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The companies that create the foundational technologies that enable other companies progress are embracing AI, of course. But thats only part of the story. These honorees made big progress in 2025 on quantum computing, battery science, and other fronts. AIStormFor giving sensors the power of neural networks AIStorms technology pushes AI to the edge of computing experiences by allowing sensors to run neural networksa feat with applications everywhere from consumer electronics to factory-floor robotics. The company has a deal with Audioscenic to put latency-free, position-adaptive 3D sound in laptops, monitors, and soundbars starting in 2026. AlediaFor charting a bright future for AR glassesFor AR glasses to have a shot at catching on, they need display technology thats compact, power-efficient, and capable of rendering bright imagery. Aledias 3D nanowire microLEDs emit red, green, and blue light from a single chipa key to achieving those goals. To ensure scalable quality control, the company has invested $200 million in its own manufacturing line in Grenoble, France. ClassiqFor helping experts harness quantum computings advancesAs quantum computings potential to blaze through algorithms that classical computers cant tackle at all edges toward reality, its time to think about implementing specific applications in a range of domains. Domain experts at companies such as BMW, Rolls-Royce, and Deloitte use Classiqs Qmod functional modeling language to design programs. Deep knowledge of quantum computing is not required. And the results run on cloud platforms from Amazon, Google, IBM, and Microsoft. D-WaveFor showing what quantum computing can do right nowThe future of quantum computers is all about getting the technology out of the lab and into the real world. Available both as a cloud service and in an on-premises form, D-Waves sixth-generation Advantage2 computer packs more than 4,400 qubits, the building blocks of quantum computings unprecedented capabilities. Customers such as defense contractor Davidson Technologies are already using the Advantage2, whose annealing technology sets it apart from the more common gate-based designs used by other quantum computer manufacturers. In March, D-Wave reported that the Advantage2 performed a calculation job that would have taken the U.S. Department of Energys Frontier supercomputer almost a million years to complete. EnovixFor building a battery for the AI eraThanks in part to AI, devices such as smartphones, headsets, and smart glasses are rapidly evolving. But most are still dependent on lithium-ion batteries, a technology that long ago plateauedand, under certain circumstance, can be dangerous. Enovixs fully active silicon anode batteries house strips of silicon in a steel container, overcoming the risk of swelling and damage thats inherent to lithium-ion battery design. The company, whose next-generation EX-2M battery offers 22% more energy density than lithium-ion, says it has agreements with large manufacturers of smartphones, mixed-reality headsets, and IoT products to adopt its batteries in upcoming devices. The companies and individuals behind these technologies are among the honorees in Fast Companys Next Big Things in Tech awards for 2025. Read more about the winners across all categories and the methodology behind the selection process.
Category:
E-Commerce
A smooth retail experience depends on efficient shipping and hassle-free purchases, two elements that can create significant cost implications for retailers. These honorees in the commerce category are developing infrastructure that can make more efficient use of freight trucks, streamline theft detection, and ease the checkout process in warehouse club environments. Flock FreightFor reducing inefficiency in truckloadsWhen it comes to freight trucks, wasted space is wasted money. Flock Freight estimates that the equivalent of one in three trucks runs empty because of inefficient deck-space utilization. The Certified B Corporation has built on its patented Shared Truckload technology, a kind of demand-side carpooling for boxes, with STL AddOns, which allow suppliers to dynamically add their compatible shipments even after a truck is en route, reducing costs for shippers and carriers while cutting emissions. One trucking customer says STL AddOns helped it achieve an 88% increase in earnings. Sams ClubFor automating the receipt-checking processThe popularity of warehouse clubs often leads to long lines as staffers ensure that customers items appear on the receipt. To speed things along, Walmarts Sams Club has leveraged an array of cameras that point down at shoppers carts and use a proprietary computer vision algorithm that identities items using shape, size, color, and branding markers. The results are matched against a customers digital receipt within 400 milliseconds, eliminating the historic wait time when departing the store. Toshiba Global Commerce SolutionsFor reducing retail shrink without hassling shoppersRetailers lose $100 billion to shoplifting, fraud, and just plain checkout error. The Toshiba Global Commerce Solutions ELERA Security Suite uses edge AI to help guard against this shrink at self-checkout lanes, produce scales, and grocery carts without bogging down the shopping process. The system also uses AI to help customers more easily ring up their own ordersby, for example, detecting the kind of unpackaged produce being checked out. In Toshibas 2024 fiscal year, ELERA processed more than 25 million transactions. The companies and individuals behind these technologies are among the honorees in Fast Companys Next Big Things in Tech awards for 2025. Read more about the winners across all categories and the methodology behind the selection process.
Category:
E-Commerce
Construction and real estate are in a challenging moment, with prices beyond reach for many buyers and little sign of near-term relief. Still, several recent breakthroughs could bring the goal of homeownership closer for more Americans, while other innovations focus on providing shelter for those who might otherwise go without. BeewiseFor a buzzy way to help resurrect the bee populationHoneybee colonies in the United States could decline by as much as 70% in 2025, according to researchers at Washington State University. Beewise aims to counter that trend with the BeeHome, an autonomous hive that manages routine tasks and helps commercial beekeepers reduce colony losses. The system also considers human interaction, limiting nuisance when hives are placed near populated areas. Through Beewises app, beekeepers can monitor colonies with high-resolution cameras, track health metrics, and rely on AI and robotics to address problems in real time. Cuby TechnologiesFor offering a possible solution for the housing crisisBy blending automation and modular manufacturing, Cuby can set up a housing factory in under two months and then produce 200 code-compliant homes every 30 days. Those domiciles are delivered at a 40% cost savings and with 80% less wasteand come with aerospace-level tolerances, making them a lot more durable than prefabricated homes. It’s more than theoretical: Cuby is already building homes in Eastern Europe and has deployed a facility outside of Las Vegas that will create 1,890 homes in the next 11 years. iGuideFor making it easier for online home shoppers to narrow their listOnline listings have become a crucial part of the home-buying process, with shoppers looking for ways to evaluate properties efficiently. iGuide gives real estate professionals tools to create virtual tours and detailed floor plans, and the company says the technology can shorten sales timelines by up to 39%. The system relies on a 360-degree lidar-equipped camera from Planix that lets agents capture a property in full during a single visit. Multiply MortgageFor making houses a little bit less expensive for buyersWith mortgage rates at 10-year highs and housing prices increasingly out of reach for first-time buyers, Multiply Mortgage offers a tool that can reduce loan interest rates by nearly a full percentage point. The platform uses AI to automate tasks such as document review, underwriting, and compliance checks, passing along savings that can lower rates by up to 0.75%. Borrowers are also paired with mortgage advisers for guidance throughout the process. The companies and individuals behind these technologies are among the honorees in Fast Companys Next Big Things in Tech awards for 2025. Read more about the winners across all categories and the methodology behind the selection process.
Category:
E-Commerce
Even as digital and physical threats reach record levels, advances in security and privacy are giving us stronger defenses than ever before. New tools can now scan the wireless spectrum to flag hidden risks, protect faces and voices from AI misuse, map out who has access to sensitive data in real time, and guard large language models against prompt injection and data leaks. Together, these innovations are reshaping how we safeguard both our information and our personal safety. Bastille NetworksFor keeping tabs on airborne threatsWireless signals are more crowded than ever, from Bluetooth and Wi-Fi to 5G and beyondand the data they carry is as valuable as anything sent over fiber. That makes them an appealing target for attackers. Bastilles platform uses software-defined radio and AI to map the wireless environment in real time, detect threats, and trigger instant alerts while integrating with major security platforms such as XDR, CAASM, SIEM, SOAR, and Zero Trust systems. Based in Santa Cruz, California, the company holds 34 patents, with more pending, and has tripled its annual recurring revenue in the past year. Its customers include Fortune 500 firms, government agencies, and military units, with deployments already protecting 5 million square feet of intelligence community facilities. In its most recent Series C round, Goldman Sachs joined Bessemer Venture Partners to invest $44 million. Loti AIFor helping people control their name, image, and likeness in the AI eraHow do you keep control over your face in the age of AI? Loti AI does it at scale with a massive network of tens of thousands of servers that collectively scan everything uploaded to the internet each day. The three-year-old Seattle-based company’s system combines large-scale web crawling; multimodal detection across voice, image, and video; and an automated rights-enforcement layer tailored to the entertainment and media industry. Loti AI reports a 95% takedown success rate within 17 hours. With regulatory momentum from the proposed No Fakes Act, $16 million in new funding from Khosla Ventures, and partnerships across media and security, the company has also launched a free app for individuals. PangeaFor keeping LLMs safe and secureAs companies adopt LLMs and AI-driven applications, protecting the data flowing through them has become a critical concern. Pangeas AI Guard acts as a proxy that developers can access via API, sitting between applications and the LLM or agent to defend against advanced prompt injection attacks such as token smuggling and multilingual exploits. Its suite of toolsincluding sensors and a Chrome extensionlets administrators monitor for sensitive-data leakage while applying native access controls for agentic and RAG systems. To keep latency low, Pangea uses smaller LLMs to flag malicious or inappropriate content and prevent confidential data from entering models. The four-year-old startup, which pivoted from cloud security after the rise of ChatGPT, was acquired by security giant CrowdStrike in September 2025. VezaFor monitoring access and privileges in real timeAs apps, databases, and agents proliferate, companies are hard-pressed to know who has access to what, what they can do with that access, and whether they should even have it. While traditional identity governance tools rely on static roles and manual processes, Veza’s “identity security platform” looks at authorization metadata in real timethe data that governs what users and machines can actually do across apps, infrastructure, and data systems, from AWS and Salesforce to Active Directory and Snowflaketo build a dynamic graph of permissions across human and nonhuman identities. That hands admins more fine-grained visibility and control through risk detection, least privilege analysis, just-in-time access, and real-time access reviews. Founded five years ago in Los Gatos, California, Veza more than doubled sales last year and raised $108 million this spring in a round backed by Atlassian, Snowflake, and Workday, valuing the company at $800 million. The companies and individuals behind these technologies are among the honorees in Fast Companys Next Big Things in Tech awards for 2025. Read more about the winners across all categories and the methodology behind the selection process.
Category:
E-Commerce
These companies arent bigbut theyre bringing new ideas to some thorny challenges. Kids have been crafting with cardboard for decades, but Chompshop has found a way to make it safer and more fun. Online clothes shopping has long been a bit hit or miss, but Veesuals found a way to maximize the number of hits. And GoodMaps and Overture Maps have tackled longstanding navigation problems. ChompshopFor making kids cardboard crafts safer and more funCheap, abundant cardboard is great for kids art and science projects, but its often hard to trim with scissors. Chompshop has developed a kid-safe power tool specifically designed for this versatile material. While its called a ChompSaw and looks like a table saw, its based on a protected hole-punch mechanism that keeps childrens hands safe. After a successful Kickstarter campaign and Shark Tank appearance, the company has sold more than 17,000 ChompSaws since its October 2024 launch. GoodMapsFor helping people navigate indoors as easily as on the roadNavigating indoor spaces like airports and museums can be complicated, especially as GPS-style assistance is typically not available. GoodMaps developed an AI-powered system letting venue operators scan and map facilities using just an iPhone. A GoodMaps Studio application lets operators customize maps and guidance. The platform has been embraced by airports from London Heathrow to Dallas Fort Worth International, as well as institutions such as Ohio’s Armstrong Air & Space Museum. Overture MapsFor setting the standard for unifying messy map dataA collaborative open-data initiative founded by Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, and TomTom and embraced by other big names such as Esri, Tripadvisor, and Uber, Overture Maps built an identification system for more than 3 billion global locations thats as unique as the human fingerprint. Its Global Entity Reference System makes it clear that Toms Diner is (or isnt) the same location as Toms Restaurant, whichever app or dataset youre working with. GERS can also benefit governments tracking data like car accidents and serve autonomous cars needing clear navigational information. VeesualFor letting online shoppers get an accurate view before they buy clothesOnline clothes shopping is notoriously hit-or-miss. While some companies have developed virtual AI models, they can distort the look of garments and the body itself. Veesual created an alternative, physics-informed approach, displaying clothes as theyd actually appear on a range of models and letting customers see how theyll look on someone like them. The startup has worked with brands such as Eileen Fisher, Lululemon, and Adore Me, and it raised a $7.5 million seed round in 2024. The companies and individuals behind these technologies are among the honorees in Fast Companys Next Big Things in Tech awards for 2025. Read more about the winners across all categories and the methodology behind the selection process.
Category:
E-Commerce
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