Methodology

The methodology for ET30 is based on our research team’s work in startups and venture capital since 2001. Companies cannot apply, pay, or lobby for placement in the ET30. The ET30 is conducted in partnership with a rare group of venture capitalists, and it is our privilege at Wing to work with our colleagues in the industry. The participants span early-, mid-, late-, and multi-stage investment firms, with successful backgrounds and substantial reach in enterprise technology. Collectively, the venture capital firms have invested in 87% of the $1B+ exits and unicorns in enterprise technology since January 2016.

The original candidate list of companies was built through four research sources: 1) companies who received six or more votes in last year’s ET30, 2) a data science analysis of 20,000+ startups based on the prior five years’ ET30 results, 3) multiple PitchBook queries from PitchBook’s company universe of venture-backed companies, 4) Wing’s primary research in identifying, reviewing, and meeting with private companies, and 5) recommendations from the venture capitalists and corporate development heads. 70% of the data signals in ET30 are venture capitalists’ votes on companies outside of their portfolios.