justbacked

JustBacked · October 2026 · Edition 1

Breakout Companies to Join

The 50 most promising startups that raised in the last 180 days and are hiring now, ranked on hiring momentum, round strength, investors and traction. How we rank.

1. Mach Industries2. General Intuition3. Mariana Minerals4. Neros Technologies5. Lovable6. Oratomic7. Gimlet Labs8. Cowboy Space9. Factory10. Antares11. Stuut12. OpenRouter13. Mind Robotics14. Lightfield15. Chai Discovery16. Proxima Fusion17. River AI18. Conduct19. Wispr Flow20. Augustus21. TAR22. HappyRobot23. Deepgram24. Rogo25. Confido26. ANDE.AI LTD27. Hubble Network28. Firecrawl29. David30. Rillet31. Wonderful32. Exein33. Prime Intellect34. Emergent35. Together AI36. The Exploration Company37. Cohere38. Volta39. Quartermaster AI40. Efficient Computer41. Parallel42. Corridor43. TensorWave44. Dwelly45. Etched46. Tandem Health47. Mecka AI48. CodeRabbit49. Pilgrim50. Covenant

The top 10

#1

Mach Industries

Series C · $600M · Huntington Beach

90/100

Mach Industries is a defense manufacturing company that develops unmanned systems and defense infrastructure.

  • 44 new roles in 30 days
  • Top 1% round for Series C
  • Backed by BoxGroup, Khosla, Sequoia
Hiring
Round
Investors
Traction
Fresh
144 open roles →

#2

General Intuition

Venture round · $220M · New York

90/100

General Intuition is a frontier research lab focused on teaching machines to learn and adapt through play.

  • 18 new roles in 30 days
  • Top 4% round for its stage
  • Backed by General Catalyst, Khosla
Hiring
Round
Investors
Traction
Fresh
18 open roles →

#3

Mariana Minerals

Series B · $310M · Houston

89/100

Mariana Minerals develops mineral projects using technology to supply critical minerals for energy, AI, and defense applications.

  • 44 new roles in 30 days
  • Top 3% round for Series B
  • Backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Greenoaks, Khosla
Hiring
Round
Investors
Traction
Fresh
85 open roles →

#4

Neros Technologies

Series C · $250M · Los Angeles

88/100

Neros Technologies is a defense technology company specializing in the development and manufacturing of advanced unmanned aerial systems.

  • 28 new roles in 30 days
  • Top 19% round for Series C
  • Backed by BoxGroup, Sequoia, Spark Capital
Hiring
Round
Investors
Traction
Fresh
107 open roles →

#5

Lovable

Series C · $400M · Stockholm

88/100

Lovable provides an AI-driven platform enabling users to generate and deploy web applications and websites from natural language prompts.

  • 24 new roles in 30 days
  • Top 11% round for Series C
  • Backed by Accel, Khosla, Menlo Ventures
Hiring
Round
Investors
Traction
Fresh
81 open roles →

#6

Oratomic

Series A · $300M · South Pasadena

88/100

Oratomic develops neutral-atom quantum hardware and error-correction architectures for utility-scale fault-tolerant quantum computers.

  • 11 new roles in 30 days
  • Top 1% round for Series A
  • Backed by General Catalyst, Index Ventures, Khosla
Hiring
Round
Investors
Traction
Fresh
19 open roles →

#7

Gimlet Labs

Series B · $300M · San Francisco

86/100

Gimlet Labs is a startup that develops infrastructure and applied research solutions that enable execution of agent-based AI workloads.

  • 5 new roles in 30 days
  • Top 5% round for Series B
  • Backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Emergence, Menlo Ventures
Hiring
Round
Investors
Traction
Fresh
15 open roles →

#8

Cowboy Space

Series B · $275M · San Carlos

86/100

Cowboy Space is a space technology company developing solar-powered orbital data centers for AI computing infrastructure.

  • 57 new roles in 30 days
  • Top 7% round for Series B
  • Backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Index Ventures, IVP
Hiring
Round
Investors
Traction
Fresh
78 open roles →

#9

Factory

Venture round · $200M · San Francisco

86/100

Factory is an AI research lab that provides software development agents that integrate into existing engineering workflows and tools.

  • 10 new roles in 30 days
  • Top 5% round for its stage
  • Backed by BoxGroup, Khosla, NVIDIA
Hiring
Round
Investors
Traction
Fresh
54 open roles →

#10

Antares

Series C · $370M · Los Angeles

85/100

Antares Industries designs and manufactures transportable nuclear fission microreactors for terrestrial and space applications.

  • 34 new roles in 30 days
  • Top 13% round for Series C
  • Backed by BoxGroup, Paradigm
Hiring
Round
Investors
Traction
Fresh
90 open roles →

11 to 50

  1. 11
    Stuut

    Venture round · $67.6M · New York · Andreessen Horowitz, Khosla

    24 roles85
  2. 12
    OpenRouter

    Series B · $113M · New York · Andreessen Horowitz, Menlo Ventures

    28 roles84
  3. 13
    Mind Robotics

    Venture round · $400M · Palo Alto · Accel, Andreessen Horowitz

    32 roles84
  4. 14
    Lightfield

    Series A · $47M · San Francisco · 8VC, Andreessen Horowitz

    22 roles84
  5. 15
    Chai Discovery

    Series C · $400M · San Francisco · General Catalyst, Index Ventures

    21 roles84
  6. 16
    Proxima Fusion

    Series B · $470M · Munich · Balderton, Lightspeed

    54 roles84
  7. 17
    River AI

    Series A · $1.1B · Palo Alto · General Catalyst, NVIDIA

    19 roles84
  8. 18
    Conduct

    Series A · $59.4M · London · Creandum, ICONIQ

    22 roles83
  9. 19
    Wispr Flow

    Series B · $280M · San Francisco · 8VC, Forerunner

    30 roles83
  10. 20
    Augustus

    Series B · $180M · San Francisco · Creandum, QED Investors

    8 roles83
  11. 21
    TAR

    Series A · $120M · Austin · Spark Capital

    46 roles83
  12. 22
    HappyRobot

    Series C · $150M · San Francisco · Andreessen Horowitz, Y Combinator

    76 roles82
  13. 23
    Deepgram

    Series C · $143M · San Francisco · NVIDIA, Salesforce Ventures

    91 roles82
  14. 24
    Rogo

    Venture round · $30M · New York · BoxGroup, Khosla

    88 roles82
  15. 25
    Confido

    Series B · $55M · New York · Insight Partners, Y Combinator

    37 roles82
  16. 26
    ANDE.AI LTD

    Series A · $52M · New York · Lightspeed, Redpoint

    9 roles82
  17. 27
    Hubble Network

    Series C · $200M · Seattle · Y Combinator

    20 roles82
  18. 28
    Firecrawl

    Series B · $75M · San Francisco · Y Combinator

    33 roles81
  19. 29
    David

    Series B · $250M · New York · Greenoaks, ICONIQ

    34 roles81
  20. 30
    Rillet

    Series C · $100M · Palo Alto · Andreessen Horowitz, Battery Ventures

    42 roles81
  21. 31
    Wonderful

    Series C · $550M · Amsterdam · Bessemer, Index Ventures

    122 roles80
  22. 32
    Exein

    Venture round · $270M · Roma · Balderton

    5 roles80
  23. 33
    Prime Intellect

    Series A · $130M · Dover · Founders Fund, ICONIQ

    35 roles80
  24. 34
    Emergent

    Series C · $130M · Pleasanton · Khosla, Lightspeed

    46 roles80
  25. 35
    Together AI

    Series C · $800M · San Francisco · General Catalyst, NVIDIA

    73 roles80
  26. 36
    The Exploration Company

    Series C · $450M · Munich · Bessemer

    100 roles80
  27. 37
    Cohere

    Venture round · $100M · Toronto · Index Ventures, NVIDIA

    116 roles79
  28. 38
    Volta

    Series A · $300M · Palo Alto · Altimeter, Andreessen Horowitz

    44 roles79
  29. 39
    Quartermaster AI

    Series B · $100M · Arlington · BoxGroup, Insight Partners

    19 roles79
  30. 40
    Efficient Computer

    Series B · $97M · Pittsburgh · BoxGroup, Union Square Ventures

    22 roles79
  31. 41
    Parallel

    Series B · $100M · Palo Alto · Index Ventures, Khosla

    26 roles78
  32. 42
    Corridor

    Seed · $25M · New York · BoxGroup

    4 roles78
  33. 43
    TensorWave

    Series B · $350M · Las Vegas

    64 roles78
  34. 44
    Dwelly

    Series B · $95M · London · General Catalyst

    26 roles78
  35. 45
    Etched

    Series C · $300M · San Jose · Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia

    114 roles78
  36. 46
    Tandem Health

    Series B · $100M · Stockholm · Northzone

    71 roles78
  37. 47
    Mecka AI

    Series A · $60M · Markham · Menlo Ventures, SV Angel

    52 roles77
  38. 48
    CodeRabbit

    Series C · $143M · San Francisco · Atomico, CRV

    45 roles77
  39. 49
    Pilgrim

    Seed · $25M · Redwood City

    15 roles77
  40. 50
    Covenant

    Series A · $250M · Houston · 8VC, Andreessen Horowitz

    29 roles76

How we rank

Each month we score every startup that closed a venture round (pre-seed through Series C) in the previous 180 days, has at least 3 open roles, has raised under $2B in total and has fewer than 1,000 people. The score runs from 0 to 100 and mixes five signals:

  • Hiring momentum (30%). New roles posted in the last 30 days, relative to team size and in absolute terms, from the company's own hiring system. Companies closing more roles than they open are marked down.
  • Round strength (25%). How the round compares with other rounds at the same stage. A $15M seed is a strong signal; a $15M Series B is not.
  • Investors (20%). Whether a top-tier firm (Sequoia, a16z, Accel, Benchmark, Founders Fund, Khosla, Index, General Catalyst, Y Combinator and about 50 others) backed the company, otherwise how many investors did.
  • Traction (15%). Crunchbase rank, which reflects web traffic, news coverage and activity.
  • Freshness (10%). How recently the round closed. New money means new headcount plans.

The list is published on the 1st of each month and doesn't change afterwards; open-role counts are live. It's a signal of momentum, not an endorsement or a guarantee. Nobody pays to be on it.

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