LinkedIn’s “Seattle’s hottest startups” list includes non-local firms

LinkedIn’s latest “Top Startups in Seattle” list includes companies headquartered outside the region. GeekWire spotted the mismatch and traced it to LinkedIn’s methodology: the ranking pulls from companies that Seattle-based professionals follow, not companies actually based in Seattle.

The list itself is a hiring signal, not a funding or growth scorecard. LinkedIn ranks startups by how many Seattle-area members added the company’s profile to their “following” list in the last year. That metric favors well-known brands over local ones, especially when remote work blurs geography.

The story surfaced the same week Sifted published its own ranking of Europe’s fastest-hiring startups, also using headcount expansion as the primary filter. Both lists treat hiring velocity as a proxy for startup health, but neither adjusts for where employees actually sit.

Seattle founders and investors have quietly noted the disconnect for years. When Plug and Play’s Seattle accelerator picked a Tokyo-based wireless-power startup for its latest cohort, the inclusion was framed as an expansion play rather than a local bet. LinkedIn’s list now makes the geography question visible to a wider audience.

Sources: geekwire.com