Best startup companies in Atlanta

2012 proved another great year for Atlanta’s startup community. Many companies grew their revenue and headcount, energized Atlanta’s economy, and exited successfully. Atlanta startups also continue to grab national attention, and investors are paying more attention to us.

In December 2012, we interviewed some of Atlanta’s most active investors and industry experts and asked them one question: what are the five startups to watch and why? We published the results in this article and are continuing what we hope will be an annual tradition.

Here are the five most promising startups as identified by some of Atlanta’s most experienced investors and startup advisors/experts.

Many companies have piled onto the Big Data bandwagon by providing analytics solutions to help companies deal with their massive amounts of structured and unstructured data. When a company wants to glean insights from that data, the process is extremely difficult.

Emcien created a patented pattern-detection platform that—with no query or search needed—extracts insights from both structured and unstructured data.

Ed Rieker, founder and owner of 151 Locust says, “CEO Radhika Subramanian and her team dig deep into your Big Data to bring out patterns that help you make better business decisions.” He points to how Emcien’s insights encompass some extremely exciting and sensitive areas, including fraud detection, network security, anti-terrorism, and personalized medicine.

In 2012, Emcien increased its number of employees, was awarded another patent, won several industry awards and expanded to larger headquarters in Northwest Atlanta.

Greg Smith, president at Blue Vista Ventures had this to say: “While ‘Big Data’ solutions are getting a lot of attention and the term may be a bit overused, Emcien is translating Big Data into knowledge and—more importantly—savings that clients will pay for.”

If you could improve the way you hire people and increase their service performance, you can gain huge savings to your bottom line. HireIQ accomplishes exactly that with its predictive analytics and virtual interviewing technology.

“The company is focused on solving a problem that is critical to call centers, and it’s gaining traction, ” explains Blue Vista Ventures’ Smith.

In 2012, HireIQ increased client bookings by a factor of eight, rounded out its executive team by hiring a new CEO and CTO, and tripled the size of its client base.