8 cloud computing startups to bet your career on in 2019

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If you're looking to take your career to the next level, it might be time to bet on cloud computing. Startups in the cloud market are garnering massive funding and massive interest.

That's not surprising. Cloud computing is expected to become a $300 billion market by 2021, according to analyst firm Gartner.

The cloud computing market consolidates around Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud. Over the last three years, job postings with key words on cloud have skyrocketed, and employer interest for "cloud engineers" has risen 31%, according to Indeed.

A growing number of startups are creating tech that helps companies better use the cloud.

We looked at a variety of factors when selecting this list including the experience of leaders and founders, the reputations of investors and the amount of funding raised along with valuations, based on data from online finance database Pitchbook, keeper of such records.

Here are 8 cloud computing startups to bet your career on in 2019:

Zapier: Getting all your web apps to work together

Valuation: Unknown
Total raised to date: $1.2 million
Year founded: 2011
HQ: Sunnyvale, CA

What it does: Zapier connects Web apps together to automate tasks such as automatically copying Gmail attachments into Dropbox and alerting you in Slack.

Why it's hot: This seven-year-old company has raised a total of $2.56 million. This year it revealed it has achieved a $35 million annualized revenue run rate. Oh, and by the way, at Zapier, you can work in pajamas from the comfort of your bedroom, if you really wanted to. This all-remote company even started a delocation package of $10,000 to move away from the pricey San Francisco Bay Area.

Fastly: Making websites and apps faster

Valuation: $925 million
Total raised to date: $220.04 million
Year founded: 2011
HQ: San Francisco

What it does: Fastly calls itself an "edge cloud platform." It helps large websites work faster by moving data and apps closer to their users.

Why it's hot: Fastly has come on strong in this well-established market (also known as a Content Delivery Network) and already powers sites such as Airbnb, GitHub, Alaska Airlines, Pinterest, Vimeo, The Guardian, and The New York Times.

It reportedly broke the $100 million revenue mark in 2017 and this year raised funding that included backing by the investment arm of telecom giant Deutsche Telekom.

Cohesity: a storage startup with a veteran founder

Valuation: $1.1 billion
Total raised to date: $411 million
Year founded: 2013
HQ: San Jose, CA

What it does: Cohesity helps make storage back-ups less expensive, easier to manage, and easier to sift through for big data projects.

Why it's hot: Cohesity is the second act for its founder Mohit Aron, who had previously co-founded Nutanix. And its been growing like mad, so much so that in 2018, Cohesity landed a massive $250 million round of investment from Softbank's Vision Fund. It was only the second enterprise company to be backed by the massive fund.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider