CNBC Disruptor 50 2017 | CNBC LLC. |

Sometimes disruption in the economy is a good thing, especially if it involves innovative start-ups creating multibillion-dollar industries — all the while revolutionizing the way we live and work. It's time again for CNBC to start the search for the next generation of private companies that are leading this charge.
Last year 50 private companies, with a combined net worth of $241 billion, made our CNBC Disruptor 50 list by reimagining an array of industries — from aerospace to pharmaceuticals to finance. These included household names like Uber, Airbnb, Spotify and Snapchat (now Snap). It featured the return of 23andMe, a genetic testing company, emerging from years of regulatory battles to regain a spot on the list after a few years away. It featured high-flying newcomers like Jaunt and Instacart. And Twilio made the list for the fourth and final time as it went on to have one of the most successful IPOs of 2016.

Many on the 2016 CNBC Disruptor list have also been on a fundraising tear, raising billions of dollars that in turn have pumped up their companies' valuations to the stratosphere.

But in much the same way these visionaries on the Disruptor 50 list continuously press on, it's time for CNBC to look ahead.

Does your company or a company you represent or invest in have what it takes to be called a CNBC Disruptor? The search is under way for the next group of the most ambitious, innovative private companies transforming the economy and forcing the public giants to rethink the way they do business.

The 2016 list ranking and the methodology used to select this year's Disruptor companies.

1
Uber
A $66 billion on-demand ride
2
Airbnb
There's no place like (someone else's) home
3
Ezetap
Leading India's cashless revolution
4
Palantir Technologies
Big data; bigger secrets
5
23andMe
Decoding your ancestry
6
Bloom Energy
Live off the grid; keep the lights on
7
Ginkgo Bioworks
Custom organism design
8
Klarna
No cart left behind
9
Blippar
Change your reality
10
Coursera
Now we can all get in to Princeton
11
Houzz
Open for renovations
12
Udacity
Closing the skills gap
13
LanzaTech
Don't just reduce your carbon footprint — recycle it!
14
Cloudera
You make me want to Hadoop
15
DAQRI
Virtual reality on the shopfloor
16
Snapchat
The ghost in Facebook's machine
17
Oscar
Health insurance for the 21st century
18
Phononic
Seriously cool
19
MongoDB
Big data's thought leader
20
Synack
The white-hat army
21
Teespring
Turning T-shirt designers into millionaires
22
SimpliVity
Hyperconverged IT Infrastructure (ask your IT guy)
23
Slack
There's no "I" in Slack
24
CloudFlare
The internet's neighborhood watch
25
Spotify
Playlists are the new mixtapes
26
Medium
Life after Twitter for Ev and many more characters
27
Lyft
Hitch a ride with General Motors
28
Veniam
The internet of moving things
29
Stripe
How the internet gets paid
30
SpaceX
Mars or bust?
31
InsideSales.com
Automated lead generation
32
SurveyMonkey
Ask more questions
33
Diamond Foundry
Conflict-free marriage proposals
34
WeWork
Working together is better
35
Kabbage
Funding for the little guy on Main St.
36
Deezer
It's French for "Spotify"
37
Humacyte
New and improved blood vessels
38
Okta
Protecting your identity at work
39
Twilio
The telecom unicorn that makes Uber work better
40
Cylance
Using A.I. to fight cybercrime
41
Moderna Therapeutics
Building a massive drug pipeline
42
Dropbox
Billions and billions of files saved
43
Dataminr
Making Twitter make sense
44
Motif
Invest in ideas
45
LISNR
Using sound to make waves in the app world
46
Pinterest
The world's bulletin board
47
Jaunt
Put yourself in the story
48
GitHub
Faster software development
49
SoFi
Trying to ease the student-debt crisis
50
Instacart
Squeezing melons so you don't have to