From the MIT Technology Review:

"This package is meant to capture the rich variety of ways that innovations get commercialized. Each company on this list has done something over the past year that will strengthen its hold on a market, challenge the leaders of a market, or create a new market....[S]ome of these companies, like the thermostat maker Nest, have burst forth with a breakthrough product, and the question now is what the next one will be. Others, like the battery startup Ambri, are still on the verge of their breakthrough. Then there are startups like Pinterest that still have to figure out their business model, and long-established companies like Xerox and Microsoft that have managed to change how their customers think of them. And some members of this group are opening up opportunities by greatly expanding the use of existing technology—such as the Chinese genomics research company BGI."