Every month, Green Flag Digital reranks the top private tech companies not only by funding, but by web traffic and brand prominence. In March 2026, the top 2 spots go to OpenAI and Anthropic, reinforcing the primacy of the AI ecosystem that’s currently dominating funding rounds and media headlines.
Taking ~50% of all global venture cash in 2025, AI projects are soaking up about 21% more venture value than in Q4 of 2024. But in 2026, which companies turn bucks into buzz is also paramount.
Mixing cash with web traffic and brand standing, we created a score that adds a new dimension to typical tech company rankings, speaking to the importance of market impact and brand authority without erasing the importance of funding altogether.
Here are our most recent findings.
Key Takeaways
- #1 OpenAI takes back the top spot, with #2 Anthropic, and #3 Whop joining it atop the podium.
- New to the top ten: Whop, Grow Therapy, Waymo, Polymarket, and Eight Sleep crack the list, demonstrating significant turnover from last month.
- OpenAI, Anthropic, and Waymo have the highest funding scores of the top 100.
- OpenAI, xAI, and Polymarket post the strongest web traffic scores this month.
- For branded web search, Poetiq, Mirai, and Noble Mobile rise to the top of the branded search rankings.
- The analysis of 3,867 companies found the top 100 tech companies are dominated by AI-led industries and growth-stage funding rounds with HQs concentrated in the Bay Area.
Which 100 Tech Companies Score Highest?
We analyze thousands of companies every month to determine which are leading the way in terms of industry and consumer momentum.
These are the top 100 private tech companies.
Breaking Down The Top 10 Tech Companies
Zooming in on the top 10 companies today, we see they’re not performing equally strongly across all three categories.
Typically, companies grow from funding buzz to web searches and ultimately achieve brand recognition through keyword searches.
Here’s how the current top 10 stack up across each category:
#1 OpenAI - Still Leading the AI Arms Race
OpenAI has headlined the top 10 list before, and seldom slips too far off the podium, with constant, high-ticket funding rounds like last week’s $110B. It comes on the heels of a late February Pentagon deal to deploy OpenAI’s model for military use. That funding high-water mark crested far above what other companies’ February achievements could match. But the LLM giant behind ChatGPT isn’t tops in everything: it’s ranked 4th in web traffic and 29th in branded search, showing the lag between funding power and commercial use.
#2 Anthropic – Safety First AI Wins Hearts
The company responsible for Claude can feel like a distant planet orbiting ChatGPT’s star, but it’s still besting over 3,800 other startups for its #2 funding title this month and its promise to never allow its model to be used for information-gathering on Americans, or for autonomous weapons systems. The stance created waves this month in a model war, but popularized the safety-first company. February saw Anthropic’s web traffic up 3.6% (while OpenAI’s fell). It also beat its competition in branded search, up 21.51% this month and 48.59% over 6 months.
#3 Whop - The Hustle Marketplace Makes a Move
Whop made a major jump in February, when it had a coming-out ball, accompanied by showy funding and search traffic. Ranking #25 in funding and #30 in branded search, this marketplace for digital goods, from courses to software and communities, supports digital income earners with infrastructure that’s refreshingly off the beaten path of the AI startup monoculture. With 4 total funding rounds (the fewest in the top 10), and a 10-day-old check for $273M, its branded search volume of 450K towers over much later-stage players.
#4 xAI - Attention is Surging with Big Capital
xAI, which distributes the Grok AI model through X’s social media platform, maintains a strong funding position and website growth. With 73.1M monthly visits and 61.9% monthly traffic growth, it’s one of the fastest-rising attention grabbers in the top 10. At the same time, its branded search ranking is relatively weak for a company this high overall, suggesting its durability isn’t set in stone yet. Could xAI be a market leader? Perhaps, but it’s not there yet.
#5 Grow Therapy - Mental Health Demand Meets Fresh Capital
Grow Therapy’s mental health platform catapults into the top 10 on the strength of a $150M Series D funding round. Its total coffers, $328M, are still meager compared to 9 of the top 10 ranked companies this month, but that hasn’t stopped Grow Therapy from living up to its name, expanding branded web searches by nearly 50% over the past 6 months and bringing unbranded web traffic to just over 5M monthly.
#6 Waymo - Welcome, Passenger
Waymo’s robot cars clog San Francisco’s hills, and could soon dominate every other city in the U.S., too. Its expansion is sure to be accelerated by its #4 funding ranking, fueled by a $16B cash infusion this month. The company’s 5 rounds have solidified its future and given it the #6 overall bank account among startups. Because Waymo works via a rideshare-style app, the cash looks more impressive than branded search growth, but the company still pulls in over 500K monthly web visitors and has grown its branded presence by almost 50% over the last year.
#7 Databricks - Supporting the AI Revolution
Databricks powers LLM models, analytics, and data engineering on a lakehouse architecture. It’s an infrastructure that’s responsible for allowing computing power to expand to accommodate its seemingly infinite new demand. Another $2B this month is helping this workhorse venture get the job done. What is hasn’t done is elevate web traffic or branded search into the top 100. With just 2.29% growth in visitors this month, and flat branded search all year, Databricks counts on its corporate and government clients to know how to find it.
#8 Polymarket - Betting on a Volatile News Cycle
Polymarket ranks #8 despite much weaker funding than other top companies (ranking #111). That’s because user interest is exceptionally strong: the bet-on-anything platform ranks #20 in web traffic and #15 in branded search. The data shows that people aren’t just stumbling onto Polymarket; they’re seeking it out by name and returning at scale. But with anonymous account owners betting on political outcomes they may or may not control, from invasions to nuclear detonation, the platform isn’t without controversy. For right now, what it does have is the country’s attention.
#9 Eight Sleep - Not Snoozing on Fundraising
Eight Sleep has used multiple methods of sharpening its mattress technologies, from health monitoring to calling out sleep disruptions to water-fed tubing systems that promise to keep sleepers an ideal temperature all night long. It must be working. The company claims its cash-positive and will use the $50M it bagged this month (the lowest recent round among the top 10) to create even more products to help you get some shut-eye. With over 1M monthly visitors and branded search up 49% year over year, it seems like the company may find there’s plenty of demand.
#10 ElevenLabs - AI Audio Speaks to Creator Demand
ElevenLabs rounds out the top 10 with a profile combining meaningful funding and user adoption. It ranks #46 in funding, but climbs to #10 overall, thanks to website traffic (with 52.6M in monthly website visits) and a respectable #59 in branded search. ElevenLabs raised its newest $500M round on February 4th. In fact, just 3 top-10 companies have “older” most-recent rounds, highlighting how significant fresh cash can be in helping tech companies maintain rankings. But it likely didn’t play a part in already surging commercial interest, up over 22% this past month.
The Top 10 Ranking Tech Companies, Through Time
The top ten aren’t resting on their laurels. While some are consistent heavy-hitters (ahem, OpenAI), others are leveraging large funding rounds or a spike in interest to catapult them into long-term top-ten positions.
The Funding Index
Fundraising is constant, with 218 companies raising new money over the last 31 days.
The biggest winners for total raise, recent funding, and the biggest cash infusions right now? This month, it’s OpenAI. The company brought in $110B just 7 days ago, giving it the highest total bank account overall. OpenAI’s war chest, totalling $189,000,120,000, is more than double its closest competitor.
The Traffic Index
OpenAI, xAI, and Polymarket (new to the top ten) take the top spots this month in website traffic. Polymarket’s 33.2M monthly visitors (88.5% growth month-over-month) is a monumental leap from a company that was already pulling in big numbers.
Typically, when it comes to monthly gains, the biggest winners aren’t making the top ten — yet. They’re putting up huge numbers compared to their small web footprints. If they can sustain that performance, look for companies like Code Metal, Mirai, and Crusoe to crack the overall top 10 index soon.
The Branded Search Index
Branded search means more than clicks. It indicates deeper brand authority. Users know what they want, and they’re seeking it out, not just landing on a company website through the power of SEO.
Poetiq? They’ve learned that lesson, ranking #1 overall. No other company across the top 100 has grown faster month over month than the seed-round AI future giant, with a 410% increase. Meanwhile, the largest branded footprints overall belong to OpenAI, Tempo, and ElevenLabs.
Which Industries are Leading the Tech Race?
Some industries are more cutting-edge than others. And while those organizations tend to capture more funding, do they also capture the public imagination?
We allowed companies to have multiple industry tags, so among the 100 top-scoring companies today, 153 industries are represented, from space travel to collectibles.
Here are the industries represented most often:
Ultimately, AI represents 69 of the top 100. However, they’re clustered among the highest performers even more prominently: 8 of the top 10 are specifically tagged with some version of AI (LLMs, machine learning, generative AI, etc.)
Which Funding Types are On Top?
Where are the Top 100 Tech Companies Located?
For the first time, the Bay Area no longer holds a majority of the top 10 tech startups, and New York City’s tech scene is rising as competition.
While San Francisco and Silicon Valley nurture 5 of the 10 top companies this month, the NYC metro is home to another 5, including Whop’s Brooklyn HQ.
With 53 of the top 100 companies in the Bay Area, there is still much work to be done to diversify the geography of tech beyond the north star of Northern California.
Here’s what a map of the top-100 ranked tech companies reveals:
| Rank + Company | City, State |
| 1. OpenAI | San Francisco, California |
| 2. Anthropic | San Francisco, California |
| 3. Whop | Brooklyn, New York |
| 4. xAI | Palo Alto, California |
| 5. Grow Therapy | New York, New York |
| 6. Waymo | Mountain View, California |
| 7. Databricks | San Francisco, California |
| 8. Polymarket | New York, New York |
| 9. Eight Sleep | New York, New York |
| 10. ElevenLabs | New York, New York |
| 11. World Labs | San Francisco, California |
| 12. Mercor | San Francisco, California |
| 13. VITURE | San Francisco, California |
| 14. Crusoe | Denver, Colorado |
| 15. Sage | New York, New York |
| 16. Render | San Francisco, California |
| 17. Runway | New York, New York |
| 18. Upgrade | San Francisco, California |
| 19. Nominal | Austin, Texas |
| 20. Ayar Labs | San Jose, California |
| 21. Levitate | Raleigh, North Carolina |
| 22. Preply | Brookline, Massachusetts |
| 23. Humand | San Francisco, California |
| 24. Suno | Cambridge, Massachusetts |
| 25. Subject | Beverly Hills, California |
The Final Takeaway? Tech Companies Can’t Live on Funding Alone
Funding may fuel the fire, but it’s not the whole story. By layering digital signals, we gain a better understanding of which well-funded companies are experiencing growth from being truly useful and from building momentum and public presence, ultimately capturing both funding cycles and real people’s internet searches.
So as tech categories like AI continue to draw investor attention, our index helps spotlight those companies that are succeeding in turning that visibility into velocity and real market presence.
We’ll be watching to see who keeps climbing.
Methodology
To track industry buzz, we analyzed 3,867 tech companies, looking at 3 total categories: funding, monthly website traffic, and global keyword volume to assess which tech companies are riding a wave of sustained energy and which are actually turning that excitement into business progress.
Here’s how we broke it down:
Funding – 50%
- Number of Investors
- Number of Lead Investors
- Most recent funding amount
- Total funding amount
- Most recent funding
Website Analysis (Traffic) – 25%
- Monthly visits
- Average visits over time
- Percentage of visits (to normalize volume and allow better comparison across companies)
- Trend in monthly visits over the past 6 months
Keyword Analysis (Brand Search) – 25%
- Search volume
- Average keyword volume over time
- Search volume percent (to normalize volume and show overall strength)
- Keyword volume trend over the past 6 months
Data sources: Crunchbase, Keywords Everywhere, Google Trends, and SEMRush.
Full table of top 100 scoring tech companies and each category score, as well as # of acquisitions as of early March 2026:
| 1 | OpenAI | 100.00 | 100.0 | 96.0 | 77.7 | 15 |
| 2 | Anthropic | 90.89 | 88.5 | 85.9 | 77.0 | 3 |
| 3 | Whop | 84.59 | 75.6 | 88.1 | 77.2 | |
| 4 | xAI | 84.36 | 81.0 | 93.0 | 60.7 | 2 |
| 5 | Grow Therapy | 84.36 | 81.7 | 83.6 | 68.7 | 2 |
| 6 | Waymo | 83.78 | 83.8 | 75.9 | 70.2 | 1 |
| 7 | Databricks | 83.31 | 79.6 | 84.3 | 68.3 | 14 |
| 8 | Polymarket | 82.39 | 66.5 | 91.6 | 83.9 | 2 |
| 9 | Eight Sleep | 82.20 | 81.2 | 79.6 | 65.8 | 1 |
| 10 | ElevenLabs | 81.96 | 71.6 | 90.6 | 73.0 | |
| 11 | World Labs | 80.81 | 77.8 | 73.8 | 73.2 | |
| 12 | Mercor | 79.82 | 61.3 | 84.2 | 92.2 | |
| 13 | VITURE | 79.41 | 74.3 | 81.9 | 67.0 | |
| 14 | Crusoe | 79.37 | 76.4 | 81.8 | 62.6 | 3 |
| 15 | Sage | 79.34 | 81.1 | 64.7 | 70.3 | |
| 16 | Render | 79.30 | 69.8 | 84.5 | 72.9 | |
| 17 | Runway | 79.25 | 71.8 | 84.8 | 68.4 | |
| 18 | Upgrade | 78.78 | 71.3 | 84.8 | 67.6 | 1 |
| 19 | Nominal | 78.29 | 82.0 | 64.9 | 64.4 | |
| 20 | Ayar Labs | 78.04 | 81.6 | 73.8 | 55.4 | |
| 21 | Levitate | 77.95 | 76.8 | 75.2 | 63.2 | |
| 22 | Preply | 77.60 | 65.3 | 89.3 | 71.0 | |
| 23 | Humand | 77.55 | 70.1 | 79.4 | 70.9 | |
| 24 | Suno | 77.46 | 61.3 | 91.0 | 76.6 | 2 |
| 25 | Subject | 76.92 | 68.5 | 79.1 | 72.1 | |
| 26 | Arena | 76.91 | 63.2 | 88.0 | 73.6 | |
| 27 | Scale | 76.83 | 69.9 | 77.7 | 70.2 | 2 |
| 28 | Midi Health | 76.54 | 66.1 | 82.0 | 72.7 | |
| 29 | Profound | 76.53 | 72.5 | 76.3 | 65.5 | |
| 30 | Vestwell | 76.42 | 74.6 | 80.0 | 57.2 | 3 |
| 31 | National Funding | 76.27 | 80.1 | 73.8 | 51.8 | |
| 32 | Vercel | 75.98 | 60.2 | 88.2 | 76.1 | 3 |
| 33 | Kraken | 75.89 | 65.6 | 84.3 | 68.9 | 19 |
| 34 | Mirai | 75.74 | 61.5 | 66.0 | 94.9 | |
| 35 | Cerebras Systems | 75.71 | 74.6 | 80.8 | 53.6 | |
| 36 | Talkiatry | 75.60 | 70.7 | 80.4 | 61.5 | |
| 37 | Kiavi | 75.59 | 75.7 | 73.3 | 58.6 | |
| 38 | Supabase | 75.50 | 57.9 | 88.7 | 78.5 | |
| 39 | Whatnot | 75.28 | 60.7 | 85.7 | 74.9 | 1 |
| 40 | Lio | 74.87 | 77.8 | 63.3 | 61.8 | |
| 41 | Night | 74.87 | 67.9 | 70.9 | 73.9 | 3 |
| 42 | Temporal Technologies | 74.84 | 73.7 | 79.9 | 53.1 | |
| 43 | Skild AI | 74.82 | 71.9 | 73.7 | 62.8 | |
| 44 | Quince | 74.78 | 57.7 | 87.0 | 78.0 | |
| 45 | SambaNova | 74.69 | 72.4 | 73.7 | 61.5 | |
| 46 | Solace | 74.61 | 68.2 | 80.6 | 62.7 | |
| 47 | Railway | 74.39 | 63.4 | 84.1 | 67.9 | |
| 48 | Gopuff | 74.37 | 63.0 | 83.4 | 69.4 | 7 |
| 49 | ClickHouse | 74.27 | 68.4 | 78.6 | 63.0 | 4 |
| 50 | Lambda | 74.24 | 68.0 | 76.6 | 65.6 | |
| 51 | Ramp | 74.21 | 63.5 | 83.3 | 67.9 | 4 |
| 52 | Achieve | 73.99 | 64.7 | 78.3 | 69.6 | 1 |
| 53 | Groq | 73.89 | 62.8 | 80.4 | 70.9 | 2 |
| 54 | Bedrock Robotics | 73.85 | 69.3 | 68.1 | 70.2 | |
| 55 | Vantage Data Centers | 73.70 | 70.8 | 74.2 | 60.6 | 6 |
| 56 | UpGuard | 73.69 | 73.0 | 76.8 | 53.5 | |
| 57 | Apptronik | 73.68 | 73.6 | 68.0 | 61.1 | |
| 58 | LiveKit | 73.60 | 63.8 | 78.9 | 69.4 | |
| 59 | Thinking Machines Lab | 73.22 | 63.0 | 74.0 | 74.4 | |
| 60 | Sesame | 73.03 | 59.7 | 82.3 | 72.1 | |
| 61 | Basis | 72.99 | 72.5 | 65.5 | 63.2 | |
| 62 | MatX | 72.94 | 78.2 | 62.1 | 55.0 | |
| 63 | Encord | 72.90 | 72.3 | 73.6 | 55.1 | |
| 64 | Deepgram | 72.87 | 63.8 | 79.2 | 66.4 | 1 |
| 65 | Wispr Flow | 72.87 | 53.8 | 80.1 | 85.5 | |
| 66 | Rain | 72.79 | 65.2 | 72.4 | 70.1 | 1 |
| 67 | PayJoy | 72.79 | 60.9 | 80.8 | 70.2 | 1 |
| 68 | Oxide Computer Company | 72.79 | 68.8 | 70.7 | 64.7 | |
| 69 | Poetiq | 72.69 | 61.7 | 49.1 | 100.0 | |
| 70 | Figure | 72.66 | 63.6 | 74.7 | 70.5 | |
| 71 | OnePay | 72.58 | 53.0 | 84.2 | 81.9 | 1 |
| 72 | Point | 72.45 | 62.6 | 77.8 | 68.7 | |
| 73 | Dots | 72.38 | 64.6 | 75.1 | 67.0 | |
| 74 | Replit | 72.36 | 57.1 | 87.3 | 69.8 | |
| 75 | Relativity | 72.34 | 69.7 | 71.1 | 60.8 | 4 |
| 76 | Artemis | 72.34 | 73.0 | 56.9 | 68.3 | |
| 77 | Baseten | 72.32 | 67.5 | 72.7 | 63.5 | 1 |
| 78 | Ever | 72.23 | 63.6 | 78.7 | 65.0 | |
| 79 | Avant | 72.18 | 78.2 | 82.1 | 32.2 | 2 |
| 80 | CookUnity | 72.05 | 61.3 | 85.2 | 62.3 | 3 |
| 81 | Tempo | 72.02 | 61.8 | 67.7 | 78.8 | |
| 82 | Fal | 71.94 | 60.9 | 82.2 | 65.8 | 1 |
| 83 | Noble Mobile | 71.94 | 46.7 | 82.9 | 93.5 | |
| 84 | GoodLeap | 71.92 | 66.2 | 77.5 | 59.9 | |
| 85 | Genesys | 71.88 | 63.6 | 79.0 | 63.3 | 26 |
| 86 | Anchorage Digital | 71.82 | 67.2 | 69.3 | 65.5 | 3 |
| 87 | Croissant | 71.81 | 67.0 | 65.1 | 70.3 | |
| 88 | Wonder | 71.77 | 58.1 | 81.6 | 71.4 | 7 |
| 89 | Traversal | 71.74 | 73.4 | 67.0 | 55.2 | |
| 90 | Harper | 71.68 | 70.2 | 64.4 | 64.1 | |
| 91 | Zipline | 71.63 | 70.6 | 63.3 | 64.1 | |
| 92 | VoltaGrid | 71.61 | 71.2 | 64.3 | 61.8 | |
| 93 | Code Metal | 71.52 | 70.9 | 65.3 | 61.2 | |
| 94 | Emerald AI | 71.47 | 65.7 | 63.6 | 72.9 | |
| 95 | FLORA | 71.26 | 61.1 | 79.7 | 65.5 | |
| 96 | Hook | 71.24 | 63.0 | 68.8 | 72.3 | |
| 97 | Slang | 71.23 | 68.3 | 66.0 | 64.7 | |
| 98 | Physical Intelligence | 71.21 | 64.7 | 73.7 | 64.0 | |
| 99 | ShopMy | 71.19 | 55.8 | 83.8 | 71.6 | |
| 100 | Braintrust | 71.10 | 68.5 | 70.6 | 59.0 |
FAQs
Funding tells one story. Traffic tells another. Brand demand tells a third. We wanted a view that reflects how companies actually gain leverage in the market, not just how much money they raised.
So we built our own ranking, the tech ranking we wanted to see. The one built for those trying to understand real market traction.
By looking at these three categories together we can see who turns capital into attention, and attention into brand demand.
Companies that raise big rounds but stall in visibility fall fast. Companies with modest funding but outsized momentum have greater potential to rise quickly.
Private companies operate in a different growth phase, where momentum signals matter more than quarterly earnings. Ranking private companies allows the index to surface emerging leaders before public market pressures reshape behavior and visibility.
Some companies grow steadily without headline-grabbing funding rounds. Strong traffic growth or rising branded search can push these firms higher, reflecting meaningful adoption and awareness that funding coverage alone may overlook.
Updates Log:
- March 10, 2026: Updated with the latest data through the end of February
- Feb 6, 2026: Updated with latest data through late January
- Jan 6, 2026: Updated with latest data for January
- September-Dec 2025: Monthly updates with latest data
- August 30, 2025: First published
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