FORTUNE Presents Its Annual List of Cool Companies; Companies chosen from three sectors: media, biotech and communications

Business Wire, June 10, 2002

Business Editors

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 10, 2002

Venture capitalists may be in hiding, but that doesn't mean FORTUNE has stopped seeking out cool technologies.

As in previous years, to find the cutting-edge companies FORTUNE talked to some of the smartest people out there: VCs, analysts, and other executives. The result: 13 companies from three of the hottest sectors--media, biotech and communications. For each sector FORTUNE picked a Cool Company of the Year and several runners-up. "As in any beauty contest, you'll probably find only some of our picks sexy," says writer Julie Schlosser. "But all do fit our oh-so-unscientific definition of cool: We know it when we see it."

COOLEST MEDIA COMPANY 2002

Pyra Labs, San Francisco, CA

Nothing destroys productivity like blogs, the frequently updated online diaries that have exploded in the past year. Blogs, short for web logs, run from the personal (dating life in St. Louis) to the political (views on Arafat) to the arcane (diseased bees in Virginia Beach). The company behind the trend is Pyra, a miniscule operation in San Francisco that runs Blogger.com, the most popular tool for hosting and posting blogs, with almost 600,000 registered users.

      Runners-Up

      --  Spring Street Networks, New York, NY

        This nine-month-old, 15-person company has become the online
        dating software of choice for more than 20 websites. Its
        behind-the-scenes software platform supports a Website's
        personals and provides access to its database, one million
        people strong.

      --  PortalPlayer, Santa Clara, CA

        Founded in 1999, PortalPlayer started making chips that power
        digital. It makes the iPod's chip and develops software that
        helps keep it and others humming. By Christmas, PortalPlayer
        says it will supply the guts to more than 70% of handheld
        jukeboxes.

      --  Elisar Software, Albuquerque, NM

        MediaRights, the software made by this small tech company,
        protects most files, including jpg, gif, pdf, html, and
        videos, from being copied or forwarded without authorization.

      --  Blue Sky Studios, White Plains, NY

        This computer animation company uses proprietary software to
        create some of the most advanced geometric models ever and
        illuminates them with programs that simulate the way light
        plays on solid objects.

      COOLEST COMMUNICATIONS COMPANY 2002
      FHP, San Mateo, CA

      Two-year-old FHP produces Yogi, software that provides a way to
broaden the deployment of 802.11 networks--the oh-so-hyped broadband
wireless technology--and make it even more mobile by offering access
points that contain a wireless router which forwards information from
hot spot to hot spot until the data reach a device with a wired
connection to the Internet.

      Runners-Up

      --  Good Technology, Sunnyvale, CA

        Good's wireless technology, unveiled last month, will work
        with any device--its own, a Blackberry, or anyone else's that
        uses Mobitext or 2.5-generation wireless networks. What sets
        it apart is that no synchronizing cradle is needed: its
        service syncs wirelessly.

      --  Graviton, San Diego, CA

        This three-year-old upstart in San Diego has developed
        wireless sensor networks that allow customers to collect
        real-time information in hard-to-monitor places.

      COOLEST BIOTECH COMPANY 2002
      1747, San Francisco, CA

      Rather than conducting expensive clinical drug trials among a
group of people in a limited area, 1747 enables pharmaceuticals
companies to reach anyone with a Net connection. The company
coordinates patient screening and medication shipments, and solicits
patient responses through e-mail and the Internet.

      Runners-Up

      --  Fluidigm, South San Francisco, CA

        A pioneer in an emerging field called microfluidics, Fluidigm,
        a three-year-old company, stamps microprocessors onto rubber.
        Within the translucent chips are microscopit valves and pumps
        that allow researchers to mix trace amounts of fluids in
        different combinations.

      --  U.S. Genomics, Woburn, MA

        This company makes the Gene-Engine, a refrigerator-sized DNA
        sequencer that can decode an entire human genome in a day.

      --  Entelos, Menlo Park, CA

        Six-year-old Entelos has created virtual patients that are
        "administered" drugs to gauge the effects of new substances,
        with the hope that such pretesting will dramatically shorten
        the time it takes to develop a new drug.

      --  Chesapeake PERL, College Park, MD

        Chesapeake PERL (Protein Expression & Recovery Labs) grows
        larvae en masse for recombinant proteins, a key ingredient in
        drugs and vaccines for diseases like rheumatoid arthritis and
        hepatitis B.

      In a related story, "Roadtripping in Search of the Technological
Future," FORTUNE's Eryn Brown visits eight college campuses, talking
to students to learn something about the future by exploring what
gadgets they use, what computer stuff they're studying, what programs
they have on their PCs, and how they feel about their job prospects.
Some of her findings:

      --  Tech will be for everyone, not just for hackers.
      --  Despite the tech downturn, computer science will become the
        new pre-med.
      --  Computing will make it easy for anyone to become an artist.
      --  Laws will have to catch up with technology.
      --  A new etiquette will emerge.