Top Social Impact Startups to Watch (and Work for) in 2023

• As of June 2023, Birdies has donated 54,000 pairs of shoes.

• As of June 2023, Birdies has 223K Instagram followers, 69K Facebook followers, and 802 Twitter followers.

• In April 2021, Birdies reported 300% YoY growth.

• In 2018, Birdies had a waitlist of 30,000 people.

• In 2015, Birdies sold 1,800 pairs of shoes to friends and family.

• As of June 2023, Cotopaxi has 326K Instagram followers, 179K Facebook followers, 26.5K TikTok followers, and 10.7K Youtube subscribers.

• As of September 2021, Cotopaxi has awarded 36 focused grants and assisted 822,000 impoverished individuals.

• As of September 2021, Cotopaxi incorporated recycled product compounds into 94% of its products.

• In 2020, Cotopaxi reported ~$30 million in revenue.

• As of May 2023, KiwiCo has shipped over 40 million Kiwi Crates.

• As of May 2023, KiwiCo has designed 2,000 projects.

• As of August 2021, KiwiCo has shipped more than 25 million Kiwi Crates to kids in 40 countries.

• In 2018, KiwiCo was on track for $100 million in revenue.

• Watershed’s customers, including BlackRock, Shopify, Stripe, DoorDash, Spotify, Okta, and Airbnb, manage more than 20 million tonnes of CO2e per year (4x the carbon footprint of San Francisco) through the platform. 

• In February 2022, Watershed acquired VitalMetrics, the world’s most comprehensive multi-regional greenhouse gas emission database.

• As of June 2023, Mill claims a 24-hour or less compost conversion process.

• As of June 2023, Commonwealth Fusion Systems has completed phase 1, Alcator C-Mod: Plasma Physics Basics, phase 2, HTS Magnets: Enabling Technology, and is in the process of completing phase 3, SPARC: Fusion Energy Demonstration.

• In June 2023, Commonwealth Fusion Systems was awarded money from the US Department of Energy.

• As of June 2023, Commonwealth Fusion Systems claims their magnets allow them to create 60x smaller, more affordable fusion reactors.

• As of June 2023, Loam claims its biotechnology can potentially remove up to 8.5 gigatons of CO2 annually.

• As of February 2023, Loam has sown 6,000 individual trial plots across 29 locations in 2 countries. Data from the trial plots indicate that the farmers could increase carbon units per hectare by 3x-6x, up from 0-2x, via other land management practices.

• As of June 2023, Pachama has already protected 2.6 million football fields worth of forests through offsetting emissions on its platform.

• As of May 2022, Pachama has 800 customers, including Shopify, Flexport, Salesforce, Workday, Microsoft, Netflix, Airbnb, SoftBank, Glovo, Athletic Greens, Autodesk, Mercado Libre, Vuori, and Shopify.

• As of October 2022, Electra claims its electrochemical process to refine iron ore to high-purity iron has lowered the process temperature from 1,600 (69% of steel is made at this temperature) to 60 degrees Celsius.

• As of June 2023, Zero Acre Farms claims its cooking oil saves 222 sq. feet of land compared to olive oil.

• As of June 2023, Zero Acre Farms has 16.6K Instagram followers, 5.5K Twitter followers, and 763 Facebook followers.

• As of June 2023, Charm Industrial has removed 6,200 tons of carbon and has 140,000 tons of deals with JP Morgan Chase and Frontier.

• Charm Industrial counts JP Morgan Chase, Frontier, Stripe, Microsoft, Alphabet, and Meta as customers.

• As of June 2023, Solugen claims its specialty chemicals can avoid 6 tons of CO2 emissions per ton of hydrogen peroxide.

• As of November 2022, Solugen’s Bioforge is running a nearly nine-figure business with high margins.

• As of June 2023, Mosa Meat claims its meat produces 96% fewer emissions than conventional beef.

• In 2020, Mosa Meta reported an 88x cost reduction in their animal-free medium. 

• In July 2021, Heart Aerospace received an order purchase for 200 of its inaugural ES-19 electric aircraft from United Airlines and Mesa Air Group.

• As of July 2021, Heart Aerospace claims its ES-19 electric motor is 20x less expensive than an equivalent turboprop, and maintenance costs will be reduced by 100x.

• As of May 2023, SpaceX has 230 total launches, 191 total landings, and 165 total reflights.

• As of May 2023, SpaceX has launched 1272 metric tons of payload into various orbits.

• In 2022, SpaceX completed 61 launches.

• As of June 2023, Lilac Solutions claims its technology is 5,000x faster and recovers 2x more resources at a 50% lower cost.

• In 2022, construction began on the 1PointFive, Carbon Engineering’s US partner commercial facility, which will use Carbon Engineering technology and is expected to capture 500,000 tonnes of CO2 per annum.

• In April 2023, NewLimit completed its first partial reprogramming screen in human T cells from healthy young and old donors.

• In February 2023, NewLimit made several improvements to its Delivery Engine, and it’s now  >100X more efficient than its initial manufacturing runs in 2022.

• Loyal’s team has published 152 papers, worked on 56 clinical drug programs, and combined for 192 years of research.

• Loyal received protocol concurrence from the FDA for its companion dog longevity study.

• Rewind AI’s DAU/MAU is 63%, much higher than the standard benchmark of 10%-20%.

• Rewind AI netted 1,000 introductory offers from investors and 170 actual offers, resulting in its Series A at a $350 million valuation.

• The company went from 0 to $727K in ARR in 2023.

• In March 2021, more than 40% of partners of Whisper AI wearers claimed to understand conversations better.

• Whisper AI was an honorable mention for Fast Company’s World Changing Ideas 2021 Award.

• 69% of Papa members reduce reduced loneliness, 45% better health, and >90% credit Papa as a reason for staying with their current health plan.

• Papa serves members in all 50+ states.

• Papa is available to over 65 health plans, including Medicare Advantage and Medicaid.

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• In 2023, biomodal launched a new duet multiomics solution to sequence genetics and epigenetics in one workflow simultaneously.

• In 2023, biomodal’s CEGX team was published in Nature Biotechnology.

• As of June 2023, Uncommon claims its technology can produce 80% less CO2 emissions per pound of pork.

• As of June 2023, Epoch can sequence 100 trillion enzyme variants per hour.

• As of June 2023, Formo claims its process avoids 9 tons of CO2 per ton of cheese.

• In a study conducted with the University of Bath, Formo concluded that 78% of consumers are likely or definitely likely to buy animal-free dairy cheese when it's available from a sample of 5,000 people.

• Notable’s predictive precision medicine platform identifies responders with 92% accuracy in a study conducted at Stanford in 2020.

• As of May 2023, NBL-001, a molecule in Notable’s pipeline, is at phase 1 for acute myeloid leukemia (AML) indication, preclinical for pediatric leukemia indication, and preclinical for solid tumors indication.

• As of May 2023, Fosciclopirox, a molecule in Notable’s pipeline, is pre-clinical for AML indication.

• In April 2023, Ossium Health won a $3.46 million grant from the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine. 

• Cellworks Computational Omics Biology Model has a network of 7,000+ human genes, 30,000+ molecular species, and 100+ signaling pathways.

• In 2022, Cellworks won The Challengers Innovative Business of the Year Award by Dell Technologies.

• As of June 2023, Cerebelly has 54.1K Instagram followers and 6.2K Facebook followers.

• As of March 2023, Cerebelly is available in 8,200 retail stores, up from 7,600 in December 2022, including Amazon, Thrive Market, Target, Wegmans, Meijer, Whole Foods, and Giant Eagle.

• As of June 2023, Propel has rated 4.8/5 stars from 439K reviews on the Google Play Store and 4.8/5 stars from 252.6K reviews on the Apple App Store.

• As of March 2022, Propel has 5 million monthly active users.

• As of May 2023, Binti has helped 44,000 families foster/adopt a child's approval.

• As of May 2023, 10,000 social workers use Binti.

• As of May 2023, Binti claims it has increased the family approval rate by 30%.

• As of June 2023, Outschool reported 140,000 live online classes, 1 million learnings, 14 million class hours, and $229 million in teacher earnings.

• As of June 2023, Outschool’s org for financial assistance, Outschool.org, has delivered $4 million in grants and direct-to-family support and has supported 32,000 learners since 2020.

• From October 2020 to October 2021, Outschool reported increasing bookings by 1,500%.

• As of June 2023, Masterclass has reported 180+ instructors and classes on the platform.

• As of June 2023, Masterclass has distributed Masterclass content to 150,000+ currently or formerly incarcerated individuals and sent 345,000+ free annual memberships to underserved communities and 919 organizations.

• As of June 2023, CookUnity has rated 4.8/5 stars from 3.7K reviews on the Apple App Store and 2/5 stars from 63 reviews on the Google Play Store.

• As of June 2023, CookUnity has 50,000+ subscribers, 7 kitchens, 80 chefs, 430 weekly recipes, and 10 million meals annually.

• In 2022, CookUnity donated 50,000+ lbs of food.

• From September 2020 to September 2021, CookUnity reported 550% growth.