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LinkedIn’s 2025 Top Startups in the United States list includes three companies from the Seattle area: Kirkland cybersecurity company Chainguard at No. 18, Seattle go-to-market software maker Common Room at No. 21, and Bellevue healthcare-data company Truveta at No. 42. The ranking measures talent growth and attention on LinkedIn—not revenue, valuation, profitability or investment returns.
The national list, reported by GeekWire on October 15, 2025, is separate from LinkedIn’s Seattle metropolitan ranking published later in October.
The three Seattle-area companies on LinkedIn’s national list
“Seattle area” covers the broader Puget Sound region here. Only Common Room is headquartered in Seattle proper; Chainguard is in Kirkland and Truveta is in Bellevue.
| National rank | Company | Location | Sector | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18 | Chainguard | Kirkland, Washington | Cybersecurity and developer infrastructure | Secures software supply chains with hardened container images, libraries, software bills of materials and related tooling. |
| 21 | Common Room | Seattle, Washington | AI-enabled go-to-market software | Helps companies identify, interpret and act on customer and prospect signals. |
| 42 | Truveta | Bellevue, Washington | Healthcare data and analytics | Provides data and analytics intended for research, clinical insight and evidence generation. |
Chainguard: software-supply-chain security
Chainguard was founded in 2021, according to its LinkedIn company profile. Its products address risks in open-source components and cloud-native software, including container images and SBOMs. That places it squarely in Seattle’s established cloud-infrastructure, developer-tools and cybersecurity cluster.
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GeekWire reported that Chainguard raised $356 million in April 2025 at a reported $3.5 billion valuation. Those are figures attributed to that report and should not be treated as a current valuation. Organizations evaluating the product can review Chainguard’s pricing page; it lists five images free for testing and production use and a catalog plan starting at $19,000 for a team of 10, while enterprise offerings require a quote.
Common Room: AI for go-to-market teams
Common Room describes its product as an AI-native go-to-market platform. It brings together signals from customers, prospects and product or community activity so revenue teams can prioritize accounts and decide what action to take. The company’s own description is available at commonroom.io.
Its inclusion shows that Seattle’s AI activity is not limited to model builders. AI is also being applied to sales development, marketing and revenue operations inside enterprise software.
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- Author: Guillebeau, Chris.
- Publisher: Currency
- Pages: 304
- Publication Date: 2012-05-08
- Edition: NO-VALUE
Truveta: research-grade healthcare data
Truveta develops healthcare data and analytics for scientific research and evidence generation. On its careers page, the company characterizes its work as scientifically rigorous and suitable for regulatory-grade applications. That mission connects Seattle’s technology base with healthcare, life sciences and data science.
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How LinkedIn creates the ranking
LinkedIn says its Top Startups methodology evaluates four platform signals:
- Employee growth.
- Jobseeker interest.
- Member engagement with a company and its employees.
- The ability to attract talent from LinkedIn Top Companies.
In general, eligible national-list companies are privately held, independent U.S. startups within LinkedIn’s age and size parameters. The methodology therefore describes momentum and visibility among workers and job seekers more directly than it describes financial performance.
The list is not a league table of revenue, fundraising, margins, product quality, valuation or likely investment returns. A No. 18 company is not necessarily more valuable or profitable than a No. 42 company, and an unlisted startup may still be a stronger employer or business partner for a particular reader.
National list versus Seattle’s separate city ranking
LinkedIn released the national Top 50 in October 2025. It also published a separate Seattle list on October 29, covering 10 emerging companies and measuring activity at the local level. LinkedIn explains the city format in its city-ranking overview and Seattle methodology article.
The two lists should not be conflated. The three companies above were Seattle-area entries in the national top 50; they were not the only notable startups in the region. The Seattle city list used similar talent and engagement pillars but was designed to identify companies with momentum in that metropolitan market.
What changed from 2024
Seattle’s representation shifted while remaining at three companies. GeekWire’s 2024 coverage identified Chainguard, Truveta and Statsig. In 2025, Chainguard and Truveta returned, while Common Room took Statsig’s place.
| Year | Seattle-area companies reported in the national list |
|---|---|
| 2024 | Chainguard, Truveta and Statsig |
| 2025 | Chainguard, Common Room and Truveta |
Because LinkedIn’s formula emphasizes recent employee and platform activity, membership can change as hiring, jobseeker interest and engagement change. A change in the list is not, by itself, evidence that a company’s products or finances improved or deteriorated.
What the selections suggest about Seattle’s startup economy
Security remains a regional strength
Chainguard reflects demand for software-supply-chain security as companies rely on open-source code and cloud-native deployment. The selection is consistent with Seattle’s long-standing concentration of infrastructure and enterprise technology firms, but LinkedIn does not say that sector alone determined the rank.
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AI is moving into operating functions
Common Room represents commercialization of AI in customer intelligence and go-to-market work rather than foundational-model research. Its presence indicates investor and talent attention to software that turns data into operational decisions.
Technology and healthcare are converging
Truveta illustrates the region’s overlap among software engineering, healthcare expertise, analytics and life sciences. Healthcare-data companies often require specialized knowledge in privacy, regulation, statistics and clinical research alongside conventional technical skills.
The ecosystem is geographically distributed
Looking only inside Seattle’s city limits would miss two of the three national-list companies. Kirkland, Seattle and Bellevue together form a connected labor and business market, even though each city has different offices, commutes and local hiring conditions.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How to research a job or partnership opportunity
LinkedIn visibility can help with discovery, but applicants and business buyers should verify details independently.
- Start with the official company site. Use Chainguard’s product and pricing information, Common Room’s company site and Truveta’s careers page.
- Check the actual opening or buying path. Confirm the role, team, location, employment type, compensation range and application system. A ranking does not establish that a company is hiring for a particular skill.
- Clarify work arrangements. Ask whether the position is remote, hybrid or office-based and where the employing entity is located. “Seattle area” does not mean the same commute or office policy for Kirkland, Seattle and Bellevue.
- Evaluate the work, not just the badge. Engineers may compare security or platform work at Chainguard, revenue-technology work at Common Room, and healthcare-data work at Truveta. Candidates should ask about management, product stage, on-call expectations, equity terms and business objectives.
- Verify recruiter identity. Truveta says legitimate recruiting contact should use an
@truveta.comaddress and its official Greenhouse platform, and that it will not ask applicants for payment. Treat requests for money, gift cards, equipment purchases or sensitive financial information as warning signs. - Use secondary job boards only for discovery. Wellfound at wellfound.com/jobs and Built In Seattle at builtinseattle.com/jobs can surface roles, but verify every listing on the employer’s own domain.
Reading the full national list
LinkedIn’s 2025 list was led by Perplexity, Synctera, Underdog, Cadence and Charlie Health. Other companies named in the list included Mercor, Function Health, Thinking Machines Lab, Inworld AI, ElevenLabs, Harvey, Fireworks AI, Drata, Together AI and Bilt. The complete ranking is available through LinkedIn’s Top Startups hub.
What this ranking can—and cannot—tell you
- It can indicate: employer momentum, jobseeker attention and visibility among LinkedIn members.
- It cannot establish: profitability, a current valuation, investment quality, product-market fit, employee satisfaction or long-term independence.
- It does not mean: the three companies are the only promising Seattle startups or that every listed company is a better employer than every unlisted one.
For Seattle workers and founders, the meaningful signal is breadth: the region placed companies spanning cybersecurity infrastructure, AI-enabled enterprise software and healthcare data. Those categories point to different skills, customers and risks, so readers should use the ranking as a starting point for diligence rather than a final verdict.
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