Top Ten Internet startups

10. Duolingo

In an age of free online education for everything from microeconomics to computer coding, Duolingo is a welcome addition for those trying to learn a foreign language. The site offers lessons in six languages and has 5 million monthly active users. Even more disruptive is the site’s crowdsourcing platform to get its users to translate texts and help Duolingo develop courses for more languages. BuzzFeed has partnered with the company to translate its content into Portuguese, Spanish and French.

9. Patreon

Since rising to prominence with Kickstarter, crowdfunding has splintered off into lots of smaller sites serving very specific niches. One such site is Patreon, a company that aims to let users everywhere become patrons of the arts. Artists who make music or release YouTube videos can receive regular payments from their patrons every time they release a new piece of content. They’re essentially paid for their work regularly instead of having to pitch a big new idea to potential crowd funders each time. The site, launched this year, has received at least .1 million in venture funding so far.

8. Beyond Meat

An increasing number of startups in the food sector are looking for ways to extend the world’s food supply through engineering. One of the most prominent is Beyond Meat, a company that develops a faux-chicken product by mixing soy and pea proteins. The chicken-like food has tricked food writers in taste tests and is now being carried at Whole Foods around the country. The food, which requires significantly fewer resources to create than the raising and processing of chickens on factory farms, could prove an essential food source for people worldwide in the future.

7. Pebble

First, Pebble smashed records on the crowdfunding website Kickstarter, earning more than $10 million in donations in just 37 days in 2012. This year came a much harder task for the company: actually delivering the first mass-market smartwatch to thousands of people. The product suffered multiple delays last year but finally began shipping to Kickstarter backers at the start of 2013. Now it’s available at retailers like Best Buy, and the company is developing a suite of apps to expand the watch’s functionality. So far, more than 250, 000 Pebble watches have been sold.

6. Upworthy

This news site makes going viral look easy. Upworthy, launched in March 2012, eschews cat videos and celebrity gossip in favor of videos related to important issues like income inequality and domestic violence. In some ways it’s a successor to Digg, as its team of curators scour the Web for content that has the potential to go viral but hasn’t blown up yet. Usually, the videos have a positive bent, which encourages people to share them on their own social networks. The formula is working—Upworthy had 38 million unique visitors in September alone.