Great businesses can be launched any time, even when there's a downturn in funding.
While 2016 might have spelled trouble for some well-established startups, it also saw the birth of companies tackling things like a cure for cancer, life-saving drones, and competition for Uber.
Business Insider spoke to founders and venture capitalists and took a look at funding data to identify some of the startups that had the biggest starts in 2016. Some names on the list are officially launching out of stealth, while others are still in their early months of forming a company.
Here are 27 of the top startups that launched in 2016.
SEE ALSO: 33 startups to watch in 2017, according to VC investors
Grail wants to develop a test for cancer at the earliest possible stage.
What is it: Illumina, the maker of DNA-sequencing technology, teamed up with a group of Silicon Valley investors to develop a blood test for any kind of cancer at an earlier stage than previously possible.
Using Illumina's technology, a new company called Grail will look for a way to measure circulating nucleic acids — bits of DNA that circulate in the blood outside blood cells. While most of our DNA is inside our cells, scientists use CNAs to test for cancer and other diseases noninvasively. Its ambitious mission: Develop a universal cancer-screening test.
Funding: $100 million from investors, including Arch Venture Partners, Bezos Expeditions, Bill Gates, and Sutter Hill Ventures. Illumina remains majority shareholder.
Website:grailbio.com
Allbirds invented an all-wool shoe that has quickly become a cult favorite in tech.
What is it: Called the world's most comfortable shoe by venture capitalists, Allbirds debuted its first pair of all-wool sneakers in March 2016. Allbirds uses merino wool from its founders' home country of New Zealand that's then processed in Milan, Italy. The result is a shoe so incredibly comfortable that Business Insider staffers swear they're like slippers made of clouds.
Funding: $9.95 million from Lerer Hippeau Ventures and Maveron, among others.
Website:allbirds.com
Lemonade is selling you insurance in a whole new way.
What is it: Lemonade, an insurance startup, launched from stealth in September with its first product: peer-to-peer homeowner's and renter's insurance in New York. Lemonade sells rental insurance policies for as little as $5 a month, and home insurance for as low as $35 a month (your policy rates may vary). Its business is conducted entirely online via an app. There are no human insurance brokers, and no plans to ever use them. But where most insurance companies pocket the money you pay as profits, less any claims paid, Lemonade takes a straight 20% cut of the policy rate as its share. And if your group pays more collectively than it uses as claims for the year, Lemonade donates the money to a charity of your choice (from your kid's school to an established charity).
Funding: $60 million from Sequoia and Aleph.
Website: lemonade.com
See the rest of the story at Business Insider