Sure, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft are tech titans, making billions by selling web hosting and other services to the biggest businesses in the world.
But they can’t be everywhere. And there are plenty of startups that help the web run smoothly, behind the scenes, in ways you don’t even realize.
Here are the nine startups that keep the web running smoothly and they’re doing such a good job you don’t even realize you’re using them.
Docker: Packaging the web
With Docker, programmers get the ability to write their code once and run it anywhere from their own laptops to Amazon’s gigantic cloud services. It makes it a lot easier for developers to build and manage their code, while helping companies get their sites bigger, faster.
There are other companies in the space. But Docker is still the big Kahuna. Even we use Docker here at Business Insider.
NGINX: Serving up the web
Company name: NGINX
Headquarters: San Francisco
Funding to date: $33 million in 3 rounds
Who’s using it: NASA, GoGo Inflight Internet, WordPress, Wikipedia
Pronounced “engine X,” NGINX calls its namesake web server software “the secret heart of the modern web.” Basically, it acts as the middleman between your browser and the website or app you actually want to visit. It’s been wildly successful, and NGINX claims that it powers one third of the most popular websites on the web.
Stripe: Taking payments for the web
Company name: Stripe
Headquarters: San Francisco
Funding to date: $280 million in seven rounds
Who uses it: Reddit, Kickstarter, Slack, Lyft, IndieGoGo
Stripe is meant to be the invisible payments part of the Internet. Every time you hail a car with Lyft or pledge to a Kickstarter, you’re using Stripe to process your payment whether or not you realize it.
MongoDB: Organizing the web’s information
Company name: MongoDB
Headquarters: Dublin, Ireland
Funding to date: $311.1 million in seven rounds
Who uses it: Craigslist, EA, Business Insider, eHarmony
MongoDB is a hugely popular database company, helping companies store, organize, and access all of their information. The New York Times, for example, uses it to store all the data about social sharing for later analysis.
So basically, whenever you play an EA game online, and you get a new item, that’s getting added to a MongoDB database somewhere.
CloudFlare: Getting you where you’re going faster
Xamarin: Bringing apps everywhere
Mixpanel: Helping websites help you
Company name: Mixpanel
Headquarters: San Francisco
Funding to date: $77.02 million in 5 rounds
Who’s using it: Uber, Airbnb, Match.com, Amazon’s Twitch
Mixpanel, a data analytics company founded in 2009 and funded by the likes of Y Combinator, Andreessen Horowitz, and PayPal co-founder Max Levchin, tells developers how exactly you’re using their websites and apps.
So if you find a website’s login page too confusing, the developer might tweak it to streamline matters. Or if they find that you’re spending a lot of time on the photos of an Airbnb listing, it might be a sign that it’s time to redesign the page around photos.
In fact, Mixpanel can gather enough data that it can help companies like Uber and Airbnb actually predict what you’re going to do next.
DigitalOcean: Hosting websites everywhere
Twilio: Helping the web talk to you
Company name: Twilio
Headquarters: San Francisco
Funding to date: $233.7 million in 6 rounds
Who uses it: Home Depot, Nordstrom, Democratic National Committee
If you’ve ever gotten a text message from a web service (“Your Uber will be here in four minutes!”) or a callback from a customer service agent from an online store, chances are pretty good you’ve just had an encounter with Twilio’s technology.
Basically, Twilio acts as a software layer for phone calls and text messages, connecting businesses with the phone network.
