist Mario Schlosser) and raised $40 million to launch Oscar, a new health care startup, this year.

Oscar will be a full-blown insurance company to rival popular entities like Atena and UnitedHeath. This fall, Oscar will start enrolling New Yorkers who are seeking insurance under the Affordable Care Act. Oscar is set to officially launch in January 2014.  

BI

Dwight Merriman and Max Schireson of MongoDB

CEO; chairman, MongoDB

Under the leadership of CEO Max Schireson and its chairman Dwight Merriman, MongoDB became the king of NYC startups this year. Just this month, MongoDB raised $150 million from EMC Corp, Salesforce, Red Hat, Intel, NEA, and Sequoia Capital at a $1.2 billion valuation.

LinkedIn

John Borthwick, Dave Weiner, Andrew McLaughlin, Jake Levine

CEO; Editorial Director; General Manager; SVP/CEO, Betaworks/Digg

It was a pretty big year for Betaworks, the technology studio that produces startups. Digg, which is owned by Betaworks, was quick to announce that it would build its own RSS reader platform, shortly after Google announced that it would shut down Reader. 

In fact, Betaworks acquired read-it-later app Instapaper just a couple of months before it unveiled its new Digg Reader. That's because Betaworks CEO John Borthwick thought Instapaper would be a "perfect fit" with the Digg Reader. 

Betaworks also made headlines this year when it released Dots, the highly addictive puzzle game. 

Flickr / MTA Photos

David Hodge, CEO of Embark

CEO, Embark

Following Apple's acquisition of transit-mapping startup HopStop, it also snatched up mapping app Embark. Thanks to Apple's decision to strip out transit directions from iOS 6, Embark saw 100,000 downloads in a few weeks following the release. 

Lucius Kwok

Marco Arment

Founder, The Magazine

Tumblr's first employee, Marco Arment, had a great year. Arment sold the majority stake in his startup Instapaper to Betaworks, which owns social reader Digg, in April. Just a few weeks later, Yahoo bought Tumblr for $1.1 billion. 

In June, Arment sold his other project, The Magazine, to its executive editor for an undisclosed amount of money. 

Daniel Goodman / Business Insider.com

Joe Meyer, formerly CEO of HopStop

CEO, HopStop

Joe Meyer became an Apple employee following the company's acquisition of his transit-mapping startup HopStop. Now, Meyer's on the Geo team at Apple, where he's helping the team improve its Maps app. 

Daniel Goodman / Business Insider

Matias Corea and Scott Belsky, Behance co-founders

Co-founders, Behance

Belsky and Corea bootstrapped design site Behance for six years before raising any money. Following a $150 million acquisition last December, Behance has since become integrated with Adobe Creative Cloud and has helped Adobe create more of a community around its services. 

Twitter / Vine

Co-founders, Vine

Vine has had quite a year. Shortly after Twitter acquired the video sharing app, Twitter officially launched Vine in January. 

It also inadvertently played a huge role in the coverage of the Boston Marathon explosion. One Vine video of the explosion went absolutely viral.

In June, Vine surpassed Instagram on Twitter in terms of popularity.  

Union Square Ventures

Burnham, Wenger, Wilson, Buttrick, and Weissman

Partners, Union Square Ventures

It was a big year for Fred Wilson and the gang at Union Square Ventures. Wilson was an early investor in Tumblr and Twitter, both of which had major wins this year. Tumblr sold to Yahoo for $1.1 billion, and Twitter filed its IPO.  

As part of the sale to Yahoo, USV took home about $200 million from a $13 million total investment in Tumblr.

Wilson also made his first investment in nearly two years when he invested in Coinbase, a startup that makes transactions through the web with Bitcoin.

Kevin Smith/Business Insider

CEO of MakerBot Bre Pettis

CEO, MakerBot

Bre Pettis and the team at MakerBot are aiming to lead the next industrial revolution. This year, MakerBot merged with fellow 3D printing company Stratasys in a deal worth $403 million. MakerBot will continue to operate as a distinct brand and subsidiary of Stratasys and will give MakerBot more resources to further grow, and push its mission even further.

Tremor Video

Bill Day, CEO of Tremor Video

CEO, Tremor Video

Under the leadership of its CEO Bill Day, online video ad network Tremor Video did an IPO on the New York Stock Exchange in June and raised $75 million. 

Earlier this month, Tremor Video launched a VideoHub Connect to allow bidding and buying through its advertising platform. 

Jim Payne

Jim Payne, CEO of MoPub

CEO, MoPub

Twitter acquired Jim Payne's company, MoPub, for $350 million in stock last month. MoPub is a mobile ad server and exchange that works with publishers and demand-side platforms.

While Jim currently lives in San Francisco, his company has offices in both New York and SF. 

REUTERS/Stephen Chernin

David Karp, founder and CEO of Tumblr

Founder and CEO, Tumblr

David Karp became fantastically rich this year when Tumblr sold to Yahoo for $1.1 billion. Karp resides in a "mildly Steampunk" apartment in Williamsburg, a young, hip neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. He loves New York and simply doesn't understand why anyone would want to live in Silicon Valley, even though many of his business peers are based there.

Business Insider

Shutterstock founder Jon Oringer

CEO, Shutterstock

This year, Shutterstock founder and CEO Jon Oringer became NYC's first tech startup billionaire. He also created one of the internet’s first pop-up blockers and is a certified commercial helicopter pilot.

Shutterstock, a stock photo and video site, went public last October.

The 39-year-old owns about 55% of Shutterstock. His 18.5 million shares were valued at $1 billion in June.

Daniel Goodman / Business Insider

Check out the 2012 Silicon Alley 100 list