Top Tech Startups in California, US in 2026

We empower students with financial support and supercharge their ability to pay down their debt, so they can get on the right financial track, fast. We build tools that help people feel in control of their financial future. Private student loans – low rates, people-first service, and flexible payments. Student loan refinancing – break free from high interest rates or monthly payments. Scholarships – access to thousands of scholarships to help students pay less. We're a fast-growing company, and that means we're constantly integrating the new perspectives of every individual. Looking for an impactful job with purpose? Visit our careers page to see our available opportunities! earnest.com/careers

Winnie is a marketplace for child care built on powerful data systems and backed by a trusted community of parents and providers. Parents use Winnie to discover high-quality local daycares and preschools and learn all about their programs including detailed descriptions, photos, tuition information, licensing status, availability data and more. Child care providers use Winnie to fill their open spaces, build their wait lists, and get support and resources to run their business efficiently. Winnie was started in early 2016 by tech veterans Sara Mauskopf and Anne Halsall. Working moms of two kids each, Sara and Anne became frustrated with the long search to find child care for their young children. Now Winnie is used throughout the United States and is helping connect millions of parents with high quality child care.

Kipsi is a venture-backed, accounting software company. We are passionate about using technology to improve the accounting profession and make the lives of accountants easier. Kipsi is based in the Bay Area but we are a remote-first company.

SpaceX designs, manufactures and launches advanced rockets and spacecraft. The company was founded in 2002 to revolutionize space technology, with the ultimate goal of enabling people to live on other planets. SpaceX has gained worldwide attention for a series of historic milestones. It is the only private company capable of returning a spacecraft from low Earth orbit, which it first accomplished in 2010. The company made history again in 2012 when its Dragon spacecraft became the first commercial spacecraft to deliver cargo to and from the International Space Station. SpaceX successfully achieved the historic first reflight of an orbital class rocket in 2017, and the company now regularly launches flight-proven rockets. In 2018, SpaceX began launching Falcon Heavy, the world’s most powerful operational rocket by a factor of two. As one of the world’s fastest growing providers of launch services, SpaceX has secured over 100 missions to its manifest, representing over $12 billion on contract. These include commercial satellite launches as well as US government missions. SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft is flying numerous cargo resupply missions to the space station under a series of Commercial Resupply Services contracts. Dragon was designed from the outset to carry humans to space and will soon fly astronauts under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. Building on the achievements of Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, SpaceX is working on a next generation of fully reusable launch vehicles that will be the most powerful ever built, capable of carrying humans to Mars and other destinations in the solar system.

LitByLeia Our core IP uses a nanostructured light guide plate in a standard edge-lit configuration to produce a custom lightfield illumination of the LCD front-plane. From smartphones to TV screens, the possibilities for the LitByLeia™ experience are endless. Supporting standard applications processors and standard display interfaces. LeiaLoft Engage, immerse and experience. LeiaLoft™ is an exciting platform that offers bespoke content designed for Leia-enabled devices. Experience games and apps like never before and open up a world of alluring beauty. Watch your favorite movies on your device in new depth. With no need for glasses, these movies are made for sharing. Find new ways to experience familiar things: see apps come to life and create images you can move around. Virtual reality becomes real as you mix the two in richer, more immersive ways.

SimilarWeb is the pioneer of digital market intelligence, and the standard for understanding the digital world. Our platform provides customers with granular insights about every website and mobile app enabling visibility into digital behavior and letting businesses see what is actually happening with their competitors, their industry and throughout the digital world. We have thousands of paying customers worldwide and millions of users using our free platform every month. Our customers are some of the largest global brands in the world and including Walmart, AirBnb, adidas, DHL and eBay. SimilarWeb raised over $112 million and has over 400 employees in 8 offices around the world in NY, SF, London, Tel Aviv, Tokyo, Kiev, Paris, San Paulo. With the insights and the data we provide businesses, agencies, marketers and analysts can benchmark performance against competitors, reveal competitors online strategy, discover new opportunities, identify emerging trends and understand consumer

Monte Carlo is leading one of the most promising emerging categories in SaaS, Data Reliability. Monte Carlo helps data teams manage data reliability in the same way that New Relic helps engineering teams manage application reliability. As companies invest millions to become data-driven, Monte Carlo helps solve one of the biggest challenges data/analytics/ML teams face today: making sure data can be trusted at all times by minimizing data downtime. Founded in 2019 by Barr Moses and Lior Gavish, Monte Carlo is backed by Accel, GGV, the former Chief Technologist of Cloudera, and former Chief Data Scientist of the United States.

Mosaic is the AI-Powered Workforce Management software that's radically changing how companies are managed. We helps companies manage the skills of their workforce and uses AI to prevent burnout, empowering teams to do their best work while still having a life. Mosaic provides the tools needed to connect and manage a modern distributed workforce.

Making the “Best Ideas Win” is our mission. We believe that innovation has the power to make the world a better place, is too important to be left to chance, and that every individual deserves an opportunity to make the most of their ideas. Our software is used by the most innovative companies in the world. We have over 200 customers that use Brightidea to give people a voice in sharing their ideas at large organizations. The problem we’re solving is complex, creative, and exciting. Each of our products can function as a powerful stand-alone tool or utilized as part of a tightly-integrated system. Our suite provides the most mature solution available to support the entire end-to-end innovation process.

Voicera is building the data layer for trust analytics, empowering People to score sincerity in human communication objectively at scale. Why now? Trust is the new currency. • Problem: All video meetings are recorded and processed by LLMs. How people communicate is lost in transcription, causing misinterpretation, and bad decisions. • Solution : Sincerity™ by Voicera analyzes people's behavior to assess how truthful they are from non-verbal cues with 80% accuracy. • Use Cases: Sales (customer insights, revenue forecasts), Training, HR (recruitment), Internal Fraud Investigations… • Outcomes: Voicera empowers customers to make more informed, ethical decisions in situations where trust is critical.