GeekWire 200 Update: A New No. 1 and Plenty of Newcomers Join List of Top Pacific Northwest Tech Startups

GEEKWIRE - There’s a new No. 1.

Fusion power company Helion Energy has taken the top spot in the latest update of the GeekWire 200, our quarterly ranking of the top privately held technology startups in the Pacific Northwest.

Helion replaced Highspot, which announced a merger with Seismic in a significant sales software deal last month (exited companies graduate from the list). Backed by the likes of SoftBank and Sam Altman, Helion announced two key milestones in February on its mission to generate usable energy from fusion reactions.

The company’s ascent atop the GeekWire 200 reflects a broader trend on the rankings, as startups building complex hardware across sectors like space, energy, robotics, and agriculture make up a sizable chunk of the list. It’s a notable change for a region traditionally dominated by enterprise software.

The top 10 includes companies such as Agility Robotics, which is building humanoid robots; Brinc, a drone maker serving public safety customers; Stoke Space, a space manufacturing company; and Carbon Robotics, which sells weed-zapping machines to farmers. Seattle VC firm Ascend has coined this crop of companies as “Cascadian Dynamism.”

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Note:  Stoke Space (#7) is headquartered in Kent.  Starfish Space (#64) is headquartered in Tukwila.  Gone (#194) is headquartered in Renton.  

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