By Tom Paine, Philly Tech News

[My colleague Tom Paine features a list of Young Companies to Watch in the Philadelphia area on his blog, Philly Tech News. His list includes Mercer, Burlington, Camden, Gloucester, and Salem counties in New Jersey. He is looking for additional companies to feature. Startups that are included usually have already established considerable traction in their markets. Please read the announcement below, and if you meet the criteria contact Tom at phillytechnews@gmail.com. E.S.]

On an ongoing basis, I track promising, privately owned information technology oriented startups in the Philly area, and using a combination of subjective judgment and whatever bits of objective data I can dig up, I maintain a list of the top thirty (“Philly Tech News Young Companies To Watch”) in terms of their estimated market value.

Unlike other rankings, “Young Companies To Watch” is not driven primarily by revenue, since the quality and value of revenue streams vary greatly from one company to another. These rankings are only intended as rough indicators, since as I said the data on most privately held companies is sparse and perceptions of value can differ widely.

Generally, though, I’ve found the top thirty to be a fairly good indicator, based on what some companies are eventually acquired for or valued at in a financing transaction (or in a few cases what they are valued at in a public offering although there haven’t been many tech IPOS out of the Philly area lately.)

But given what appears to be a deepening talent pool in the Philadelphia area, I plan to expand “Young Companies to Watch” to at least 35 and probably to 40 companies. And I’m looking for input from the Philly Tech community.

The general qualifications are:

• The company must be officially headquartered or co-headquartered in the Philly area (including surrounding PA, NJ, and Delaware suburbs), and privately owned or not majority owned by a publicly traded corporation.
• Information technology must be the driving force behind its offerings. It doesn’t have to be a software company, but proprietary information technology must be essential to how the product is delivered.
• Companies offering products are generally favored for inclusion over consulting firms or agencies (but not absolutely)
• I’m usually looking for firms started within the last decade, although that’s also not an absolute rule. For example, some companies may have been around for some time in one form but reconstitute themselves in another higher-growth  form. 

You can submit the name of your startup or someone else’s’ and any supporting metrics you might be willing to share to phillytechnews@gmail.com (confidentially is assured). I may get back to you if I have any more questions. No metrics are required and obviously whatever you share is up to you, but information on customers, headcount, invested capital, revenue, profitability and growth are useful, as well as any major partnerships/joint ventures, or examples of industry recognition. I’ll include your company on a published list of all companies that are nominated, even if it doesn’t make the “Young Companies To Watch” primary rankings. By nominating your company, you’ll also get it on my radar for possible future coverage if I’m not already familiar with it.

If your company is already on “Young Companies To Watch”, feel free to provide more information indicating why it could be ranked higher.

I’ll leave the submission process open until February 2.

Thanks for your help.

This blog post was originally published on January 1, 2013. It is reposted with minor revisions with permission of the author. The original post can be found here.