Growing Companies to Watch in Arlington & Washington D.C.

Growing Companies to watch in Arlington & Washintgon D.C.

The DC and NoVa area has long been a tech hub. The area birthed AOL and many telecom companies in the '90s. Since then it has supported many software security firms and other government contractors. The region even has its own burgeoning SaaS enterprise and consumer tech sector. There are a few companies in particular that are growing rapidly and deserve some attention.

OneWeb

This firm is based in Arlington, with a goal of connecting the entire world and hard to reach places to internet access via satellite technology. The firm has sophisticated software solutions that allow satellites to provide targeted access to people around the world in rural and undeveloped areas in India, Africa and other locations. It also deploys internet to moving planes and when normal service goes down after hurricanes or earthquakes. OneWeb is crucial in helping first responders and others have immediate service after a crises.

OneWeb works with 900 partner satellites to deliver these services. Additionally, the company has announced that beginning in 2020, it will be manufacturing its own satellites in partnership with some of the biggest players in the world. Its board of directors includes legendary business people such as Richard Branson of Virgin Group, Thomas Enders CEO of Airbus and Sunil Mittal of Bharti Enterprises.

Rosetta Stone

This firm is one of the leading language learning companies in the US. The Arlington based firm provides immersive software that teaches individuals through pictures and listening. Rosetta Stone has pioneered innovative learning techniques that do not involve rote memorization or step by step language learning. Instead, the software takes individuals through topic lessons with pictures and does not provide any English translations.

The company went public on the New York Stock Exchange and earns over $200 million in revenue annually. With more and more language learners, the company’s future looks bright.

Alliant Techsystems (Orbital ATK)

This company is one of the largest, fastest growing aerospace firms in the country. Alliant Techsystems operates a number of heavy lift launch vehicle systems for NASA and the US Air Force and also worked on developing various parts of large commercial aircraft such as the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and the Airbus A350.

As such, its revenue primarily comes from the government. The Arlington based firm is grossing over $5 billion per year. In 2014, ATK announced that it would spin off its Sporting Group and merge its Aerospace and Defense Groups with Orbital Sciences Corporation.

Alliant has a number of other divisions including Defense which produces ammunition for the Army and Air Force. It also has a high performance outdoor sport goods division, Vista Outdoor which sells apparel for outdoor activities to consumers and the government.

Ascendence Biomedical

Founder Tristan Roberts is HIV positive but has created a solution that he believes will cure him. He recorded himself injecting this solution into his stomach and placed it on the web. Roberts plans to store the solution on the block chain online to make it widely available and crowd source improvements.

The technology is based on NIH research which used gene therapy techniques neutralize 98 percent of HIV strains in patients. The NIH researches had isolated an antibody produced by an HIV-positive patient to discover this result. Roberts has identified the technology and hopes to promote it widely through his team at Ascendence. So far, the therapy is not approved by the FDA for use in humans but D.C. based Ascendence hopes to change that, and revolutionize HIV treatments.

mProve Health

This healthcare startup makes mobile apps and software for pharmaceutical firms. It’s most popular product allows researchers to collect data via text or apps. The data is immediately transferred to a secure platform and aggregated into the results. This research method accords with the way most patients and researchers live today. The company was bought by healthcare technology firm Bracket just this month.