2016 is just around the corner and it's time to predict which startups will take the tech industry by storm.
Who better to ask than the startup experts, the VCs that watch them, guide them, hear their pitches, and fund them?
So we reached out to a handful of top VCs and asked them which of their young or growth-stage startups did they think were going to boom in 2016.
We also asked them which startups outside their portfolios they expected to boom in 2016.
They sent us this list of startups from every corner of the tech market: from consumer to enterprise, from big data to men's clothing.
SEE ALSO: The 50 best places to work in 2016, according to employees
Vulcun: Fantasy leagues for eSports pro video games
Company name:Vulcun
VC: Sequoia's Aaref Hilaly
Relationship: VC is an investor.
Funding: $13.3 million
What it does: Vulcun is a fantasy league for eSports (aka pro video games).
Reason:"If you are not a teenager, you may not have heard of 'e-sports,' meaning competitive multi-player video gaming where teams compete against each other for prizes,"says Hilaly.
"But it's become a phenomenon: more people watch the finals of tournaments for League of Legends or Counter-Strike, than any sporting event other than the Super Bowl. Vulcun is capitalizing on this trend by enabling e-sports participants to trade skins (digital goods)," Hilaly says.
Confluent: A new leader among open-source software companies
Company name:Confluent
VC: Sequoia's Aaref Hilaly and Lightspeed Venture Partners' Arif Janmohamed
Relationship: No relation. These VCs just think it's cool.
Funding:$30.9 million
What it does: Confluent offers a commercial version of an open-source project called Kafka, a computer "messaging" system that handles bits of data computers send to each other.
Reason:"Ask any developer, and they will wax lyrical about Kafka, the open source distributed messaging system. The team behind Kafka left LinkedIn and created Confluent, an open core company built around Kafka which, along with others like Docker and MongoDB, are becoming the leaders among a new generation of open source companies," Hilaly says.
"The team invented Kafka, the leading streaming data platform and is commercializing it for the enterprise," adds Janmohamed.
VarageSale: a virtual garage sale with your neighbors
Company name:VarageSale
VC: Sequoia's Bryan Schreier
Relationship: VC is an investor.
Funding: $68 million
What it does: Take eBay and make it local. That's what VarageSale does: let's people buy, sell and connect with others in their neighborhoods.
Reason:"VarageSale unlocks local person-to-person transactions so anyone can buy and sell low cost items without friction. VarageSale's app is fun, fast, and engaging. And most of all, VarageSale's trusted community approach makes it the safest place to buy, sell, and be together on the Internet," Schreier says.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider