RealLIST Startups 2025: Meet 20 Philly startups hot on the track to success
Technical.ly's annual RealLIST Startups identifies the region's young companies on track to continue that momentum. We rank them 1 through 10, based on our analysis of their recent wins, and also include a list of runners up.
To compile this list, we searched through the past year of reporting and asked the general public for nominations. The final list spans industries, including fintech, robotics and, of course, some big life sciences startups indicative of Philly's current trends.
How do you land on the list? These companies must make most of their revenue from selling a product (i.e. no consultants), not have undergone a significant exit event and be founded in 2021 or later. The highest ranking companies on the list all rose to the top based on major events like big fundraises, participation in accelerators, notable investors and noble missions.
This year, we broadened our horizons to include all of Greater Philadelphia — including our now 'satellite' market of Delaware.
Here are your 2025 RealLIST Startups in the Philadelphia region.
Methodology: To build RealLIST Startups, Technical.ly's editorial team assesses factors including societal impact, founder experience, capital raised and community involvement. We ask each startup candidate to complete a survey to help us understand and verify these factors, and we only include companies that have responded.
Sarah Huffman is a 2022-2024 corps member for Report for America, an initiative of The Groundtruth Project that pairs young journalists with local newsrooms. This position is supported by the Lenfest Institute for Journalism.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Technical.ly
5 days ago
- Technical.ly
Technical.ly expands to cover all of Maryland's innovation economy
first expansion was to Baltimore, both because we saw the startup and tech ecosystem growing and because I didn't own a car and the trains ran frequently there from where I lived. Over the next 14 years, we would hold our first team retreat in Ocean City, the newsroom fridge would be perpetually stocked with Natty Boh and several of our longest tenured teammates would be Marylanders. Our Baltimore coverage, and later our DC coverage, would often overlap many of the two dozen Maryland counties. But the identity was first and foremost with those major cities. Today that changes as we grow our regional coverage. Thanks to Report for America, our lead ecosystem sponsor TEDCO and several other contributors, is now reporting across Maryland. Led by longtime editor Sameer Rao, with the help of brand new lead Maryland reporter Maria Eberhart, alongside lead reporter Kaela Roeder, now has a three-person, full-time, dedicated news team covering high-growth entrepreneurship, jobs of the future and tech's civic impact — from digital equity to the effects of AI policy. We'll supplement this with thoughtful guest commentary and our growing creator strategy. The newsroom is open to story ideas, including suggestions about the people who represent this innovation economy, the programs and companies they're building and how the larger trends that affect this work are playing out locally (keep sending pitches to baltimore@ And as part of the Baltimore News Collaborative, we also regularly partner with other local news organizations. Fresh research helps us demonstrate that our work matters. 'ecosystem storytelling' results in more follow-on coverage of these topics (including other local media, and national and industry) and contributes to a better connected and faster-growing economy. Storytelling isn't an output of a healthier economy, it's an input. Within our statewide coverage, our stories will still tilt toward Baltimore, where we're helped by the financial support of the Abell Foundation and the Deutsch Foundation, while support from the Howard County Economic Development Authority will underscore coverage of that region, an economic engine and home to the Maryland Innovation Center. In today's media environment, we can no longer assume good work will lead to good storytelling and the attention that follows. We need your help. To support our expanded Maryland coverage, read more about our services here. Our financial partners are ensuring their region's innovation story is told. Make sure yours is, too.
Technical.ly
03-07-2025
- Technical.ly
Baltimore weekly roundup: The ‘tech tax,' explained; cannabis incubator moves; use AI without losing your soul
This week marks the start of Maryland's new 3% tax on certain tech services, and our guide breaks down everything you need to know about it. Plus, learn about the principles that can help you bring humanness into your AI use. Scroll down for more news from throughout the Baltimore region 📰 News Incubator: What to know • Members of various meetups and tech scene builders came together last weekend for the first Tech Unity Cookout. [ Code Collective ] • Starting next week, will be getting another reporter in Maryland. Maria Eberhart is a Report for America corps member and Baltimore County native who will focus on digital equity issues throughout the state. [ ] • Students in Johns Hopkins University's mechanical engineering program spent the last school year creating a machine that adds braille text into a mix of materials, from can labels to glossy mailers. Corresponding software links the machine with a braille word processor and Photoshop. [ Johns Hopkins ] • Gov. Wes Moore announced that the state will search for another site to house a novel incubator for over 100 cannabis businesses. Maryland has already committed $7 million to the project and members of the community surrounding the previously identified Catonsville site worried about its local impact. [ Governor's Office / Baltimore Banner ] • A satellite campus for the University of Maryland's business school will move from the UM BioPark (which is, transparently, a client) to a site in Baltimore Peninsula. Principals behind the development, formerly known as Port Covington, have made many overtures to local businesses. [ Baltimore Biz Journal / ] • State Delegate Marlon Amprey confirmed that an outside investigator concluded its evaluation of workplace misconduct complaints against Chad Williams, the executive director of the West North Avenue Development Authority. Former colleagues accused Williams, who was previously convicted of domestic violence, of actions including stalking and sexual harassment. [ Baltimore Beat ] • Finding the right cofounder takes communication, vision alignment and letting the other person channel their strengths. [ ] • Maryland joined two more lawsuits halting federal actions, including one to prevent the Department of Health and Human Services from giving Homeland Security 'unfettered access' to Medicaid beneficiaries' personal health data. [ Maryland Matters ] • Baltimore Children and Youth Fund launched an online education platform last month where those interested in grassroots youth-focused work can learn relevant skills. [ BCYF / WMAR ] 🗓️ On the Calendar • Impact Hub Baltimore hosts a grief- and hope-focused workshop on July 8 for people dealing with federal changes. [ Details here ] • Legal and HR experts will help entrepreneurs understand when and how to seek out the right providers during a workshop on July 17. [ Details here ]
Technical.ly
26-06-2025
- Technical.ly
How to find a cofounder — and build a strong partnership — according to people who've done it
Where do you find the perfect cofounder? For HeadStrait Labs' Alyssa Theroux, 23, and Mary Squire, 25, it was across the classroom. The duo met during their first semester in the biomedical engineering program at Carnegie Mellon University and quickly bonded over their shared enthusiasm and active participation in their medical device class. 'Throughout the semester, we started sitting closer and closer together,' Squire told 'and by the final project, we were like, 'Do you want to be partners?'' That partnership paid off. Theroux and Squire won their class's final pitch competition in 2022, and that project became the basis for HeadStrait Labs, their Pittsburgh startup developing a head stabilization device used in emergency response, sports and military settings. 'The current cervical spine and mobilization devices that are used today are really outdated,' Theroux said. 'If you suffer a C-spine fracture or injury, any small movement could affect that significantly, and it can lead to secondary injuries. That really drove our passion for EMS.' Two years later, HeadStrait Labs' neck brace, called the EVAC-1 with SMARTmotion, has earned some serious local recognition. The company has raised $100,000 from the Robotics Factory accelerator program, another $100,000 from the Tartan Entrepreneurs Fund and $25,000 from the Re-Impact Awards. Those wins landed it on 2025 RealLIST Startups earlier this year. The device is already being tested by Oklahoma State University's football program, and HeadStrait is now recruiting participants for an upcoming clinical study with Pittsburgh's largest healthcare provider, UPMC, Theroux said. Theroux and Squire credit their shared work ethic and mutual trust for keeping their partnership strong. 'I know this type of partnership doesn't work for everybody. We've lived together, gone to school together, run a company together — all at the same time,' Squire said. 'So we're very good at making joint decisions. We literally have a legal document that has a tiebreaker if necessary, and in two years, we've never once exercised it.' Still, they face the realities of building a startup as women founders in a male-dominated industry. Sexism persists in the startup world, with female-only founded companies raising just 2% of VC funding last year, according to research from PitchBook. This is dramatically lower than the 20% of VC funding that went to startups cofounded by men and women together. In this edition of How I Got Here series, Theroux and Squire share how they've built a strong cofounder relationship, the lessons they've learned navigating early-stage entrepreneurship and what it takes to break into an unequal field. This Q&A has been edited for length and clarity. What's the secret to a strong cofounder relationship? Theroux: Communicate, communicate, communicate. And let the other person work to their strengths, so that you don't have to work so hard to overcome your weaknesses. Divide tasks so each person can shine and move the company forward. Squire: We were lucky enough that the environment we were in, studying for a master's in biomedical engineering, you had to be a certain level of interested in this space. So that was an instant filter for us, which was a lot easier than trying to find someone on the street who's aligned with you. Look for someone with the growth mindset. Being aware that that person's willing to grow and adapt in every aspect of life means they're probably going to do a very good job of that in this industry too. What advice would you give other female founders? Theroux: Don't let the statistics get in your head. Shoot for the moon. You'll land somewhere in the stars. No matter what you know, no matter what other people think, you have to believe in yourself and your partnership. You and your cofounder have to move as one unit. And find a good support group. Squire: Share your opinion, especially in a male-dominated industry like engineering or the startup world. Being a young female entrepreneur is a hard position to be in, and I've noticed that the times I have shared an opinion or a perspective, it's unique because no one else in the room is really sharing that one. So even if it's not the most beneficial or the correct answer, it's probably gonna provoke thought amongst everyone else, or at least get people in a mind space they probably weren't already in. What's been the biggest surprise since becoming a startup founder? Squire: We've both been in very competitive environments, from the level of sports we played, to the schools we've gone to, to the degrees we've done, and we've excelled at those things, but there's lots of rejection that comes along the way. Despite that, I don't think I anticipated the level of nos you're gonna get in this process. It makes the yeses very exciting, let me tell you, but the number of nos you get, I think, it's been more than I expected. But, every no is actually more helpful than a yes, because you know what you need to change. If no one ever gives it to you straight, you don't really get to make improvements. What opportunities would you recommend to others? Squire: When you do have the capacity to go to an event where you can learn something, you should go. We do this thing called 'our one positive,' so even if it's the most boring event or we had a bad time, we ask, what was the one thing that we did take away? It's funny, half the time it's the same takeaway for both of us, but that always makes it feel like what we're doing isn't a waste of time. Theroux: Networking is really important, but there's always a balance to it. What's the biggest challenge you've had to overcome so far? Squire: Balancing feedback, deciding when to take it and when not to. We're like a sponge. We like to take it all in, but it gets to the point where feedback is actually contradicting, and if you don't choose one, you're not actually going to make progress. Theroux: You have to filter feedback through your own knowledge and experiences, and then at some point you've got to take the lead and see what happens. We've made a really big effort to take responsibility and ownership of the choices that we make. Jump into it and make sure all parties are aligned before you do it.
