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15 companies that will change the worldThese game-changing startups are likely to upend existing industries - and spawn new entrepreneurial opportunities.By Erick Schonfeld and Chris Morrison, Business 2.0 Magazine
Schuler wants Raydiance lasers to replace standard cutting tools in every industry, from lumberyards to aerospace factories.
Raydiance
CEO: Barry SchulerDisruption: Lasers that cut without heating surrounding material Disrupted: The entire laser industry -- medicine, aerospace, and beyond Raydiance's ultrashort pulse laser is more accurate than the standard fare in the industry, and when properly tuned, it can blast away at anything from a hunk of steel to a single cancer cell. Though researchers have been using USP lasers since 1989, they've been unmanageably large and notoriously difficult to operate - but Raydiance has managed to shrink its product down to the size of a microwave.
Expensr's Child and Gupta figure that a free financial Web app - and some social smarts - can save you a lot of money.
Expensr
CEO: Reman Child and Shawn Gupta (founders)Disruption: Simple, straightforward financial planning Disrupted: Today, makers of personal finance software. Tomorrow, the credit industry Combine the utility of software like Quicken with the social power of Web 2.0, and you have Expensr - a free online service that tracks your budget and spending habits, then shows you how you're doing compared to your peers. "That's the idea behind the social network," says co-founder Shawn Gupta, "to help you do better by making you aware of what other people like you are doing."
Zipcar's Griffith is turning self-serve auto rental into a viable alternative to car ownership.
Zipcar
CEO: Scott GriffithDisruption: Self-serve hourly car rental in urban neighborhoods Disrupted: Car dealers and traditional rental agencies There are no service clerks, no paper contracts, no lines. With Zipcar, you pay a $50 annual membership, then go online to see what cars are available near you. When you get to the car, swipe your wireless ID card to get in, and the keys are inside. You pay a usage fee that runs $8 to $15 per hour. Zipcar is profitable in cities where it has been operating more than two years, including Boston, New York, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., and it's ahead of competitors like Flexcar and City CarShare.
CEO Free is excited about a patent MFG.com filed earlier this year for predicting the prices of manufactured parts.
MFG.com
CEO: Mitch FreeDisruption: An online exchange for the manufacturing industry Disrupted: Manufacturers' reps, parts brokers, and trading houses MFG.com is rapidly becoming the eBay of manufacturing. In the past 12 months, $2 billion worth of gears, molds and machined parts were sourced and traded on the site. To participate, sellers pay an annual fee of $6,000 on average, and buyers pay nothing. Buyers describe the part they want and submit digital renderings, and industrial suppliers bid for the business. The site is on track to make $25 million in revenue, and book its first profit, this year.
With Virgin's online reservation system, Duffy aims to make booking a charter jet as easy as flying commercial.
Virgin Charter
CEO: Scott DuffyDisruption: Online reservations for the budding air-taxi business Disrupted: Commercial airlines Air taxis - tiny, short-hop planes that are so affordable that business fliers can charter them whenever they want - are taking off. Virgin Charter, majority-owned by Richard Branson, aims to be the Expedia for this new market. By creating a portal that connects travelers to charter operators, most of whom are mom-and-pop shops, the company plans to bring more revenue into the industry, reduce the cost of operating air charter services, and waste less jet fuel.
Ben Heywood helps patients help themselves by connecting them to each other.
PatientsLikeMe
CEO: Ben Heywood (President)Disruption: An online community where patients discuss and track medical conditions Disrupted: The health-care industry, medical research There's plenty of basic data about diseases on the Internet, but there are few central repositories for firsthand accounts about what living with those diseases was like. PatientsLikeMe consolidates such personal accounts and helps patients track their progress. The deep and engaged community has only a few thousand members, but is already a boon to medical researchers; access to such communities of patients is a fast bypass around restrictive privacy rules.
Bloom Energy
CEO: K.R. SridharDisruption: Energy generators in homes and businesses Disrupted: Electric utilities The company's vision is to use solid-oxide fuel cells to allow homes to generate their own electricity. The fuel cells would use (but not burn) hydrocarbon fuel, and produce just half the carbon dioxide that today's power plants do. One fuel cell should be enough to serve a home; homes could sell excess power back to the grid. Bloom Energy's biggest hurdle is cost. It needs to get the price of its machines below $10,000 apiece.
Vanu Bose wants to break down communications barriers.
Vanu
CEO: Vanu BoseDisruption: Software that allows mobile networks to accommodate devices with different standards Disrupted: Wireless network providers and equipment makers As any frustrated U.S. cell phone switcher knows, one carrier's phones often won't work on another carrier's network. That's because some use different wireless standards - the two dominant ones are GSM and CDMA. Vanu Bose, son of the audio equipment inventor, is selling equipment that could change all that. Vanu's software-defined radio uses Linux servers to help tear down the communication barriers.
Caswell is taking the ink out of color printing, making mobile prints a snap for cameras and cell phones.
Zink
CEO: Wendy Caswell
David Vieau is betting that the popularity of hybrid vehicles will help charge sales of A123's lithium-ion batteries.
A123 Systems
The leading battery technology - lithium-ion - has not changed in a decade. A123 holds patents for smaller, lighter lithium-ions with significantly longer lives. A123 batteries are installed in hybrid buses worldwide and will enter consumer hybrids in 2010.
Renewable Energy Group
Biodiesel delivers around 50 percent more miles per gallon than ethanol. REG, an offshoot of an Iowa farm co-op, makes biodiesel from soybeans. It has 40 percent of the market and a distribution deal with Safeway.
At $5,000, Desktop Factory's 3-D printer can undercut the competition.
Desktop Factory
The cost of rapid prototyping machines is already plummeting. Now San Francisco startup Desktop Factory is set to bring out a $5,000 3-D printer, undercutting competitors by 75 percent.
Light-emitting diodes manufactured by Cree are more energy-efficient.
Cree
Sure, compact fluorescent lightbulbs are energy savers, but they also contain mercury. Cree is the leading maker of light-emitting diodes, which are less hazardous and even more energy-efficient. Toronto and Raleigh, N.C., are already installing Cree LEDs in streetlamps and parking garages.
Negroponte's new $176 laptops can provide connectivity to the Third World, and can also disrupt the industry.
One laptop per child
It isn't just Third World kids who will benefit now that Nicholas Negroponte's venture is producing its $176 laptops. The machine's innovations, such as Wi-Fi mesh networks and a power system that consumes 90 percent less electricity than standard laptops, could affect the rest of the industry.
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Chandratillake wants Blinkx to become the Google of Web video by placing contextual ads inside clips.
Blinkx
CEO: Suranga Chandratillake
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