Mattermark measures industry growth by looking at the growth of individual startups, taking into account monthly unique website visitors, weekly mobile downloads, social media metrics, number of employees, and equity funding. This ranking comes from the Mattermark 2014 Startup Traction Report, released last December (get it for $99). They used data from public sources like Crunchbase, AngelList, NASDAQ, the SEC, and the White House Office of Management & Budget, as well as private relationships they have with investors and entrepreneurs. Everything was measured for the 2014 fiscal year, which covers October 2013-September 2014. As you’ll see from the list below, many of these industries – except perhaps Internet of things – don’t seem particularly new or hot. Sex tech and cannabis might be the hyped-up sectors, but it’s staples like analytics and finance that are getting the most funding, hiring the most employees, and growing the fastest (the ranking only looks at the 20 highest-funded industries). The 10 sectors below can be lucrative areas to work in, but you’ll also find lots of competition there. Your peers are growing, too, and if you don’t keep up, you’ll be left behind. Here are the top 10 fastest-growing startup industries in 2014:
1. Cloud computing
Growth score: 166 Monthly employee growth: 8%
2. Analytics
Growth score: 133 Monthly employee growth: 9%
3. Finance
Growth score: 123 Monthly employee growth: 11%
4. Internet of things
Growth score: 121 Monthly employee growth: 10%
5. Enterprise software
Growth score: 118 Monthly employee growth: 8%
6. Software development
Growth score: 118 Monthly employee growth: 10%
7. Education
Growth score: 90 Monthly employee growth: 14%
8. Marketing
Growth score: 90 Monthly employee growth: <5%
9. Advertising
Growth score: 88 Monthly employee growth: 10%
10. Security
Growth score: 75 Monthly employee growth: 8% Image credit: Flickr / Dave Herholz
