10 Startups to Watch in 2014

If you only focus on the multi-billion dollar valuations of young companies like Pinterest, Uber and Snapchat, you might assume 2013 has been a very good year for tech startups. In reality, it has been more of a bittersweet year.

Many early-stage companies struggled to raise a Series A rounds of funding, a phenomenon commonly referred to as the "Series A Crunch," which for some meant to fight for their survival. Meanwhile, several later-stage companies like Fab and Rdio laid off large portions of their staff to rein in costs.

Even so, plenty of promising startups raised funds and launched (or teased) exciting features this year in markets ranging from mobile payments to media. What's more, the success of Twitter's IPO has boosted investor interest in other social startups and may help revive the market for tech IPOs, which suffered after Facebook's troubled public offering in 2012. Read more...