Interactive map of the companies on our Top Ten Startups. Click here for full version

Source: Google Maps

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We’re back with an updated list of the top ten startups in the world of greentech. We’d first considered incremental changes – nudging our first ten up or down based on their past couple quarters’ worth of progress or setback, and maybe adding one or two if some of our original choices looked flat. But the more we looked at the list the more we felt it didn’t quite capture the evolution of the greentech market. For those companies that didn’t stay on, don’t take it personally. This list is our place to showcase where we think the market is headed – electric vehicles, the smart grid, and technologies that address market fundamentals. We were looking for companies that have impressed us over the past six months with their ability to raise capital, land major contracts, hit major development milestones, get good press (or fight off bad press), and execute like champions.

A few companies survived to make it to this round, but that’s it. We were looking for new reps of the greentech revolution, and we found them. In fact we found far more than ten. The hard part in this market is winnowing down a long list of exciting companies to ten. We started with this:

• Energy Efficiency, Demand Response, Advanced Metering, Green IT
  • Fat Spaniel
  • GridPoint
  • Powerit Solutions
  • Silver Spring Networks
  • SmartSynch
  • Verdiem
• Storage and Portable Energy Tech
  • Enstorage
  • Deeya Energy
  • Bloom Energy
  • A123 Systems
• Solar
  • Ausra
  • Brightsource
  • Concentrix
  • Global Solar
  • HelioVolt
  • Innovalight
  • Nanosolar
  • Odersun
  • Recurrent Energy
  • Solaicx
  • SolFocus
  • Suniva
  • SV Solar
• Efficient Lighting
  • LED Lighting Fixtures
  • Luminus Devices
• Transportation
  • Project Better Place
  • THINK
  • Tesla
  • Transonic Combustion
• Other Renewable Energy Technologies
  • AltaRock Energy
  • BioPower Systems
• Biofuels
  • Amyris
  • Ceres
  • LS9
  • Zeachem
  • Coskata

Our heads spun at the thought of cutting this down to ten, especially when we could have confidently taken ten solar startups and been done with it. But this is one of the more enjoyable parts of the job here, so over a few lunches we were ready to send our ten choices to print. Our criteria is fairly straightforward:

1. Are you executing?
2. Is your team world-class?
3. Do you have the potential to lead your market?
4. Are you altering the debate in your space?
5. Are large customers taking notice, making commitments?
6. What is the chance you will embarrass us in the future by failing?

The folks involved here in picking this list include Scott Clavenna, Rick Thompson, Eric Wesoff, and Daniel Englander. The reporters abstained, as did sales. So the list is solidly, unequivocally an opinion piece, albeit the opinions of four people who’ve spent a lot of time studying the greentech market, these companies, and thinking about what it takes to be a real game-changing startup in greentech.

With that, we present our list. Click here for #10.