46 of the most promising startups of 2021, according to top VCs

Mitchell Green is the founder and managing partner of Lead Edge Capital

Material Bank: a logistics startup disrupting the architecture industry

Startup: Material Bank

Recommended by: Mitchell Green, Lead Edge Capital

Relationship: Investor

Total funding: $148.8 million

What it does: Material Bank is a marketplace for design materials that promises to ship design samples overnight from its Tennessee warehouse.

Why it’s on the list: The startup, which has been described as the Amazon of design, has a warehouse operated by robots next to FedEx’s global shipping hub.

Material Bank recently raised $100 million from General Catalyst, Bain, and others to double down on growth.

“Ordering samples is a broken process, and Material Bank makes it vastly easier. As a result, users love it,” said Green, calling the company a “market leader” in a large, new category.

Sanity: a platform for building data-driven content

Startup name: Sanity

Recommended by: Mitchell Green, Lead Edge Capital; Josh Stein, Threshold Ventures

Relationship: Green has no financial interest; Stein is an investor

Total funding: $9.3 million

What it does: Sanity is a management platform that helps businesses build data-driven content.

Why it’s on the list: Sanity is already used by National Geographic, Figma, and Nike.

“Sanity goes beyond the traditional CMS and allows you to build modern digital experiences,” Green said.

Stein added that it’s “designed for delivering structured content to products and devices.”