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Which Are The Most Innovative Consumer Companies?

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Send in your nominations! Tweet your suggestions using the hashtag #CircleUp25 or post on CircleUp’s Facebook page.

For the third year in a row, CircleUp will profile the 25 most innovative consumer and retail companies that are changing the way we live our lives – our food, personal care, household products, apparel, sports and shopping.

David vs Goliath

Small brands are gobbling up market share from large brands in nearly every major consumer and retail category. The maturation of Millennial consumers—who are voting with their wallet and opting for small, specialized and mission-driven brands—has ignited a rapid transformation in consumer markets. Between 2009 and 2013 alone, big brands lost $14 billion in sales to small brands.

Accounting for 20% of our economy, consumer markets are undergoing a dramatic shift. We call it the Personalization of Consumer — and believe it’s just getting started.

Who are the most innovative consumer and retail companies?

A historical lack of innovation by the largest consumer and retail brands is why we have carcinogens in personal care products, why food deserts exist in major US cities, why Twix bars have had the same formula for 30+ years, and why the most revolutionary change in Heinz Ketchup’s 140 years is the bottle now stands on its head. Rates of cancer, heart disease and childhood obesity are all higher, thanks to the dominant players in consumer and retail that have chosen not to invest in innovation.

Help us celebrate the innovation that is changing how we live our lives. What companies are dramatically impacting your life—or those of your family, friends and colleagues? What brands and products do you love? From new formulas to unique packaging or disruptive distribution and marketing—there are many paths to innovation.

Tweet your suggestions using the hashtag #CircleUp25, or post your nomination on CircleUp’s Facebook page! You can also vote up other people’s picks by retweeting.

Submissions will be evaluated based on growth rates, capacity to disrupt the status quo, and digital footprint. Your nominations will join the hundreds we’ve already received from a wide network of experts, including:

  • Successful consumer entrepreneurs
  • Executives at publicly traded consumer companies and national retailers (many of which are potential strategic acquirers)
  • Editors and reporters at top-tier consumer trade publications
  • Angel investors
  • Investment firm professionals

Winners chosen by CEOs and Founders

We’re trying something new this year. The final CircleUp25 winners will be chosen by an exclusive group of current (and former) consumer and retail CEOs and founders. They are visionaries who we believe have a finely honed sense of which companies will likely have a dramatic and lasting impact.

Look for the final CircleUp25 list in early August announced exclusively on Forbes.

P.S. While I would love to include some of the companies who have or are raising capital on CircleUp, we are excluding them to avoid a conflict of interest.

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