This year's Red Herring Top 100 companies in the Americas, which celebrates the most innovative, promising privately held companies, include four cleantech firms.
Companies are judged on financial performance, technology innovation, management quality, execution of strategy, and integration into their respective industries.
Red Herring editors were among the first to recognize companies such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, Yahoo, Skype, Salesforce.com, YouTube, and eBay!
Agilyx is the first company to economically convert difficult-to-recycle waste plastics into crude oil through a patented system that's scalable, versatile, and environmentally beneficial.
It collects unrecyclable waste such as potato chip bags and candy wrappers - the stuff no one else wants or can do anything with other than toss in a landfill or incinerator.
Ecospan provides a petroleum substitute for durable goods, such as packaging cases for the electronics, cosmetics, and toy industries. It produces bio-based materials using a closed loop system, keeping resources out of landfills.
Companies are moving to bio-based materials for a raft of products now.
Fusion Optix is an advanced lighting and optical technology company that's eliminating energy waste caused by inefficient optical design, components and materials. They are pioneering innovative architectures, materials and design approaches in advanced lighting markets using LEDs.
Trilliant is a smart grid company whose communications platform, built specifically for utilities and energy retailers, integrates disparate systems into a unified whole. It improves grid reliability, energy efficiency, lowers operating costs, and integrates renewable energy resources and electric vehicles. It was recently acquired by ABB.
Here's the list:
