Fintech startups

Maven Clinic is No. 30 on Fast Company’s list of the World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies of 2023 . Explore the full list of companies that are reshaping industries and culture. In the wake of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, employers now serve as a backstop for abortion access in this country. Maven Clinic is a virtual healthcare provider with a focus on women’s health, offering everything from OB/GYN care to egg freezing and lactation consultations. Today, it’s also helping the companies that offer its services as an employee benefit to navigate the new landscape for reproductive care. The month after the ruling, Maven saw a 67% bump in companies looking to add reproductive health benefits, and founder and CEO Kate Ryder conducted online workshops for hundreds of human resources leaders on how to upgrade their offers. The company’s three-year-old Maven Wallet app helps to reimburse patients if they need to travel out of state for care and speeds reimbursement from … [Read more...] about Why Maven Clinic is the highest-valued startup in women’s health

Formic is No. 39 on Fast Company’s list of the World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies of 2023 . Explore the full list of companies that are reshaping industries and culture. Formic ’s insight about automation comes from a very human observation: Many of the business owners who could benefit from robots don’t have the time to research their options because they’re maxed out dealing with their humans. “What I realized was that 99% of places that need robots don’t have robots,” says CEO Saman Farid. “The vast majority of manufacturers in America are these SMBs,” he says of his small- and medium-size business customers. “All of these people have very little automation but are extremely short-staffed.” That results in expensive downtime for factory equipment: “They have to pay for all the time where everything’s just sitting around.” Formic’s solution offers robots-as-a-service. The Chicago-based company, founded in 2020, formally launched in August 2021; and now past its 50th … [Read more...] about This startup is reviving American manufacturing with robots as a service

Hazel Health is No. 31 on Fast Company’s list of the World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies of 2023 . Explore the full list of companies that are reshaping industries and culture. When it comes to getting kids to see a doctor, Hazel Health has figured out that it’s beneficial to meet them where they already are. The San Francisco-based company brings no-cost telehealthcare into schools for children who have a host of hurdles standing between them and a primary care physician, from housing insecurity and lack of insurance to family income and immigration status. Nearly two-thirds of the students in schools that offer Hazel qualify for free and reduced lunch. “Our model factors in all the things influencing care and works to address them,” says Travis Gayles, Hazel’s chief health officer. The company, which offers primary care appointments in schools across 14 states, expanded its new teletherapy service last year to cover 50 school districts in nine states. The mental health … [Read more...] about This startup puts its telehealth services in the school nurse’s office

Cityblock Health is No. 29 on Fast Company’s list of the World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies of 2023 . Explore the full list of companies that are reshaping industries and culture. Cityblock Health was founded in 2017 to answer the question, as cofounder and CEO Toyin Ajayi puts it: “Why does it cost so much money to deliver care that doesn’t actually drive the outcomes we would expect?” Cityblock provides healthcare services to Medicaid and dually eligible Medicare beneficiaries, who account for a disproportionate amount of dollars spent on healthcare in the U.S., according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. It blends primary care, behavioral health, and disease management services, taking into account environmental and societal factors—such as insecure housing and living in a food desert—that can lead to chronic health conditions and hospitalizations. Cityblock’s clinics are staffed with teams of doctors, nurses, social workers, and mental health providers, and it … [Read more...] about This startup has raised $600 million to give lower-income Americans better healthcare

Explore the full 2023 list of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies , 540 organizations that are reshaping industries and culture. We’ve selected the firms making the biggest impact across 54 categories, including advertising , architecture , design , and more. Nature has typically been the first place that beauty companies turn to for solutions to aging and skin imperfections. Now there’s a new source—biotech—and it takes its inspiration from the pharmaceutical industry. The move toward lab-generated ingredients that promise to improve on what scientists would find in nature dovetails with society’s larger embrace of personalized medicine, including cell and gene therapy, says Sarah Broyd, a partner at Durham, North Carolina–based Clarkston Consulting who specializes in consumer healthcare and pharmaceuticals. “Even the mRNA technology used in some of the COVID vaccines has contributed to a greater general understanding of how biotechnology works, which has … [Read more...] about The 10 most innovative companies in beauty of 2023

Flashfood is No. 36 on Fast Company’s list of the World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies of 2023 . Explore the full list of companies that are reshaping industries and culture. Even as prices have soared, heightening food insecurity, the average grocery store discards up to $10,000 worth of items every day. “Food waste is such a stupid problem,” says Josh Domingues, founder and CEO of Flashfood . “We have so many people who are hungry, and so much food going to waste.” Flashfood’s mission is to divert food from landfills—where it emits methane that contributes to global warming—and onto people’s plates. The five-year-old startup created an app that lets grocers alert shoppers to food that’s nearing its expiration date (mostly meat, dairy, and produce) and offer them instant discounts—an average of 50%—to purchase those items. Shoppers buy the products in-app, before collecting them from dedicated Flashfood fridges and dry racks in-store. … [Read more...] about This app is tackling food insecurity and reducing grocery store waste

CounterCraft is No. 35 on Fast Company’s list of the World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies of 2023 . Explore the full list of companies that are reshaping industries and culture. Weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine last year, hackers accessed a financial institution’s computers and set them up to initiate a cyberattack on Ukrainian government websites. What the hackers didn’t know: Their efforts took place in a fake network designed as a detection environment by Spanish startup CounterCraft , which was able to protect its client’s real computers and share information about the incident with U.S. authorities. “Being weeks ahead of the actual window of attack was a very useful place to be,” says Dan Brett, CounterCraft’s cofounder and chief strategy officer. CounterCraft’s deception tools turn the tables on hackers, luring them into digital labyrinths that waste their time and reveal their techniques while neutralizing the attack. Honeypots aren’t new to cybersecurity, but … [Read more...] about This cybersecurity firm makes it easy to trick hackers with believable fake networks

Holdfast Collective is No. 4 on Fast Company’s list of the World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies of 2023 . Explore the full list of companies that are reshaping industries and culture. In September 2022, Patagonia, renowned for being at the forefront of environmental advocacy, sustainable production, and progressive business practices, had a new declaration: Earth would be its only shareholder. What that actually meant was that founder Yvon Chouinard and his family had given up ownership, transferring the company’s voting stock to the Patagonia Purpose Trust and the other 98% of its ownership to the Holdfast Collective , a new 501(c)(4) organization. Holdfast’s mission is to preserve wildlands and pursue other nature-based climate solutions, fund grassroots environmental organizations, and support politicians working to fight the climate crisis. Although other companies have used this organizational structure for philanthropic ventures, Patagonia is taking a different … [Read more...] about Patagonia uses capitalism to save the planet with the Holdfast Collective